p>Dear Lee,

We are noticing two new trends in collecting. Limited editions are coming back if they’re at the top of the market. The plates and figurines of the 1980s no longer interest many collectors, but very expensive furniture, silver, and pottery are being offered in limited editions-often fewer than 25 are made-and wealthy collectors are buying. The other trend has been developing since the 1970s. Many collectors of paintings, those we call 2-D (two-dimensional) collectors, started to realize that a house needs chairs and tables (3-D objects) as well as wall decorations. Many 3-D collectors with period furniture, art pottery, and collections of plastic purses or mechanical banks began noticing the blank walls and monotone-colored rooms surrounding their collections. So tobacco-can collectors wanted tobacco-related signs, and still-life oil paintings of fruit were sought for display over a Victorian sofa.

What is most amazing is that both trends have now reached the moneyed, global collectors who have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a painting or sculpture, but much less for furnishings that are “quality,” but not art. The Art Basel show in Miami Beach included decorative art dealers for the first time. Prices seemed impossible to average collectors. It was gossiped that a major dealer representing living designers took in $3 million. Many of the unique Swarovski crystal chandeliers by invited designers sold, some for over $100,000. Limited edition tables by Ron Arad, the hottest of the furniture innovators, sold opening night for over $30,000 each. Buyers want chairs that will complement modern paintings, but they are also speculating that the rarest, best pieces will be great investments, gaining in value until they finally are included in that 2106 antiques show. Dealers and collectors with down-to-earth incomes may want to be part of the trends. Look at the handmade pieces that by nature are limited editions. Antiques are rare because age has cut the supply; contemporary pieces become rare by making them in limited numbers.