- Details
- Written by Dr. Lori Verderame Dr. Lori Verderame
When it comes to shopping for vintage and antique items, patterns of collecting go through cycles.
And as we approach 2020, here are some of the items, styles, and movements that are on their way out. What we collected with vigor five years ago is being replaced by other objects and trends.
For instance, we are seeing crystal, metallics, and sleek vintage objects making a strong comeback. These items are replacing feminine and fussy pieces, like delicate china teacups and stained-glass lamps.
As millennials continue to collect antiques and vintage pieces in great numbers, certain antiquing trends are changing with the tides. When shopping for your next vintage or antique find, leave these items at the flea market, estate sale, or thrift store — when you’re out, you’re out.
The styles of the 1970s are of great interest to today’s collectors. Many are embracing the organic forms and sinuous lines of 1970s furniture and the rock ’n’ roll and disco music of the era.
We all know that vintage vinyl is huge with today’s collectors, but what’s moving out, as Billy Joel sang it, are the recession-era colors of the 1970s.
The patterns of the Age of Aquarius are desirable, but the drab colors of the time — avocado green and harvest gold — are not. Out are dyed-green leather tufted-wing office chairs. Collectors are saying no to the brown, green, and beige wallpaper featuring oversized ferns and other leafy plants.
Instead, you’ll see today’s vintage collectors keeping the 1970s’ vintage clothing, including African kente cloth shirts; unbreakable and colorful functional plastics, like patio trays and picnic cups; and metal wall accents.
Signage is also taking a decade off. No more adhesive-backed vinyl wall signs with phrases like “We are Family” in kitchens or “Live, Laugh, Love” in the basement media room. These stick-on signs aren’t groovy anymore.
So, what is groovy? Vinyl itself … in the form of vintage handbags or LP records. For instance, you can cash in on that George Harrison record and poster from his 1970 solo album, All Things Must Pass, and the crates of other vinyl records in your attic or basement, like Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John, Led Zeppelin III by Led Zeppelin, and Bridge over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel, among many others.
HGTV network may have restored the Brady Bunch house, but it is a little too late for some of the items from the show that shout “1970s out of date” design.
Yes, the Asian horse sculpture that decorated the Bradys’ living room has been reproduced in a litany of museum gift shops since Marcia got hit in the nose with that football. Today, collectors are looking for the chenille accent chairs in that famous TV living room, not the mass-produced, fake-Asian sculpture.
Dr. Lori Verderame is the director of www.DrLoriV.com and www.youtube.com/drloriv. She is the award-winning Ph.D. antiques appraiser and artifacts expert on History channel’s The Curse of Oak Island, about the world’s oldest treasure hunt. Dr. Lori presents her Antiques Appraisal Comedy Show with free appraisals nationwide. Visit www.DrLoriV.com/events or call (888) 431-1010.