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How Antiques Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House stoff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. Yes, it's about antiques on Josh Clark. There's
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Speaker 1: a very eager, strangely eager Charles W. Chuck Bryant, uh,
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Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. The podcast, the
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Speaker 1: hundred year old podcast at least makes us an antique.
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Speaker 1: Do you can tell though from the hair in my
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Speaker 1: ears that I'm getting up there? Yeah? Nose hair, ear hair.
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Speaker 1: That's That's the joke about man, right, is that hair
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Speaker 1: leaves the places you want it and accumulates where you
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Speaker 1: don't want so, Chuck Um, you know how you think
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Speaker 1: about certain things, and uh, you come across like a
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Speaker 1: concept like antiques. You're collecting and buying and selling of
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Speaker 1: old stuff. That's my definition. But I think it's pretty
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Speaker 1: much dead on um And you think this has always
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Speaker 1: been around and you stop and think, no, that's probably
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Speaker 1: not true. So when did it start? And I am
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Speaker 1: very gratified to say we know when the popular obsession
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Speaker 1: with antiques began? Isn't that weird? I didn't know this
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Speaker 1: until I read this, and it actually ties in with
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Speaker 1: the other one recording today, Volcanos. So here's a little
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Speaker 1: piece of trivia for you that will eventually appear on
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Speaker 1: a quiz. How are antiques and the volcanoes podcast related?
1:37
Speaker 1: Strange glue Herculaneum and Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius binds these two, right,
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Speaker 1: So tell them about it, Chuckers. Well, there was a
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Speaker 1: big old eruption in seventy nine, a d of Vesuvius,
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Speaker 1: and it pretty much buried Pompeii and the sister city,
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Speaker 1: Herculaneum between about twenty ft of junk of ash. Well,
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Speaker 1: we'll get to that in the vault, which is not
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Speaker 1: you know, that's a bad thing for all the people there,
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Speaker 1: but the bad thing who died screaming, but it preserved
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Speaker 1: them dying screaming. I used to be so obsessed with that,
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Speaker 1: with national anything I could get my hands on, and
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Speaker 1: it was like, look at that skeleton crawling towards the sea.
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Speaker 1: Look at this guy who was caught in a boat's yeah,
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Speaker 1: I loved it. So uh many years after that, Charles
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Speaker 1: the third of Spain and the seventeen early sevent undred
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Speaker 1: said hey, let's go dig this stuff up and see
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Speaker 1: what we can find. And it turns out they found
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Speaker 1: a bunch of well preserved antiques and they became like, wow,
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Speaker 1: old stuff is cool. Right, So these two entire cities
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Speaker 1: were basically frozen in time and protected from looters, and
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Speaker 1: they started bringing these treasures up and it actually sparked
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Speaker 1: the neo classical period or movement, I guess in Europe,
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Speaker 1: and that was like the antiques right, and then in America.
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Speaker 1: So that's worldwide antiques or at least western uh popularity
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Speaker 1: of antiques. Right, what about American? Right? We can actually
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Speaker 1: trace the moment where Americans get interested in antiques too.
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Speaker 1: It's it's I love this very cool. Once again, our
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Speaker 1: our seventeen seventy six. You know, America is a young,
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Speaker 1: budding country. A hundred years later, we celebrate our first
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Speaker 1: little centennial in Philadelphia and they said, hey, you know what,
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Speaker 1: We've got a hundred years worth of stuff we've been
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Speaker 1: making and let's let's showcase this. And all of a
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Speaker 1: sudden people were like the same thing, like wow, this
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Speaker 1: is kind of cool. I like this old stuff that
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Speaker 1: we've got. That's exactly right, And that sparked an interest
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Speaker 1: in early American furniture, I think to start with, right,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna start buying it and I'm gonna start collecting it,
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Speaker 1: and it became a commodity. Right. So, Um, the the
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventies six exposition was what sparked an interest in
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Speaker 1: antiques in the US. Uh. And if you so, we're
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Speaker 1: going to focus mostly on American antiques, and by mostly
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Speaker 1: I mean exclusively, right, Well, a little Europe thrown in, Okay,
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Speaker 1: so not exclusively, but mostly was. Um. But if you
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Speaker 1: are an antique collector today, and you are a very
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Speaker 1: puritanical one could say antique collector, um, you're probably going
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Speaker 1: to say that anything prior to eighteen thirty, UM, in
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Speaker 1: America and probably anywhere is an antique. Anything after it's
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Speaker 1: kind of up in the air. And the reason being
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Speaker 1: is around eighteen thirty the Industrial Revolution started. People stopped
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Speaker 1: using like dovetailed joints that they sawed by hand or
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Speaker 1: whittled down by hand and using wooden pegs and started
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Speaker 1: using machines. Stopped. But yeah, well it fell for mass
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Speaker 1: manufacturing exactly. So this advent of mass manufacturing led to
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Speaker 1: a huge boom in um in in production. Coupled with
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Speaker 1: this new interest post like eighteen seventy six in early
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Speaker 1: American furniture, and so a revival of these styles, right,
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Speaker 1: So you have mass manufacturing and a revival of interest
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Speaker 1: in early American styles mean that you have a lot
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Speaker 1: of reproduction furniture being produced. Yeah, but reproduction furniture is
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Speaker 1: is what you want us the real deal, right, which
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Speaker 1: is period. So period is something made in the style
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Speaker 1: of the period in the age in that age like
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Speaker 1: Queen Anne. Sure not Queen Anne reproduction or Chippendale reproduction, which,
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Speaker 1: by the way, is the sexiest furniture period in American
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Speaker 1: history if you ask me. Those uh the little cuffs
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Speaker 1: and nothing. But yeah, yeah, I'll a picture when I
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Speaker 1: hear that is swayzy and what a classic one. Heppa White, Cheriton,
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Speaker 1: Duncan Fife, just a name of you, Yes, of our heroes. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: those are the those are the big ones. And I'm
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Speaker 1: sure if you're really into this you could you can
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Speaker 1: be like Duncan Fife. Yeah. I go for Duncan Hines. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Duncan Chic. Remember that guy. It sounds really familiar. He
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Speaker 1: hes a singer. He had a song which one I
5:53
Speaker 1: can't remember he was. He's a one hit guy. Well, Chuck, yes, Uh,
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Speaker 1: if you are getting in do antiques, right, you probably
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Speaker 1: already know all this stuff. Um way into it. But
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Speaker 1: let's say let's say that you are you really uh no,
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Speaker 1: I'm into walking around antique flea markets, but I'm not.
