By JONATHAN LOPEZ
The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” For the habitually “lucky” antiques dealer at the heart of Maureen Stanton’s “Killer Stuff and Tons of Money,” preparation means cultivating a deep knowledge of objects—Shaker furniture, heirloom porcelain, 18th-century weathervanes—while opportunity results from meticulously examining tens of thousands of items every year at flea markets, auctions and antiques fairs. His sharp eyes spot unrecognized wonders amid a profusion of second-rate wares—much to the amazement of the author.
Ms. Stanton is an old college friend of the dealer—known throughout this narrative by the pseudonym “Curt Avery”—and he lets her tag along for several seasons as an unpaid assistant. A former high-school wrestler, Avery drifted through a series of odd jobs, including chem-lab technician, to follow a passion for treasure hunting. He began digging up old bottles in the woods and selling them to enthusiasts at fairs in the countryside and has spent nearly two decades buying, selling and occasionally regretting buying American antiques. Avery may prefer beat-up sneakers and baggy shorts to the usual professional apparel—he complains loudly when forced to wear a button-down shirt for an upscale Boston antiques show—but what he lacks in polish he makes up for in discernment.
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“What I’m learning from Avery is how much I don’t know,” Ms. Stanton writes early in the book. “The objects I pick up are usually fake, worthless, overpriced, or reproductions.” Her pose of hopeless ignorance lends an amusing if somewhat predictable structure to their interactions, as Avery brusquely provides instruction on the tricks of the trade, giving her—and the reader—an informal education in the world of antiques.
How can you spot modern plates and bowls masquerading as fine old china? Avery notes that originals develop characteristic wear patterns from being set on tables or stacked; fakes more often sport spurious “wear,” applied with sandpaper across the entire piece. How can you tell 17th-century Pilgrim furniture from 19th-century reproductions? The Pilgrims used hand-made nails—delicate, humble, irregular things, wrought on an anvil—while the nails on reproductions are almost always straight-cut items made by machine.
Ms. Stanton devotes an engaging chapter to the New England six-board blanket chest—an original American furniture type from the colonial era. The top, bottom and sides of European chests at the time were traditionally constructed of narrow boards joined together in panels. But in the New World, where virgin forests included trees 10 feet in diameter, a single board could be used for each of a chest’s constituent parts. As Ms. Stanton rightly emphasizes, the simple dignity and clean lines of the six-board chest—one of the few pieces of furniture in the average colonial household—constitute a precious visual legacy of this nation’s sober and austere heritage.
Equally fascinating is the book’s portrait of Avery’s day-to-day business. An itinerant midlevel dealer, he does not maintain a permanent retail establishment. Instead he sells most of his discoveries at antiques fairs, such as the renowned outdoor shows held each summer in the quaint Pennsylvania town of Brimfield. Packing, unpacking and transporting merchandise take up much of his time. Ms. Stanton cheerfully assists with this grueling work—Avery’s standard travel accommodations consist of a tent and sleeping bags.
But antiques also dominate Avery’s home life. Because of the frequent necessity of buying multi-item lots at auction to obtain a single desirable object—a typical job lot might contain 12 candlesticks, only one of which is important—Avery accumulates large amounts of low-end stock that he really doesn’t need. “The stuff in the house,” writes Ms. Stanton, “is like the plant in ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ growing and consuming and taking over slowly, year by year creeping from one room to the next, filling the two-car garage, then taking over the basement (a winding deer path to the washer), and filling a spare room.”
Occasionally, Avery will discover an item whose great rarity and fine state of preservation make it suitable for a more exclusive clientele than can be found at the average tent sale. He generally places these important finds in a well-advertised auction or sells them privately to a blue-chip dealer with direct connections to wealthy collectors—connections that Avery, strangely, makes little attempt to develop for himself.
Killer Stuff Tons of Money
By Maureen Stanton
Penguin Press, 326 pages, $26.95
His attitude toward the very rich seems, in fact, to fall between indifference and contempt; at times he flaunts this distaste for the antique market’s most coveted consumers almost as a badge of honor. “He has no desire to be the front man, mingling with wealthy clients,” Ms. Stanton notes. But she opts not to pursue this matter in greater depth. It is precisely the role of a great dealer to bring objects and people together in ideal pairings. Avery—who is intensely sensitive to objects but limited in his outlook on people—has condemned himself to the role of mere middleman.
Ms. Stanton enlivens her narrative with periodic departures into related topics of interest. We learn, for instance, how the rise of eBay eroded the value of many formerly sought-after antiques, as vast quantities of objects made their way out of people’s attics and onto the Internet. We see how taste-makers like Martha Stewart drive interest in items like old brass andirons, resulting in the production of mass-market imitations that give “the look” of antiques but lack the historical legitimacy of the real thing. And Ms. Stanton’s visit with a master forger of high-end antique furniture is absolutely riveting.
These detours add depth to the narrative, but the sheer volume of digressive material becomes a distraction, and Ms. Stanton struggles to identify a clear thematic, intellectual or narrative arc in Mr. Avery’s activities. Thatcher Freund’s excellent 1993 book, “Objects of Desire,” which Ms. Stanton cites with admiration, might have provided a model: Mr. Freund narrated the history of three valuable antiques, discussing their manufacture, historical use, rediscovery and eventual sale at auction. A similarly tight focus on a few incidents or objects might have helped Ms. Stanton eliminate some of the sprawl in “Killer Stuff.”
But perhaps it’s appropriate that a work about the antiques trade should include a bit of decorative clutter. Ms. Stanton captures the lower and middle echelons of the business with great skill, and her diverting and wholly unpretentious book makes a fine companion for a day at the beach—or a weekend spent treasure hunting at Brimfield.
—Mr. Lopez is editor at large of Art Antiques.
