Are antiques dead to Millennials? Do they prize the ephemera of yesterday or are they too busy chasing today's once-in-a-lifetime adventures to care?
The common wisdom is that Millennials (loosely defined as the generation born between 1980 and 2000) do not value physical objects the same way older generations do. Instead, the common wisdom is that Millennials pursue satisfaction through experiences - fine dining, exotic vacations and unique entertainment.
This bent towards a more spiritual and less material existence leads to real questions about the future viability of the antiques industry. After all, if an entire generation has opted out of buying vintage items, it does not bode well for the average antique shop.
And yet everything is not as it might first appear in this story. In order to truly figure out if antiques are dead, we must first understand one simple truth.
Millennials are broke.
Not just sort of broke. Not just kind of broke. Millennials as a generation are totally and completely flat broke, at least statistically speaking.
In 2016 (the most recent year that I could find data), the median net worth (including primary residence) of 30 to 34 year old households in the U.S. was a piddling $29,125. Fully 66% of younger Millennials have absolutely no retirement savings whatsoever. And like most Americans, Millennials' wages have stayed stubbornly low for decades.
The big culprit here is student loans, with over $1.5 trillion worth outstanding at the end of 2018. A massive chunk of this crushing debt is owed by Millennials. Student loans act as an economic millstone, dragging the young into financial misery while denying them the ability to buy a house, start a family or effectively save money.
Unsurprisingly, Millennials' lack of discretionary funds has naturally impacted the way they view physical stuff, including antiques. If you can't afford a house, a car or to save for retirement, then a Victorian mahogany secretary will not be high on your list of items to purchase.
Having been largely priced out of the American Dream, Millennials have been forced to sublimate their material desires into spiritual desires. In other words, Millennials have made a virtue of necessity, substituting relatively cheap experiences in place of relatively expensive physical goods.
So are antiques dead? In my opinion, the answer is no. But they have been caught in the crossfire of a brutal economic war that has been waged against younger generations.
Allow me to explain.
Because the incomes of younger workers have been suppressed, they are often living in smaller spaces than they would otherwise. For example, Millennials will often have roommates to save on costs, or they will sometimes move back in with their parents after college. Even when they do get their own place, it is often a small apartment or condo.
None of these living arrangements is conducive to collecting antiques (or most other things, for that matter). This is particularly the case with antique furniture, which is hopelessly oversized for most Millennial dwellings. And when the time comes to move, no one wants to have to drag around hundreds of pounds of delicate antique furniture or vintage kitsch.
Another issue that handicaps Millennials' relationship to antiques is the fact that so many young people are overworked these days. It is common for fresh-faced college graduates to practically indenture themselves to large corporations for a modest salary of $30k, $40k or $50k a year. This is usually enough to put food on the table and a roof other their heads, but rarely enough for much more.
More importantly, antiques require knowledge to be properly appreciated. Sure, anyone can walk into an antique store and pick out a few things that they instinctively like. But this does a great disservice to vintage items, which are far more valued and loved when their stories and history are known.
Unfortunately, learning about antiques takes time. It is not a topic that can be mastered in an hour or two. And this is time that the average Millennial simply does not have. They are too busy working 10 to 12 hours a day, running somewhere to grab dinner, rushing to get chores done and then crashing exhausted into their bed in the hopes of squeezing out 6 or 7 hours of sleep.
Antiques, regardless of how intriguing they might be, simply do not factor into a work-life schedule as unbalanced as this.
Now this might sound like a pretty bleak scenario for the antiques trade, but there are a few mitigating factors.
As regular readers of the Antique Sage website already know, I concentrate exclusively on small antiques. I advocate the purchase of high quality vintage wristwatches, rare coins, old jewelry and other compact antiques. These investment grade antiques are not only valuable and desirable, but also exceedingly portable, an attribute that can't be overlooked in our space-constrained modern world.
More importantly, our financial system is hurtling towards a very ugly date with destiny. We are in the early stages of a global monetary reset - a terrifyingly obvious fact when one examines the inexorable tide of historical U.S. dollar debasement. Traditional financial assets like stocks, bonds and cash will perform very poorly in this scenario. In contrast, fine art, antiques and bullion will be some of the only effective ways to preserve your wealth.
Finally, I don't actually believe that Millenials collectively hate antiques or view them as anachronisms. I simply think they are making do with what they were given by their elders, which wasn't much. Some Millennials really are interested in vintage things of all kinds, albeit different antiques than their grandparents liked.
Many young people frequent thrift shops, garage sales and secondhand stores in the hopes of finding a vintage bargain to brighten up their apartment, condo or townhouse. Get some money into their hands and their love of sleek Art Deco lines, avant-garde Mid-Century Modern themes and elegant Edwardian whimsy will quickly bloom.
Now, this is where I've got some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that I think the U.S. Government/Federal Reserve will be forced to print money and hand it out to ordinary people during the next recession. Think of this as a bail-out for the common people, unlike the bailout for the too-big-to-fail banks that we got last time around in 2008-2009.
If this comes to pass, even the hard-up Millennial Generation will get a sizable check from Uncle Sam.
The bad news is that everyone else will simultaneously get a government check too. This means that the prices for most consumer goods (including antiques) will skyrocket in short order. Given this probability, I contend that everyone - especially Millennials - should invest in some high quality antiques now, before prices spiral upwards.
Antiques aren't dead; they're just sleeping, waiting for the right moment to come back to life.
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