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Speaker 1: I don't know you know what I'm doing. I just
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Speaker 1: like tooling around and poking things. Yeah, you know, it's funny. Um.
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Speaker 1: I think Billy Bob Thornton wrote possibly one of the
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Speaker 1: greatest lines in the history of film, and he said
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Speaker 1: something about he made um Dwight yoakum saying sling blade
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Speaker 1: that he can barely drink a glass water around a
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Speaker 1: piece of antique furniture. So awful and so funny in
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Speaker 1: that movie at the same time. It's a good line. Um.
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Speaker 1: I like walking around antique places too. I don't like
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Speaker 1: encountering antique wheelchairs or antique medical equipment. I love that stuff.
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Speaker 1: It's so freaky. Well, I don't use it. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: well you really shouldn't like probably not sterile any longer. Um.
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Speaker 1: But okay, so let's let's say that you are not
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Speaker 1: completely versed in in antiques what to look for. We're
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Speaker 1: gonna give you a brief primer here, and since we
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Speaker 1: are owned by Discovery Communications aka the Discovery Channel, we
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Speaker 1: get to draw from the company well and talk to
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Speaker 1: people once in a while who have shows on Discovery,
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Speaker 1: specifically in this one, a guy named Paul Brown who
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Speaker 1: heads up a show called Auction Kings. Right, he owns
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Speaker 1: a Gallery sixty three which is literally just up the
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Speaker 1: road a piece from a San Roswell road. I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: have to visit that. And he is a an auction king.
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Speaker 1: I've seen it myself with my own eyes, and we
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Speaker 1: talked to him actually, so he's gonna come in a
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Speaker 1: little bit um here there. When you hear someone that
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Speaker 1: sounds like they're on the telephone and it's not us, right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: well we'll we'll teake him up a little better than that.
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Speaker 1: But that to give rule of thumb I think for
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Speaker 1: this one. Um. But what Paul says and what it
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Speaker 1: what it expresses in this article how antiques work, um,
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Speaker 1: is that the first way to differentiate a real antique,
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Speaker 1: a period piece from a reproduction piece, um and kind
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Speaker 1: of get an idea of how much value this thing
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Speaker 1: is gonna hold ultimately is just by looking it over.
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Speaker 1: That's the first best thing you can do is take
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Speaker 1: a really good hard look at it, right, So, uh,
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Speaker 1: what are some of the things we're looking for? Well, uh,
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Speaker 1: just at first glance, I would say overall condition, like
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Speaker 1: what kind of shape it's in. And this is not
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Speaker 1: to determine whether it's real or fake. This is just
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Speaker 1: if you're assuming it's a real antique because apparently high
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Speaker 1: quality fakes. Don't be afraid of that, because it's pretty
8:29
Speaker 1: rare to to pass one off, to try and pass
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Speaker 1: one off, although Paul said in an interview that he
8:35
Speaker 1: just came across one right, like he had gotten off
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Speaker 1: a call with a buddy who informed him that something
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Speaker 1: he was thinking about or somebody was trying to sell
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Speaker 1: him was in fact a fake faberge, like right before
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Speaker 1: we interviewed him. So he said, it does happen. It's
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Speaker 1: very uncommon, especially with furniture too. It's so difficult to
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Speaker 1: do this. So what you're really looking for is not
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Speaker 1: necessarily a counterfeit, but a reproduction, right it exactly? So,
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Speaker 1: um here here's here are a couple of tips that
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Speaker 1: Paul gave us. Right, a cursory glance will tell you'll
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Speaker 1: tell a lot of tales I mean even to to
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Speaker 1: an inexperienced eye, if you open up the doors and
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Speaker 1: you see there, you know, nails or uh holding it
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Speaker 1: together rather than dovetails in Morrison tennant joints, and you
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Speaker 1: know it's probably of later manufacturer. Um. You know, evenly
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Speaker 1: evenly cut nails were not even made until you know
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Speaker 1: this center. We're not this century, laugh, it's the twentieth century.
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Speaker 1: It's probably that the most nails were handmade. And so
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Speaker 1: if you've got a lot of evenly cut nails looks
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Speaker 1: like they were driven in there with a nail gun,
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Speaker 1: you know, that's that's a big that's a big tip off.
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Speaker 1: So there's a couple of things you look for in Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean craftsmanship, how it was put together is uh.
