Interview with Richard Wright and David Rago about their Rago/Wright merger, how it is expanding business and their perspectives on material they handle, such as buying, selling and collecting in the current market. Check out the websites:
Related Links
George Nakashima; Nakashima Woodworkers ; Gustav Stickley; Paul Evans; George Ohr Pottery; James Bearden; Antiques Are Green
Show Transcript
Note: Transcripts are digitally transcribed, we do not deem them as accurate.
Host Martin Willis (19s):
Hello everyone and welcome to the antique auction Forum. We have two great guests. They vote then past guests on the show Richard Wright and David Reagan. And we are going to talk today about their merger that they’re doing pretty excited to speak about that. Welcome to the show guys. Thank you for having us and you we are right now you are down in Lambertville, right? And then at the Lambertville office the auction gallery there in the heart of New Jersey.
Yes, and if I remember right David, you told me last time we spoke here about four miles from the Nakashima shop as a crow flies. Yes. Yeah, and what what great history? That is in in the shop is still going mirrors still running that and you and I’ve had a few conversations over the years about people that have had Nakashima in the area. I got a while aboard just I’m talking about Nakashima. Why when I lived
out in the San Francisco area, why was it so popular out there? I used to see it seemed like everywhere out there and San Francisco.
Richard Wright or David Rago (1m 27s):
I will be given an educated guess but something about the the natural edges of the would seem very harmonious with a lot of the architecture. I saw in San Francisco and Marin County.
Host Martin Willis (1m 40s):
I see hmm free
Richard Wright or David Rago (1m 41s):
edges the use of structural detailing. I’ve been a number of houses in the San Francisco and North of San Francisco area where the modern housing lots of trees specially yapper and it’s He really good fit to
Host Martin Willis (1m 57s):
- No Mill Valley. I remember I remember when I was out there. There was actually I looked at a table where the the underside of it. The person that owned. It made me crawl underneath and look and he said there’s a civil war bullet right there in the tree that was embedded in the tree and he kept it in. That was really interesting
Richard Wright or David Rago (2m 19s):
that when you seen that pieces of flitch cut wood that had metal in them. Usually a
Host Martin Willis (2m 24s):
bullet. Yeah. Yeah pretty amazing would not too good for the saw. So we’re going to talk about the merger. But first of all, let’s talk separately David you’ve been around this for even long. I’ve say, you know, 45 years. I’ve been at the you know auctions in antiques think you have me beat you just start out very very young. But I want to get into what’s that.
Richard Wright or David Rago (2m 51s):
I was seven when I started.
Host Martin Willis (2m 54s):
Okay, I was 15. Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. And you know, you don’t see a lot of that today, but occasionally you will see kids that are really into it and I love that. You know, I mean hit it we need that we need that coming up. But go ahead if you wouldn’t talk a little bit about your gallery and then Richard your turn after
Richard Wright or David Rago (3m 13s):
that. Sure. Well, we started our Auction Company Navy for I’ve been in the business since 72 actually started the flea market Lambertville, which is about two miles from where we’re sitting two and a half miles and soon discovered porcelain and Ceramics timing was really good. I had it was a college student. I had no money from there. I moved into arts and crafts material just kept changing with it and the early 90s we held our first modern auction. I think was 90 or 91 not long after George Nakashima
died. Gradually made the shift from early 20th century to Mid 20th century contemporary. So it’s been a long and circuitous route.
Host Martin Willis (3m 52s):
I bet now. Did you have to kind of guide your you’re buying audience along to get excited about these type of things? So how did that did that come about now?
Richard Wright or David Rago (3m 60s):
We have many models in our business, but one of my favorites is a desperation is the mother of invention and when the recession hit in the early 90s, we were just looking for things to sell because we were in the Lambertville area who lived in Lambertville at that time. We came across some really interesting modern material. I lucked into some George Nakashima from a realtor in New Jersey who had a hundred pieces of it. He started consigning one of us. So I would say
it was the path of least resistance. I wish it was more intelligent more prescient than that. I cannot take credit for prescience in this
Host Martin Willis (4m 37s):
case. Certainly found your Niche. That’s for sure and Richard. Why don’t you go ahead? Didn’t talk about how you you began and you know, you’re into the 20th century design as well and 21st century designed as well, aren’t you?
Richard Wright or David Rago (4m 55s):
Yeah, so it’s I mean it’s an interesting parallel. I started on the flea markets as well started a dealer in the late 80s having no money at that time instead of doing arts and crafts which was already kind of expensive I did modern so I started right away with all those the most accessible. Market that point which would things from the 50s work my way up worked at another auction house that had Treadway to me auction house or and that from 93 to 99
the left in 2000 open my own and you know sort of built it up for mayor I think like David kept evolving the whole way which is a big Focus really proud of it is something that I think is made this this kind of next chapter actually feel Just feel totally appropriate to what we can do in our whole career.
