Over the years I have been attracted to a wide variety of antiques, an admirer of all and an expert on none. I have liked Chippendale chairs, Chinese porcelain, kitchen artifacts, Lalique glass, Georgian commodes—just about everything except art, which is a separate and overpriced world of its own. Unfortunately for my aspirations as a collector, I have realized that nature did not equip me for the task. I can’t stand living with objects that I have to tiptoe around and hardly dare to touch. I like to be able to sit on chairs, eat at tables, drink from glasses, and collapse onto beds without feeling that I am committing sacrilege or risking breakage and financial ruin. I now live with furniture and objects that are either virtually indestructible or easily replaceable. Old, perhaps, but sturdy. I avoid fragility.
And there is something else that I avoid and that, if you are only a moderately rich millionaire, you should avoid, too: the chic auction.
The people who go to the big salesrooms, glossy brochures tucked under mink-clad arms, are not like you and me. They might be upper-crust dealers, professional bidders for foundations, or just grade-A plutocrats, but they have one thing in common: they are loaded. And when loaded people get together in the overcranked atmosphere of competitive bidding, prices disappear upward within seconds. If you should decide, out of curiosity, to be a spectator at one of these million-dollar orgies, the golden rule is to sit on your hands. One absentminded scratch of your ear might catch the auctioneer’s eye and you could find yourself with a twelfth-century bleeding cup and a bill the size of a mortgage. You’re safer with Art Nouveau coatracks.