Antique art may seem a distant stretch from writing, but I’ve opened a store on RubyLane selling antique Tiffany pieces.
Yes, I’m related (very distantly) to Louis Comfort Tiffany, the founder of a number of companies — Tiffany Furnaces, Tiffany Studios, etc. — that eventually became Tiffany & Co.
My mother was a modest collector and for a time had a small, eclectic antique shop, so I’ve long had my eye on such pieces, but only recently have I decided to start refining and curating my own small collection. Over the years my mother bought various items without any sense as to which pattern she was buying, so what she did accumulate was completely incoherent when it came to actually completing a set (which is much harder than it sounds, as I’ll explain below). She was careful, though, about buying only pieces that were in excellent condition.
Recently, my mother wanted to pass on her couple score of pieces, so my sibling and I divided them up with an eye toward keeping together what few matching pieces there were. From there, I’ve used various ways to add to my collection. That is always problematic, though. Recently I saw a piece at an auction I wanted, but it was matched with two others I did not want — one was broken, one was in excellent condition but unmaked. Alas, the price was right, so I got what I wanted and two other odd pieces that now I want to sell off.
And thus we get to RubyLane.
RubyLane has the highest rated customer experience and a number of other awards. They hold their “shop owners” to very high standards to ensure an optimal customer experience. I knew it was going to take some work to get a store opened…but dang, it was a lot of work!
In all events, my store is now open, and you can see the handful of pieces I’m selling in my antique store. None of what I’m selling there came from my mother…those are off-limits. 🙂
Overwhelmingly I buy and sell “Tiffany Studios” desk sets, but as noted above for various reasons I occasionally stray into other categories of Tiffany. Someday I’d love to expand my collection and add an antique Tiffany Lamp and more impressive Tiffany Favrile glass, but at the moment most of those items are far beyond my budget. And more importantly, they are beyond my knowledge base. When it comes to spending money, my preference is to only spend on things I understand. As the old saying goes, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
I’ve looked at a number of auctions of the last half-year, and I can assure you that only occasionally will a seller try to trick you or hide something from you. What is far more likely to happen is that important little details get left off or missed. For instance, you may see a gorgeous jewelry box with a hinged lid. You might ask about the glass and be assured that there are no cracks. You might ask about the feet and be assured that they are all on securely with no sign of having been replaced. You might ask about the hinge and be told it works perfectly.
But you might not ask if it is actually signed since it is so obviously a piece of Tiffany. After you sweat the auction and pay for it and take delivery you belatedly realize it was one of the occasional factory escapes that never got signed. Tiffany it surely is, but its value is now less than what you paid for it.
Many of the auction houses and estate sales I occasion are processing pieces in large lots — sometimes over a thousand a day — and they don’t have time to meticulously detail every aspect. There are a considerable number of errors. Most are inconsequential. A few are not. Some kill a sale. On rare occasions, you can get a “steal” if you see an erroneous description and realize something is of greater value than advertised…and no one else spots it. Such instances are rare, but they do happen.
And auctions are always, always fickle. No telling who is going to show up and bid on what. Some days you can get things cheap for a single bid. Other days your jaw will hang open as prices are bid far beyond their market value. I’ve seen lots of both.
As mentioned above, Tiffany desk sets come in a variety of patterns. About 20 all told. And those patterns have a number of subsets. For instance, the “Etched Metal and Glass” has subsets of “Pine Needle” and “Grapevine”.
And both subsets of Pine Needle and Grapevine can have either green and white or tan and white (often called “caramel”) colored glass, with varying degrees of both to include almost pure green, pure tan, or pure white. On rare occasions, other colors crept in as the Tiffany glassmakers intentionally took advantage of impurities in the glass to add color.
Adding to the complexity, the Etched Metal and Glass bronze came in two colors — a standard bronze and a shiny gold-colored bronze — but because it was in production for over 20 years, the finish and constitution also changed over time.
Similarly, the other patterns had a number of variations. Some more than others. The Zodiac pattern reportedly had 12 different finishes!
So it is a rich catalog to sort out, and time and artistic license result in innumerable and beautiful variations. At this point, it is all but impossible to build a set because of all the variations over time.
Which leads to another aspect I like about these pieces: With one qualifier, imitations and fakes are few and far between and when they do pop up they are generally easy to spot. These products are difficult to replicate, given the variety of pieces, and pricing that runs for most of them from ~$500 to a few thousand dollars (depending upon rarity and how well preserved it is), it is hardly worth a criminal’s time to set up a bronze production facility.
The one exception is some low volume of contemporary pieces that were made under contract for Tiffany at the time. They are invariably inferior looking pieces that make you wonder why L. C. Tiffany even allowed it. …something I probably should go research more thoroughly.
In all events, the store is open. It will remain a modest operation, but a pleasant diversion when I want to tinker with my tiny Tiffany collection. Frankly, it took more work than I anticipated over the last three months, and on top of working 60+ hours a week and being a husband and father of four, has sucked down 90% of my writing time of late. Hopefully, I can get back to it soon.
Kira and IrSaa are waiting…and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance….