Posted by Steve Price on March 26, 1999 at 15:20:52:
In Reply to: Re: Importance as reason for collecting posted by Steve Price on March 26, 1999 at 10:16:44:
: Dear All (and anyone else),
: If I understand Tom correctly, he also sees terms like "best of type" and "important" as hype, and points out that reputable dealers seldom use them. My experience is in accord with this. I can only think of one dealer at an ACOR Dealer's Fair who used such descriptions; most simply refer to their really terrific stuff as "really terrific", or "great".
: On the other hand, take a stroll through the listings at eBay! I did a search for the word "important" this morning, and found more than 20 under the two major rugs categories ("Antique Textiles" and "Collectible Rugs"), and nearly 250 on all of eBay.
: Steve Price
Dear Everyone,
It has been called to my attention that I greatly overstated the use of the term "important" in the sense in which it is being discussed on this board. The source of error was my searching eBay to include not only titles, but text as well. The word "important" appears in the text in a number of contexts that I think we would all consider to be completely innocuous.
Therefore, I redid the search, searching only eBay titles with the word "important" in them. This occurs far less frequently, only twice under "Antiques - Textiles" and twice under "Collectibles - Rugs". At least, during the approximately one week period covered by a search of "active listings" and the 30 days covered when searching "completed auctions".
Even a total of four seems rather many "important" textiles to encounter in 5 or 6 weeks of eBay listings, but it is certainly much less than the 24 or so that I thought were there.
Steve Price