Welcome to Forum 360, I’m Mark Welfley.

Thank you for joining us for our global outlook with a local view.

Have you ever been in your basement or a garage or an estate sale and come across a one of a kind item sure to make you rich?

Or did you just discover a cheap knickknack that's just gathering dust?

Today we will venture into the world of antiques and offer advice and thoughts and direction for those who are antique beginners like me.

My guest today is Dustin Pizzino, an antique expert and owner of Miscellaneous Barn in Painesville, Ohio.

So welcome, Dustin.

- Thank you for having me.

- Start, if you would, by just sharing a little bit about your background and how you came to become a, an antique lover and dealer.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I was in between jobs and I got into— I actually worked for Miscellaneous Barn prior to purchasing it.

It's 25 years old, and, you know, it's funny being asked this question now versus when I was younger.

I didn't realize how prepped and everything I was to be in this industry.

You know, I used to— My grandfather, we'd always jump in the car on the weekends and go out and we’d pick up some antiques.

I used to always buy the pedal cars and do all that and then I'd be at auctions with my aunt.

So it was, it's one of those things that I didn't realize, antiques were really a passion of mine.

So when the opportunity came and the business came available, I stepped forward, bought the business and it's been 18 years now, and it's been a fun ride.

It really has.

- So the market in northeast Ohio for antiques.

Does it have a distinct personality or is the northeast Ohio market for antiques and collectibles similar to other regions and states in the country?

- Well, every state is different.

You find trends in different areas obviously like West Coast, California, you know, the trends tend to set there first and then slowly move their way back into other cities.

Maybe Chicago or New York and that and really, when you're getting into upstate New York, things like that, that's when the antiques tend to hold more value because the demand is there.

There's older homes and things like that in that area and people that are wanting to decorate their home with period pieces.

- Does it make sense then if you found an antique here in northeast Ohio to drive to, you know, a bazaar, an antiques sale in New York and sell it?

I mean, is that the kind of difference you're talking about?

- There is outlets here in Ohio and northeast Ohio that could fetch the, the value of an antique, but you have to be– You really have to do your homework as to how they're selling the item.

Obviously, you'd want it to be maybe an online auction where their audience is a broader audience, whether it's national or global.

A good friend of mine actually owns Premier Auction Galleries in Chesterland, and he's found being online and selling, he's actually getting the true values of the antiques within, you know, northeast Ohio he's selling them, but we're shipping them to Seattle or New York or I mean, Canada, Russia, I mean, there's Australia.

So you really want to do your homework when you go to sell your antique items.

And don't, you know, if they tell you, hey, we're not interested, there's a reason.

You know, it's probably maybe it's not the valued piece that you thought or you might have found online.

- So the burning question for me is, how can you tell the difference between a genuine article and a fake?

A dupe.

- Well, even professionals are fooled every day.

The new techniques, I mean, there's items coming out of you know, China or they're even Mexico.

And it's really looking at the cut.

If you look at, let's say, furniture, for instance.

The furniture items, you're going to open up the drawers and look and see, like, pull it out and see how it's cut.

It could look perfect.

It looks great, but if it looks like it was machined out of a really nice saw blade and everything fits perfect in unison.

The reality is we don't have those tools back in the 17-1800s, you know, so the items are not going to look.

They're actually going to be a little off you know, everything's not going to be pristine.

Or like the old toy banks.

Everybody loved the old toy banks, you know, you’d— Everybody going there, keep their money in there.

Well, some of them are a cast iron and if it had a Phillips head screw on it, we didn't have the Phillips head screw you know, back early 1900s, things like that they were using a flathead screw.

So there's little, you know, if you're ever looking for something we have the internet, and it's a great source to narrow down some of those items.

So if you had the bank, you type it in there and always look, you know, differences between knockoffs, you know, and then take a look at your item and see if any of those are similar to what they're considering online.

- I see, so you go out to the internet and do some research of your own.

- Yeah, that's the best way to knock off a few because, the average antique dealer, they're not going to have the time to sit there and go through your particular item.

And we do have those resources online that will give you an idea, at least a general knowledge of what your item would look like if it was per se fake or real.

- Okay, that's interesting.

So when you know, at any point in time during the day, someone from outside from the community can walk in and put something like in the middle of your counter.

And it could be, you know, glass, it could be candles, it could be, you know, a number of 100 different things.

Can you look at something and you personally, and you know all those different categories and know kind of how to figure out whether it's genuine or not?

