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Who buys mid-century art glass?
Viv and Peter were interviewed for a magazine article today, and one of the questions which we stumbled over was, who buys vintage art glass?
When we first started selling vintage art glass, we felt that the only people who knew about it were those who were the 0.01% of people at the cutting edge of design. A lot of our early sales were shipped to people teaching design at universities, fashion designers, design store retailers, television directors, etc. Broadly, there seemed to be a lot of people who worked in some sort of creative industry. Three years later, more people have caught on, but it's still a tiny fraction of the potential market. If we tell 100 people we sell vintage art glass, at least 99 of them have no idea what we're talking about. The initial challenge for us was to educate the New Zealand market, so we started selling on Trademe.co.nz at $1 reserve. By doing this, we introduced thousands of people to "vintage art glass." At the same time, Leslie Pina has done sterling work to popularise the field, with a series of books on Italian and Scandinavian 20th century glass which we recommend.
Art glass is inherently beautiful, and vintage art glass is generally a bargain. Many of our customers have never bought art glass before in their lives, but see something they find beautiful and buy it on impulse. After all, our catchphrase and our goal is, "we only sell beautiful glass." We average two feedbacks for each of our Trade Me customers, so clearly most of them are coming back for more. People generally find it more beautiful in reality than in the pictures.
Other buyers - not many - are people who have been collecting glass for some time. Some are people who have an interest in modern design - people who want a Tapio Wirkkala vase, say, to go with their Barcelona chair.
Some people are art buyers - they buy paintings and sculptures, but now they want some glass. Or perhaps they've bought modern glass but then discover the bargain of vintage glass.
Some people buy for presents - when you give vintage art glass, you give something that expresses your taste. The Orrefors Kraka vase in the photo, for example, was a particularly fine anniversary present. We often give glass ourselves for wedding presents and the like, and I think it's a plus that the recipient will generally have no idea how much you've spent on them.
When we first started selling vintage art glass, we felt that the only people who knew about it were those who were the 0.01% of people at the cutting edge of design. A lot of our early sales were shipped to people teaching design at universities, fashion designers, design store retailers, television directors, etc. Broadly, there seemed to be a lot of people who worked in some sort of creative industry. Three years later, more people have caught on, but it's still a tiny fraction of the potential market. If we tell 100 people we sell vintage art glass, at least 99 of them have no idea what we're talking about. The initial challenge for us was to educate the New Zealand market, so we started selling on Trademe.co.nz at $1 reserve. By doing this, we introduced thousands of people to "vintage art glass." At the same time, Leslie Pina has done sterling work to popularise the field, with a series of books on Italian and Scandinavian 20th century glass which we recommend.
Art glass is inherently beautiful, and vintage art glass is generally a bargain. Many of our customers have never bought art glass before in their lives, but see something they find beautiful and buy it on impulse. After all, our catchphrase and our goal is, "we only sell beautiful glass." We average two feedbacks for each of our Trade Me customers, so clearly most of them are coming back for more. People generally find it more beautiful in reality than in the pictures.
Other buyers - not many - are people who have been collecting glass for some time. Some are people who have an interest in modern design - people who want a Tapio Wirkkala vase, say, to go with their Barcelona chair.
Some people are art buyers - they buy paintings and sculptures, but now they want some glass. Or perhaps they've bought modern glass but then discover the bargain of vintage glass.
Some people buy for presents - when you give vintage art glass, you give something that expresses your taste. The Orrefors Kraka vase in the photo, for example, was a particularly fine anniversary present. We often give glass ourselves for wedding presents and the like, and I think it's a plus that the recipient will generally have no idea how much you've spent on them.
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We only sell beautiful glass
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