Stickley Era, the Arts & Crafts Movement

Steve06 · Esteemed Scholar Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 427 : Items

Hey folks,

I really like this new forum. For those of you that don't know, many of us were previously active on another A&C forum. However, we are limited in number so there isn't as much activity as there could be and the range of opinions/knowledge is probably narrower than what it should be.

Does anyone have ideas for increasing participation? Maybe just telling people you know who collect A&C and sending them a link to the forum...

Ray Fleck · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:38 am Post subject:

Steve,

We need to do something; I was beginning to think everyone went back to the old forum and didn't tell me. Laughing

Jeremy · Esteemed Scholar Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 462 : Items

I think Stonecat should offer a free piece of Stickley furniture to each new membership signup...

Smile

Bev. · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject:

Woodn't that be nice!

Where do I sign up? I would gladly lose my post counts for a piece of Stickley.

Bev.

Stonecat · Site Admin Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 1919 : Items

This is my first night home in about three and half weeks, so a bit of catching up to do here.

Participation is an enigma. Consider the other options (and I've said this to Steve before). The old forum has several hundred members from over the years. Since 'we' left there really are only a couple regulars who post, well, regularly (and judge this any way you want). The new owners (and I'm not really sure who they are and how many - there seems to be three or four???) don't post regularly (not daily anyways) and nobody 'new' has taken the torch and run with it by posting daily/weekly.

The Yahoo Groups - Style1900 has 300+ members and the forum sits dead for weeks at a time with zero posts - huh (?). The Roycroft Group is dominated by the handful of hardcore guys who often post in riddles; I don't really get it but they are hardcore Roycroft so more power to them. The couple other A&C related Yahoo Groups are somewhere between a coma and a casket.

Hewn and Hammered has a forum - clinically near dead, but not for lack of trying, so points for at least trying. The blog 'comments' on H&H are rare to never.

A couple other blog sites I've seen are similar - response comments never happen with any regularity.

Look at 'our' forum. Forty members but less than ten post regularly, which is actually the best per capita posting rate of any of the forums/groups to choose from!

So whats the deal? Are A&C folks generally not computer savy or what? Maybe the 'Movement' is in a general decline and A&C folks are disapearring. I don't know I can put my finger on it. This said, I'm glad that out little group here has stayed focussed and interested and enthusiastic.
_________________

Stonecat

Jeremy · Esteemed Scholar Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 462 : Items

Ray Fleck · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:56 pm Post subject:

Bev. · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

I see items with a Fish, Jennings, Koppercraft, or anything Roycroft shopmark just climbing in price on E-bay. This week, I found a generic nice little mica lamp and bid $17. Now, it's up to over $500 with a couple of days left on E-bay.

Also, I seldom see the "good stuff" locally in Albuquerque, NM. Only two dealers in town regularly have name brand A & C anything. Over the years, their inventory of names like Stickley, Limbert, Roycroft have shrunk dramatically. They are now doing a lot of good quality generics. Some have labels of obscure furniture companies and others with no information at all. When they get something in with a big name shopmark or label, it can sell pretty quick.

Bev.

Ray Fleck · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject:

As long as we're complaining about the lack of local A/C antiques, (Yes, I've whined about this before) let me say that to have two dealers who sell mostly good generic pieces would seem like I had died and gone to A/C heaven. There's only one near me and it's forty miles away in Dallas. The inventory is limited too.

Jeremy · Esteemed Scholar Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 462 : Items

Another observation from the recent Grove Park show. As we were waiting in line for the contemporary show on Friday, the person in line behind us was waiting in line to then get in line for the antique show an hour later, and they were not the only one. Basically people were lining up in advance for another line to get into the antique show in advance!

When the antique show started, they cordoned off the entrance from the contemporary show in order to lead the antique line in first, and then the ropes were dropped to allow the rest of us in from the contemporary show. The amount of time we had to wait for the antique line to enter? Oh about 5 minutes! So people waited in 2 successive lines for hours in order to just get 5 minutes ahead of everybody else. Which is really strange, considering that at the antique show, you don't know what the booths would have in advance really. Not to mention that everything at the antique show was *expensive*. Race to see who gets to spend $10,000 first! No thanks...

The other thing we noticed is that we were probably the youngest people there by far, which really says something about AC collecting in general I think. Another observation was how we ended up spending our money overall, which was all on new contemporary items (mainly pottery). Why? Because our money went much further that way.