Meet the British: The Antiques Dealer

Our humorous, tongue-in-cheek guide to British stereotypes. This week: The Antiques Dealer (Old School)
Meet-British-382The old-school antiques dealer (not the ones with an orange tan or those who sell junk on the Portobello Road) is your pukka aesthete and as close as someone can be to a Buddhist without actually being one. He is a lover of beauty, rarity, functionality and uniqueness, and during his 40 years of honest dealing he has seen prices go up and down as fashions change, so he knows that time makes fools of us all. His brusqueness when faced by a customer who thinks he is being ripped off, masks a deep sadness that his values have fallen out of fashion as eBay and the greedy who want to get rich quick have turned his passion into a sleazy game.

Margins have always been small but recently his two biggest overheads, shop rental and petrol, have doubled so he will soon be out of business. He has a sharp eye and a core of real knowledge. He is in it for the long haul, not a fast buck, and he is humble enough to acknowledge that he is still learning. In the future, when popular culture has grown weary of the quick-andeasy- profit mentality of the antiques programmes on TV, we will realise too late that knowledge and trust are priceless, but by then his skills and expertise will be long dead.

Characteristics
Reading material The Daily Telegraph, reference books on antiques.
Favourite TV programmes and films Inspector Morse, the cricket.
Heroes and role models Walter Scott, Winston Churchill, Robert Adam, Thomas Chippendale, René Lalique.
Most likely cause of death Stroke.
Favourite music Beethoven, Haydn, Schumann.
Ego issues Is so keen not to be pigeon-holed with the likes of antiques dealers with an orange tan that he misses out on fulfilling his potential.
Fears Moving big mirrors or creepy, ceramic dolls.
Likes Patina, true collectors, finding wonderful things, the buzz of doing the research.
Dislikes Dealers calling junk designed in the 1950s and 1970s ‘antique’, Antiques Roadshow, Cash In The Attic, Lovejoy, repairs and restorations, antiques dealers with an orange tan.
Earnings £25k.
Offspring Two grown-up children who have well-paid creative jobs outside of antiques.
Drives A Rover 75.
Most likely to say ‘Where did you get this?’

Taken from Calvert’s Guide To The British, Volume One: British Stereotypes In Order Of Social Rank, by John Calvert and Michael Powell, with illustrations by Tim Bulmer, published by That Company Called If, priced £20.