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In Praise of Amber – The Gold of the North

In Praise of Amber - The Gold of the North

Before there was Lucite, Plexiglas, Bakelite or Celluloid, there was amber.  In many ways it is the original thermoplastic – nature’s precursor to the age of modern luxury materials.  Every synthetic plastic that mankind has developed since has been a poor attempt to rival the natural, honey-colored perfection of amber.

And oh, what a plastic amber is.  The golden-yellow gemstone is warm to the touch and extraordinarily light.  With a specific gravity of only 1.05 to 1.09, it is hardly denser than water.  In contrast, most other gemstones – although glittering and beautiful – can seem cold and aloof.  But this is not so with amber.  Instead, it has an inner glow that reflects the best emotional qualities of humanity – welcoming, cheerful and warmhearted.  Perhaps that is why it has so fascinated people across the ages.

Amber typically ranges in color from a light lemon-yellow to a vibrant honey-gold to a deep, reddish black.  The most prized colors for gem quality pieces are a bright, golden yellow or an intense, cherry red.  But a very rare blue variety of the gem found in the Dominican Republic is also quite desirable.  Amber can be opaque, translucent or perfectly transparent, depending on the distribution and number of tiny air bubbles in the stone.

While often referred to as fossilized, amber is technically the partially oxidized, polymerized resin of certain species of ancient, extinct trees.  This treasured, organic gem can range from 2.5 million years old to an almost unimaginable 320 million years old.  However, most gem quality material is usually 25 to 40 million years old.  Due to its sticky origins as ancient tree resin, it also isn’t uncommon to find small insects, plants and even tiny animals, like lizards, frogs or snails, perfectly preserved in amber nodules.

This amazing phenomenon gives scientists and collectors alike an unprecedented window back in time tens of millions of year.  These unbelievably detailed fossils trapped in transparent gold burst into popular culture during the 1990s with the debut of the movie Jurassic Park.  The movie, adapted from the book of the same name by bestselling author Michael Crichton, depicts the cloning of dinosaurs from DNA derived from mosquito fossils trapped in amber.

The warm, golden hue of this organic gemstone has been coveted by man for thousands of years.  In fact, amber has been excavated from northern European archeological sites that are over 10,000 years old.  Its most important historical source in ancient and medieval times was the south Baltic coast, on the shores of present day Poland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  Because of this, amber has traditionally been known as the “Gold of the North”.

Demand for the glowing gem was so high in the ancient Roman Empire that an extensive trade network developed to move large quantities of the Gold of the North from the Baltic region to the Mediterranean Basin.  Due to its distant source, many myths surrounding the precious golden gem and its origins sprang up in the ancient world.  For example, some ancient Greeks romantically believed that amber was the liquid rays of the setting sun, condensed into a perfect, golden gem.

Amber was also considered a gem with powerful magical properties in ancient times.  This was at least partially attributable to its propensity to easily acquire a static charge, causing it to attract small fibers of cloth or shreds of paper.  In fact, our modern word for electricity is derived from the ancient Greek term for amber – “elektron”.

The Gold of the North continued to be highly prized by the wealthy and powerful throughout the medieval period.  By the 13th century, the crusading Teutonic Order, having captured much of the Baltic region from its pagan inhabitants, promptly enforced a total monopoly on its trade.  The late medieval demand for rosary beads coupled with the Teutonic Order’s monopoly on amber production helped make the Baltic region fabulously wealthy during this time.

European craftsmen in the countries surrounding the Baltic coast became experts at working the treasured material.  The greatest of their creations was undoubtedly the Amber Room.  As the name implies, this was an entire chamber of sumptuously carved amber panels backed with mirrors and gold leaf to increase their reflectivity.  This magnum opus was created from over 13,000 pounds (6 metric tons) of the finest Baltic amber by the master craftsman of the Danish court, Gottfried Wolfram, and two additional master carvers from the city of Danzig, in the Kingdom of Poland.

Although originally commissioned in 1701 by Frederick I of Prussia for his wife, Sophie Charlotte, the Amber Room was given to Russia’s Peter the Great in 1716 as a gift to seal an alliance.  For centuries this masterpiece was widely considered the Eighth Wonder of the World until it was looted from the Soviet Union by the Nazis during World War II.  Tragically, the Amber Room was either destroyed or lost in the German city of Konigsberg (the modern Russian city of Kaliningrad) at the end of the war in early 1945.

Amber is truly an amazing substance.  At once lustrous and mellow, it radiates an inviting warmth absent from other, inorganic gemstones.  Is it any wonder that man has cherished the soft glow of the Gold of the North since he first discovered it upon the shores of the Baltic Sea so many millennia ago?