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Speaker 1: I mean they're still craftsman today doing things in the
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Speaker 1: old school way, but by and large when you look
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Speaker 1: at the joints and the tools might leave marks, yes, um,
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Speaker 1: hardware used like nails, Like Paul said, Yeah, so that's
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Speaker 1: what you're gonna look forward to determine if it was
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Speaker 1: you know, probably a reproduction or not. And then what
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Speaker 1: the stuff is made out of is actually going to
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Speaker 1: um leave a lot of clues to specifically with furniture. Um,
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Speaker 1: the wood used, it's very important. Right, So for example, chuck,
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Speaker 1: you've got um. Like walnut was very popular with Queen Anne,
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Speaker 1: which apparently ran from the early eighteenth century to about
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Speaker 1: seventeen fifty when Chippendale took over. Right, we know so
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Speaker 1: much about the wood used an antique furniture. It's a uh,
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Speaker 1: Mahogany came in the fashion after that, right, and then
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Speaker 1: a cherry, which is sort of like mahogany, it's just
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Speaker 1: a little paler, very strong and abundant here in the
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Speaker 1: old us of A. So that was pretty popular as well. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: oak has always been popular. Yeah. Oka is especially popular
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Speaker 1: among Europeans before the beginning of the eighteenth century, and
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Speaker 1: then it had some renewed popularity in America around nineteen hundred.
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Speaker 1: I personally don't go for oak that much. I like
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Speaker 1: either really pale blonde maple, hate wind. Do you really
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Speaker 1: like maple? I just don't like pale. I don't like
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Speaker 1: blond wood. It reminds me of ikea. Yeah, I think
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Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons I like it that look
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Speaker 1: it's like minimal and it's really cold outside. Uh. And
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Speaker 1: then Chuck there's also um pine, right, poor pine. Pine
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Speaker 1: is um. Well, let's just go ahead and say it.
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Speaker 1: It's the the poor person's would when you're manufacturing furniture,
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Speaker 1: your country folk, your rural you just want a chair
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Speaker 1: to sit in. Maybe you're really good at making a chair,
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Speaker 1: so a hundred and fifty two hundred years later, somebody
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Speaker 1: wants to pay top dollar for that. But for the
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Speaker 1: most part, pine is used for the undersides of the backings, uh,
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Speaker 1: the drawers, insides of of a piece of furniture. Right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: but wood floor is actually hard to pine floors. That's
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Speaker 1: what we have in our house. That's those are. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: those are like a find. Apparently there's a guy done
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Speaker 1: in Florida. Um. Apparently there's a logging operation in like
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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century in Florida, and they would fell this
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Speaker 1: pine and float it down the river to the sawmill.
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Speaker 1: Every once in a while, something would be Uh it
12:02
Speaker 1: was so dense it would just sink. And it happened
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Speaker 1: a lot and they just leave them. But for some reason,
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Speaker 1: the composition of the water, I think it was like
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Speaker 1: this brackish combination of stea and fresh water. Um, somehow
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Speaker 1: preserve these these trees these huge trees, and there's a
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Speaker 1: company that brings these things up in salvages, these this
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Speaker 1: nineteenth century heart pine and sells it for like top
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Speaker 1: dollars lumber. Yeah, we haven't had this exact conversation before.
12:30
Speaker 1: It was a while ago though, which which pod. It
12:33
Speaker 1: was a long time ago, but it bears saying. I
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Speaker 1: think I think I'm going in saying this is so cool.
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Speaker 1: So it's like, why are you laughing? But I like pines,
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Speaker 1: So that's why I said, poor pine, um, plywood and
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Speaker 1: particle board. That's a dead giveaway that it's not an antique.
12:49
Speaker 1: Don't be stupid. As our staples, we should mention staples
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Speaker 1: are a hallmark of twentieth century manufacture. Exactly, condition of
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Speaker 1: the wood you should look at that is what shrink Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so it shrinks and it leaves a lot of clues. Right,
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Speaker 1: so you know the bottom of a drawer, you know
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Speaker 1: how in a really good construction it's kind of slatted in. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so as it shrinks, it's not going to be flush
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Speaker 1: any longer. And not only will that shrinkage be a
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Speaker 1: dead giveaway, but that that portion, that the shrunken part,
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Speaker 1: the now exposed part, should be lighter in color and
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Speaker 1: the stuff that's been exposed to underwear for the last
13:24
Speaker 1: two years underwear. Yeah. Um. Also that you know, they
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Speaker 1: used to use a pegs a lot of times to
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Speaker 1: as simple furniture. So if if the pegs are have
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Speaker 1: worked their themselves out a little bit, that's probably a
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Speaker 1: good uh sign that there's been some shrinkage going on
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Speaker 1: in the underwear drawer. Uh. What else we talked about pegs,
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Speaker 1: dovetail joints. I think Paul mentioned dovetail joints and mortis
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Speaker 1: and tenon joints are really, you know, a hallmark of
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Speaker 1: early craftsmanship. So you look for those tools handstanding. It's
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Speaker 1: gonna look different than machine standing, as is a hand
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Speaker 1: saw rather than like the perfect straight edge of a
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Speaker 1: saw mill saw. You can actually, if you know what
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Speaker 1: you're doing, you can kind of roughly date what like
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Speaker 1: the age of your piece of furniture by the saw marks. Right. Um.
