Antiques Export Trade

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 7

Antiques Export Trade

The demand for antique furniture grows all the time. To own antiques is not just a matter of pleasure or prestige, they are a good investment.

The demand is international, and if you go to the big auctions in London you sometimes wonder whether all Britain’s antique furniture will not be dispersed abroad in a few years time. But this .export trade is good for Britain's balance of payments, so the 8.8. C. World Service programme Business and Industry took a look at it in a recent broadcast. Peter Ross reported that antiques and fine art, in terms of foreign exchange, invisible earnings and direct export returns, bring Britain £50,000,000 a year. In 1969 the United States alone paid nearly £9,000,000 for the expertise of English auctioneering houses and for art products.

However, it is to some extent a two-way trade, as Richard Walter, an executive of the famous auctioneers, Christie’s, explained in the broadcast London is an entrepot for trade in works of art backed up with a circle of experts and dealers. Antiques can come into Britain and leave freely, and he believes it is largely because of the Government’s wisdom in keeping this freedom that London is still the international centre of the art market.

His firm’s growth over the last four years, 1966 to 1969, has been almost doubled, and tjieir export potential in-

’ creases every day. Their actual turnover has risen from £7,200,000 in 1966 to £15,200,000 in 1969. The barometer of the antique boom is accurately reflected in the growth of Christie’s and other London auctioneers.