Catalogue: Rare cold steel weapons; Masterpieces of Christian icons; Rare ancient books
Date: 2007-05-09 18:10
Catalogue
Of exhibition Tamoikins Museum (Canada) in Trakai historical museum:
Rare cold steel weapons
Masterpieces of Christian icons
Rare ancient books
April-June 2007 Trakai, Lithuania
PRICE: 8 EUR (plus S&H)
PRICE: 8 EUR (plus S&H)
Introduction:
Objectives of This Exposition Tour in the EU and America
Dear friend,
Thank you for coming to our exposition and expressing interest in this catalogue. We truly appreciate this goodwill gesture of yours – no matter if it was prompted by professional interest or mere curiosity – and feel obliged to make this book as useful and informative as possible.
Visiting a museum or an exhibition: what is it about?
Above all it is an attempt to enhance our knowledge of the surrounding world. New things, be it Impressionist canvases by Van Gogh or Japanese netsuke, seen at an exhibition visited on purpose or incidentally make visitors reconsider their views on history and their personal understanding of contemporary trends in the politics and economy. School textbooks abound with examples where a single rarity, unimportant at a first glance, would uncover major secrets of the past. In this quest of the truth scientists often use help of people known as collectors.
This special caste should not be confused with the army of antique dealers: by contrast to any other class of admirers of “old knick-knackery” collectors are the ones who together with scientists approach their objects as thoughtful researchers. Those of them who open access to their collectibles for the public deserve particular respect.
While we have no doubt that this exposition will reveal many secrets and help you learn many new things we would like to draw a bottom line under this brief excursus into usefulness of going to museums by highlighting one more aspect that becomes increasingly important in today’s society: the fact that museums and expositions are a must on the schedule of an above-average business person. Your face or appearance may be remembered by someone important, operating at a higher level of business or politics – the incentive that nowadays gains more and more magnitude in achieving success. Furthermore, at an exhibition you may be noticed and remembered by people whose occupation is to inform the public: reporters and operators for printed periodicals, radio, and TV. While a micro-commotion stirred by such an occasion may not be of interest to a manager of a provincial poultry farm it is of paramount importance for a beginner urban business executive for whom each additional milligram of reputation is essential.
We have no doubt that our exposition will be useful to all its visitors, for one reason or the other. At the same time we would highly appreciate your feedback in the Tamoikins Museum’s Guestbook or at our web-page (www.tamoikinsmuseum.com).
Coming back to the main purpose of this catalogue let us dwell a bit more on the objects it presents and see what useful information it may offer our honourable readers.
Speaking of collectors and their treasures we can hardly skip some of the most vital problems relating to their activity, as well as to that of many others who have risked to set off into a cumbersome navigation called antiques trade. Taking in to account analytical forecast for the next few years along with the growing prices on gold (~20% per year) a very high demand on all antiquity can be expected and we all will witness when problems of the market will be seriously addressed by governments and international organizations. Apart from quite frequent cases of theft, fake items trade and multimillion legal suits related to antique artefacts there is a host of other problems arising out of collection and sale of objects of cultural and historical heritage, still unresolved even in developed countries, that make a vast majority of antiquity admirers and owners to keep low profile. This is definitely a habit in the ex-Soviet states whose collectors still keep fresh memories of their weapons or jewellery being confiscated by overzealous bureaucrats under pretexts absolutely at odds with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In this context it is imperative that societal and cultural institutions of all states began working on implementation of a uniform set of standards of appraisal, attribution and marking of collective objects of any type (not only highly-praised ones) that should be adopted on the international scale. This approach has to-date crystallised in the form of the patented and copyright protected TES Appraisal Method and has successfully passed a three-year probation in different countries.
While having no goal of advertising this innovative activity of ours we believe a thoughtful reader may find much useful information concerning the practice of (1) appraisal, (2) marking and (3) attribution of collectible objects that helped us and our partners become leaders on the antiques market at www.tamoikinsmuseum.com. Based on a scientifically grounded methodology covering each of the three basic components of the highly idiosyncratic market of antiques and museum rarities our organisation has been able to achieve excellent practical results in the course of the successful trial of its ground-breaking programme. Without going into detail we would like to emphasise few basic things.
Nobody of sound mind would deny that any antique artefact needs a certificate. At our age of global communications, where virtually every product (be it a toy, toilet paper or a household gizmo) requires an internationally-accepted certificate, for antiques worth much more than a car or a washing machine there is not even a resemblance of a uniform certification system; furthermore, unique objects may sell at prices varying dozens of times between different districts of the same city – let alone with no registration of transactions and certification of items sold.
It does not take a scientist to guess who benefits from this situation and why: it works in favour of those who looks to conceal incomes and continue playing by the rules of the black market. As the result, millions of good-faith owners have to hide their rarities that ultimately perish burying vast segments of history of nations to which they belong. This is possibly one of the gravest social effects of this situation.
In the absence of a single appraisal standard a state having rich history would also lose in numerical expression of value of its historical riches. Ask any museum manager or staff scientist if there were any praised and rare objects in their museum. Of course, they would answer. Now ask them how much these objects were worth. In most cases there would be no reply.
Our international team has been put together to break this humble silence on the antiques market and to counter aggressive behaviour of shade dealers. We are armed with a scientifically substantiated methodology that has won several patents and is protected by the international copyright law and invite you to join in with our programme.
