AUCTIONS, AUCTIONEERS, AND DEALERS
A justification of the method of selling rugs by auction has been offered
in many forms and phrases. It is perhaps best expressed somewhat thus:
Every number has a certain intrinsic value, and that is a basis price at
which it should sell. But beyond that it may have an extra value, which,
like beauty in general, is in the eye of the beholder. The beholder,
therefore, who sees a rug to covet it should name his own price for it. It
may be one of the specimens he lacks in his collection; it may fit this
corner or that. Anyway, it is worth more to him than to the lower bidder.
Incidentally, the seller and the auctioneer gain the fair profits of
competition.
Other arguments in favour of the auction have been advanced by the head of
a great department store. His opinion is that the auction gives every one
a chance to get the rug desired at a fair price. Tastes differ and prices
differ, but the average of an auction is fair to both buyer and seller.
Regardless of theories, rug auctions, by whomsoever fathered or sponsored,
thrive and flourish.
If the auction be the collection of such and such an Oriental, whatever
his name, there will be a great deal of cheap stuff in his stock, and
there will also be many choice pieces which he holds as the apples of his
eye.
He buys from the wholesaler so many bales at so much per bale of say
twenty pieces. In the bales of ordinary qualities the several items will
average about the same. But in the more expensive bales there is a good
general average, with a few prizes added. They are like the two or three
green firecrackers in the packs of our childhood. These special pieces in
the high-priced bales give the seller his legitimate opportunity and
profit. If these odd firecrackers please your fancy more than mine, and I
am contented to choose the conventional red ones, it is for you to fix the
value of the greens.
At an auction the apparent authority and ruler is the auctioneer, while
the owner weeps cheerfully on one side and shrugs his shoulders in
half-pathetic resignation at the sacrifice. In reality the auctioneer
knows pretty well what he is about, and, if not, is quickly posted by the
owner. It is no harm to say that if we cannot believe all that we read in
the Bible, no more is it safe to take literally all that the auctioneer
asserts. A recent skit in "Life" is pertinent (quoted from memory):--
"_The wife._ Look at this splendid bargain I bought for twenty
dollars to-day. It's worth two hundred.
"_The husband._ Indeed! How do you know it is worth that much?
"_The wife._ Why, the auctioneer told me so."
A new plan of auction has been recently tried. You may buy in one or more
lots at your own price, and if you do not wish to keep any, they may be
returned within a certain number of days. You may bid _ad libitum_,
recklessly as you choose; and if your choice be not all that your fancy
and electric light have pictured it, you are under no obligation to keep
it or pay anything on it; you may elect to change your mind and send it
back. How this plan works in practice and finance has yet to be
demonstrated. It would seem to be all on the side of the buyer and against
the seller, who must lose many a bid from a _bona fide_ purchaser at a
lower figure. The matter of human nature doubtless figures in the problem,
because there is some little feeling of shame about returning an article
bought in under competition, no matter what the guarantee may be.
As to the auctioneers, they are always glib of tongue, good-natured, and
persuasive. That they are not canonically and absolutely truthful is
perhaps not their fault. They certainly cannot know more about rugs than
the few authorities who have made a study of the subject; and, as said
before, they are generally prompted by the "consignor" of the collection.
If only they would not call _every_ rug an "antique and priceless
specimen," their individual consciences might be happier, and their
audience less bored.
However, no matter what the audience, or how small it may be, there are
always some there who will appreciate the difference between a four-dollar
and a forty-dollar offering, and bid up the former to seven dollars and
the latter to thirty dollars. Thus the auctions go merrily on and strike a
general average. The skilful auctioneer will feel the pulse of his
audience with a quicker touch than the most renowned of doctors; and once
assured of their class and position, wealth and condition, and what grade
of merchandise they are willing to buy, the game is in his own hands,
provided only that his audience is large enough. He should have at least a
regulation pack of fifty-two in order to do justice to his own hand and
skill, and in order to play off one card of his audience against another.
