From the moment I came into contact with the collecting industry, all kinds of strange, magical, and non-mainstream remarks filled my ears. This person told you that the collections on the market were all fake, and that person told you that there were opportunities to pick up big leaks everywhere, some people thought that the antique line was finished, and some people felt that the folk collection had just begun, which was dazzling. Each person's cognition is different, and they are divided into different groups.
Reality is not black and white, don't look at society the way children see the world. As long as it is understood that the code of conduct behind all speech is to "amplify self-interest", so first understand some "laws" so as not to be blind.
1: The Laws of the Market
Playing with self-preservation is interest, but entering the market is to do business, do not confuse the two, many people like to talk about money with collectors, and talk to businessmen about feelings, and the result is that the two ends are not flattered. The so-called law of the market, can not avoid two words: speculation.
Collectibles are not practical commodities, it has strong financial investment attributes, funds are invested in it, how to obtain high returns? That's "flow." How do you make it flow? Naturally, it depends on hype. Like the wide circulation of the folk market, such as jade, purple sand kiln, silver dollar ancient money, contemporary art, etc., merchants hoard goods in advance, and then speculate on different varieties according to different hobby groups, depreciating when supply exceeds demand, and appreciation when supply exceeds demand.
In the final analysis, the money you earn is the loss of the person who takes over later, and the later person wants to make money, so he must seize the next opportunity, and so on. The role of speculation is to increase liquidity and stabilize the market, and appropriate speculation can balance supply and demand without pejorative connotations. But over-hype is extremely harmful, you can see if you look at the orchids, stamps, Tibetan mastiffs, and cliff cypresses.
2: The law of risk
Capital likes to "create risk", but itself hates risk, so it will definitely pass the risk on to ordinary collectors in the end. When you see a certain collection of varieties, in a short period of time suddenly a full surge, unreasonable, then you have to be careful, capital may be ready to harvest a wave of the last wave and then run.
Most of this situation occurs in modern cultural and toy art, although there are few antiques, but there are also some, such as the silver dollar experienced a big crash 10 years ago, but now it has also risen back. This is the essence of antiques, which can dilute the risk with time, so the higher the income as long as the antiques can be hidden.
The other is legal risk. In the auction market, Gao Gu jade cannot sell Ming and Qing court jade, and Gao Gu porcelain cannot sell Ming and Qing porcelain, which is to avoid potential legal risks. The high ancient cultural relics in the private market are basically in a state of "non-flow", and there is no benefit.
3: The law of scarcity
The rarity of things is the eternal truth of the collecting world. However, in addition to those "national treasure heavy weapons" that truly exist in the world, the scarcity of other antiques is more or less "artificially manipulated" in it. For example, I play with ancient money, some so-called honorary goods, a few hundred dollars a few years ago, and now it has risen to thousands of thousands, because the merchants hoard a large number of goods, collectors take advantage of the market to buy a large number, resulting in a shortage of goods on the market.
So I know that they have a large stock, and I can only pinch my nose to collect, because the common "reluctance to sell" psychology of connoisseurs will stabilize the market, even if it is a loss now, the fine products can be earned back after leaving in the hand, and the good goods are not afraid of late.
In the same way, the high-end market is the same, the Ming and Qing dynasty official kilns are not low, but under the control of European and American countries, it has become "extremely rare", and the rich collectors are clear in their hearts, but they still dare to invest, because everyone is maintaining a stable basic disk, and it is difficult to collapse at present.
4: The Law of Two Eight
No matter which line you are in, you must recognize a reality: the stronger the capital, the higher the chance of success, and on the contrary, many people who have little capital will face the fate of failure. This is because the poor do not have so many "trial and error costs", and it is difficult to turn over as long as they make one mistake.
Rich people, on the other hand, can keep making mistakes, and as long as one or two investment commodities are successful, they will earn back. So this is how the gap between rich and poor comes from, the "monopoly" of high-end collections by top auctions, the hoarding of fine products by big businessmen in the first-line market, and the pocketing of the rest of the fine products by private elite collectors.
The opportunities left for the remaining players are few and far between, and the law of two and eight seems to be unbreakable. But it is not completely without opportunities, and if small players want to enter the elite group of %20, they will involve the next "law of probability".
5: The law of probability
Why is there so much national treasure in the antique industry? It is because they dare not face the fate of failure, can not afford to bear the next investment, can only hope that the "national treasure" in their hands, can make themselves turn over at once. This psychology is actually similar to buying lottery tickets, hanging around on the road and casually spending 2 yuan to buy a bet, and then winning the 10 million jackpot, normal people think it is unreliable.
But here comes a mathematical probability problem, if you have an infinite life, you can try to buy hundreds of millions of lottery tickets, then a certain time is really likely to win 10 million. The question is, if you can really try infinitely, why buy lottery tickets? Doing other things has long been successful.
Playing with collection also involves this probability problem, there is no need to try hundreds of millions of times, as long as you practice your eyesight steadily, master the network, channels, and market, then in the continuous market practice, there will always be a few times "stepping on the wind outlet" and ushering in a bumper harvest.
Although the collection industry is known as tens of millions of Tibetan friends, there are very few masters who can be called experts. Most people are blindly following the trend, never carefully managing their own collection business, picking up and leaking "national treasures" and getting rich overnight as the purpose, but in the end they can only deceive each other and have a distant dream.
But the expert master can really pick up leaks, of course, not "a hammer deal", but to pick up the leakage of time, pick up the leakage of others who do not understand the market, pick up the leakage of information channels, and so on. The premise of being able to stick to it is not to make money immediately, but to have a deep understanding of the historical background, craftsmanship level and artistic achievements of the collection, and to learn to enjoy the fun of collecting, then the probability of becoming an elite will be greatly improved.