Just brought a rare lot for nothing it was @High street antiques, High st, London stand 69
There is a curious habit that has developed in the antiques trade which I have never quite understood.
People buy something good — or at least something they think is good — and within minutes they are on social media telling everybody about it.
Not just what they bought, but where they bought it, which fair they are at, what it cost, how rare it is, what they think it is worth and, quite often, a photograph of the thing itself.
Sometimes they even announce that they are away buying in France, complete with photographs of the fair, the town and everything they have been buying.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I was always taught that finding something good was only half the job. The other half was knowing what to do with it.
There is an enormous amount of business in antiques that never appears on Instagram or Facebook. It happens quietly, one person talking to another.
“I've got something you might like.”
“I know you're a collector of these.”
“I've just bought an unusual example.”
That is where relationships matter. If I know you are the best collector in the world of, say, Majolica mugs, and I happen to find an extraordinarily rare one, I don't necessarily need to put it on social media and announce to the world that I have it.
I can simply pick up the telephone.
And there is another thing I find slightly extraordinary about broadcasting your movements.
If you are publicly telling everyone that you are at an antiques fair in France, buying things, showing photographs and explaining exactly what you have found, you are also telling everyone that you are not at home.
Perhaps you've got twenty-seven security guards and three hundred dogs. In which case, carry on.
But otherwise, discretion might not be the worst policy.
Of course, the internet has changed the antiques trade enormously. Information is more public than it has ever been, and there is nothing wrong with sharing enthusiasm. I enjoy seeing what people find, and I am perfectly capable of showing off a good find myself.
But there is a difference between sharing your enthusiasm and giving away your playbook.
The best dealers I know still have a little mystery about them.
You don't necessarily know where they found something, what they paid for it, who they bought it from, what else they found, or what they have tucked away in the back room.
And perhaps that is because they understand something very simple:
In antiques, sometimes the less you say, the more interesting your stock becomes.
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