- Yeah.

- That's amazing.

- It's... I always hesitate.

I never want to get a customer too excited because then if I tell them it's fake, after you know, feeling as if it is a real true antique, I say that it has potential.

Okay.

And again, even experts that are on particular items and we do such a vast, you know, collection of items.

So I like to look at it and I'll do a little more research again.

I'll even reference the internet or different things or call other experts and look at it.

Sometimes the names on it, you know, if it's like, say it's an old Waterford piece or, you know, like Fenton glass says in a little bit of a distinct— So the newer Fenton glass, and it's kind of like, little sharp edges of bubbly.

So people that would know it understand what I'm saying, but they’re kind of sharp and pointy would be the older ones, and they're a little more round like the castings are different, even though it looks like the identical item one will have some age and the other one is newer.

So again, that's just years of going to auctions, referencing items that maybe I have purchased or customers have brought in.

But to give a specific it's very difficult.

It's highly produced, looked after, artwork is like I mean, it is mind blowing the amount of copies or, you know, one offs that have been reproduced.

It’s definitely a lot of homework involved in the item.

And I often tell people this isn't really worth, because even if you do find that that is the antique piece, it's still worth 100 bucks.

So you don't have a $100,000 item, you know, and I'll give that to them.

And I say I have interest in buying it, and I'd push it back on them to see if, you know, they want to make that decision or not.

- Once you know an item is valuable and not a fake, how do you determine its true value in dollars?

- Well, you know that, that's a difficult question because every region everywhere, let's say before eBay items would be three times as much, but now it's so readily available and able to be shipped.

So, I reference a lot of closed auctions and other listings throughout the country.

There's a few websites that I'm a member of that I'll go on and see, okay, this has been selling here, here and here.

And I'll kind of get an idea of what our value and resell would be here in northeast Ohio.

- Okay, I get that.

As far as antiques in demand or collectibles.

Right now, what's hot?

- Well, I don't like to call them antiques.

- Okay.

- But, the hot thing right now is all mid-century items.

You get into the antiques, you know, maybe, like, cast iron pieces, more decorative smalls.

But the true thing right now that I'm finding in northeast Ohio is more of a mid-century collectible market.

You know, the whole, you know, no furniture, things like that more of, like, a Frank Lloyd Wright look.

That tends to be the trend here in northeast Ohio.

They're mixing it into cottages and different homes and really, that's more of what the trend is here in northeast Ohio.

- Do market conditions affect the business of collectibles and antiques?

- It can.

As a store owner, definitely.

You know, the market trends will change.

As far as their value, I think that they still have a market value in the right location.

But again, being said, like, if you take a mid-century piece here, that might be worth $100 to $500, you take it to Chicago, it's maybe $1,000 to $2000.

But again, it's supply demand in each city.

- As far as common mistakes that beginners might make.

- That’s— - Share one or two.

- Yeah, the mistakes are so— Again, it’s just as I said, reference the internet and go on.

There's a lot of people that are using certain websites to reference items.

You know, you go up, take a picture of it and it pops up it tells you what it is and it gives some general values or what people might be asking for the item.

And it's so far off of what a realistic value in northeast Ohio could be.

I use some of the same sites, but I still have to reference and see what's the value here.

Because you'll be at a— Say you go to a garage sale and you use your camera and you take that photo and it pops up and it's worth 100 bucks, and you bring it to me and I'm like, they were asking $100 the last one sold for 20.

You know, there's a difference on it because the internet's only searching through images they're not looking at real data as to what has sold or has not sold.

So I've had people that, I bought this at auction, here it's worth 100 bucks, you know, you know what you give me for it?

And I'm like, I don't really want it, you know, or I'll give you $20.

And they've spent you know, a lot of money trying to, per se make money and or just collect a, a good quality piece for their home.

- So being too exuberant about a find and perhaps overpaying for it.

- Yes.

Before you turn around and try to resell it.

- I see that all the time.

Even if you’re not looking to sell, maybe you just you really, truly love the item, but you wanted to confirm that that's what it is.

And again, going back to the fakes of, you know, something that’s been reproduced at one point.

You might have that reproduction item and the one that you found online because it looks identical.

You can't see the screws in the bottom of it.

You can't see its build quality, or the blue in the paint or red in the paint could be two different colors that's giving it a different era.

And that's where you have to be very cautious with getting into the business at the first and recognizing fakes versus a real true antique.

- If you're just joining us, thank you for listening and watching.

