Kevin Marshall Antiques Warehouse (6/7) By Michelle Dee

(1/7), (2/7), (3/7), (4/7), (5/7), (6/7), (7/7).

Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3,   Gallery 4,   Gallery 5.

They remark how it sometimes feels like Kevin's is almost like being in a time warp, being that some things in the place may not have changed in over twenty years. That's not to say he hasn't embraced the digital age. Kevin states it is vitally important to move with the times where necessary, and recalls many dealers falling by the wayside. He runs his own eBay shop, selling his antique goods. In fact, as I speak he is carefully bubble-wrapping packages, ready to be posted to online customers. He says that he posts an average of seven parcels a day but hopes this figure will increase when his intended website is online so increasing his internet exposure.

After saying all that he admits that he much prefers face to face meetings with his customers; he values the significance and inimitability of the personal relationship between buyer and seller. Kevin told me of the recycling nature of his business, how he welcomed the return of an antique sink that he'd sold years before, when it came to him via friend who'd picked it up at a car-boot sale. "Well I don't like to see anything get dumped" he says with a smile. With societies' fondness for the past and the plethora of programming relating to antiques, I'd have thought the antiques business would be booming, but Kevin paints a very different picture.

He explained that the antiques business is one of the few industries that generates its own wealth, with dealers buying and selling between each other. Before 9/11 there were lots of dealers travelling all over the world particularly Americans, travelling into Europe to buy and sell goods, privately and at specialist fairs.

After that ruinous day in September 2001, the dramatic decline in air travel, particularly from the states, had a detrimental effect on the antiques world. The abrupt decline has spawned a growing network of online antique dealers. Recently there has been an increase of Europeans buying and selling within the U.K. market and vice versa.

I asked him whether he had a fondness for a particular period. A lot of these experts on television tend to specialise within a certain era or area of concern. He told me he had a fascination for the Art Nouveau period; that exciting time in history between 1880 and 1910 when furniture design was artistically entwined with nature and the natural world. He describes the period as intensely creative and individual.

Continued .... Next Page (7/7)

Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3,   Gallery 4,   Gallery 5.

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