“I Have One Just Like It, Except…”

I stepped onto our deck a few minutes before noon on Sunday morning and announced to Leigh Ann that a Gustav Stickley library table had just sold for $396,500.

She looked up from her most recent issue of “Garden & Gun.”

“Was it like one of ours?”

I wish.

It takes several factors to drive the price of a library table to nearly four hundred thousand dollars, starting with:

Rarity.

Condition.

Provenance.

Add to that a few more:

Documentation.

Motivation, and, of course,

Qualified Buyers to engage the competitive spirit.

Any envy I might have had for either the seller or the buyer of this table or any of the other 32 pieces of furniture that came from La Hacienda was quickly erased by a sigh of relief for the Arts & Crafts furniture market.

While last Sunday’s auction results are not going to drive up the prices for the ordinary, mass-produced and slightly beat-up Stickley library tables I use here in my office, they serve to validate the collecting not just of early Stickley furniture, but of Arts & Crafts pieces in general.

While the Arts & Crafts market suffered along with the rest of the collecting world during the recession and its lingering aftermath of uncertainty, our enthusiasm for anything and everything Arts & Crafts never waned.

What we enjoyed receiving today was a reassurance that the pieces we have purchased, the pieces we live with every day, and the pieces we continue to collect are not destined to follow the path lit by such fading comets as Hummel figurines, pressed-back oak chairs or commemorative postage stamps.

Arts & Crafts has a heritage, a history and a value, and even if it is not always $396,500, we take comfort in knowing that others recognize and appreciate the same qualities of design and craftsmanship that has transported each of us onto our own little journey.

Until next Monday,

Have a great week!

Bruce