OK, You have decided you want to be an antiques dealer. Today I’m going to discuss a few ways into the business and things to think about before you start.

Different Types of Antiques Dealer

One of the attractions of the antiques trade is that you be very flexible with how you run your business.  Antiques Dealers can be part time or full time. Trade from their own shop, at Fairs, Car Boots, Antique Centers, on-line or a combination of these. I will discuss each one of these venues in more detail in part 6 of this series. The decision about where to trade is down to the individual however it is influenced by the type of stock you choose to sell

Art Deco Jewellery

Expertise and Specialisation

So what type of stock should you choose to sell as an antiques dealer? Firstly I would say choose to deal in what you are interested in, what you love and what you collect. You are going to spend a lot of time with your stock. To be successful you need to become an expert in your area, you need to have enthusiasm for your items to sell them. This would be quite difficult if you are trying to deal in something which you do not care for.

When I first started I knew that I wanted to spend all day working with beautiful old things but was not sure what to specialise in.  I had hear advice from long term dealers to learn about one or two areas and specialises but found it difficult to choose.  I bought all kinds of stock from small furniture, textiles, glass, ceramics and even modern collectables. This gave me a great broad grounding which serves me well today however I would probably have been more successful sooner if I had specialised sooner. The choice is yours. Having said that specialisation is the best way to be successful as an antiques dealer there are many thousands of general antiques dealers who will just buy up any stock as long as it is cheap and then pass it on with a small profit. It can be great fun but it requires an awful lot of hard work and long hours to make a living.

When you are choosing your specialisation think about the requirements of the different types of stock. Furniture needs a lot of space and a Van, Ceramics need to be stored and moved careful so they dont break and high end Antique Jewellery requires a lot of capital and very good security. Paper ephemera needs to be kept somewhere damp free – just to give a few examples.  On-line trading needs good computer skills and you need to be very organised if you are going to make a living that way . Think about the stock and how you are physically going to handle and store it and the special needs your stock might have.

The type of stock you deal in will also influence where you trade from.  The average antiques and collectables fair tends to be full of stalls selling ceramics, glass, Jewellery, textiles and smaller furniture. High end antiques fairs which set up over several days have more furniture as do the larger trade fairs such as the Newark antiques fair.  If you are selling small specialist items then the Internet is a good choice as you can reach a far wider international audience.

Specialist Ceramics ?

You need cash to buy stock

I know this is obvious but the amount of money you have to start with will influence the type of stock you can trade in. You can of course raid your own collection for your initial stock or sell off some stuff you have around the house and is no longer required. Most dealers start off with a small investment in stock and gradually build up over time. You can go a car boot sale with just a few pounds in your pocket and hopefully make a small profit on what you buy. Starting so low is going to take a long time to build up enough stock to fill a stall at an antiques fair or an antiques center. It is pointless setting up your own website with less than 100 good items but you can sell just one or two pieces on eBay.

You will also need to invest in a few other things besides stock. Storage boxes and bubble wrap for ceramics and glass. Furniture polish? A trolley and for doing fairs. Display stands and price labels. Personally when I started my biggest investment besides stock was in reference books . Many of the specialist books can cost a lot of money. Starting at about £5 for a cheap reference book you can look to pay up to £50 or £60 each for the better specialist books which you will find invaluable even in these days of free reference on the Internet. Most selling venues will require cash up front too. This applies to setting up a shop, taking a stall at an antiques fair or center , your own website and eBay.

Knowledge and How to get it

To be a good antiques dealer you need knowledge including knowledge about your stock, where to buy and sell that particular type of stock . Its good to know other dealers in your area as well.  Much of this knowledge takes years and years to acquire.

How to learn about antiques. There are courses, there are books, there’s the Internet (including this blog). Probably the best source of information is to find a dealer to teach you although you may find that their is a huge reluctance to just give away their hard to acquire secrets of the trade. I know a few people who have started by taking a job as a porter in an auciton house, that could be looked upon as an apprenticeship.  For some the route into antiques dealing is via a fine arts degree for others its working in an antiques center. I started by doing a little trading and attending lots of courses. Next week I intend to write a specialist article on how to acquire the knowledge about vintage jewellery including courses, books and websites. 

For general antiques courses you can look for evening classes locally. I went to an antiques evening class one night per week for about 6 years when I lived in Nottingham. Look in your local area . I also took a correspondence course in antiques and also undertook professional training to become a qualified jeweller.

The books you buy will to some extent depend upon your area of specialism but here are a few good general antiques reference works.

Millers price guides both the antiques price guide and the collectables ones.  The values quotes are often a bit wide of the mark but they are great for just looking at objects which have been identified.  Eric Knowles wrote a great beginners book called Discovering Antiques, I think this costs less than £10.

If you are looking at dealing in ceramics I suggest you invest in a marks book. Goddens is the best for British Pottery and Porcelain marks. For Precious metals and Jewellery you need a hallmark book such as Bradburys Book of Hallmarks.

Websites.

Clearly I am going to recommend www.antiquesavenue.com as a source of information. eBay can be great for finding the price an items actually sold for by using the completed item price search. I use Google a lot both to search out specialist websites and to look up individual items. For example type in Vintage Jewellery and you will find antiquesavenue quite high up . Type in “antiques blog” or “vintage jewellery blog” and up comes this site. 

Want to talk to Antiques Dealers on-line. Both Facebook and Twitter have active antiques communities. You can find me on face book as Anne Haile and on Twitter as AntiquesAvenue. On both social networking sites you can find other dealers who are looking to learn and to share knowledge.  On twitter try following #antiques and on facebook look for groups / pages with antiques in the title. This equally applies to specialist areas just replace Antiques with the specialist of your choice.

Networking

As mentioned above you can now find other antiques dealers and enthusiasts on line. Those you meet in real life may well prove to be more useful and can become great sources of stock and knowledge.  You can get to know other dealers by trading with them regularly, its easy to start up a conversation with a dealer if you have just bought something from them at a quiet antique fair. Hang around at real life auctions week after week and you will start to see familiar faces and get to know folks in the trade.

A big Mistake

I have known many people make one fatal mistake when starting in the antiques trade. They do not put their business on a legal footing. Trading on the black market is not the way to go if you want to grow your business.  By setting yourself up as a proper business you can grow, failure to do so means that you stay very small. You can only take cash if you dont have a bank account for cheques or paypal payments and only taking cash can be very limiting.  If you are selling items for more than a few pounds you need to be able to write out a receipt if you are asked to. 

 Talk to the tax man and trading implications for you. Learn how to do business accounts or get an accountant if necessary. I have seen so many traders who can only stick at the lowest levels of this wonderful business because they live in fear of the tax man.

That’s a few pointers before you start your career as an antiques dealer. Next week I will be talking about finding stock and about how to learn antique and vintage jewellery.