Host Martin Willis (5m 48s):
Right one of the things I noticed about your your auction gallery right away. Richard is the wonderful photography. It’s almost like the photography in the catalogs are almost like dark artistic and I was getting your catalogs for a long time and they’re just fabulous and doing this work myself. I know what it takes to catalog and put together a catalog. It’s besides of the vast expense. You know, it’s an enormous amount of time.
Richard Wright or David Rago (6m 18s):
We’ve invested a lot and bring catalogs were our original claim to fame and we still do them and I still love Prince but digital is become really our focus and you know trying to to translate that same quality visual quality through the web. It is definitely the future
Host Martin Willis (6m 37s):
right and you know speaking of that the it’s less and less auction houses will do in of Physical catalog and compared to an online catalog. It’s still about the same amount of work a little less money because of the printing issues but still so what made you to decide to to join together? And how do you think that’s going to benefit both of you and and the buyers, you know,
Richard Wright or David Rago (7m 7s):
you know quite honestly, I think the the the pressures within the industry brought us together insomuch as As you know, it’s a very competitive field. It’s you know, Christie’s and Sotheby’s are you know, the two became that’s at the top of the industry that really increasingly are trying to capture total market share with digitization, you know, you have first dibs and you have Christie’s and Sotheby’s mounting more and more digital auctions and just
again trying to take his take as much as they can. David came came to me. We were friendly Years, but we weren’t we were
Host Martin Willis (7m 46s):
respectful and respectful. That’s an idiot. We actually didn’t know each other
Richard Wright or David Rago (7m 50s):
very well. We started talking about a year and a half before we actually final finally legally merged which was only in January of this year and through the process. The process has been really wonderful. I think that we’ve become friends and that this natural Synergy that we saw really has become a parent, you know, just in the brief way with that we’ve Grabbed our weight. We rose up through the business, you know as auction as an
option as I’ve invested a lot in process and in photos and if you know that sort of that sort of back of house. I think David has built an incredibly, you know client facing forward organization where easier and Lambertville tons of people come here. He’s you know, really as great our range, which is a me not so much. And you know, the combination of that is actually proved couldn’t be wonderful. We thought there’d
be as Richard said a Synergy when we agreed to do this and then some of the ways we were right and anticipating there’d be some savings costs and we could make more interesting auctions and we were selling things Richard wasn’t for example. We were holding jewelry sales and estate sales with Asian art and even coin auctions Richard wasn’t doing any of this so we felt that we have that to offer and we also knew that Richard was Approaching auctions from a higher level than we were. I mean our catalogs were really
Host Martin Willis (9m 17s):
good. But as you said the photography that
Richard Wright or David Rago (9m 19s):
Richard was employing was at a different level and we saw that I mean, we’re in the art business we can better it’s better and it’s not it’s not hard to determine but beyond that we’re seeing that the union has really changed the game for both of us in ways. I didn’t see coming. For example, even in the material that we were both selling like we spoke earlier about George Nakashima. Now we have more Nakashima to draw from and we have more auctions to
sell it and I was only selling Nakashima three times a year in my three main modern sales and Richard was holding maybe four or five or six auctions and that was maybe 10 auctions a year or Nakashima would be appropriate and instead of my having to put I mean I had I’ve had auctions with Nakashima with 50 plus lots of Nakashima in one day. Wow. It’s a lot to bring out at one time. You don’t have to do that anymore. Now we can spread those 50 lat. It’s out over three different options and really give a certain amount of focus to each individual to
want rather than jamming all together. So those are that that’s one of the ways we’re definitely seeing a change for the good
Host Martin Willis (10m 26s):
I see now, do you have to get involved in shipping between Chicago and Lambertville? I mean does that is that
Richard Wright or David Rago (10m 34s):
happening? There’s a little bit of that for sure. I mean, you know, the Chicago operation has relatively as I said, we’re less Outward focused we have far fewer pre viewers. We actually sell relatively little material in Chicago. So when we we take in Consignments to be sold in Lambertville, very often will ship things to Lambertville because the preview is very important here on the right platform. We sell a lot to
the east coast to anyway, and then so a lot of a lot of the property will stay right here in Lambertville. So it’s also helped, you know, People that want to consign under the right platform because we’re keeping we’re keeping two Brands going. So so you see if you sort of have two channels that you can choose from we found to have an East Coast destination is actually additive for our buyers and sellers.