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Speaker 1: So you're gonna want to look at the back of
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Speaker 1: a chair or the drawer. It's an inconspicuous area that
14:22
Speaker 1: they probably didn't bother to sand. Um. If there are straight,
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Speaker 1: irregular marks, that's pre eighteen thirty. Uh. If they're straight
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Speaker 1: even marks. That means that it was around eighteen thirty sawmills.
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Speaker 1: We're cutting these straight even marks, perfectly straight. And then
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Speaker 1: circular marks came in about eighteen fifty, when the Industrial
14:43
Speaker 1: Revolution was really starting to take off. People like, our
14:46
Speaker 1: furniture doesn't have to be square anymore. Yes, you know,
14:51
Speaker 1: it really took me. And this one was when I
14:53
Speaker 1: read this sentence. Nails were originally made forged individually. I mean,
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Speaker 1: does that really hit home? Do you think how many
15:02
Speaker 1: nails it takes to build a structure, and the blacksmith
15:05
Speaker 1: had to make every nail one at a time. That's
15:07
Speaker 1: why the blacksmith was usually the man to go crazy
15:10
Speaker 1: on the rest of the town and kill everyone in
15:11
Speaker 1: their sleep. Yeah, with something made of heavy metal, probably
15:14
Speaker 1: that's what I would use. Uh, where are we here
15:18
Speaker 1: buying them? You wanna talk about buying antiques? Yeah, and um,
15:21
Speaker 1: we should probably say that. You know, if you're into antiques,
15:23
Speaker 1: especially if you're really an antiques, you're probably doing it
15:26
Speaker 1: at least partially for profit, right, hoping to maybe make
15:31
Speaker 1: a little money off of it. Well, Paul pointed out
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Speaker 1: that you should buy you should only buy something if
15:35
Speaker 1: you like it. At excellent point. I thought that was
15:37
Speaker 1: a great point. Usually you're looking you know, you think
15:39
Speaker 1: it's worth something as well, right, And we asked him
15:42
Speaker 1: about value, like how does an antique get valued? And
15:45
Speaker 1: here's what he said. For worth is what you can
15:47
Speaker 1: get somebody to pay for it on a given day,
15:50
Speaker 1: not what in you know, insurance company or a museum
15:53
Speaker 1: or in you know, a quote expert says it's worth.
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Speaker 1: So you know what the biggest factor is, supplying the man,
16:00
Speaker 1: how many people in the audience want it. You know,
16:02
Speaker 1: I bring something up that five people want, it's going
16:04
Speaker 1: to bring more than than somebody might have thought it
16:06
Speaker 1: was worth if it comes out and it's you know,
16:08
Speaker 1: only one person wants it or nobody wants it, whether
16:11
Speaker 1: it's going to bring less, but the reality is that's
16:13
Speaker 1: that's what it was worth that day in this building.
16:16
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's just kind of a weird dynamic.
16:18
Speaker 1: Worth is a is a real funny thing. It's it's
16:20
Speaker 1: it's like trying to nail jello. So that was Paul
16:24
Speaker 1: once again, Josh I could tell he was on the phone.
16:27
Speaker 1: He was on the phone. Uh, if you if you
16:30
Speaker 1: don't know anything and you want to learn something, about antiques.
16:32
Speaker 1: Here's some advice from how staff works dot com. Just
16:35
Speaker 1: start buying things. Will now go to a museum, because
16:39
Speaker 1: museums are a great place to You're gonna you're gonna
16:43
Speaker 1: know it's real, it's authenticated by pro It's probably gonna
16:47
Speaker 1: be grouped by either the manufacturer of the period, so
16:50
Speaker 1: you get like a really specific view of what you're
16:55
Speaker 1: looking at it and then probably be identified by the maker.
16:58
Speaker 1: And you might have a docent there that has some
16:59
Speaker 1: like history. So that's a really good place to learn
17:01
Speaker 1: about this stuff. Yeah, there's usually somebody there you can
17:03
Speaker 1: say what does this mean? Or why is that there?
17:06
Speaker 1: And they go move along. Yeah uh. And then the
17:09
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, that chairs out there any longer
17:11
Speaker 1: because you just exposed it as a fraud, much like
17:14
Speaker 1: the um Brewster chair. Right, yes, have you heard about this?
17:19
Speaker 1: And I talked about another podcast or something. No, that's
17:22
Speaker 1: known as the greatest hoax of all time, greatest antique
17:24
Speaker 1: hoax of all time, greatest antique furniture hoax of all time.
17:28
Speaker 1: Let's get specific here, huh that let it know that well,
17:31
Speaker 1: think about it's a chair. Surely there's other antique hoaxes. Well,
17:35
Speaker 1: this is the greatest, This is the Ali This is
17:38
Speaker 1: the O. J. Simpson Trial of Antiques. So the Ford
17:42
Speaker 1: Museum was taken by a chair that was supposedly created
17:46
Speaker 1: by pilgrims from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Right, Yeah, but
17:51
Speaker 1: they weren't taken by the chair. They were taken by
17:53
Speaker 1: La Montaigne armand Lamont. He sounds like a fake furniture guy.
17:57
Speaker 1: He sounds like a forger armand La Montaigne faked the
18:00
Speaker 1: Brewster chair just to see if he could fool the experts.
18:03
Speaker 1: And he did. Yeah, which apparently is quite popular and
18:06
Speaker 1: especially was in the seventies or hoaxx all over the place.
