William Cross A Brief History

William Cross

-A brief history in the making of a dealer of Antiques & Collectibles

         I was very fortunate to start my career at a very young age, although I thought it was a curse early on it was not until later in life that I realized that starting so early gave me that edge that no other dealer has or has had. This has enabled me to not only pursue one or two fields, but rather quite a few, most of which are intertwined with each other.

         When I was 12 years old, periodically my father gave my mother a break from taking care of five kids, he would take my two sisters my brother and me down to his store on Queen St West. Packing us into the big station wagon for an adventure at his store. Instead of us just playing havoc throughout the store, although we did nonetheless, he had us grade or sort coins.  

         For he was a numismatics dealer, dealing in Canadian Coins mainly, but also, American, and some foreign coins as well. In a well-known company called Charlton’s, located at 299 Queen St West (now the home of City-TV).

The grading of coins was and is very important to the determination of their value, much the same as any antique or collectible. However, coins, tokens and paper money are some of the more heavily graded items, next to diamonds in the antique and collectible field. Although I had no sense of value, I did know how to grade them.

         At the age of 18, I was able to work full-time (summers only) at the Store, at this time my knowledge of coins, gold and silver accelerated tremendously. At the same time in history was when gold and silver started to climb from their lows of 275.00 and 3.00 respectively. People were flocking to my father’s store to sell their gold and silver for ridiculously high prices, just based on their silver content. People would come in and sell gold chains, sterling tea sets, and Sterling Candlesticks. Antique Jewelry was also brought in as well as he was buying Royal Doulton Figurines, Hummels and other such collectibles. In most cases this was a huge windfall of cash for a lot of people, especially in the late 70’s and early 80’swhen people needed the money. 

As people began bringing in their gold and silver coins, jewelry and antique sterling Tea Sets, Candlesticks, etc. to be melted my father began to deal in Jewelry as well, thus this was my introduction into the antique silver and jewelry field as well.

         My love at that time was more silver than jewelry, as had a great appreciation for Georgian, Victorian, Canadian and Art Deco Silver.  Sterling Silver and or Silver Plated, Candlesticks, Entrée Dishes, Trays, all great things, all handcrafted and some over 200 years old. Funny I still to this day have that same love of Silver. Although I do like Porcelain as well, to me porcelain is like ceramic gold. 

         After my schooling, it was decided that I would join my father’s firm to work full time, as the existing manager was leaving and he needed someone to fill this position.  Working full-time in the store, unlike when I was only working part-time enabled me to gain full-hand knowledge of the selling aspect of the business. You see before this all I was doing was buying before. I had no experience in selling. The strangest thing happened, I liked selling more than buying, buying is fun don’t get me wrong, but seeing the joy on someone’s face when they bought something that was going to give them even more joy, made me ecstatic.  Of course, it made us money as well so that helps.   

         At 25, I gained a full working knowledge of Coins, Paper Money, Tokens, Jewelry gold silver and Platinum. As well as English and European Ceramics including Meissen, Doulton, Japanese and Chinese, Moorcroft, and Baccarat, Lalique, Daum, and Waterford crystal.

         By the time I was 28, I was running my store down at the harbourfront antique market. Buying and selling and at that time looking to get into furniture. 

         As I learned much about furniture at that time I realized that it was too hard to move around, and it required a lot more work than a small vase or a piece of silver would be to move. However it did not stop me from learning more about furniture, how is constructed and its styles and what’s hot or what is not.

         Ater comming out to my family and more importantly my father , he decided he did not want a gay son. I was kicekd out the company and the family i had know all my life at the age of 27. He subsequently, after 10-15 years changed his mind , but my that time for me at least it was too late, the damege was done.  

         When I was 29 I sold my business in Toronto and moved out west, to Vancouver.  It is here where I decided to specialize in Royal Doulton and Beswick.  Travelling all over the west from BC to Manitoba, I attended numerous antique and collectible shows. Trading in Royal Doulton and Beswick and within three years became the largest dealer on the west coast.

I created Royal Doulton events for collectors , where I flw in guest speakers from the UK and hosted wine and chesee parties and dinners events for the local collectors. This was a huge sucess. I even hosted a Royal Doulton cruise to Alaska. 

         Until of course, of the invention of the Internet and eBay. Where I predicted 25 years ago the market would take a huge fall in prices and it did do just that. Too much inventory on the market. 

         In 2002 I moved back to Toronto to be closer to my family and to look into the possibility of going into the interior design trade and incorporating it into the antique trade. While most of my life was dealing with periods of history and design throughout history, it seemed only natural at the time to go into design and incorporate antiques and collectibles into our modern-day homes.   

I stayed in Toronto for 12 years, while taking a few years off to try something completely different. I learned how to create Databases and how to run and manipulate them. I got a job at IBM, which I thought was what I always wanted. Nine to five jobs where I had weekends off to spend time with my friends. Boy, was I wrong, I hated this, stuck in a cubicle listening to some doh-head tell me about his 25-foot sailboat, what was I thinking?

While my brief stint working for a local furniture store gained me much knowledge of the interior design trade. I soon realized that this was not for me. To discuss fabrics on a sofa and what springs it has in it seemed like such a waste of time. I  thought it was simple, see a piece you like buy it and use it. . Ugh too much for me.

 I then left again for BC in 2014, where I sold mainly Royal Doulton Figurines & Character Jugs. The market there was strictly driven by the wealthy Chinese who for the most part would buy a lot of the very common pieces, they seldom bought anything good in Doulton. To fill their cabinets with pretty ladies mainly and hummels. I tried to eductat them in buying the scacer better pieces , but they wanted bling not investments. 

 When the pandemic hit in March 2020, everything changed. The in-person markets were over, and everything went online. While this was great for the auction houses, the rest of us in the trade were dead in the water for over 2 years. 

I moved back to Ontario to help my Mom through the pandemic, also since I was not doing anything but floundering waiting for the restrictions to end.

 

When things began the re-open I found myself in a place where I did not want to be, so I moved out to Stratford, ON, to follow a lifelong dream of mine. I had always thought of having a small antique store where I could live above it. While I found something similar, it was run by someone who was not very good in business and ran the business like a petulant child. You cannot work with children, they are irrational. So my dream of working in a store in the country was over.

 

I am now in Waterloo, ON, where I am trying to re-kindle the Doulton market, but now alone and much older I wonder if that is what I am supposed to do. ……….. to be continued.