Host Martin Willis (11m 33s):
I see I was having an interesting conversation with Jay stenger. Are you familiar with him just a few if you have Days ago, I’m actually praising piece that took him four years to make it home. It’s really an amazing piece and we started talking about the what’s that? Very impressive. Haha. Say we start talking about, you know, how his things fair at auction how you know contemporary work by
certain people fair and he said his not so well, but he did say that there was one Furniture artist and I didn’t catch the name where I didn’t remember the name that he says. So that when the pieces go to auction, they go higher at auction than what that person would commission them for. Have you heard of this
Richard Wright or David Rago (12m 23s):
happening? I was he talking about James Beard and maybe
Host Martin Willis (12m 26s):
possibly like and I did I didn’t catch the name. But I mean
Richard Wright or David Rago (12m 31s):
that was a market we Champion to maybe a decade or so ago is from Jamaica from the Midwest and similar Paul Evans. A lot of welded metal. We were selling pieces for multiples of what he was not able to sell them for in.
– we’ll go on that since
Richard Wright or David Rago (12m 47s):
his pricing structure since changed to adapt to the
Host Martin Willis (12m 50s):
market levels. Yeah, I can see that adjustment.
Richard Wright or David Rago (12m 54s):
Yeah, and certainly the high-level love on furniture, you know the French they no longer living but long live on just a recently passed but the furniture, you know would sell out very quickly and then if it can come up at auction itself or Multiple, so a lot of it has to do with supply and demand sure. Yeah, but in general the secondary Market is below the primary market for most contemporary
craft by quite a bit also. Yeah. Yeah. We’re just seeing I mean mirror Nakashima would be an interesting case in point again to stay with Nakashima. And that’s these pieces are made for miles from where Richard and I are sitting now and her we see her secondary Market involving initially pieces were selling for a third of what they sold for originally. And now especially if they were purchased more than a decade ago. They’re bringing 2/3 sometimes full original sale price. So the definitely is
a move forward in that regard
Host Martin Willis (13m 55s):
would you say this is a lot like an artwork that goes to auction and all of a sudden, you know, the sets a high oxygen record and then on the coattails of that thing seemed to hold, you know an ear that or they seem to rise for that particular artist. Is that is that That similar and when it comes to pieces that you handle for
Richard Wright or David Rago (14m 18s):
contemporary. Yeah, I mean I think you can get in one great, you know result can help them Market but not it doesn’t always permanently move the market it can reset the frame. Yeah, so, you know where you you you think about it relative pricing a little bit differently. It’s always nice when that happens a bit more organically and we’re prices rise over time like with if it was a weird mirror
Nakajima we seem Gee, we just had a really nice group and it did a little bit better than the sum of the material before and you see that that sort of Natural Evolution I think is always healthier for a market then a big spike the absolute sometimes maintains, but sometimes it can also they kind of crash as my poker teacher said to me after I had a good run at cards. He said one Robin does not a spring make and I got to tell you the day said that to me I lost my entire bank will with about a
month. Oh, yes neither. Our spikes. But yeah, she said I prefer to see a more consistent and steady and evening growth.
Host Martin Willis (15m 26s):
Wow, one of the podcasts I have done and the last part of the podcast of a while back was on Bellamy Eagles. I don’t even know if either one of you are familiar with Bellamy carved eagles there. They they’re very popular in the and the east coast and it was a Carver that would generally sell for well when I was a kid, it was 500 bucks and I was a big deal and then You know, they’re right now they’re in the five to ten thousand dollar range, but there was a spike. I mean talk
about a spike Northeast auctions. Ron boards row had one that went for 660,000 with a flat tire scream. And then so after that they were selling for six figures for for I think six months and then they dropped all the way back down to where they they were. I mean, it would have been wonderful to cash in but you’d see you know, what happens in that particular case was is all of a sudden everyone had a Bellamy Eagle putting in an auction and flooded the market they came out of the
woodwork. So yeah, I think the important thing to
Richard Wright or David Rago (16m 28s):
remember it really is supply and demand. Yes in many of these markets are driven ultimately by a small number of people at the top and when they’re active in buying the market can be very strong if too many examples, once they have, you know, very few people going to buy multiples of the same once they have right. If they keeps coming then just in this the law of Economics the price will drop in David seen this in many, you know Ceramics
markets with the NAD slurries mostly seen it in Furniture because as a friend of mine once said you can talk about arts and crafts market you can buy Gustav Stickley bookcase where you can buy 40 pieces of pottery to put in it. You have that bookcase and once you have that dining table and that Maurice here, you’re pretty much done with that
Host Martin Willis (17m 15s):
form. Yeah, but if
Richard Wright or David Rago (17m 17s):
you’re a small select if you’re buying Venetian glass or America and George or American Ceramics, there’s always room for another pot or a piece of glass. Yeah, and so which I think a lot of people don’t consider is that if you want to get rid of that Gustav Stickley bookcase or that Paul Evans dining table, what’s a pain in the neck? I mean, you’ve got to first of all find the one you want more than you have to find out how to sell the one you’ve got and find people to come and take it and carry and then bring the new one in and it’s a lot of work you want to change a piece of pottery
or a piece of glasses on that dining table or in that bookcase. Pick it up. You put it in a box and send it to someone. Yeah, it’s very easy to change these things around so I could be fine Less in the way of fluctuations in Smalls than we do in
Host Martin Willis (17m 59s):
Furniture. Yeah. Yeah, very good point. I’ve Loved dealing with Smalls when I’m when I’m cataloguing and bringing things into auction is just seems like it’s so much better luck than the hit-or-miss of Furnitures and you just brought up a arts and crafts. What is that market? Like, I haven’t really been following what is a gust of Stickley pieces, are they hanging in there in the market or is it is it soft these days?