18:09
Speaker 1: Have you seen f is for fake? No? Okay, you
18:12
Speaker 1: know our buddy recommended this movie. It's the Orson Wells
18:15
Speaker 1: documentary on art forgery. Okay, so we saw it, right,
18:18
Speaker 1: you mean I watched it. It's very interesting. It's the
18:24
Speaker 1: Who's Well I thought he was talking about the Doors
18:26
Speaker 1: and Walls TV show when he had Burt Reynolds on. No,
18:29
Speaker 1: but it's in the it's in a similar stylus, really
18:32
Speaker 1: edited very strangely, right, But the content of it is
18:35
Speaker 1: um Clifford Irving, the guy who faked the biography of um.
18:40
Speaker 1: Howard Hughes also wrote a biography on a great art
18:44
Speaker 1: forger named Elmir, and Elmir is like this guy who's like,
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Speaker 1: I just do this to show that all the experts
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Speaker 1: are idiots and I've never signed anything, and I toss everything.
18:54
Speaker 1: And his biographer, who actually turns out to be a
18:57
Speaker 1: hoax himself, Clifford Irving, is like that, it's not true.
19:00
Speaker 1: That guy is fraudulent and he's making money off of it.
19:04
Speaker 1: But it makes a good point that we you said
19:07
Speaker 1: in the museum, you're gonna be able to probably rely
19:10
Speaker 1: on it being legitimate. That's where you can really learn
19:13
Speaker 1: the point of this movie is that's not necessarily true.
19:17
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you can pass something by the experts,
19:20
Speaker 1: then it's legitimate and in just about everyone's eyes, and
19:24
Speaker 1: that apparently is fairly rampant in the art world. Yeah. Well,
19:27
Speaker 1: the Brister chair, though, they put it through an X
19:29
Speaker 1: ray and they were they were all of a sudden,
19:31
Speaker 1: they were like, ah, yeah, La Montage, Yeah. La Montage
19:34
Speaker 1: had said, like, you know, I faked the chair like
19:38
Speaker 1: several a couple of decades ago, and you bought it.
19:41
Speaker 1: Somebody bought it and then now they used that chair
19:43
Speaker 1: though as an example of how to be not be duped.
19:47
Speaker 1: I guess what do they? What does Oprah call that?
19:49
Speaker 1: At a learning moment or a teaching moment? Yeah, I
19:51
Speaker 1: think something like that. So uh, if you have learned
19:54
Speaker 1: a few things here and you do want to buy antiques,
19:57
Speaker 1: where should he go? H? Well, you said the museums,
19:59
Speaker 1: and you're ready to buy and just start anywhere you can.
20:03
Speaker 1: If you go to a small town in small in
20:06
Speaker 1: America and you close your eyes and just start walking
20:09
Speaker 1: forward and don't get hit by a car going around
20:12
Speaker 1: the square, you're going to run into an antique store. Yes,
20:15
Speaker 1: And depending on the size of the shop, if it's
20:17
Speaker 1: like a smallest shop, then that means probably that the
20:21
Speaker 1: shop owner picked out all the antiques because there's things
20:24
Speaker 1: that they like in things that they think will sell.
20:26
Speaker 1: Or like a flea market, they'll usually have little booths
20:29
Speaker 1: and you can rent out your own little booth and
20:31
Speaker 1: sell stuff. So you'll probably get like a big wide
20:33
Speaker 1: variety there. That's right. Um where else? Well, auctions if
20:38
Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to add a little
20:39
Speaker 1: zing to your antiques or your antique buying experience, experience
20:43
Speaker 1: right to the auction is very much like an experience,
20:47
Speaker 1: and you get to buy stuff too, right. Um, And
20:51
Speaker 1: we talked to Paul about this. We'll bring him back
20:53
Speaker 1: in a second. But if you want to really kind
20:57
Speaker 1: of hone your hangling skills or you know, just kind
21:00
Speaker 1: of know your limits, you can start off in a
21:03
Speaker 1: small store and just go basically abuse the store owner
21:06
Speaker 1: and then hone and go to a couple of auctions
21:10
Speaker 1: and by boom, by being you might be ready. But
21:13
Speaker 1: this is what you're in for. It's not nearly as
21:15
Speaker 1: um scary as we've been made to believe. Apparently what auctions, Yeah, listen,
21:21
Speaker 1: listen to pul check. The auction can be Uh, it's
21:25
Speaker 1: nature almost. I think maybe Howard did it or I
21:27
Speaker 1: don't know what happened exactly, but um, you know, a
21:29
Speaker 1: lot of people are intimidated by the auction process. What
21:32
Speaker 1: I always encourage people do is come in early, you know,
21:34
Speaker 1: maybe come in the week before and take a look around, preview,
21:37
Speaker 1: you know, take some measurements, kick the tire, so to speak,
21:39
Speaker 1: open the door, see if you're dovetail, see if it's
21:41
Speaker 1: if you're buying, or if you're potentially buying what you
21:44
Speaker 1: think you're potentially buying. Ask questions because we're always here
21:47
Speaker 1: to answer them. And you know, if I don't know,
21:49
Speaker 1: I'll say I don't know. But if I do know,
21:51
Speaker 1: I'm happy to share and say so is my stuff.
21:53
Speaker 1: But you know, and then as the auction be approaches,
21:56
Speaker 1: you know, you come in, get settle in and kind
21:59
Speaker 1: of watch it, kind of get a fearful. It's a
22:00
Speaker 1: lucamic thing, and each auction is a dynamic and fluid.
