Collect What's Coming!
It's Cyclical
Renaissance Revisited
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Collect What's Coming!

To encourage collectors and inform those who don’t see themselves as such, every January, I provide my annual predictions. I predict that the best things to collect are those things that are on the horizon. Collect what’s coming. Collect those objects that are sure to be part of the next art or antiques revival. Trends are temporary, but history and objects that highlight history hold their value. Like history, art history repeats itself. 

It’s Cyclical

Don’t you wish you bought up all that mid century modern, circa 1950s-1960s era, furniture that was so accessible and cheap in the 1990s? Today, those Eames chairs, Knoll tables, and Sunburst clocks are going for sky high prices to collectors celebrating fifty years since the mid 20th Century mark.

Last year, I advised folks to avoid amassing a diverse assembly of unrelated works of art or antiques (also known as “eclectic collecting”) and to collect a few specific types of items. Let’s see how my 2006 predictions panned out. 

In January of 2006, I repeated my 2004 and 2005 predictions about collecting Benjamin Franklin memorabilia. I said they would prove valuable in 2006 and the market saw a strong spike in Franklin objects in anticipation of the 300th anniversary of his birth in 2006. Those who cashed in on their Franklin items last year, did very well. 

If you purchased Benjamin Franklin objects during the 2006 frenzy, I’d bet you paid too much. For Ben lovers, it’s back to the waiting game. Ever since the April 2006 birthday celebration, Franklin collecting has been anything but electric. The antiques market is about timing as much as it is about treasure hunting. 

Renaissance Revisited

My Renaissance radar was off, I guess. I advised collectors to consider all things Renaissance in 2006, the year of the Da Vinci Code film. While there was some credence to the 500th anniversary of the High Renaissance in terms of collecting, the market for Renaissance objects--like the Ron Howard much anticipated film—was spotty at best. If you must add a Renaissance masterpiece to your collection, perhaps you’ll bid on the newly discovered Fra Angelico paintings, found behind a door in a spare bedroom and estimated over $1 million, to be auctioned off in March 2007.

I suggested children’s literary masterworks would do well in 2006 and well they did. Favorites like Charlotte’s Web and Bedknobs and Broomsticks brought big secondary market prices in the form of vintage books and animation art. 

For me, a longtime topic of interest and research area is American art of the post war period. In 2006, I suggested that collectors take a hard look at Abstract Expressionist painting and sculpture from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The market for these objects shows that now is the time for works by Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, David Smith, Seymour Lipton, Richard Serra, Harry Bertoia, and others. This collecting category has enjoyed great movement in the last year, unexpected sales records, and market watchers expect this category to continue to forge ahead. 

For 2007, collect those items that are under the radar now but will become valuable in the future. Art deco will be hot until about 2010. Sporting collectibles like vintage billiard tables and antique golf clubs. For any sports fan, if you really want to be in the collectibles race, collect Nascar. The super sport of our contemporary culture promises to be a great category for new collectors. As we collect contemporary objects, remember, history is the best teacher.

Dr. Lori
Director
Masterpiece Technologies Inc.