My name is Mark Welfey.

This is Forum 360, and we are talking about antiques today.

And I'm here with Dustin Pizzino from the Miscellaneous Barn in Painesville, Ohio.

And we continue our conversation today with the feast or famine question.

We see Storage Wars and these other programs where you buy a locker or you know, a storage location and you open it up and, you know, you hope you'll find the one thing that's worth $300,000 and you paid 300 bucks for the locker.

Is the business in general a feast or famine type business?

Find a big score and it you know, keeps you going for a while or is it more of a kind of a daily drip?

- It truly can be.

If you're just wanting to run a small shop or maybe do this out of your home, and not have other residual income coming in, I don't suggest that you quit your day job and start to dabble in the antiques and consider that as a full time income.

Because there is times we've had some fines over the years.

But they're few and far between.

And really the difference with miscellaneous, part of the reason it's actually been around since early, like 1980.

So it's about 45 years old, and we've seen a lot of our competitors come and go over the years because of the changes and that whole... The feast is good, but then the famine comes, you know, or like during, in 2008 when we had our housing crash and there's like, you know, markets change and people aren't buying anything for a little while.

You really have to be diversified and if you're doing something very specific, say you were doing mid-century when I got into the business, I kind of give it away.

Now I can't keep it in stock.

You know, and you're looking at— I've only owned the business now for 18 years.

So, that's not a very large window of time that the market for antiques and or collectibles have changed.

- Share with me your biggest score.

- Biggest score.

So I happened to buy at estate sale, umbrella stand filled with canes and everything.

and I go through them and I'm like, these are great.

You know, I was very excited for the purchase.

And one of them, it was awkward it looked like a ball on the top of it and it had little white circles all the way around and scribed, and it looked like African or some kind of art piece.

But I'm like, this is an awkward cane to be with all the other ones and I look in the bottom and it's scribed on the bottom.

So we're really trying to figure out exactly what this is because if it was a cane, right, it would be worn on the bottom and there wouldn't be any kind of inscription.

Go to find out, it was a 19th century Fujian War club from the islands of Fiji.

And what the white that was around the side was actually a one time, and it was so it was, but it was whale's tooth that they would drill out and put in there so it was sharp.

And the scription on the side was for grip.

But you would be able to tell which tribe it would come from by how they actually scribed and did the grip on the on the stick.

So it was actually a Fujian War club to fight off animals or intruders or anything like that.

I had it checked out by Sotheby's in New York City.

They love to have it for one of their upcoming auctions and they appraised it at $16,000.

I bought the whole umbrella stand filled with canes for 200, so I was ecstatic and this is earlier in my career so I was like, this is great.

This is like my my big hit.

And it ended up bringing over double what their appraised value was.

So I was very ecstatic to have that opportunity to go out to Sotheby’s, see their operation and so far to date, that is my single most, score as far as value purchased you know, it was great.

It was interesting.

And it was again, it’s just the whole subject matter it was great and the experience was really good.

- Imagine there's a great deal of interest in the learning of what happened.

You know, it's, you know, it's a transactional business for sure.

You know, you buying and selling antiques.

But also learning a lot like the history of things.

- Yeah.

- Is interesting.

- Well, and to think that they were even, you know— I can’t remember the exact age now it’s been some time I think it was a maybe 150 years old.

And to think like 150 years from now like, you know, we weren't really that barbaric here, but they were still on an island like so.

So their culture was totally different and the late 1800s or early 1900s, so they would still have those items.

Here, we might— We had guns and everything, and we didn't need that, you know.

So it was kind of a history learning experience as well.

- Where do you find your antiques or where would you suggest beginners go to find... - Yeah.

So for us... - Their collectibles and such.

- It's the, you know, we work with a lot of realtors, probate attorneys, things like that.

We kind of over the years we built a name for ourselves so people are coming to us.

I don't really have to search anymore, but to get into antiquing I suggest auctions, estate sales.

Really to my opinion, if you’re going to go dig or looking for antiques, if you go into any stores or like other donation places, a majority of that's already been picked over, right?

So to find something unique and rare at a great price, you'd want to go to per se an auction or estate sale, some garage sales.

Not that I want to drive all around for a garage sale, but, a better estate sales and there's search engines online that you can find that are doing certain area auctions and estate sales.

And down in Amish country there's a few auction halls down there that they come across some great, great antique pieces.

- Take me through a day in your life.

Like what happens in the morning and... - At first is coffee.

That's the first step is coffee.