22:03
Speaker 1: It's almost organic the way it kind of grows, and
22:06
Speaker 1: you see, okay, these things are going high, those things
22:08
Speaker 1: are going kind of watch it a little bit and
22:09
Speaker 1: then just don't be intimidated to to bid, don't don't
22:12
Speaker 1: let me get you know, to your head. Just kind
22:14
Speaker 1: of play play the game. It's like going to the
22:15
Speaker 1: casino sort of. You kind of get a rush out
22:17
Speaker 1: of it. It's fun. So that was some good advice.
22:20
Speaker 1: Like they'll they'll usually have a display period where you
22:23
Speaker 1: can go check it out up close before the auction,
22:26
Speaker 1: and if you've never been to an auction, it can
22:27
Speaker 1: get caught up in it. You know, have you ever
22:29
Speaker 1: been doing auction of any kind? Silent auction at a church,
22:33
Speaker 1: very low pressure. I mean one where the guys you
22:35
Speaker 1: know doing the whole thing. Cattle auction, I've been to
22:38
Speaker 1: those before. Did you buy for each catal auction? Kid?
22:41
Speaker 1: You not? Did you buy a cow? I'm just a
22:45
Speaker 1: do you want to check out beforehand? Know exactly what
22:47
Speaker 1: you want, what you're willing to pay, and don't get
22:50
Speaker 1: caught up in the auction fever because, as Paul pointed out,
22:53
Speaker 1: and as anyone knows, something is worth what someone's gonna
22:56
Speaker 1: pay for it. And and if you've got all these
22:59
Speaker 1: people bidden on, it's just like eBay, it's the same thing.
23:02
Speaker 1: You get all these I never understood the eBay people
23:04
Speaker 1: that you know in an auctions for like a week
23:07
Speaker 1: and on day one they start throwing bids in. Yeah,
23:09
Speaker 1: I've never understood anything. Well. Sellers love it because it
23:12
Speaker 1: just drives up the price. But I mean as a
23:14
Speaker 1: as a buyer, it doesn't make none at all. On eBay.
23:17
Speaker 1: I go in the last like second and a half
23:21
Speaker 1: my first bid, right and we we also talked to
23:23
Speaker 1: Paul about um, you know what what you should buy
23:27
Speaker 1: or if there's something in your home, and he was
23:29
Speaker 1: saying like it's very surprising how something that seems like
23:33
Speaker 1: it would never sell, or something you take his ordinary
23:36
Speaker 1: commonplace because you grew up around it and it's now
23:38
Speaker 1: in your home and you walk past it every day,
23:40
Speaker 1: that that suddenly takes on value when a guy like
23:42
Speaker 1: him creates a market by taking a seller and putting
23:46
Speaker 1: them together and putting his stuff in front of buyers. Right, So,
23:50
Speaker 1: so you're absolutely right. I mean, like there, things do
23:52
Speaker 1: have value even if they don't seem like they have value.
23:55
Speaker 1: And you can make some dough it in auction, or
23:58
Speaker 1: you can spend a bunch of dough it in auction.
24:00
Speaker 1: You can also do an internet auction, which requires a
24:02
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of faith. Yeah, I mean eBay has their
24:06
Speaker 1: little rules of you gotta be on the upend up,
24:09
Speaker 1: but you can really kind of do anything on there
24:11
Speaker 1: if you want. Yeah, there's antique shows that are you know,
24:16
Speaker 1: like this weekend and North Georgia there's a show and
24:20
Speaker 1: the Georgia Mountain fair Grounds. It's a big deal. Everyone
24:23
Speaker 1: brings their stuff and from them once a year and
24:26
Speaker 1: not just made it up. And obviously a state sales.
24:29
Speaker 1: Keep your eyes peeled in the newspaper and Craigslist and
24:31
Speaker 1: stuff for state sales, you get some good fine and
24:33
Speaker 1: the cool thing about the state sales, especially if you
24:35
Speaker 1: if you find an estate sale and the sign for
24:38
Speaker 1: it is on like a piece of poster board with
24:41
Speaker 1: black sharpie, that means it's a yard sale. That means
24:43
Speaker 1: that it's well, it could be there. There could be
24:46
Speaker 1: some really great stuff there, and it's being sold by
24:48
Speaker 1: people who don't know anything, and there's probably no reserve price,
24:51
Speaker 1: which is the minimum bid that will be accepted. Um.
24:54
Speaker 1: So yeah, state sales can be treasure troves, especially if
24:57
Speaker 1: you like stuff that smell like um that elderly. Right,
25:02
Speaker 1: let me say that, I think so mothballs. Yeah. Uh.
25:06
Speaker 1: If you're checking things out at these places, look for
25:08
Speaker 1: a signature of the maker to help authenticate it. That's
25:12
Speaker 1: kind of a dead giveaway. If you see like a
25:14
Speaker 1: brand on furniture like on the underside, or um on
25:18
Speaker 1: glassware and ceramics is usually on the on the bottom.
