Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Lee · 11th October 2010, 11:31 AM

Hi Dmitry - I was there as well on Saturday and like you I somehow managed to make it through the show without buying any more arms and armour. Overall, it is a very nicely staged show and I prefer the ambiance here to that at Baltimore, though the venue just does not have adequate parking.

To me, prices seemed high. My first attendance was two years ago - or about 2 weeks into the potential chasm of the financial crisis - and then, last year and this last weekend, I kept asking myself if the dealers were really being realistic about the economy. With gray hairs come too many memories of what things cost a few decades ago, so as I went through pricing things, my shock and awe was more at just how high prices were compared with what I thought such things could cost. (This is the primary reason I refuse to do appraisals when asked.) So, while there were a number of items of potential interest in the room, asking the price usually ended that interest with a quick thud. But to be honest, nothing really set my heart to racing and put my avarice on edge, so I remained in a rational mode throughout. (Of late, I will deliberately take down a few of my best and favorite things and pore over them the night before I head out to a show in order to really screw up my collector's lust calibration.)

I also had some enjoyable talks with knowledgeable people and to the extent that these discussions turned to the market, the usual observation was - as expected - that the best things are still getting pricier while the more mundane are slumping a bit. Indeed, for those of us still holding Uncle Milton in reverence, it is only a matter of time until there will have to be an inflationary surge in response to what the government has done in order to moderate the disaster. So I think prices may also be being held up by a pervading thinking that it is better to have your assets in tangibles than locking in to the ridiculously low interest rates on offer for savings just now.

When I go to a big quality show I am amazed at just how much stuff there is, even if less than 1% fits my current interests. It seems there are so many nice old early American swords and old muskets and rifles and powder horns. And plenty of merchandise to keep several auctions going. A universe so much larger than I remember from my earlier collecting days. I write it off to my ignorance from having grown up in middle America far from a coast. But I also worry about some of the scary stuff in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle - not the huge big stuff that was supposed to be scary in that book, by the way, by instead trivial side plot setup collector's world scary.

$5,500! - one ought to be able to get a decent Viking sword for that! Which brings to mind Ewart Oakeshott, who remembered and recounted prices for genuine medieval swords in an ordinary working man's discretionary reach.

11th October 2010, 11:31 AM	#2
Lee EAAF Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Upstate New York, USA Posts: 932	Also there Hi Dmitry - I was there as well on Saturday and like you I somehow managed to make it through the show without buying any more arms and armour. Overall, it is a very nicely staged show and I prefer the ambiance here to that at Baltimore, though the venue just does not have adequate parking. To me, prices seemed high. My first attendance was two years ago - or about 2 weeks into the potential chasm of the financial crisis - and then, last year and this last weekend, I kept asking myself if the dealers were really being realistic about the economy. With gray hairs come too many memories of what things cost a few decades ago, so as I went through pricing things, my shock and awe was more at just how high prices were compared with what I thought such things could cost. (This is the primary reason I refuse to do appraisals when asked.) So, while there were a number of items of potential interest in the room, asking the price usually ended that interest with a quick thud. But to be honest, nothing really set my heart to racing and put my avarice on edge, so I remained in a rational mode throughout. (Of late, I will deliberately take down a few of my best and favorite things and pore over them the night before I head out to a show in order to really screw up my collector's lust calibration.) I also had some enjoyable talks with knowledgeable people and to the extent that these discussions turned to the market, the usual observation was - as expected - that the best things are still getting pricier while the more mundane are slumping a bit. Indeed, for those of us still holding Uncle Milton in reverence, it is only a matter of time until there will have to be an inflationary surge in response to what the government has done in order to moderate the disaster. So I think prices may also be being held up by a pervading thinking that it is better to have your assets in tangibles than locking in to the ridiculously low interest rates on offer for savings just now. When I go to a big quality show I am amazed at just how much stuff there is, even if less than 1% fits my current interests. It seems there are so many nice old early American swords and old muskets and rifles and powder horns. And plenty of merchandise to keep several auctions going. A universe so much larger than I remember from my earlier collecting days. I write it off to my ignorance from having grown up in middle America far from a coast. But I also worry about some of the scary stuff in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle - not the huge big stuff that was supposed to be scary in that book, by the way, by instead trivial side plot setup collector's world scary. $5,500! - one ought to be able to get a decent Viking sword for that! Which brings to mind Ewart Oakeshott, who remembered and recounted prices for genuine medieval swords in an ordinary working man's discretionary reach.