It really depends on the day.

Mostly, like, throughout the earlier days of the week.

I'm out looking at estates, going, we schedule, I come out, I take a look around the home, take notes, photos, things of that nature.

If it happens to be a pickup day, my guys and I are out, you know, acquiring everything, packaging, bringing it back to the store and sorting and getting everything priced and displayed out on the floor.

Perhaps back out again to look at estate.

I mean, in one day I've looked at ten estates.

I mean, it was never ending.

And then or auctions, you know, when I had a little more energy, I'd go out, pick out an estate in the morning, we'd work our store from 11 to 6, and then after that, I'd be out.

I'd be going to certain auctions across northeast Ohio and buying as much as I can.

- I want to ask you about restoration.

If an item is old, like, maybe it's a piece of leather and it's reconditioned so that it's, you know, it's vital again, does that add or subtract from the value of, you know, of an item.

- So it's really on how it's restored.

And you know, if it’s in really bad condition or if there's say there's if it's inlaid or things like that, you could get somebody to properly restore that piece and add its value.

But you want to make sure that you're using period type stuff you want to be using, you know, don't put some pine in there and color and do you know, mahogany and try to get it to look like it's right.

Make sure you're putting the proper repair to the item in order to keep its value.

- So no Phillips head screws.

- Yes.

No Phillips screws.

I mean, I have guys that are you know, old square nails, you know they would they’ll actually cut in a restoration place.

We either have some old primitive nails or they will kind of custom make an almost blacksmith, if you will the correct pieces were designed to go into that antique.

- Have you've been in a situation where you go to an estate sale and you look at something that you really like and you you buy it or the collection of items.

And you think that's really going to sell and you bring it back to your store and it sits.

Like, what goes through your mind?

- We laugh.

My employees and I laugh about this all the time.

I'll come back and I'm like, this is really good.

This is going to sell, you know, and we have a whole truckload of items and I just laugh because I'm like, it's the ugliest thing that sells first.

And I'm like, I didn't even think anybody would want that, you know?

So even being in the business and and seeing it on a daily, day to day operation, I'm still confused as to which items— And sometimes the better items they sit around for a little while, but it's typically it's because I have to find somebody is looking for perhaps they're doing a period home restoration or things like that.

You know, antiques they have their final home.

You know, it's really got, not everyone wants to spend antique value for a dresser to go in to a newer home.

You know, they might want to scale it down and put just something newer in there.

- Off the air, you were mentioning that there's been a a resurgence in thrift shopping and specifically the younger people are getting into thrifting and that I think you said was carrying over into antiques.

Do you find that that is true, that the antiquing is no longer like the province of like the older adult there's a lot of young people coming in?

- Yeah.

I'm starting to see.

Well, and you have to keep in mind too, the younger generations coming in, they're finding things that are what we call vintage, right?

So they think it's old because it's from maybe the 80s or 70s, and it's cool to them because they remember in their parents house or maybe their grandparent’s house.

So again, that's where the antiquing world is really like a, you know, they're starting to use the term thrifting or vintage, but they are finding interest.

And I do see a lot of them coming out and it's so, if you have that antique shop, you really need to diversify and have something from all eras in order to to keep the traffic and everybody coming in who have interest because they'll come in— Like a 1980s coat that's just wild and wild and they'll fall in love with it, you know, or maybe like records are starting to come back, you know, you know, the vinyl is starting to become big again and they're buying the old antique, audio equipment they're finding, like from the 70s and 60s that's starting to come back and be trendy.

So yeah, trying to get just like, antiques that are maybe 100 or 200, 300 years old they appreciate it.

I don't find a lot of the younger generation purchasing it, but it comes through the vinyl and other things that, again, from the 70s, 80s, maybe mid-century, that's kind of the trend now.

- Great conversation.

Wish we get more time.

The desire to find, preserve and appreciate old and valuable items never seems to get old.

Interestingly, U.S.

customs defines an antique as anything that is 100 years old or older.

Now, no matter the definition, whether you are a seasoned collector or antique beginner, a great find or the search for the next great find has renewed the spirit of collecting and antiquing for centuries.

There seems to be no end in sight.

I would like to thank Dustin Pizzino from the Miscellaneous Barn for the visit today and ask each of you to keep your eyes and minds and ears wide open until next time on Forum 360.

Forum 360 is 3brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, the Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw Jewish Community Center of Akron, Blue Green, Electric Impulse Communications, and Forum 360 supporters.