Love love love this quiz...what kind of collector are YOU

I came across this article while researching an awesome pewter statue I found by Mico Kaufman (it's worth $300 bucks, woohoo!)...anywho, I was so amazed at the accuracy of this quiz. I didn't realize how much of a mold I was made from, but I am the quintessential "nerdy antiquarian...subspecies Historian" according to my answers. Waddya know. The thing that made me giggle was the crack about ancestry.com because I'm OBSESSED with it and have traced my history back thousands of years with over 1800 people in my family tree. I'm ADDICTED to it and researching. It's ridiculous.

Comment back (on my website blog) and share your answers, We'd LOVE to see where YOU fit in!!!

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The Young Collector: A Field Guide to Collectors

by Hollie Davis and Andrew Richmond
We've been bandying the word "collector" around now for several months, but recently it has occurred to us that "collector" might mean different things to different people. When we started thinking about it, we realized that there are several species of collectors, and if we're to come to a meeting of the minds with young collectors today, we might need to do a better job of identifying and including collectors from all viewpoints. So we offer you a field guide to collectors and a simple quiz to help you figure out just what kind of collector you might be.
Question 1: You walk into an antiques show and see a very full booth. In one corner you notice a piece of cracked stoneware with unusual decoration and a mark you've not seen before. Your response is:
A. Walk on by. Stoneware is so passé.
B. Go back for a refund of your ticket. Cracked stoneware, what kind of show is this?
C. Snap it up. That maker only worked in Virginia for nine months!
D. Turn your attention to a pretty basket with nice paint.
E. Talk the dealer down in price. It'll make a nice lamp.
F. Buy it. It's only $50, and it'll probably fit in your garage.
Question 2: Which of the following most accurately describes your style of décor?
A. Last week folk art, this week painted regional furniture.
B. I don't mean to brag, but have you been to Winterthur?
C. 50% furniture, 50% bookshelves.
D. The polite word would be "eclectic," but your best friend would say "confused."
E. Martha Stewart would feel right at home.
F. Cardboard boxes, vintage and contemporary.
Question 3: With your "economic stimulus" check, you plan to:
A. Put a deposit on that piece at the local gallery from your new favorite Outsider artist. You don't want anyone else to get to it first.
B. Combine it with some savings for your next big Americana Week purchase.
C. Head to bookfinder.com. You've been waiting for a good copy of The Art and Mystery of Tennessee Furniture.
D. Decisions, decisions! You'd love to finally get a nice piece of Rookwood, but you've had your eye on a quirky Georgia cupboard for quite a while.
E. Stencil a border in the dining room and get new slipcovers for your furniture.
F. Head to the flea market! You can do a lot of damage with $600.
If you answered "A" to most of the questions above, you might be a trend collector. Trend collectors are always very hot. They are the marketplace darlings, they sit at the cool kids' table, and as far as they're concerned, weathervanes are so ten minutes ago. We're never sure if they are the first to follow the market or if the market is the first to follow them. Markings: brand-name clothing, designer bags, iPhones. In short, they're the people who wouldn't have talked to you in high school. Habitat: gallery openings and Internet cafés.
Big-game collectors might have answered "B" to these questions, and the marketplace loves them too, largely because they often have deeper pockets than the rest of us. They approach collecting the way a big-game hunter approaches a safari; they employ guides and experts, and then they go after the very best objects available. They differ from trend collectors because trending doesn't affect what they buy, just the price they may have to pay for it. You'll often find them competing for the classics, such as Chippendale furniture, Colonial silver, or old master paintings. Markings: experts on speed dial, large wallets, great stuff. Habitat: you'll find big-game collectors all over, but their migration patterns usually place them in Manhattan in January.
If they aren't careful, trend and big-game collectors can lose their cool and become antiquarian collectors. If you answered "C" to most of the questions, you could be an antiquarian collector. The antiquarian collector is probably the closest to the stereotype of an antiques collector. They are the nerds of the marketplace, too bookish to be popular, despite the fact that they are responsible for most of the nuts and bolts that drive the marketplace. Antiquarians research, document, catalog, analyze, preserve, and organize. They dig up fabulous finds that then often find their way into the collections of folks with more financial resources.
Antiquarians are actually represented by two subspecies: academics and historians. Academics are what we call the folks who are fascinated with the history of the production of a certain object. They are the collectors who know about furniture joining techniques and the process of creating vegetable dyes; the ones who make connections based on the application pattern of glue blocks.
Historians are similar, but their passion is driven by an interest in people. They're happiest when they have a name that allows them to poke around in Ancestry.com or local historical societies. They tend to be attracted to pieces that bear strong evidence of their previous owners or have adaptations that speak volumes about the makers.