A Good Hardwood Box Is Hard to Find

A Good Hardwood Box Is Hard to Find

I have a bit of an obsession with fine hardwood boxes.  I think this infatuation might be an extension of my interest in all things small, beautiful and precious.  After all, if you own a magnificent piece of antique jewelry, a fine vintage wristwatch or a stunning ancient coin, it is only natural to want to store such a treasure in a container worthy of its grandeur.  And the most laudable boxes I have found are those expertly crafted from temperate or exotic hardwoods.

There are a lot of very fine hardwoods out there in the world, and most of them have been made into wonderful boxes at one time or another.  Walnut, cherry, hard maple and oak are the premier North American hardwoods.  These species produce exceptionally beautiful timber that resonates with both traditional elegance and a rich history.

But my heart is reserved for the alluring grain patterns and sheer otherworldly beauty of exotic hardwoods.  The word “exotic” is a catchall term that usually refers to tropical hardwoods, but in reality can mean any hardwood not originating from a temperate climate.  Mahogany, ebony, rosewood, teak and purple heart are just a few of the nearly countless varieties of fine exotic hardwoods.  As a general rule, exotic hardwoods are more expensive than temperate hardwoods, although there can be exceptions to this precept.

There is something incredibly special about holding a fine, handmade hardwood box in your hands.  The way the flawless joinery seamlessly welds disparate pieces of the most precious woods on the planet into a single functional object is magical.  The swirling, irregular grain and subtle, natural tones of exotic hardwoods are unparalleled among natural or synthetic substances.

I have relentlessly stalked antique shops, flea markets, church bazaars and online sales venues alike searching for the perfect wooden box.  And do you know what I’ve discovered?  There are a lot of wooden boxes out there, but very few are really, truly fine.  In fact, the very best hardwood boxes are incredibly scarce.

On the other hand, poor quality, cheap wooden boxes are everywhere.  They are exported in quantity from sweatshops in China, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and many other third world nations.  These miserable boxes are invariably made with veneers, plywoods and other inferior materials in order to keep costs down.  And because they are mass produced, close examination will always reveal the shortcomings of their careless, shoddy construction.

A truly fine hardwood box is simply a world apart from these base imitations.  A high quality wooden box is lovingly hand-fabricated with the greatest care.  The edges always match up perfectly, with no misalignment.  The solid brass hinges are usually partially hidden, sunken flush with the surrounding wood.  And the best of the best are often signed by the artist who created them.  And make no mistake, like any work of art, exceptional hardwood boxes are created by artists.

But the wood is the star of the show.  A skilled woodworker showcases the figured grain and intriguing tones of a fine hardwood, letting the natural attributes of the wood accentuate the design.  In fact, the best hardwood boxes almost never use stained wood; they don’t need to.  Instead they rely on stunning natural burl, spalted or figured woods to engage the observer visually.  Nature dons its own exquisite raiment.

The very finest hardwood boxes are true works of art.  In fact, they even rise to the level of an objet d’art – a precious, expertly crafted receptacle to store and protect the physical objects you treasure most.  Regardless of whether they are created from true Cuban mahogany, river red gum burl or honey mesquite with a live edge, a finely crafted hardwood box is worth every penny of its cost.

Intrinsic Value and Antiques

Intrinsic Value and Antiques

Intrinsic value is a somewhat controversial topic in the investing world.  For example, I have read a surprising number of investment articles that offhandedly claim that “gold has no intrinsic value.”  I’ve found this viewpoint to be rather odd.  After all, if gold has no intrinsic value, then what in the world does?  Dictionary.com defines the word intrinsic as “belonging to a thing by its very nature.”  This isn’t a bad starting point, but isn’t perhaps as self explanatory as we would prefer it to be.  In any case, what follows are my musings on the meaning of intrinsic value and how it specifically applies to the art and antiques market.

In my opinion, intrinsic value always applies to raw materials that can be recycled or reused.  Metals most obviously fall into this category.  A copper pipe can easily be melted down and fabricated into copper wire or copper roof trim.  But other materials can be reused too, although none can be recycled with as much ease or as little waste as metals.  Wood, for example, can often be salvaged from its original application and, with some processing, be repurposed into flooring, furniture, structural members or any number of other applications.  In fact, there is a thriving industry in reclaiming and reusing old wooden structures like barns or log homes.  Precious stones, too, can be recycled.  In medieval times it was common for a gem to be pried out its original setting and then remounted.  Sometimes the same gem would effortlessly and inevitably don a new, stylistically current setting every century or so, for hundreds of years in a row.  And high quality gems are largely treated the same way today, their settings changing regularly with the whims of fashion.

However, just the mere fact that a material can be recycled does not truly confer intrinsic value in my opinion – at least not when talking about antiques.  For example, both glass and paper can be recycled, but no one really thinks of these materials as possessing intrinsic value.  I think that when talking about antiques there is a minimum monetary value that a recyclable material must attain before it can meaningfully have intrinsic value.  I believe this value – admittedly arbitrarily set – is approximately $1 per pound or $2 per kilogram.  Setting the minimum value bar here grants intrinsic value to the artistically important copper alloys while excluding iron, aluminum, lead and other, more plebeian metals.

