Asian
Antiques & The Economic Crisis
By
John Neville Cohen
With such
an awesome economic crisis worldwide, many of us naturally wonder
how this is affecting the antique and art market. This is
a question that understandably concerns all collectors who might be
considering buying or selling.
But
history has shown that whenever the financial economy has been
really bad, whether caused by recession, or inflation, fine quality
rare antiques have not only retained value but have remained in very
high demand. The Asian antique market, as well as other good
quality antiques and works of art, during financial slumps have
tended to remain safe and even continued to increase in value.
The
antique auction rooms have reported, that so far, they continue to
be very busy. There has
always been and probably always will be, new collectors interested
in owning high quality works of art.
But the best Asian antiques have done particularly well, as
there are such limited numbers of rare quality items available and
such a very large growing demand.
The Chinese in China having become
wealthier and are very keen to collect, or invest in, fine examples
of their own heritage. The result is a growth of new antique
auction houses all over China (many of these sell huge numbers of
antiques, thousands at each auction, so much more than is normal in
Europe or America). But added to this many of the Chinese
outside China have become extremely wealthy too and they have added
to this growing demand for the scarcest important Asian antiques
whenever offered worldwide.
The Internet too has been partly
responsible for creating an even greater interest, introducing new
collectors, or investors, from countries such as China, Russia and
India. It is now possible to so easily study photographs and
price guides, at the Internet auctions held frequently, as well as
to check with dealers, who have an online presence, enabling growing
numbers to keep an eye on the marketplace and current values.
These are some of the reasons for
prices continuing to rise and for the large number of new record
auction prices that have been achieved even over the last twelve
months.
The media always concentrates on the financial bad news and
there is hardly ever any mention of these record prices that keep
surprising us all.
No one can guarantee what will happen
in the future, but provided the following guidance is taken, then
any of the risks involved in buying antiques will be greatly
reduced.
-
Study
the subject carefully, obtain advice and be sure you are really
interested and enjoy whatever you decide to collect.
-
Only
purchase the very highest quality that you can afford.
High quality is far more important than quantity.
-
Buy
from the most reputable of specialists, as they will be prepared
to guarantee the authenticity, the age and possibly even the
provenance.
Regardless
of any financial turmoil the best and most important antiques, or
works of art, have always in the past remained a stable form of
investment that continued to rise.
John
Neville Cohen: An international award winning photographer
who also became a well known Asian antiques collector and an
enthusiast of Jensen British classic cars.
Other interests are skiing and Salsa dancing.
The author has been a very keen
collector for many years in helping to create ‘The Cohen
Collection’.
Please have a look at: - https://www.jncohen.com
To see other articles, with
photographs, please use the following link: https://www.jncohen.com/Articles/articles.htm
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Keywords: Economic crisis, Bank crisis, breaking records, Asian antiques, Auctions, recession, record auction prices, Antique collectors, investing, financial economy, inflation,
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