25:23
Speaker 1: What else. Well, yeah, that's a that's a good point
25:25
Speaker 1: that there's there should be a signature there because the difference,
25:28
Speaker 1: the only difference really between a reproduction and a counterfeit, uh,
25:34
Speaker 1: is the stamp of the craftsman. Right, the mark of
25:37
Speaker 1: the craftsman saying like I made this in. I'm not
25:41
Speaker 1: trying to pass it off as something made in. Yeah. Well,
25:45
Speaker 1: sometimes there's other documentation too that someone will include, like
25:47
Speaker 1: this is uh a photo of my great great grandmother
25:51
Speaker 1: with this chest of drawers or chiffer robe, and um,
25:55
Speaker 1: here's a and then here's it's included in the ill
26:00
Speaker 1: from too. And there's a letter um from my great
26:04
Speaker 1: grandfather to my great grandmother about the chiff robe. And
26:06
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you all this saying bust up that
26:08
Speaker 1: chiffer robe to help to help document that it is
26:13
Speaker 1: in fact. Yes, and if you have that much documentation,
26:16
Speaker 1: you're in like full in because apparently being able to
26:20
Speaker 1: prove providence, especially famous providence, can apparently just drive the
26:24
Speaker 1: price up. There's a story in this article about a
26:28
Speaker 1: person who attended the two thousand to Tucson Antiques roadshow
26:32
Speaker 1: of it and showed up with a you first phase
26:36
Speaker 1: chief's blanket, which is rare enough, like this thing was
26:38
Speaker 1: appraised that three and fifty five hundred thousand dollars, but
26:43
Speaker 1: the person said that it once belonged to Kick Carson,
26:45
Speaker 1: but couldn't prove it, but had he or she proven it,
26:49
Speaker 1: then it would have increased the value by another hundred
26:52
Speaker 1: and fifty grand just because Kick Carson slept in it
26:55
Speaker 1: for a while. Al Right, pretty sweet. Huh. Yeah, there's
26:59
Speaker 1: I look at a lot of Craigslist guitars, you know,
27:01
Speaker 1: just I'm not in the market, but I always just look,
27:03
Speaker 1: and there's always every day there's always some two that
27:05
Speaker 1: has a really cheap CREDI guitar and he's like it
27:09
Speaker 1: was signed by the Kip Winger and there's just the
27:13
Speaker 1: scrawl and sharpie on it. And you know, there're as
27:15
Speaker 1: some like five hundred bucks for hundred dollar guitar with
27:19
Speaker 1: Inger maybe don doc into Uh what else can you
27:24
Speaker 1: look for, Josh? If you have a CT scan in
27:26
Speaker 1: your house, or an X ray machine or infrared analysis
27:30
Speaker 1: or ultra violet analysis, you can do it that way, Yes,
27:33
Speaker 1: if you're so lucky to have those kind of things
27:35
Speaker 1: in your home or your medical clinic. Or look at
27:39
Speaker 1: the antique dealer. If they're on the up and up,
27:41
Speaker 1: they're probably a member of one of the professional associations.
27:44
Speaker 1: And then also if you follow Paul Brown's advice and
27:47
Speaker 1: buy what you like, and you're you're pretty much buying
27:49
Speaker 1: for yourself. Uh, then you may end up using your antiques,
27:53
Speaker 1: displaying it, keeping it out in the opening your normal house.
27:56
Speaker 1: And if you do that, you're gonna want to keep
27:57
Speaker 1: up with it. Right, So if you have an antique clock,
28:00
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to wind it regularly. Uh. If you
28:02
Speaker 1: have a rug or blanket or something like that, maybe
28:05
Speaker 1: up on the walls better place than on the floor, right. Um.
28:08
Speaker 1: And uh then other uh kind of more fragile stuff
28:13
Speaker 1: like books, sheet music, manuscripts. Um, you wanna store these
28:18
Speaker 1: upright out of the sun. Yeah, we want to make
28:21
Speaker 1: sure there's no newspaper pressing between them. Highly acidic, bad
28:23
Speaker 1: for an antique book. Probably not in the basement or
28:26
Speaker 1: the attic. You want a good neutral temperature. Your books
28:30
Speaker 1: want to be in the same climate you're in. Yeah.
28:34
Speaker 1: Did you like that it's a T shirt right there.
28:36
Speaker 1: Photographs you should store in their own individual envelope and
28:41
Speaker 1: then that envelope in a box. Don't like out of
28:44
Speaker 1: the sun. Yeah, don't stick them all together and like
28:47
Speaker 1: put a brick on top of them. They're gonna end
28:50
Speaker 1: up being a goooey mess. It's not a good way
28:52
Speaker 1: to store your photos and you're also gonna want to
28:54
Speaker 1: buy a nice pair of cotton gloves when you start
28:56
Speaker 1: collecting antique photographs of any kind, whether it's glass or
29:00
Speaker 1: metal degarat type. If you're into Matthew Brady or being
29:05
Speaker 1: a mime, remember the Brady Bunch where it turned out
29:07
Speaker 1: that Matthew Brady was related to Mr Brady and they
29:11
Speaker 1: showed like a picture it was a de Garat type
29:13
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln in the background is Mike Brady. Yeah,
29:16
Speaker 1: it's a good one. I do remember that. I'm like,
29:19
Speaker 1: this is like the second Chris Farley reference. Yeah, we
29:22
Speaker 1: did the Chip Indels thing and then like the remember
29:25
Speaker 1: when he a text Scorsese. Do you remember you got
29:31
Speaker 1: anything else? Set it for auctions and uh antiques and
29:36
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I think it is. We want
29:39
Speaker 1: to give a hearty thanks to Paul Brown. Congratulations and
29:42
Speaker 1: good luck. It's nice to see another Atlanta boy making
29:45
Speaker 1: good that's right, um, And we're gonna drop by Gallery
29:49
Speaker 1: sixty three one day, maybe a good picture made with him.