So materials in the art world that possess intrinsic value can be broken down into three broad categories.  Please note that the lists of materials I’m going to give here are obviously abbreviated and are not complete or exhaustive in any way.  First are the metals: platinum, gold, silver and the copper alloys.  Then there are gemstones like ruby, emerald, tourmaline, garnet, etc. and decorative stones like jade, agate, malachite and lapis lazuli.  Lastly, I would include fine woods like mahogany, teak, rosewood, walnut and cherry.

When applied to the world of art and antiques, we find that some items naturally have a very high intrinsic value – like a platinum and diamond tiara – while others have little intrinsic value – like a bronze sculpture – and yet others have no intrinsic value at all – like a painting.  Now art or antiques do not have to possess intrinsic value in order to be desirable.  But, by the same token, art often employs the finest materials at hand and these are often blessed with intrinsic value.  All else being equal, a work of art rendered in an intrinsically valuable substance should be more desirable – and hence worth more – than that same work rendered in a common material.  And this should even be the case when prices are adjusted for the market value of the intrinsically valuable material used.

So a sculpture cast in solid gold should be innately more appealing to most collectors that the same sculpture cast in bronze, even if their artistry and workmanship are equal.  The price difference between these twin sculptures of gold and bronze should be more than just the difference between the melt value of their respective metals.  In other words, there should be a premium applied to the price of a work of art or antique produced from intrinsically valuable materials.  Now the size of that premium is very much up for debate.  But regardless of whether you are a connoisseur or an investor, it is prudent to spend some time thinking about intrinsic value and how it potentially impacts your art and antique purchases.

The Investment Advantage of Seasoned Antiques

The Investment Advantage of Seasoned Antiques

When I was young I used to play an unusual game at my grandparent’s house.  They lived in a stately, old, brick Victorian built in 1912 that was stuffed full of antiques.  I used to go into a room at random and imagine myself going back in time.  My first stop was the year 1950.  Now I would ask myself what items made after 1950 would disappear from the room and what items made before 1950 would remain?  Now, still standing in the same room, I would imagine that I had gone back even further in time to 1900.  What would be left in the room and what would disappear?  I would repeat this process until I had mentally time traveled back to the early 19th century.

This odd little game actually gives surprisingly deep insights into the natural process of physical attrition and how it relates to the antique industry.  Even in my grandparent’s house, which was packed full of antiques of all types and descriptions, the Civil War era (circa 1865) was a watershed.  My grandparents owned many, many post 1860s antiques.  But, if you were to go back in time before 1865, the number of surviving items in a given room dwindled to just a handful.  For example, there may only be a single piece of furniture, a simple stoneware jug and perhaps a pressed glass bowl – all of them pre Civil War era.  Everything else in the room would be post 1865.

These childhood observations have wider implications for the world of antiques.  While items from before the 1860s are truly scarce, even surviving late-Victorian, post-1860s antiques aren’t particularly common.  Time has done its wicked work all too well, scouring the world until only a fragment of our material heritage remains.  This process – the natural attrition of poorly made or low quality objects over time – is known as seasoning.  It strips away the faddish and the banal, leaving only the exceptional and enduring.  And as we move forward in the 21st century, it is increasingly apparent that early and mid 20th century items are also gradually but inexorably being winnowed by this never ending phenomenon.

All of these experiences lead to some important conclusions for antique investors and collectors alike.  Seasoning only happens slowly, over decades and decades of time.  A substantial amount occurs over the first 50 years of an object’s existence.  This amount of time more or less coincides with the definition of antique, meaning anything considered antique has already been seasoned to some extent.  After the first half century, seasoning progresses more slowly until the process is largely complete around 150 or 200 years.  So today, when we examine mid 19th century or earlier antiques, only the best of the best has survived.  Medieval and ancient items, having been seasoned for either hundreds or thousands of years, are rarer yet.  Shockingly few items survive from those periods – almost all of them remarkably durable.

One reason that antiques are often superior investments is precisely because they have been seasoned over almost unimaginable lengths of time.  Inferior items produced from subpar materials like cardboard, cheap base metals and low-quality woods or fabrics have tended to disappear over time.  These “bad” antiques – those that are cheaply-made, nondescript or stylistically average – have a smaller and smaller chance of avoiding the garbage heap as the decades wear on.  Families throw them out when they move or when older family members die.  Or they are destroyed in tragic natural disasters such as fires, floods and tornadoes.  Or they simply rust, mold or turn to dust from age and exposure.

So have confidence when you begin collecting fine antiques with an eye toward investments returns.  Whether perusing 18th century French bronze candelabra or ancient Minoan sealstones, only the finest specimens have survived the destructive effects of centuries of time.  The world will never have more antiques, only less from now until eternity.  This means that when you do buy a fine, century old antique, chances are very good that it will continue to reliably appreciate far into the future.