PRICE TRANSPARENCY

The need for transparency is dependant on the activity of those within the trading market and those looking at opportunities of joining or buying from the same. The EC directive Price Marking Order (PMO) 2004 provides protection for those purchasing from the retail industry. [35] This Statutory order excludes antiques that are aged 100 years or more [36] .

‘Option 2 There are arguments for exempting arts and antiques, vending machines and small retailers. It is not considered that exempting arts and antiques will reduce the overall level of benefits of the proposal significantly below those of option 1. Arts and antiques are not currently required to display a final selling price (unit pricing is irrelevant for these products). Generally, prices for such products are not readily comparable; they are also often reached through negotiation rather than being fixed sums.

There will be a reduction in the benefits associated with the introduction of the directive if small retailers and, to a lesser extent, if vending machines are exempt. It is not possible to quantify this reduction in benefit, but clearly the more small retailers that are exempt the lower the benefits.’ [37]

The translation of the PMO in relation to antiques varies across a small selection of trading standards offices. Enforcing the order may be dependant on their experience and the use of experts to translate the DTI’s definition of antiques and that of the seller. The order will offer some form of transparency across dealers in second hand goods by the inclusion of prices shown on all goods displayed.

The world of financial markets has become an open book with a number of service providers looking after the requirements of the individual. These services [38] offer the ability to research a complete series of events, volume traded, volume available and activity over a period of time and the price per unit. The financial market tends to look at the Art as a whole perhaps comparing it directly to its own practices. [v] Made up of a number of components with movers and shakers, as well as a whole host of niche markets these frequently cross. Analyst view the art and antiques market as one unit defining these collectors as a single demographic group. [39] This may be assisted by the popular presses portrayal of purchases made in the millions by individuals supporting the museums or for tax reasons. The second hand portable goods industry has a number of niches that create even smaller markets within these niches.

Volumes of Objects in the Market

Unlike the financial market there is no known single source of information available to browsers in the market. The majority of those active within the second hand goods market deliver messages of being the most comprehensive. On investigation the volume of objects traded could be in excess of 10 million per annum [vi] .  The three largest information providers Antiques Trade Gazette website, eBay and Invaluable provide a return for the number of objects placed in auction. Go Antiques site offer 110,095 Antique objects from North American and European dealers [40] . At first sight those with the largest count of lots or objects for sale would assume to have the most coverage.

The above figures show the aforementioned service providers and the available information on there respective websites as of the 8 May 2004 at 10:50 am. Invaluable displaying 90,000 more than any other on a global basis and almost matching eBay’s UK antique section. Invaluable Group UK figures at 39,174 on a random sample included those from the three major London names along with their satellite offices within the UK and Northern Ireland. Removing these from the total reduces their figure to 13,892. Whilst the Antique Trade Gazette only holds lots for Sotheby’s Olympia reducing their available data to 16,481 [41] . Both companies on average have maintained a similar amount of data for the last three months. The market share of the three major London names [42] has increased from 28 percent in 1995 in excess of 60 per-cent at this time.

Based on the information given by the DTI and Department of Heritage [43] it shows that the auction market [44] contributes 25 percent of the second hand portable goods. The average number of objects in one lot is 3.76 [45] . The combined trade of auction houses, dealers and over activities, places approximately15 million objects each year [46] onto the market. Realised and hammer prices gathered show that the average number of lots sold has increased from 51 per-cent [47] in 1994 to around 64 per-cent [48] in 2002 [49] . Catalogue images have increased from 12 per-cent [50] in 1995 to 30 per-cent for Invaluable. No comparison for the same period for the Antique Trade Gazette with 47 per-cent of their lots having related images at sample date.

The DTI and Department of National Heritage state that 50% of the markets trade is between dealers. It did not clarify how many of these objects were sold to the end user [51] . The assumption is that 7.5 million lots are inter-trade activities, a further 1.75 million [52] may be offered on eBay’s antique section. This would reduce the total by 6.5 million and delivering 7.2 unique million objects onto the market each year [53] .