When I wrote my first edition of: Antique Secrets
How the Pickers Find Treasure in Another Man’s Trash (ISBN 0-87341-722-4). I went to a local large antique mall store, and showed it to the owner. I asked if they could sell some copies there. She looked through the book and started to get a little belligerent with me! She said “I do not want any of my people or customers even knowing about this stuff!” I asked her if she wanted a copy, and she was too mad, and walked away. The book has been reprinted by the publisher as Picker’s Bible: How To Pick Antiques Like the Pros
ISBN 978-1-4402-3039-4
I thought maybe I might take a copy back in there and show her… Nah!
We have many books about antique glass and ceramics and other collectibles. I think that your local antique dealer is very close minded and short sighted. She doesn’t realize that the more we all know, the more fine antiques and collectibles will be found by pickers and what we like to call book scouts. This seems to be an American way to reuse and recycle and to rescue rare collectors items from dumpsters and trash dumps. The antique dealers that run these antique malls for pickers and dealers should buy and provide these pickers each with a copy of the Pickers Bible. They will learn how to find more and better items for their cases and booths in the antique mall. These individual people (thousands and thousands of them) are out there finding better items than what you see on Pawn Stars or American Pickers or Auction Hunters or Storage Wars!
Besides, pickers find many items for resale in the actual antique mall stores too!
Your dealer needs to embrace any and every way to educate their internal and external customers. I also think that a few enterprising estate sale companies should buy the Pickers Bible and have them for sale at the checkout table. A large percentage of their customers are pickers and if they instruct them better, they spend more money. My main goal is to protect history by discovering more of our important antique heritage. Yeah pickers!
I just ordered Pickers bible from amazon. I wish I could find a way to have a career that incorporates my Accounting degree and my picking obsession.
As a picker, I wish I was an accountant sometimes! Perhaps you could obtain a client that has an antique mall. You could keep the books. You would also know which dealers in the mall are doing the best, and learn why they are so successful. You could get first look at stuff as it comes in. I am sure you could trade for items you want by helping some of the dealers with their accounting needs, or consulting. If you were a real estate agent, it would be perfect. I know of estate sale companies that will set up for a weekend sale in a vacant home that is on the market, because they have a lot of inventory to sell off. They partner with the realtor, the realtor gets exposure by more people seeing the place, everyone wins. If you are a good accountant, you are clever. Just look for opportunities, and be resourceful. Good Luck!