QUILT NEWS & VIEWS



WHY ARE ANTIQUE QUILTS BARGAINS?

I have a good friend that was in the new quilt business for most of her life, and she recently shared some costs with me on making new quilts. She was in the heart of the Amish Country in Holmes County Ohio, and had many good Amish piecers and quilters working for her. The Amish usually charge about 50 cents a yard to quilt, although some are higher, which means for every running yard of quilting (one simple line) or otherwise, that is the cost.  The average quilt has 250 yards (some way more).  How about the fabric?  Well, that depends on what grade and style of fabric you decide to use.  I suppose for $5 a yard you can get some inexpensive cotton, although from my experience, you could spend $10 or more per yard (you know the fancy fabric everybody wants).  Lets say for an average 100 square inch quilt you will need about 11 yards of fabric and 5-1/2 yards of batting.  Although this varies slightly by pattern considering waste when cutting.  And let's not forget the thread to both piece and quilt at $3 a spool.  You are very lucky if you can find someone to piece a quilt top with a machine for you for $75 to $150, again depending on the pattern. The bottom line:  if you total the above, you would be lucky to get a new quilt made WHOLESALE for $450 to $550. Keep in mind it takes about a year to get a quilt made in our area.  How about applique quilts?  Depending on the pattern, that is if you can even find a skilled person to do it, add several hundred $$$$.  Again I am talking wholesale prices, the cost my friend paid.  Now it is easy to see the high cost of a new quilt.  Vintage and antique fabrics cost up to $50 or more a yard (if you can find them), so it's easy to see how INEXPENSIVE Antique quilts really are!  Check our $299, $399 and $499 quilts that are clean and ready to go.  YOU COULD NOT EVEN GET THEM MADE FOR THAT IN TODAYS MARKET, and to top it off, they are going to be worth more long term for resale in my opinion. Thus as you browse our categories, keep in mind these prices, and thus the bargains abound, enjoy!  (PIECE TO ALL)   Steve 2/22/2008
Just a reminder, we are running a three day clearance sale on eBay where we have 50 clearance quilts at auction. Click on our Ebay link on the right and check our auctions!


Just listed additional star quilts! More categories coming tomorrow.


CHINESE IMPORTS ARE NOT AMERICANA!
Here is a subject I do not take lightly - I am drawing a line in the sand here!  I continue to see quilt  imports showing up on the online auction sites listed as vintage or antique or just that they are quilts with age. They are showing up with increasing frequency, as the antique quilt categories continue to bring high prices.  I see people paying hundreds of dollars for each of these misrepresented quilts.   Apparently, nobody monitors these sites for accuracy, so buyer beware!  Look at the dealers reputation, which says a lot, like knowing your old local hardware dealer - you trusted him to lead you in the right direction.  These quilts can be purchased in our area brand new for as little as $29.  Ask the seller questions - are these antique?  Are they American?  How old are they?  Check the quilting on them - is there close, tight stitching or do they have 3 stitches per inch?  The imports will almost never be well quilted.  Even the imports that were made 25 years ago as museum reproductions did not have good quilting, although there is now a following for these quilts to a limited extent.  You can get a good antique quilt for the kind of money they're paying for Chinese imports, and antiques are a much better investment, in my humble opinion!  Look closely at these quilts (if the photos are good enough to see), and this is what you'll find - these quilts often imitate the American antique versions, but are mass produced in China and India - there are thousands of these "rare" quilts!   Look for fabrics that are currently made today, and you'll no doubt find them in these cheap, reproduction quilts.  Beware - they are even reproducing old fabric prints now.  With experience and the help of a qualified dealer in textiles, you will be able to distinguish these inferior pieces from antique ones.  Educate yourself by getting a good book on dating fabrics.  One of our favorites is Dating Fabrics by Eileen Trestain.  Please do yourself a favor - get a copy if you plan to invest in and collect quilts - a must have.  I have learned snippets about fabrics in this book that I would have missed otherwise, even after buying & selling quilts for more than 30 years!  Here is a link to the Amazon site where I found copies available. http://www.amazon.com/Dating-Fabrics-Color-Guide-1800-1960/dp/0891458840.  There are also copies for sale on eBay.  You can NEVER educate yourself too much, and you're never too old to learn.  If you plan to start a collection of quilts, read as much material as possible.  We will be including books we like as we go along, and plan to add a section soon on this subject. Remember, if it is too cheap or too good to be true, it probably is!!  We hope you will use this site to educate yourself, and maybe when you feel the time is right you will purchase a quilt from us.  Until then I hope we can be of help to you in developing your collection.  Bookmark this site and come back often.  Just  click on our homepage link, right click and add to your favorites or desktop. www.americasantiques.biz We look forward to your questions and will answer each one with individual attention.  Email Steve or Stephanie at customersupport@americasantiques.biz.  Below is a sneak preview of the many quilts we will be listing soon!  "Piece" to all!   Steve 2/17/2008