Richard Wright or David Rago (18m 25s):
Well, it’s a difficult subject because it’s very close to my heart. I mean this this rhino was made its revolutionary. It was made for philosophical spiritual purpose. It’s not just something to sit in. It was meant to transform Society from the inside of the home. I can wax about this for a long time. It’s very very powerful and its furniture that makes a statement and was effective in what it is and what it chose to do for a while and then when the After Woodstock hippie started buying it. That’s what I got in the market in the early
70s and it found its purpose all over again. It was a very revolutionary at to society even Furniture fit. But the problem is that that demographic is aged and this is a group of people that are either not adding or they’re downsizing and the kids haven’t really discovered it yet our last day. I had some very good Roycroft Furniture, which is pretty rare and also highly spiritualized material and I was on the phone with a new bidder. He was 22 years old and I said why Wow, so we’re going to hold a parade for you. If you come out here what happened Freight to show people to somebody your age is buying
this stuff is very
Host Martin Willis (19m 26s):
exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would love I love the arts and crafts that whole that whole era of such beautiful pieces. And you know, I never thought about it spiritually, but yeah, well a lot of it I could see why you’re going that with that and I was just in a home recently where they had a table they didn’t know about and then they also had on the Third floor they had hanging lamps and you just don’t see that. It doesn’t
seem like that comes up as often, you know in a place where they don’t know what they have seems like everyone seems to know what they have and but as far as you know talking to people that are you just talked about the 22 year old and one of the reasons I do this podcast I try to get, you know people interested in this market, you know, I got an email from I’m an appraiser 20 years ago. He said the baby boomer effect is going to leave us
all surrounded by beautiful things worth noting and well, how was that who said that it was an appraiser he set from connected to him on LinkedIn and he sent it to me and I’ve been looking for it. I can’t I can’t find it. But that was that was I want to say that was in 2004 or something like that when he wrote me that and I didn’t believe it. I kind of like, you know. Rebut it against it, but I think it makes a lot of sense and it’s true does.
Yeah and and all this material will be coming. You just mentioned the Baby Boomers the you know, the older Market. What do you think’s going to happen? Do you think that people young people may start appreciating this Like This Bitter you were talking about and if not we in
Richard Wright or David Rago (21m 16s):
trouble. I mean, I’m more optimistic view that I think that that tastes change across generations and there will be things that that were everybody wanted and we’re in Vogue like, you know Bakelite radios and Bakelite jewelry that just go by the wayside salt and peppers collectors and all that stuff. Just you know, it’s on eBay. It just kind of went down down down the great material of any era translates
and I think that they’ll be they’ll be Things that are being discovered by Future Generations. David’s handled the work of George or four
Host Martin Willis (21m 55s):
decades the Potter
Richard Wright or David Rago (21m 57s):
the Potter. Yeah and recently and he can he should speak more about this but that but in my outside view the market went up the market went down and now a whole new generation of buyers is coming in in the markets going back up and to me that you know 19th century and many cases what serve to early 20th century were. Work looks really radical and fresh at the 20 in this 21st century era and I think that that you people are discovering. So to me
that’s going to make the leap.
