Mixed lot

  "What do you do for a living?" is a question that I am often asked and it's one that I never really know how to answer.  I am an antique dealer but I trade generally too.  I am an auctioneer but that is just part of what I do.  Actually, I am not really sure how to ever answer that question without going into some depth.  Not that going into depth about the subject appears to put anyone off as whatever answer I give is usually met with intrigue.  On hearing that I am an antique dealer/auctioneer most people respond positively and then ask me to value a pot.  The public seem obsessed with pots, particularly Royal Doulton.  You are unlikely to see a significant windfall through the sale of a Royal Doulton pot.
  I've decided to keep an online diary about what I do; to remove the mystery.  It won't (I hope) be too difficult to maintain - I don't intend to write every day or to include everything that I do.  In the antique trade a 'mixed lot' contains a bit of this and a bit of that.  Some of the bits are dull and not worth mentioning: some of the bits are little gems.  Making it as an antique dealer is about finding those little gems. 
  Sunday was a difficult day, not helped by the fact that I had no sleep the night before.  An early start in a car that had the previous night been 'flour bombed' by local teenagers, meant that my colleague and I drove down to Banham car boot sale in what can only be described as a pancake.  We were buying though, not selling.  In our trade we say "Buy hard, sell easy": if you can buy the right thing at the right price then it is easy to sell it.  The hardest part of our job is buying.  It's the most fun too.
  I can walk along a row of stalls at a car boot sale and know instinctively when to stop.  It's a bit like speed-dating: one glance and I know whether or not I am interested.  Not that I have ever been speed-dating.  Fortunately, just a few stalls in and I found a 'proper' dealer.  Most antique dealers know one another and there are always a few at every car boot sale topping up their income by clearing out old stock.  I bought a few things including a super little Georgian snuff box in the shape of an old boot.  Snuff boxes are popular and I hope that it will sell quickly. I paid £25 for it - and I'll let you know what I sell it for when it goes.
  Honestly, I felt so tired on Sunday that it took all of my strength just to stay awake.  I was hungry too, but car boot sales don't generally offer the kind of food that does anything other than clog up arteries.  We decided to head for Fritton Lake, which hosts an indoor market on Sundays, without taking breakfast first.
  By the time we arrived at Fritton Lake it was late morning and I could (almost) have eaten road-kill.  As it happens, the food in the cafe looked a little bit like road-kill so I decided to make do with a bottle of Oasis. It was 2pm before we arrived back in Norwich and I was able to have a decent meal.  I had bought nothing at Fritton Lake.  It's not unusual to come away with nothing, but at least I had bought at Banham.
  One of the great things about doing what I do is that I can do it whenever I want to and not when someone else thinks I should do it.  So I gave myself the rest of the day off.
  Monday was similar to Sunday in that I decided to go on another buying trip.  I am particularly low on stock at the moment and can't make money if I haven't anything to sell.  My first stop was Key's Auction Rooms in Aylsham.   One quick look round, a quick chat with some of the regulars, and I left.  There was nothing of interest to me at all.  Not the best start.  Holt was my next stop and, as always, there was lots to buy in the little antique centres.  Lots to buy, but not much proft margin.  Still, I came away with a few bits including a pair of ornately decorated scissors that are probably Victorian. 
  Whilst in Holt I received two pieces of good news and one bad.  The first piece of good news was a call from a colleague in Norwich who wanted to put lots into our antiques auction this Thursday at St Andrew's Hall.  Was there still time, he asked.  There is always time I replied.  There's not always time though in life.  That's something I have learned this week.  We have to grasp every last bit of life there is before it is too late: a good man, a colleague and a gentleman dealer I heard yesterday, has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.  That was the bad news.  I only saw him a couple of weeks ago and he was fine.  Yesterday I heard that he is already relying on crutches. 
  The second piece of good news lifted my spirits: another dealer and more lots for the auction, followed by lunch at The Eagle on Newmarket Road in Norwich.  We stayed there most of the afternoon and laughed and cried and drank, swapping stories and identifying with what the other was saying.  Because you have to be an antique dealer to really understand what it is to be an antique dealer.  We work alone yet we rely on an extensive network of contacts.  Deals are made over drinks.  Lives are made and broken and shift constantly.  Our office is a jungle and only the fittest survive.
  Last night I left the melee to come home.  A few hours respite and it's back into the fray - we have The Cloisters Fair tomorrow and the auction in just two days. There is no time to breathe.