Quite in line with the catalogue “genre” every object presented here has been assigned a fair market value estimated by our TES Method referenced above. We state quite responsibly that every number quoted is scientifically grounded, has been audited by both state and private experts and has been accepted by insurance company in EU. We do anticipate some of the these numbers to fall under criticism of lower-echelon antique market dealers. Without going into unnecessary debate we would like to stress that, first of all, while our exposition and this catalogue were being prepared we have received quite a few purchase offers for our objects at the prices calculated by the TES Method and included in the catalogue. Secondly, all members of the market should be aware that a price of a rarity is in most cases a function of its uniqueness – the consideration that directly pertains to the vast majority of exhibits at our exposition. If an object is only one of its kind in the entire world one could hardly object that its price should far exceed that of a four-bedroom penthouse – an asset a wealthy antique collector could afford in every town, unlike a rarity out of this catalogue its owner would not sell for any money! As a small illustrative comment to the aforesaid we think good to present material from the press (“Fakty”21/12/2006):
A question to critics: if the amount of more than two million USA dollars has been paid for an American banknote, issued in 1890, the identical pieces of which there are not less than nine in the world, why cannot the 19th century icon, copies of which have not been found, be sold for the same amount of money? Thirdly, pricing of objects in this catalogue, collected and preserved (often with a lot of effort) by their private owner, is aimed at those individuals who have achieved a certain milestone in their living standard and who treat cultural and historical artefacts (examined by more than one expert panel) as articles of value rather than just dusty little things offered by a flea market peddler who does not care about their real stories and wishes only to make a quick buck. We will express our point of view regarding the difference in relation to an item (and consequently its price) between the genuine collector possessing it and, for example, the second-hand dealer. In our opinion, they cannot on any account be compared. We will in short explain why. If each item listed in the Catalogue has been examined by many experts (and more than of one country) what is proved by documentary expert findings and recognized in public, it is quite natural that the price of it will much differ from any other similar analogue at an antique shop (on a flea market stall or kept in a chest) at least for the reason that the part of expenditure (in terms of time and money: the cost of only one expert finding on one item is $300-2,000 US) and the “publicity factor” are the components which allow speaking about such an essential difference. To any critic of the prices specified in the Catalogue, possessing items of no less significance, we advise at the very least to go through the following stages: (1) to obtain two or three findings of competent specialists on relevant subject from different countries. In addition to payment for the services of examination, you will have to cover either item delivery expenses to a scientific centre (with all the procedures of customs clearance and taxation) or expert’s traveling and accommodation expenses; (2) to go through the procedure of legalization of the item, i.e. to acquire a legitimate document proving a title to it; (3) to publish illustrative and scientific material about the collection in any international publication; (4) to provide finance for all the stages of at least one small regional exhibition; (5) to insure the item. In our opinion, only those critics who at least have gone through these five stages mentioned above for their items and analogues (compared to ours from the aspect of price) deserve to be involved in equivalent polemics on any subject issue of this exhibition and Catalogue.
Mankind rapidly moves forward, the level of information exchange and consequently the level of education steadily increases, therefore the times when an eminent antiquary and expert having theatrically intelligent looks makes conclusions about the price and other peculiarities of the examined item of the collection without detailed explanations pass away. Even almost an illiterate buyer-up of the relics of the past from the heart of Russia already starts giving “inconvenient” questions which begin with the combination of words “please explain why”. Many of them already are not satisfied with illogical replies of the “authorities from capitals”. The phrase “estimate at such and such amount of roubles/dollars” without full and particular explanations simply does not stand comparison with – for example – the detailed findings of the patent method of TES, based on no less detailed conclusions of the specialists: historians and art critics. This is an acknowledged fact on the markets of many countries. We firmly believe that the practice of setting price ranges or pricing criteria for certain rarity groups or works by certain artists, which works in many civilized states, should be urgently proliferated across the rest of the world. This is the only way to remove economic incentives for illegal trafficking of antiques to countries with the highest demand. We don’t think it is fair that a unique decoration of the young Lithuanian republic of the early 1920s, with only 10 pieces surviving worldwide, should be valued on the international market much lower than a contemporary commemorative 1-cent coin issued by the circulation of 10 thousand.
In trying to find more arguments in favour of high valuation of rare artefacts let us dream a little bit. As well as a fair number of reputable collectors of our circle we believe that each antique is to a degree a memory matrix holding information about the entire succession of its owners and events to which it was partial from the time it was created. Not far off is the time when the human race will become able to read – not unlike off a Gigabyte memory card – the entire pool of data so borne by old objects. In this context the desire of any family to preserve items that belonged to their ancestors is entirely understandable, and so is the collecting passion of many prominent politicians and society leaders. We call on all admirers of antiquity: owners, dealers of all levels and collectors to publicly open your big and small collections, of course with full preparation of all documents and expertise from respected specialists, historians, appraisers and scientists.
The following symbols have been used in this catalogue:
*******7 – Each object is marked with a certain number of asterisks ranging from one to seven. These define cultural significance and monetary value of a given object based on our seven-point scale by the two major criteria: (1) rarity and (2) association with outstanding historical personages. The more asterisks (stars) there are, the higher is the value.
– A dollar mark next to an object will mean that this rarity is for sale at a price no less than indicated in this catalogue. Those who have serious offers are invited to contact our representatives and sign in for auctions for relevant groups of antiques.
– In some instances a mark representing national colours will appears next to a dollar mark. This means the given object may only be sold inside the stated country with no right of export.
On exhibits that have high demand and accordingly changed price, reserved (down-payment accepted and the sale process began) or already changed ownership you will be able to find out from our official website or by contacting us at the exhibition.
These are the basic points underlying the philosophy of this catalogue on which many experts, listed in our Experts group, have worked on.
Thank you.