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February,
the shortest month, we are in the fist of winter.
Yet the days lengthen perceptibly, and
it is light past five oclock. For the
antique dealer, February is a month to just
get through, a
measured exhalation of breath during long days
of little traffic through the shop. Some
travel,
some travel the internet, and when it goes down
you experience just how critical this new world
voice has become, even for an antique shop is
simply unfathomable. Like the bond between
air
and lungs, once begun, indispensable.
Without it, you are shut down tight. No
instant
communication, business stops, even the antique
business.
What was life like before? Twenty years
ago we approached the machine differently: there
was
clearly a separate existence between you and
the computer. Now we have merged, like
the
centaur, becoming a mythical beast through our
fingertips. The barbarians of hyperspace.
The internet is the most revolutionary phenomenon
since the printing press. In fact most
juveniles
have never heard of a printing press.
Sad but true. Off the shoulders of the
personal computer
and chip technologies, the web has somersaulted
through the heavens spanning the planet Earth,
interlacing tens of millions of individuals,
across age, color, geography, in a constellation
of
keyboard-screens, a virtual global village.
For better or worse, like marriage used to be,
the
internet has come to share our lives.
Four days of disconnect brings such high impact
home. Re-connection was like a fix. For
the
collector and the dealer, the net is a formidable
tool for the antique enterprise, for auction,
for
buying and selling, and most importantly, for
research. Yet the net has seriously
impacted the
small antique market place in several ways.
The volume and variety of merchandise available
over the net is in a word, overwhelming.
You
can find almost anything. There is a price
for such virtual viewingyou cannot physically
examine
an object, and the time spent searching is time
not spent visiting physical shops. If
you purchase
without examination, no matter how detailed
the description, you may be delighted or
disappointed. Especially for a higher
ticket item, make certain you have a right of
return after
inspection.
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