Car Thread

[robert.]

It has become very hard to sell brown furniture! When I get home I give you a run down on the state of the market.

[sarge]

I'd agree with the exception and surprise to me of this past weekend at the auction I attended. Prices were generally very low - it was like a few decades had not elapsed. If I had had a truck, I would have stayed to the bitter end of the day and would have filled the truck with furniture to restore and crates of smalls to re-sell.

But then, I'm not in that business now.........

No exception needed. That's what I referred to here:

<snip>I'll go compete with them at the buyer's end and get mine at yard sales and auctions on the cheap end of the chain right along with'm.

Lots of auctions go around here, and the pricing is usually so low that the mark-up expected by the flippers is rather obscene.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'd agree with the exception and surprise to me of this past weekend at the auction I attended. Prices were generally very low - it was like a few decades had not elapsed. If I had had a truck, I would have stayed to the bitter end of the day and would have filled the truck with furniture to restore and crates of smalls to re-sell.

But then, I'm not in that business now.........

No exception needed. That's what I referred to here:

<snip>I'll go compete with them at the buyer's end and get mine at yard sales and auctions on the cheap end of the chain right along with'm.

Lots of auctions go around here, and the pricing is usually so low that the mark-up expected by the flippers is rather obscene.

Except......I'm looking over a 40+ year time frame in your area.......during my experience in this business things were going up, up and upwards out of control and not linear.....to the point it was getting difficult to buy low and sell at triple/quad to dealers in Philly and NY....

Sometime in my absence things just in the past decade when I was getting blown out on better items took a very odd turn around and Sat. prices were well below the 80's prices.

[healey36]

It has become very hard to sell brown furniture! When I get home I give you a run down on the state of the market.

Is "brown furniture" a trade term, or do you literally mean furniture that is brown in color?

Healey

[healey36]

I'd agree with the exception and surprise to me of this past weekend at the auction I attended. Prices were generally very low - it was like a few decades had not elapsed. If I had had a truck, I would have stayed to the bitter end of the day and would have filled the truck with furniture to restore and crates of smalls to re-sell.

But then, I'm not in that business now.........

No exception needed. That's what I referred to here:

<snip>I'll go compete with them at the buyer's end and get mine at yard sales and auctions on the cheap end of the chain right along with'm.

Lots of auctions go around here, and the pricing is usually so low that the mark-up expected by the flippers is rather obscene.

Except......I'm looking over a 40+ year time frame in your area.......during my experience in this business things were going up, up and upwards out of control and not linear.....to the point it was getting difficult to buy low and sell at triple/quad to dealers in Philly and NY....

Sometime in my absence things just in the past decade when I was getting blown out on better items took a very odd turn around and Sat. prices were well below the 80's prices.

Something similar is happening in the high-end second-hand reproduction market. Stuff manufactured by Henkel Harris, Hickory Chair, Hitchcock and others have seen prices collapse. I recently looked at a sideboard that originally sold north of $2,800 twenty five years ago with an on-line price below $500...other than a bit of fading from sunlight, it looked pristine. Not sure what's going on here...

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Something similar is happening in the high-end second-hand reproduction market. Stuff manufactured by Henkel Harris, Hickory Chair, Hitchcock and others have seen prices collapse. I recently looked at a sideboard that originally sold north of $2,800 twenty five years ago with an on-line price below $500...other than a bit of fading from sunlight, it looked pristine. Not sure what's going on here...

Healey

A lack of appreciation for quality and real wood furniture - the disposable Ikea generation has replaced the population that we used to be able to sell good solid real wood furniture to that would outlast their lives and had already outlasted 2-3 generations or more.

I've got a walnut drop leaf table to restore that saw a very hard life in the butchering shed at my great- uncle's house. Should be a good winter project this year.

[sarge]

Life styles have changed drastically since the turn of the century.

Today's people in their working years hop from employer to employer, place to place, rental to rental. They don't want to be encumbered with Grandma's waterfall bedroom "suit" and a big heavy Pennsylvania House table and chairs. That's all too permanent.

