Click here to subscribe to M.A.D.

Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach, Florida

Fun in the Sun

by Fran Kramer

What do most people do on a Florida vacation? Disney and beaches. Universal Studios and beaches. Cape Kennedy and beaches.

What do antiquers do, especially reporter/antiquers? Well, you will not be surprised when we say that before and after our Caribbean cruise we did not go to Disney, Universal, or the Cape. We went to two antiques shows.

One, conveniently, was at a facility adjacent to the Fort Lauderdale cruise terminal, known as Port Everglades, but we didn't see anyone else at that show pulling around suitcases. The 2006 Fort Lauderdale Antiques World show on January 6-8 was one of 20 shows in 2006, mainly in Florida and Illinois with two others in Memphis and Palm Springs, managed by longtime show promoters Dolphin Promotions, members of PSMA. New owner Rosemary Krieger bought the business from Bob Smith about two years ago. Smith died in October 2005. Krieger had been his assistant for the past 25 years, working from her Illinois location.

The show was the first of the major annual winter season of shows on the strip, the area from Fort Lauderdale to Miami Beach. With about 75 exhibitors from Canada, the Midwest, the South, New York, and, of course, Florida, the show attracted about 3500 U.S. and international buyers. A couple from Germany walked in with us. They were looking for fishing lures.

We did not see any fishing lures, but we did see silver, ceramics, jewelry, art, decorative items, some furniture, and guns. Many of the exhibitors had been doing the show for years, like Edward D. Becker Jr. of Fayetteville, New York. His shop is called Colony Shop Antiques & Art, and it has been in business since 1926. Becker took over about 22 years ago, so he was a good one to ask about the current market.

"I adjust by being less speculative in buying, accepting lower profit margins, and paying greater attention to my customers. I do not specialize, so as to appeal to a wider audience," he said.

Sounds like some good advice. And he told M.A.D. that dealers at shows who do have their noses in a book or their eyes on a TV screen need to pay attention to the show patrons. More good advice. One positive thing about today's antiques market, he added, was that a lot of the dregs have been weeded out-the speculators.

Most exhibitors agreed there is no guarantee these days for hot sales. It's hit and miss, said one dealer. Some categories, however, seem to be popular. Art is selling, said a formal furniture dealer. Black Forest stuff is doing well, said Jonathan Daniels, whose antiques company, Daniels Antiques, Hallandale, Florida, and Aspen, Colorado, proclaims they have the world's largest collection of Black Forest carvings.

"I sold Chinese items, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European furniture," said Ed Becker of the Colony Shop.

According to Gordon Merkle, media director for Dolphin Promotions, "Fine jewelry was selling as well as decorative accessories like mirrors, lamps. Also paintings did very well. I noticed a change in general for our Fort Lauderdale shows. It used to be that the Miami area was more for the decorative look, and Fort Lauderdale was more traditional, that is, period furniture and accessories. But now, with a great influx of Latin American buyers, who seem to want to put their money into tangible items like jewelry, we are seeing the Fort Lauderdale shows looking more and more like our Miami venues."

The second show we went to (actually the third major one of the season) was the mega, mega Original Miami Beach Antique Show, January 19-23, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The show is controlled by dmg world media, a multinational company. Its Web site gave us information about its 30 offices worldwide, from Dubai to New Zealand, and its 45 publications. They produce more than 300 shows, fairs, and exhibits about things ranging from chemicals, coatings, and commodities to art and antiques.

The convention center was one of the most antiques-user-friendly venues we have ever seen, featuring convenient parking, carpeting over the concrete floors, no stairs, excellent lighting, and wide aisles. Food was sold not only in the concession area but in the middle of some very long aisles. The smell of hot nuts and flavored coffee made an interesting combination.

All of these creature comforts were essential because the show had over 1000 dealers. You know the saying "you only go around once." Who could go around this show twice? Even many of the dealers rented motorized carts from the management.

The 44th annual show was glitzy glamorous with over-the-top merchandise, oversize everything, ranging from chandeliers to statuary and hundreds of jewelry dealers. About 20 dealers were listed as having reproductions and new jewelry.

One (yes, that's one) dealer offered American formal period furniture, while the other 999 showed European, South American, and Chinese furniture, accessories, and art. That was not surprising, since dealers came from London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Vienna, etc. Even the dealers from Pennsylvania (land of toys and frakturs) brought heavy decorative items.

Upstate New York dealers, such as Kelly Schultz of Clarence, near Buffalo, were elated with sales, primarily before the show opened. "I can buy right at home and then sell a lot here. It's the only show I do," he told M.A.D. Another New York state dealer, David Zabriskie of Fayetteville, near Syracuse, also did well and has exhibited at the show for years.

Some of the South American dealers, mostly from Buenos Aires, seemed to be selling and were happy to find some of their larger items moving. Filling and sending a container from the port of Buenos Aires to the port of Miami is expensive enough without having to send it back again. Edmondo Crimi of Best of France Antiques, Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania, has done the show for about ten years. He averages 45 sales a show.

What was hot? Tiffany, jewelry, Chinese, and anything showy and enormous, like giant mirrors, chandeliers, Oriental rugs, and garden furniture. Not only are the Chinese buying up their past (and they do not want American antiques), young American buyers think Oriental objects are cool. A boyfriend of Jacqueline Battagelo, media assistant at Cece Feinberg public relations, who did the PR for the show, told her he wanted samurai swords.

The color 62-page show catalog was filled with ads and offered a floor plan plus names and locations for all exhibitors.

For more information about Dolphin Promotions, call (708) 366-2710 in Illinois or (954) 563-6747 in Florida; Web site (www.dolphinfairs.com). For more information about dmg world media, see (www.dmgworldmedia.com).