In the end, though, both subspecies of antiquarian collectors are object oriented and object driven. For them, it is all about the stuff and the history, and they'll buy even the most disreputable of objects if it provides the missing link in their research chain. Markings: discourses on variants of makers' marks, historical society memberships, stooped shoulders from hunching over microfilm machines. Habitat: museum basements and libraries.
While trend and big-game collectors are beloved by the marketplace and antiquarians are tolerated for their contributions to the market's forward momentum, controversy surrounds our remaining species of collectors. It is at this point that we begin to move beyond the pale in the minds of many.
The aesthetic collector, identified by "D" answers, occupies the fence between respectable collecting and the no man's land of flea markets. Aesthetic collectors aren't driven by trends or craftsmanship or history; they just like pretty things. Thomas Cole-esque landscapes? Beautiful! Tramp art boxes? Must have one! Bedraggled Steiff elephant? He's so sweet!
Aesthetic collectors like things that appeal to them visually, and they're not devoted to a particular time or place. They zero in on "pretty" with the intensity of a raccoon confronted with a piece of aluminum foil. Value is not the issue. Quality and condition can be considerations for aesthetic collectors, but design periods and styles don't hem them in. The aesthetic collector knows that pretty is what counts. Markings: art glass brooches, furry hats, Chippendale and Arts and Crafts in the same room. Habitat: anywhere that beautiful, sparkly things can be found.
Then there is the decorator collector. There is some discussion as to whether decorator collectors are just fledging aesthetic collectors, but in the name of complete coverage, we include them as a separate species. If you found yourself answering "E" to the questions above, you might be a decorator collector. Decorator collectors are outlet store versions of aesthetic collectors. They're going for a look, so reproductions, modern paint, and replaced anythings are fair game. The Pier Show or Pier 1, it's all the same to them. Markings: Chanel knockoffs, imposter colognes, chintz. Habitat: malls, antique or otherwise.
Finally, we come to the accumulator collector. If you're an accumulator, you probably saw yourself in the "F" answers. While the marketplace may largely ignore them, small auction houses adore them. They will always give you a five-dollar bid and are always willing to take the last box lot. Accumulators just like owning things, and many of them don't even need to see what they own. Perhaps it is the possibilities or the sheer volume that appeals to them, but accumulators are never done buying. The next box lot might contain an unimaginable treasure! Markings: unpacked boxes from the Eisenhower administration, bruised shins from navigating narrow paths through the kitchen, partial sets of 1987 World Book encyclopedias. Habitat: auctions, flea markets, and wherever bargains are to be had.
OK, so maybe we've been a little tongue in cheek, but we've done that for a couple of reasons. First, this is a business that is already perceived as being very serious. Folks outside the business (including young people) are often afraid to enter the realm because it appears to be all about money, scholarship, and connoisseurship. You feel as if you have to know so much to participate, and you don't even know what you don't know! Sometimes it seems as if we're taking ourselves entirely too seriously, and we try to combat that whenever we can. When you deal with objects that are often seen as old, stodgy, or stuffy, you have to inject a little levity into the process. This is, after all, supposed to be something we're advertising as fun. We could stand to make it look that way sometimes.
Second, we can take ourselves too seriously as collectors. We get locked into a particular mindset and may exclude people who don't have the same viewpoint as we have. That's not good for an open dialogue, and it is not good for a business that is in transition. We hear so much about the shortage of young collectors, but the antiques business may have to adjust to the fact that the young people out there today are different types of collectors. They may buy antiques, and we may have to be satisfied with that, even if they don't buy them for the reasons that we would prefer. Collecting is a passion, and passions are very individual, personal things.
At the end of the day, the whole thing is a little weird, isn't it? This obsession with buying old used objects, filling our homes with things that sometimes require us to adapt to them because they can't adapt to us, and just generally being fixated on objects with arbitrary and fluctuating values. It's not always sensible, regardless of the level or the quality of the merchandise.
One of our favorite aspects of this business is the individuals we meet-and we mean individuals in the true sense of the word. Odd personalities, colorful characters, unusual interests, these are the stories that people tell-the aspect of collecting that makes the process memorable, and the part of the antiques business that creates that sense of community we all love. We're an industry that loves and embraces eccentricity and quirks, in our objects and in our people, and we need to be aware that everyone doesn't have to do this for the same reasons. In the end it's all just stuff, and we're all just collectors.
We welcome ideas, tips, criticisms, and questions regarding "The Young Collector." Andrew and Hollie may be reached by e-mail at <youngcollectors@maineantiquedigest.com> or by writing The Young Collector, c/o Maine Antique Digest, PO Box 1429, Waldoboro, ME 04572.
© 2008 Maine Antique Digest