Styles have changed too. Cherry and mahogany are too dark and "dated"; colours are to be light and neutral, stainless and granite in the kitchen, and only now are people discovering again that there are colours besides effing beige.

People aren't nostalgic for furniture from two generations back; they remember Grandma's house as a dark place to be either feared or amused about, so the nostalgia market is dead as well.

Give it another generation or so and who knows?

Back to cars?

[v8vega]

I though I had clicked on Hobo Jungle instead of Car Thread, I had to go back and look.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Life styles have changed drastically since the turn of the century.

No need to go back that far, Think 20-25 years ago and the arrival of the PC on your desk.

People aren't nostalgic for furniture from two generations back; they remember Grandma's house as a dark place to be either feared or amused about, so the nostalgia market is dead as well.

Guess I had a very different Grandmother,

Give it another generation or so and who knows?

Yeah. They'll all be living in their own personal little caves, no human contact, everything delivered directly, plugged into the net......Matrix-like. Oh, joy!

Back to cars?

Please do. No, wait! Didn't you state the nostalgia market was dead as we pine away for cars from our youth and before - cars are exempt????

[healey36]

Back to cars?

Yes, sorry, drifted a bit.

A friend sent me some pic's from the Detroit Auto show of the updated "GT40" that Ford plans to campaign next year at Le Mans and elsewhere. Sure would be sweet if they could dress it up in the Wyer/Gulf livery (conceptual):



Hope that makes up for the thread drift Sarge...

Healey

[sarge]

Please do. No, wait! Didn't you state the nostalgia market was dead as we pine away for cars from our youth and before - cars are exempt????

No, they are not exempt! Go back to our discussions about the car hobby (back on Page 3 and on), the decline of show-nostalgia cars and the rise of the survivor hobby for a dreadfully boring refresh of your memory- Grin! The death of generations nostalgic for each decade's cars in turn has a very important impact on pricing and desirability.

Healey

I'm all for the Gulf colours, and hope Ford can make up for the last attempt at a tribute GT.

[healey36]

The Ford GT's will run in the LM GTE Pro class at Le Mans, the same class the Corvette C7.R's run in...should raise the bar a bit at the manufacturer level and make for some good storylines. Chevrolet has had a long run of success, missing the win only a couple of times in the past ten years. Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin round out the field. The Vipers are gone as best I remember. Hopefully there'll be some coverage in the U.S....I sure miss SpeedChannel.

Healey

[healey36]

A good list to contemplate:

http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-greatest-american-racing-teams-1733675352

I think Don Panoz and his team deserve to be on here...they may not have had overwhelming success, but they carried the prototype-endurance torch for the US for fifteen years after all of the other manufacturers bailed.

Jim Hall's winged Chaparrals...brings back a lot of memories of Can Am on ABC's Wide World of Sports...

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Please do. No, wait! Didn't you state the nostalgia market was dead as we pine away for cars from our youth and before - cars are exempt????

No, they are not exempt! Go back to our discussions about the car hobby (back on Page 3 and on), the decline of show-nostalgia cars and the rise of the survivor hobby for a dreadfully boring refresh of your memory- Grin! The death of generations nostalgic for each decade's cars in turn has a very important impact on pricing and desirability.

I do not need my memory refreshed; the nostalgia market is not dead Then again, maybe I'm just exempt as it all applies to cars although my nostalgia seems to lie well outside my generation's. What a surprise that is.....

The survivor side has been around behind the curtain for a bit; maybe rising or not. Used to be celebrated at the shows that were held in conjunction with the yearly fund raising fair that my father oversaw in the 70's and very well represented, attended, and appreciated. Sort of reminds me a bit of O scale in some dimensions; up, down, dying off, yes, no, rising again, but maybe not, but healthy as always. Sort of like a blind man using a Mislow configurator.

Do carry on and I'll watch.......from my '54 Model F Cub.

[sarge]

Today actually saw a break in the crappy weather here, so I did the B-road circuit in both "Piddles" (the MGB) and "Grrr" (the Midget). I have no idea why we find it a requirement to name them- Grin! Anyway, a lovely break from soggy spanner days.

Not liking what I'm seeing about this Joaquin storm, so getting my licks in while I can!