baad company

The last time I returned from a multi-month blogging hiatus, it was to tell you about a new great wheel I’d acquired. Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint…

A few weeks ago, Himself and I went to the Christie Antiques Show – it’s one of the finest shows around, and we always go if our work schedule allows. I don’t think we’ve ever left without buying something, and this spring’s show was full of wonderful things… but there were slim pickings for the sort of things that we collect. I found some marvelous vintage buttons that will require marvelous sweaters to be knitted so I’ve got something to put them on. But of spinning wheels and anvils and blacksmithing tools… there were none to be had that met our criteria. So we just enjoyed the show and left with our wallets pretty much intact.

There’s an antique shop on the way back home, right across the street from the Tim Horton’s we always stop at. This shop never has anything we’re interested in, but on this day – aha! as we drove by I spotted a spinning wheel sitting outside. On closer examination, I saw that it wasn’t much of a wheel; nice enough to be sure, and easily able to be tuned up into a good solid spinning machine, but not different enough from my other treadle wheels to thrill me. And the price the owner quoted me was so outrageous, it was only with great self-control that I kept from sputtering with laughter as I turned to leave. “But wait!” he cried, “I have another one – come look!” And I turned the corner and saw this, and my heart skipped a beat:

I knew exactly what I was looking at – it’s a Canadian great wheel, from an unknown maker somewhere in the Brantford area. There’s a half-dozen or so of them surviving that I personally know of (including one in the Canadian Museum of Civilization) and I’ve lusted after one for ages. The round, turned-wood bed is unique to spinning wheel makers in the Grand River area of Ontario; the mysterious Brantford maker is not the only one that built them that way, but I think he made the most beautiful ones. And the condition of this wheel was outstanding; I was filled with the desire to have it.

The owner quoted me a price that was even more outrageous than what he was asking for the other treadle wheel. I goggled at him for a moment – there was no way I was going to spend that much money, not even for this wheel. The expression on my face must have clued him in, and he began to waffle a little, confessing that he didn’t know much about spinning wheels. So I told him exactly what he had – everything I knew about these great wheels – praised this one extravagantly for its beauty and condition… and started to walk away again. That’s when the serious bargaining began.

When you’re buying an antique wheel – or any kind of antique or used object, really – the important thing to remember is this: the person who has the most knowledge sets the price. So before you buy, educate yourself about the class of objects you’re shopping for: know what the current prices are and how condition affects the value. Most general antique sellers only have the vaguest idea about what wheels are actually worth, and the only hard piece of knowledge they have is what they paid for the wheel when they got it. If you can show that you have more specific knowledge – what kind of wheel it is, what its particular history is, its approximate age, what kind of repairs it would need to be usable – this establishes you as the one with a firmer grasp on the current market, and gives you the leverage you need to bring the price down. Be confident and bold, but remember that successful antique dealers have a very sensitive bullshit-meter, so be as honest as you can about what you know and don’t know. Eventually, the two of you will settle on a price that’s less than the first one quoted (that’s from the hard knowledge you have) but high enough that the dealer can make a profit (that’s from the hard knowledge they have) and with any luck, it will be a price you can afford to pay and in short order you’ll find yourself out in the parking lot trying to figure out how on earth you’re ever going to fit this humongous dang thing in your car.

In this case, the serious bargaining ended with me taking both the wondrous great wheel and the wool wheel below off the dealer’s hands (plus a fake Country Craftsman that he threw in just to get it out of the shop*). Altogether, I think it was a successful day.

*I’ll salvage the fake Country Craftsman for parts – the drive wheel is good. The “flyer” is missing; someone STOLE it right off the wheel while it was sitting in the owner’s shop. Obviously it was someone who already had a wheel without a flyer and thought that they’d just avail themselves of a replacement without going through the bother of paying for it. Me, I could tell that the wheel is a fake because there’s no functional tensioning mechanism, as there is on the real Country Craftsman wheels, but the thief obviously didn’t realize that a flyer without an orifice wasn’t going to do them any good at all, and I’d love to have seen the expression on their face when they finally understood that they’d stolen something completely useless. Sometimes Karma is a bitch. (Insert wicked, evil grin here.)