Chairs Bloody Chairs

What with Christmas coming around so quickly our restoration team have been swamped by customers needing chairs fixing .
The reason why is because very few people use the chairs for they have for the purpose there suppose to be used for .
Most people think a chairs just a chair but each one is designed to do a different job . Windsor chairs are for kitchens big solid mahogany for Dining and dainty chairs that are designed for the bedroom are are to be used as dressing table chairs .

This dressing room chair was used for party's and as you can see the legs for the rear have had to be replaced dues to Ponying around .

The real price of Antiques .

How do Antiques dealers justify there prices is a question that gets asked on Antique programmes on Tv but they never quite explain the way you break it down .

Say for instance we buy an item from an auction house for £80 youve got to add on the 20% premium then the 20% Vat so the items now standing you at £112 the auction house is 120 miles round trip thats £30 on petrol time to view including travel to make sure the items what it suppose to be 3 hours at £8 per hour £24 then 3hours plus petrol to go pick it up after purchase £30 + £24 then Photographing and advertiseing on the internet with descriptions 3 hours £8 per hour £24 .ontop of that the taxmans going to want his cut which is a good chunk of the profit .  Ok lets do some maths .

piece + premium +Vat =£112

Total time and petrol =  £108

Advertising                =  £  24

Taxman wants his cut = £ ???

So the items now standing us at £244 .you market the piece at £300 so you have a negotiation price then take £250 making £6 on the item and thats if it sells straight away if not you could be holding the item for years .

So remember next time you watch the Tv please remember theres alot of hard work that goes into the trade and the prices reflect that everyone in the trade like to haggle but i cant go into my local suppermarket pick up some milk take it to the counter and say " you want £1.50 for this what the lowest price you'll take " lol

Man flue !!!!!!

Now some of you women might be a bit scepticle as far as the dreaded " MAN FLUE !!!!" is concerned  well believe me it is very much a real condition that lays waste to a fella .
Having suffered from many ailments over the years man flue has to be the worst with a nose that constantly runs when talking to a beautiful woman , joints that ache which makes us do that old man noise when we bend over eyes that fill at the slightest breeze leaving us look like a hormonal 40 year old woman watching Titanic and of course a laugh that ends up sounding like an asphmatic seal which leads to a cough that even a Mountain sheep would be proud of  it isn't a good look and why oh why would any woman thing a man is putting it on ?
Sympathy is furthest from a Womans mind when her man is struck down , she just takes great pleasure in belittling him  infront of her friends and anyone she talks to whilst shopping in the local supermarket .
 That instinct to nurse and protect her man ! the provider , the giver of pleasure , the buyer of shots on a Saturday nights , the hanger of shelves and saint to all thats is being dragged from one bloody shop to another  that instinct is gone and those words of sympathy changes to " Well its not as bad as giving birth , you should try that sometime its like having your arm ripped of !!!! " .
I say "  if it was that bad love why did you do it again and again ??????? "

" HELP I'M POORLY !!!!!! "

League of nations :O)

The Antiques market seems to be changing every years , its as if there's a power shift where the big hitters change countries but the end result seems to be the same  .
70's - 80's the Americans , 80's-90's the Japanese , 00's-10's the Russians now it seems to be the Chinese.
There quest to find there heritage that was stolen by us in the west during the 19th century which seems to be relentless but its understandable and if you have the financial back up to support it then crack on , even our local Chinese restaurant is advertising after a bowl sold locally for £11,000 a few weeks back at an auction house that estimated it at £400-500 the market is unclear at the moment but since the Chinese market goes back for thousands of years then maybe we should expect it  .
Unlike the Americans back in the 80's the other big hitters seem to be trying to save there heritage where as the Americans who seem to be a culmination of nations rolled into one just bought for the sake of buying .

Fishing Trip

Yet another satisfied customer goes out of our door and with a big smile so we must be doing something wright .
Yesterday was spent chasing the game with the Antiques trade being very much like a fishing trip you have to make your bait as appealing as possible so you can land the biggest fish .
Unfortunatly sometimes your line get snapped but that never stops a good fisherman from casting out again , he just learns from it and dips his rod again .

Having viewed a so called " Special sale " yesterday i'm starting to think the word "SPECIAL " actually means crap that couldn't be sold in other sales,  for the 30% you end up paying for the premium + VAT i would have expected a lot more but maybe our standards have not slipped where as auction house's have :O(

Antiques In General: A little T.L.C

Antiques In General: A little T.L.C: When a customer moves home they phone us and ask us to move there Clocks for them which is all part of the service but not part of the serv...

A little T.L.C

When a customer moves home they phone us and ask us to move there Clocks for them which is all part of the service but not part of the service in that we have to do it , its part of the service that we like to do it .
So today we are on a road trip which includes Deliveries of Corner Cupboards , Buisness Meetings , Fixing clocks to walls ( which we always recommend ) , Viewing Special Sales ( Salerooms call Sales where the couldn't sell the stuff that they have first time around" Special Sales " ) and of course Lunch in a lovely little Italian that i Know in Chester .

                                                             "Happy Friday to you All " 

Evel Knievel.

Must admit over the years i found that life is very much like an evel knievel stunt bike toy ! The harder you winde, the faster you go, the more excited you get , the more likely it is to fall off the stand before you've pressed the trigger flying into the wall rather than the ramp of books you spent age's building , leaving your hopes dashed and feeling disappointed.
For me as i tell my children its how you react to these problems that's what defines you as a person most people see 2 ways around these problems 1st to throw evel into the bin 2nd to put evel back on the winder and go again in the hope you never feel the disappointment again !
 For me there's a 3rd to push the winder to one side and rev evel up by hand along the carpet till it's full charged then let it go flying over the ramp and down the stairs with my scream of joy and excitement trailing after it . ( not to worry he was wearing his crash helmet :O) ! )
So now its time to take on another day and see if we can over come all that's put before us .