Treasures or Trinkets? Museum’s Appraisal Day Offers Answers
By Lauren Poster
Last Wednesday and Thursday, the Myrtle Beach Art Museum launched Art, Antiques, and Treasures Appraisal Day, meant to mimic the popular “Antiques Roadshow” series seen on PBS. Wednesday night the museum offered a lecture with fine art expert and broker Mark Alexander, a consultant whose work brings him into contact with such world-renowned auction houses as Sotheby’s and Christie’s. His lecture, entitled “A Spy in the House of Art: Confessions of a Fine Art Appraiser,” dealt with his training and experiences valuing and authenticating all fine art.
Thursday’s events were a little more lively. For a fee, museum patrons could come by with personal treasures, family collectibles and other mysterious items of a certain age to have one of several specialists evaluate approximate worth, as well as provide tips for care of the items. A silent auction took place where attendees could bid on items and services donated by local businesses, with winners to be announced at a reception later that evening.
Mark Alexander appeared to have a long line of people waiting to show their art, mainly print and paint pieces. The most traveled of the experts working the event, he had a bearing of eminence and prestige as he moved his magnifying glass over artworks, making frequent references to his work with large auction houses. However, his specific interest in the pieces directly in front of him was hardly evident. He was very informative concerning art appraisal in general, and threw out a dazzling panoply of industry terms, such as “it’s burned,” referring to a piece which has gone to auction and not sold. However, it seemed difficult to get him to make specific comments relating to the pieces on hand.
The slightly more down-to-earth Eleanor Pitts, a Pawleys Island jeweler and china dealer, was available to inspect items in her area of expertise. She noted that someone had brought in an “imari bowl, an oriental bowl in dark blue and rust colors,” which was of particular interest to her. And she was also taken with an old butter churn someone had brought in, although she was unable to appraise it personally.
One of the experts, a self-described member of a dying breed, was Bryan Wester, a local antiques dealer and “generalist.” Unlike many in the antiques trade, Wester is able to assess the worth of a range of items, having general historical knowledge of many broad fields from coinery to art, china, furniture and more. Most importantly, Wester, who owns Coast to Coast Antiques Gallery in Myrtle Beach, keeps his appraisals on the point: cold, hard cash value. With 26 years of experience in the industry, Wester, who began his career working at the old Antiques Mall on Highway 501, realized early on that he had an incredible memory for the snippets of information he would hear while watching the older experts work. “Everybody wants to specialize,” he said, “but me ... the challenge of dealing in different things means I don’t get bored.”
So what constitutes the difference between an “antique” and a “collectible?” Wester notes that “a purist will say anything produced before 1840 is an antique, but the technical definition is anything 100 years or older is antique.” But the interesting thing about all this is that often, just because something is old does not make it have worth. Sometimes age detracts from value. “It’s such a volatile market,” he said, and “without demand, these items are worth nothing.”
People often have more desire to own something to which they feel a personal connection, a “collectible” rather than a bona fide antique. According to Wester, the people who visited Thursday had items that were family treasures, and most probably don’t want to part with them, “they just want to know what they’ve got.”
And has he ever seen anything he felt compelled to crawl across the table with unbridled avarice and snatch? “No,” he laughed. “The most I’ll do is pass out a card.” Wester was quick to supply useful assessments to the visitors without a ghost of pretension, even going so far as to say “Oh, that’s cute!” upon seeing some Peking glass collectible statuary from the 1970’s.
All walks of life were represented at the appraisal, from people hoping to find they had hidden treasure to folks just wanting to know what the heck their junk was. The conversations overheard ranged from how the Kindle would revolutionize reading to how niceties have vanished from modern social interaction. Karen Olsen, a museum staffer, looked on while a lady offered her collection of Raggedy Anne and Peter the Rabbit books for appraisal. She laughed, recalling a night when her young son asked her randomly, after reading one of the tales of Peter, whether “lettuce made her soporific” or not. It is stories like these that give the items their value.
Millie Dougherty brought with her a World War II-era Japanese sword her father had acquired in a swap with a Chinese officer. Thinking it would increase the value, he had the sword plated with nickel, and Millie was disappointed to find it would have been worth much more than the $800 dollars it appraised for had he not done so.
Overall, the event was a success in the estimation of Cynthia Powell, a board member for the museum. “We’ve seen about 150 people today,” she said late in the afternoon. All of the proceeds go to continuing exhibits and art education outreach programs sponsored by the museum. Did she have any treasures to show today? “Yes, I had a coffee service from the old country (of Sweden). We Swedes are crazy about coffee.” Once again, it became obvious that when it comes to art, it’s all subjective.
The Myrtle Beach Art Museum has numerous events scheduled for the coming months, including the now-showing Apron Chronicles. Visit MyrtleBeachArtMuseum.org for more information and a list of upcoming events.
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