29:51
Speaker 1: How about that he invited us so it wouldn't be
29:53
Speaker 1: like stalking, and you know, check out auction Kings obviously
29:57
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about antiques. You can
29:59
Speaker 1: type word antiques or antiquities is as it's also called
30:04
Speaker 1: antiques is slang for antiquities. You know that that was it? Yeah,
30:08
Speaker 1: you can type that into the search bar at how
30:10
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com the dusty old search bar and
30:13
Speaker 1: needed polishing found in our attic. All right, Yes, that's
30:17
Speaker 1: what I'm trying. Now, how does it work? I think
30:19
Speaker 1: it's great that brings up then listener male, I'm gonna
30:25
Speaker 1: call this, uh polyamory A polyamorous young lady. Yeah, hello
30:32
Speaker 1: from a polyamoroust. Yeah, hi, guys. Today I was feverishly
30:37
Speaker 1: sewing tiny pieces of silk together and cursing myself for
30:40
Speaker 1: attempting such an elaborate Christmas gift for my sister. When
30:44
Speaker 1: why would anyone want? Multiple spouses started playing? I put
30:48
Speaker 1: down my thumble and listen even more intently than usual
30:51
Speaker 1: for I myself and a polyamoroust. I'm a twenty one
30:55
Speaker 1: year old female living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which I believe
30:59
Speaker 1: is in America's hat. I've flown over that. I have
31:02
Speaker 1: two partners, Jesse and Kumarn, and of two three and
31:07
Speaker 1: two years, respectively. Jesse and I lived together. We all
31:10
Speaker 1: happened to be humanitarian atheists. Jesse and Komb have been
31:15
Speaker 1: friends since well before I met either of them, but
31:17
Speaker 1: they do not have a physical relationship together. Both of
31:21
Speaker 1: them are able to pursue relationships with other people, and
31:24
Speaker 1: I have had a lady friend in the last three
31:27
Speaker 1: years to boot as well. To minimize the risk of
31:30
Speaker 1: s t I s, we maintain a fluid bond and
31:33
Speaker 1: no one has intercourse with someone outside the bond without
31:38
Speaker 1: an s t I test. Jealousy has never been an issue.
31:41
Speaker 1: For some reason. Jesse actually encouraged me to start dating Komb,
31:45
Speaker 1: and when Jesse was dating his lady friend, I was
31:47
Speaker 1: really pleased and excited. All of our parents know we
31:51
Speaker 1: are out to our co workers and friends. I have
31:53
Speaker 1: no desire to get married, but I know of many
31:55
Speaker 1: polyamorous families who do or are. I would say the
31:59
Speaker 1: benefits of polyN me for us, at least, because a
32:01
Speaker 1: twentysomething family with no children boils down to more more
32:05
Speaker 1: people to love, more people to be loved by, more
32:08
Speaker 1: sources of support, more ideas, more perspective or Christmas gifts.
32:13
Speaker 1: The most importantly, more people to gun down, zombies and
32:17
Speaker 1: left for dead. Is that one of the safe places,
32:20
Speaker 1: one of the safe areas in the Zombie Apocalypse Saskatoon. Yeah,
32:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure three shotguns are better than two. I would
32:29
Speaker 1: also like to point out that living communally where everyone
32:32
Speaker 1: has sexual access quote unquote to everyone else is relatively
32:35
Speaker 1: rare in polyamory. More commonly it's just three or four
32:39
Speaker 1: or four person relationships or quote unquote open relationships, or
32:44
Speaker 1: even primary and secondary relationships. So that in tertiary is
32:49
Speaker 1: from lydia Well, thanks a lot, lydia Um is very
32:54
Speaker 1: nice to have that little peek into your life. Thank
32:57
Speaker 1: you up there. Plus also she left out and say
33:00
Speaker 1: s cartoon it gets really cold up there. Yeah, real cold.
33:03
Speaker 1: Imagine a three person snuggle is pretty warm. It's like
33:06
Speaker 1: three dog night, do you know? That's where that came
33:08
Speaker 1: from the Aborigines in Australia. On a particularly cold night,
33:12
Speaker 1: they would sleep with three dogs around him. The three
33:14
Speaker 1: dog night is a really really cold night, and that's
33:16
Speaker 1: where the bank got their name. Yes, okay, if you
33:20
Speaker 1: have any cool interesting stories, we didn't really touch about
33:23
Speaker 1: a touch on it, but if we if you have
33:24
Speaker 1: any cool stories about something that was found in your
33:27
Speaker 1: attic or in your neighbor's attic that turned out to
33:30
Speaker 1: be really valuable and cool. We want to hear about it.
33:33
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, here's a little um watching homework
33:37
Speaker 1: for you. Everyone goes see The Red Violin, probably the
33:40
Speaker 1: coolest auction movie of all time. You've seen it? Oh, chuck,
33:43
Speaker 1: you gotta send a cube? Okay? Uh? Anyways, send us
33:47
Speaker 1: your cool stories, put it in an email, spec it
33:49
Speaker 1: on the bottom, and send it to stuffed podcast at
33:52
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for moral nos and thousands
33:58
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is how stuff works dot com. To
34:01
Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
34:04
Speaker 1: in the upper right corner of our homepage. The house
34:07
Speaker 1: stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today
34:10
Speaker 1: on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
34:16
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you