The auction has its own particular fascinations, and its own _habitues_
and devotees in every city. The chronic attendants should be the most
careful and conservative of buyers. But the artful auctioneer soon learns
to know them, to recognize them among his _clientele_, and to humour their
whims, moods, and fancies. Sooner or later he will wheedle them into a bid
against their better judgment, and then make good capital of the fact that
such and such a connoisseur had bought so great a bargain.
The question might be asked, impersonally and perhaps impertinently, What
was the auctioneer's influence at the Marquand sale? Was his the power?
Was it due to the catalogue? or was it in the air; and the zeal of an
eager audience?
The retail trade in rugs throughout this country is largely in the hands
of Armenians, both fixed and peripatetic; but of recent years much of
their business has been annexed by the department stores.
These various Armenian dealers are universally known for their shrewdness
and cleverness as well as for other ingenuousness and natural courtesy.
Except the heads of the carpet departments in some few large concerns,
they know much more about their wares than other salesmen, and their
personal, live knowledge gives a fillip of enthusiasm to the purchaser.
They would control the retail trade in rugs, were it not that the
department store has brought against them its powerful weapon of _per
cent_. The store asserts that it wants only its modest _per cent_ on the
cost of any article, no matter what its sentimental value may be. This may
not be truth in its stark nakedness, but it has availed to draw to them a
great deal of the trade in Oriental textiles.
The wholesale dealers are the most important factor in the question of
distribution, for almost all the rugs sold in the United States must first
pass through the hands of one or another of a dozen New York princes of
the market. Large or small retailers may import some pieces directly from
London, Paris, or Constantinople, but even the most important retailers
buy heavily from the great Armenian wholesalers in New York City.
It is difficult to estimate and impossible to state absolutely the number
or even the value of the Oriental rugs annually imported into the United
States. The reason is that in the reports of the U. S. Treasury as to
"Imported Merchandise," etc., Oriental carpets and rugs have no separate
classification, but are included under the general heading of "Carpets
woven whole for rooms, and Oriental, Berlin, Aubusson, Axminster, and
other similar rugs." It is quite a mixed company, but Oriental weaves as
herein considered are at least distinguished as such, and differentiated
from carpeting by the yard. They have also the distinction, with the
others of their group, of paying a tax of ninety cents per square yard and
forty per cent ad valorem, as against from twenty-two to sixty cents per
square yard and the same forty per cent ad valorem for the various
Brussels, Wilton, and Axminster floor-coverings coming by the yard, and
not in one piece. And the duty on Oriental rugs, be it observed, is
measured by the square yard, and therefore no record is kept of the number
of pieces, or how many individual items of the four classes have been
imported.
Nevertheless, the statistics for the year ending June 30, 1902, show this
general result: The total value of that year's import of these "whole
carpets, Oriental, Berlin," etc., was a trifle below three million
dollars. Two and a half millions of this value came to New York with only
half a million left to divide between Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San
Francisco, and other ports of entry. The supremacy of New York City as the
Oriental rug mart for this country is easily manifest, although it is not
so easy to estimate what proportion of the two and a half millions of
value was in Oriental rugs and what in modern carpets. One expert figures
the value of the Oriental rugs imported that year into New York as more
than half the total, or perhaps two millions. It is as fair an estimate as
may be had. Considerable as this amount may be, it seems much less than
might be expected. It may perhaps indicate the cheap grade and low quality
of most of our present acquisitions in this category.
The gathering of the rugs by the buyers, in the first instance, involves
great hardships, endurance, and even danger; and the deeper their
incursions into new and strange territory and unopened and unexplored
sources of supply, the more profitable their spoil, but the greater their
toil. Beluchistan, as previously suggested, would appear now to be one of
the remotest regions yet remaining to yield up a few new treasures to the
persevering buyer.
These rugs so gathered to the centres of trade in Constantinople, Tiflis,
and other distributing points, quickly find their way thence to New York,
and help to make the magnitude and seeming wonderful complexity of the
large wholesale depots. Whoever is fortunate enough to have the _entree_
to any of these great New York storehouses will be first among those who
understand the importance, value, and appreciation of the Oriental rug.