We just had a quilt sale in our Ebay store where we have marked down 50 quilts and put them at auction with a very AFFORDABLE price.   Only 14 sold, even though we had them marked down BELOW what we paid for them and as and even professionally hand washed them.  There are dealers who charge over $200 just for this service alone!  I am constantly amazed, as I keep an eye on everything that sells on the various on line auction sites and the prices that some sellers are getting for DIRTY merchandise.  It is beyond me why anyone would want to put a dirty bed cover on their bed.  Sort of like wearing other folks dirty clothes!!!  Now don't get me wrong, if a quilt is unused and unwashed and CLEAN and 100 years old, for gosh sakes do not clean it, preserve it as such!  On the other hand, have any of you that purchased these quilts with  age spots , storage spots etc. ever put one in water and taken a look at the stains that appear?  Well I have and I have done thousands of them (yes that's correct, thousands) and I can tell you first hand that those age spots are nothing more than dried filth that I would want cleaned off.  Stains appear much fainter when they are dried.  I think most  purchasers would be SHOCKED at what they saw when a quilt is wet!  We hand wash our quilts for this reason, as dirt and mold such as this continues to destroy quilt fabric fibers!  The light FOXING that is described to you on those on line auctions are nothing more then MOLD.  Look it up on the internet - there is plenty of free info. More on this later.  Last word - check our current fixed price or best offer quilts on our Ebay site.   We just added them to our eBay store where we LOWERED the price way down.  Bottom line, we just purchased a collection of over 100 Antique quilts and we are overflowing at the seams!  Our loss is your gain!  See something you like on this web site but would like a deal??  Let us know - we have them marked down but would always listen to serious offers!!  Email Steve or Stephanie at customersupport@americasantiques.biz.  Thanks and more to come on many quilt subjects soon, check back often.   Steve 2/15/2008

   
Quilts as an investment?
Here I sit watching the news and listening to all the talking heads reporting the dire state of the economy (wow, they really know how to spin it!).  I simply smile as I look at all the piles of quilts around me.  Why wouldn't owning a quilt as an investment or work of art make you smile? The great ones just keep getting better and going up in value (sort of like real estate once did), and they aren't making antique ones anymore. I look at them as my 401K and I get to enjoy them along the way.  Try that with a stock!  I can't remember a time when quilts have been out of favor - there have always been collectors.  The internet has even expanded the playing field.  Basically over the last 30 years, I have seen prices on what I call "common" quilts (like flower gardens, wedding rings, dresden plates - the quilts that everyone seemed to make) fluctuate very little, but the great quilts (1850-1870's both appliqués and pieced quilts, in other words, masterpieces) just keep getting better, in my humble opinion.  There were only so many seamstresses that were great artists, and they made a limited amount. Some successful antique investor told me long ago "buy the best you can afford".  Remember this and you can't go wrong!  Stephanie has posted a few tips on laundering on our Care & Use forum, and we'll be adding to that, including links that you may find helpful.  We hope Americas Antiques can become your antique quilt web community, and we welcome each and every suggestion you might have!  We're not only looking forward to selling you a clean antique quilt, but also enlighten you with our personal experiences and provide you with useful links for additional information.
  (Steve 2/7/08)