AARP Interview

Last fall I was contacted by Niamh Rowe, a columnist for AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) Magazine with some questions about the best way to liquidate a collection, to be included in a future column.  After a couple emails back and forth to establish that the request was legitimate, I readily […]

Winchester Model 94

My father was a hunter in his younger years and was also moderately avid in the hobby of firearms. I remember melting lead with him to cast bullets and I can still see him at the shotgun press reloading shotshells. Dad didn’t have a large collection, but everything in it was of quality. He took […]

Timing is everything…

I have done many things in my near 60 years on this planet. I have had many different jobs, been involved in many different organizations and owned several different businesses. One of the keys to this for me has always been timing. What I mean is that for me, the easier something came together, the […]

A letter to the Editor of Florida Today…

Seven years. Seven years just about to the day was the life of Five Katz Antiques. I started the antique store in June of 2015. We stumbled onto a small 1100 square foot space for rent in a strip plaza in Titusville. It all pretty much fell together, but it was a bit of a […]

Why didn’t that dealer buy my item!

Being in business means you will never make everyone happy one hundred percent of the time. I have firsthand experience with this fact because 95% of my employed life over the last 40 years has been in retail sales of some sort. I have sold everything at one time or another except for homes. Pet’s […]

Hey! Don’t do that!

Florida Today’s title – “Antiques: Don’t do more harm than good when making a repair” Over the years as a photographer, an artist, a collector and antique dealer I have seen some pretty egregious things happen to, well, things. Okay, I know I am going to have to explain that one. There are certain things […]

What not to collect.    

The antiques & collectibles market has changed a great deal in the last 7 years that Five Katz Antiques has been open. It is radically different from what the experience gained over the last 30 years of buying and selling antiques had me prepared for. Many things are collectible. The goal is to buy it […]

How do antique dealers price their wares?

As many different types of antique stores, vintage shops, retro dealers and other secondhand stores as there are, there are probably as many different ways these stores value and price their items. Prices at thrift stores used to be far less than they are today. Part of this rise is due to factors such as […]

Reading List

I decided to take a break from writing about antique related items and situations and try something new. When I am not at the store, and have some free time, I read. When I was young, and owned my bookstore, it was science fiction and classics. As I have gotten older, I find that I […]

“Twenty Bucks”

Twenty Bucks… There is an interesting phenomenon out there. It happens to many people every day, mostly men, but they really don’t understand it or are aware of it. Some are, but with most, it happens on a near unconscious level. It’s not malicious, it just happens. What is this strange occurrence? “It was only […]