Michael March’s Antique History, At Town Hall

March is known locally for his firsts and “highests”.  Notably, a Boston Spanish Foot Wing Chair (say that five times fast), one of only 12 known in the world, which in 2009 sold for $126,500. 

Antiquing may be a specialist’s type of shopping, but curiosity about antiques seems to know no bounds.  In fact, PBS’s Antiques Roadshow this year drew a cumulative audience of 8 million viewers each week. Now that’s a crowd.

Well, Essex is dipping into its history as an antiquing destination with a presentation next month by Michael March of Blackwood March Auctioneers.  March knows a lot about antiques, rare art, the antiquing business in Essex (his is a family business, started by his mother, Lucille Blackwood, 50 years ago), and the value of things collected and jealously guarded.  

He’s seen, in his words, “a lot of extraordinary things.”

Everyone knows antiquing is one of the big pillars of Essex life and its history.  There’s shipbuilding. There’s the Boston & Maine Railroad that drove commerce from milk to shoes. There’s clamming and coastal industry.  And then there’s antiques, which March says is a bit of a mystery of how it came to be here in Essex. He said wholesale antiquing has gone back as far as the 1920s, and it’s likely the result of an optimal location – in between Newburyport, Salem and Boston, which were all centers of best-in-the-world furniture makers and craftsmen.  Over time, the town became associated with good dealers. Then, in 1976 when the country celebrated its Bicentennial, something happened. Antiquing, March said, became big.

“There was this crazy explosion of interest in antiques,” he said.  His mother, Lucille, was already in business, a rare thing for a woman to own her own business in the antiques auction game.  She was a pioneer. Her business grew, antique shops in town began to multiply and the customers came, in station wagons and trucks from all over, to buy.

March is known locally for his firsts and “highests”.  Notably, a Boston Spanish Foot Wing Chair (say that five times fast), one of only 12 known in the world, which in 2009 sold for $126,500.  Not the set. One chair, to a private collector in Chicago who later had the piece authentically upholstered for what March estimated to be another $10,000.  Not surprisingly, it still holds the record for a chair sold at auction in Massachusetts. (March said Edward “Ned” Johnson of Fidelity fame sent a curator to check out the chair in advance of the sale.  Then he sent his antique dealer. Then, finally, he came himself to check out the chair. He didn’t get it, though.)

Now, March says, most of his business is in fine art, especially with collectors of the painters of Cape Ann.  Think Emile Gruppe and Otis Cook. Here, he also racked up milestone sales, including recent sales of paintings by Walter Launt Palmer ($54,000), Jane Person ($20,000) and A. T. Hibbardoil ($46,000, which was an auction record).  He said the furniture market has waned, as has the antique retail scene from its heyday. But there’s one thing for sure about antiques, March said, interest may go down, but it inevitably, especially for good, important pieces, does come back. March will give a presentation on the history of the antique business in Essex on Thursday, November 7 at the third-floor exhibit hall at the Town Hall.  The presentation, which is part of the town’s Bicentennial history programming that has been going on all year, will be followed by an “Appraisal Day” style session, which March says he loves doing. (In fact, he’s done these appraisal type events for the Cape Ann Museum and the Rockport Arts Association.)  

Get started now.  Clean out those attics, because in Michael March’s experience, you never know what you might have sitting around.