A Beginner’s Guide: How to Operate an Antiques Business: 50 Years of Trade Secrets, Advice, Common Sense Solutions, with a Bit of Tongue-in-Cheek Dry Humor

by Mark Clay Grove, Virtual Voice (Narrator)

I wrote this in the late 1990's when I was at the height of my antiques entrepreneurial career. With the exception of auctioneering, I successfully operated in all of the related sub-fields within the antiques world, collector, researcher, picker, shopkeeper, antiques mall owner-operator, circuit rider antiques show dealer (local, regional, national), refinisher, hauler, appraiser, author, PBS TV presenter (Maryland), and a whole lot of stuff I can't remember any longer because now I'm 70 years old. This is what I can remember. It should give you a good head start in the antiques business and maybe a laugh or two. Good luck!

Audible Audio

Published February 21, 2026

About the author

I like to write G-rated literature, science fiction, short stories, how-to business guides, and I publish some of grad school papers. Presently, I am converting my hard copy master's thesis to digital format with the intent of it becoming an ebook, audiobook, paperback.

In my Picker Series (literature), the main characters, Charles and Emma Dawes, travel about Virginia, the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world searching for undervalued treasures ("sleepers"). Most of the anecdotes are based on my real experience. First in this series is, The Madison Picker. Its sequel is Some Kind of Good. The third title in the series, South Boston Beauty, is in development.

And then I’ve written a sci-fi series employing the same characters (still rated G). This series is sequel the Picker Series. The scifi series is called, the Conglomerate Series. The Serapis Fraktur, the first title. Its sequel is The Scalar Magnitude (in developement), and there are standalone short stories and novellas, too: The Pilot, Retread Operator, The Reaper, and Time Machine Administration. The Pilot is also in Spanish.

What I read: Anything that does NOT have explicit sex and streams of foul language. Why? Because it's repugnant.