An antique dealer journey: July 2009

Thursday, July 30, 2009

A Great Success

So long the Helsingborg Antique Show has been a success for me. I think more dealers than me are doing all right. I´m very positive, as long as things are decent and the their prices reasonable, you can sell things with a soul. I have also seen during the little free time i had some good pieces around. The greatest band ever would say "I wish you were here".

Sunday, July 26, 2009

And so is finally time

It is finally time for the Helsingborg Antique show, it comes a little bit in a strange vacation time, but in the Swedish antique world July is a month full of happening. Anyway i´m pretty much satisfied with what i´ve purchased, repaired, cleaned and will take to the show. A nice load is just being loaded on the truck. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I told you so

As i told you it can never be to blue!

And it does happen (see preview article "on the road"), you can always find candies if you look with the spirit of a child. I did some nice buying up north, i´m very satisfied, i didn´t have so much time to be there and neither to restore the beauties i was going to buy. So i had to choose but it wasn´t difficult.

Next monday i´ll start to set up for the Helsingborg´s Antique show, that you all should visit. The detail photo is of a amazing extremely primitive corner cabinet with an astonishing blue paint.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Snow White and the 7 drawers

Oh yes, that is the name of my last restored writing/drawers, washed to it´s old nice antique-white color, charming like if it came out of a child saga. Perfect furniture for a smaller area.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

On the road

Yes, it´s time to move up, like the birds i move my hunting territory towards North during the summer. I do only hunt antiques and sensation of the great nature we are (perhaps unconsciously) surrounded by. The combination of discovering news items, seeing beautiful places and meeting great friends is unbelievably nice.

From Halland to Dalarna trough all the landscape i drive by it can happen. I do often get to buy pieces where i didn´t thought they would be found. It sound like an old story but yes, for some magical fairy-tale like reason, it is true.

Helsingborg show is getting close and i do usually get the best pieces the last weeks before my shows. God let´s hope that it will be a lucky drive this time as well!

Never too blue

It´s never too blue or too much blue. I just love all the tones of this colors.
Two details photos to iconize this great color, photos of two pieces that i probably will have with me at the Helsingborg Antikmässa.
Furniture´s from the Northern part of Sweden, genuine, sincere and beautiful. Nice colors to a nice shape, that should always be ingredients in a right mix.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Under construction

I guess you got it yourself, this blog will grow, hopefully not too slow.
We do have the Helsingborg Antique Show coming on, so a lot of things is happening right now.
I let you know.

Thank you for your patience and attention.

Luca

Sunday, July 12, 2009

And finally...

Well it has taken 12 years of meditation and some small ounces of frustration to get to this.
Nothing better you say?
No, nothing better, but the truly way to express my work, my self and my journey in a simple clear way. The way i like it.
I hope you'll enjoy the same things in the same way i do.

Luca

New, old year and a Martian

Well while the new one is approaching eager to show himself, the old one is packing his stuff getting ready to leave.

How will the new one be?
I don t know, i hope healthy, generous, funny and peaceful all at the same time. And i hope that and much more to every soul on the earth.

So let s hope the starting of a new era in those funny hat priest calendar is the beginning of a new great intelligent era.
An age where we don t have to be ashamed (like we should be now) if an extraterrestrial little green man would open the door of his new cool space vehicle and ask us:
" What the hell are you doing to yourself, the hole world and all the humane races??"
he would also add "Assholes", and would leave disapointed this magnificent planet.

So let s all do something at least a little bit better this 2013

Happy new year world
Happy new year citizens of it

Luca

Yes it s a new camera!

The result is very very good, and i bought the promise camera, so i guess the camera-omen was a positive one.
Only thing is the fact that i sold about 90% to other dealers.
Is that scary at an antique show open to public?

Yes.

I´m use to sell to dealers, that is what i want to do.
But with right weather, pieces that should also go to private, public flowing in, a not terrible economical situation in Sweden, it s a strange thing seeing people roaming around like hypnotized by some obscure force.
I m happy i m not one that pointed all my efforts and my pieces to the private visitors, i would cry right now.
I m happy at least I am happy!

Stockholm Antique show "Älvsjö 2011"

Good show.

Thought we need wool underwear to go to the restaurant (-19 at 20.00) and the fact that they do not take away the ice from the street of the very centrum of the capital of Sweden.
I actually saw middle aged women literally fly on a slippery surface of ice that i can only remember when i was kid and mountain- climbing on the Alpes, at 3500 m over the sea.
Big minus for the Stockholm county, it looked like North Pole.
Anyway beside that, Zeus and Tor gave us a very good "fair weather" and that made possible to have more visitors than the last years.
Than the God of currency killed all the chance of getting a lot of big foreign dealers, few courageous came anyway, putting the Swedish crown on an altar that makes the other currencies go on their knees.
But, but, but regular Swedish people enjoyed the show in hordes and i think i can say speaking for the most of the sellers there, that they were very much in buying mood.

So thank God the magic combination weather/currency worked out anyway.

So what´s happening?

Some dealers complain.
Some sell great and are extremely happy.
Some says it´s only very high quality that sells.
Some says it´s only new white painted stuff who sells.
Some says it´s only new faked gustavian look a like stuff that sells.
Some says it´s original painted charming stuff that sells best.
Some sells all of what they have in stock for they are cheap and all the cheap things sell well (according to them).

So where are we? What is the reality?
Or do we have different realities in different countries and continents or maybe we have them even between the same small villages?

I don´t know, but i don´t complaine too much either

Helsingborgs Show

It has certainly been the best antique show ever i have participated in.
A lot of visitors, a lot of dealers (my kind of visitors), very good companions around me.
I have actually changed place to a much better spot and me and my colleagues around me build a sort of "Street of good charming furniture´s and collectables". That in contrast to the sea of white painted/new rebuilt antiques the has invaded the shows the last years. Things that should not be able to be represented in a serious antique show if there were only big balls enough to say " no thank you, your are not welcome with new/old remake here".
But who cares, those pieces make serious people, especially (this is sad) foreigner clients, run to our little "genuine street" at the show and choose between good stuff. Not expensive, but original, charming, antique for real and good.
That´s all folk´s

Luca

Help, somebody!

I became in posses of a nice, early 19th. century oil painting on canvas. It´s very nice painted and on the wooden frame backside there is an old Irish frame workshop label in paper. That means possibly that it is an Irish painting like it looks to be. Most exciting is the red wax imprint in the meddle part of the wooden frame backside. It represent a kind of "Noble mark" with a bird similar animal and the initial(I N i guess). Can somebody help me with the mark?
I would love to know who the noble owner has been.
Thanks´
Luca