Host Martin Willis (22m 29s):
I think also
Richard Wright or David Rago (22m 31s):
if you wanted to buy a nice Gustav Stickley a really good Gustav Stickley two-door bookcase at the height of the market say 2007 that bookcase a good basic one was going to be seven to ten thousand dollars that price a lot of people out of the market now that the case might be half that Be a little less than half that is these prices come down but it’s qualitative Furniture if people understand how intelligent it is what it says about the society from which it from which its
sprung you got to put your books in something. I keep quoting a friend of mine from the Arts and Crafts stays at Harvey Kaplan is grandmother used to say that there’s a took us for every chair and you got to sit in something as that you’re going to go out and put to Mikey and buy a brand-new piece of garbage and put it together yourself. Or you want to buy a really nice chair and the chair that was $5,000 might be twelve hundred dollars. Now at that point. I think at some level people recognize the quality and value quotient is hard to
ignore and I think that the younger generation is also going to have to Grapple much more with climate change and the idea of reusing read apnea adapting and reusing things from the past is going to make more and more
Host Martin Willis (23m 46s):
sense. I hope so because We’ll look at the new furniture. First of all, there’s such an environmental impact of from it and not only that, you know, why would a moving company not move Ikea furniture because it it doesn’t stay together. It’s disposable and we’re in a disposable Society. But you know, I’m hoping to see that the trend will go back to you know, the
green part of people. Interested in Furniture. I have seen a it seems to me that I have seen a little bit of a rise of that and the last year or two that more young people are getting involved.
Richard Wright or David Rago (24m 32s):
I’ve seen some good interest in American classic American 50s, you know, I’ve dealt Charles Eames my entire career high watermark for that price wise it probably two thousand two three, and then it went down I’ve continued to sell it, you know part of Our investment in our websites and in digitization allows us to reach this younger audience and you know, I’ve seen a lot of young people now one even original Eames chair
one in that patina wanting to feel the real thing and and I think a lot, you know, I think you could spend a lot of time say Millennials are going to collect. I think the natural demographic for people to collect are older and they’re in their 40s and 50s and they start to have them or more permanent sense. I think that it’s just that the appeal of you seed in the Art Market, you know, the the desire to live a beautiful things is deeply human and I’m not done. I’m not so worried
about that. You know what those beautiful things are might change and we will change with it or we had to work. Yeah, we’re changing. Yeah.
Host Martin Willis (25m 44s):
Yeah one of the things you know My opinion and like to hear yours is you know, I’ve met a lot of you know collectors over the years and had conversations and one of the things they enjoyed the most was the hunt, you know, boots-on-the-ground hunt and now we have the internet and you know eBay has certainly changed a lot of things. You know, I wouldn’t want to be in the Hummel Market, you know
prior to eBay or Roosevelt Pottery or something like that, but Do you think that losing the chase the physical Chase has affected value and the other the other side of that coin is a lot of people see something now because of the internet they would have never seen it before I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Either one of you I think the chase is
Richard Wright or David Rago (26m 34s):
still the same. I mean, I think you can Pine for the past and think about it, you know, you know, I used to pick in Brimfield and those early mornings watching the sun come up and they Eternal optimism and finding a great piece that out of Review and and more often than not that happening before the end of the day, you know, that was an amazing time. But you know, it’s fun. I can geek out looking at you know auctions in Germany now and look at him weird stuff going I look at
- I look at Japanese art from the 70s that you can buy in Japan that is really not very expensive, you know, so the whole world is available to you and if you know, if you give you get into collecting, you know, then you can you can Can it actually you kind of have to raise the bar if we just if you want huh moans? Yeah, they’re going to visit a see a hump but you know it I think it gets you to focus if you’re into like obscure weird stuff. You can find it now the Chase and I went to Brimfield this wouldn’t say
- I spent three days of room filled and I’m not exaggerating. I filled a Chevy cargo van with about a hundred eighty five pieces of American art Pottery in three days. I went back four years later. I bought four pieces. We’re talking we’re talking by 80 that that ship has sailed. So the chase with the chase didn’t and then it just changed
Host Martin Willis (27m 57s):
and as Richard
Richard Wright or David Rago (27m 58s):
said now it can shop at an auction in Germany if you want, but what I think is also the case and I’ll tie Antiques Roadshow into this when we first started doing anything throat show in the late 90s, and we’re about to start our 25th year doing Roadshow. They would those send us now an appraisal. We did 20 22 years ago to edit it because going to use it right and it comes it’s that long there’s two paragraphs. That’s what the appraisal was because people didn’t know what they had so that it could be more groovy Pottery. They
wouldn’t know that to be screwby. Well starting in 2003 2004 the people come in and they knew of this is peace for your Pottery is made in 1905 and this with Ericsson signature and the last one sulfur that all this information. Well, you should see the appraisal lengths now from the early 2000s on there this long because we couldn’t just say oh that’s a piece of groovy pottery made in Boston, Massachusetts. Worth $2,000. Now we had to tell them what groovy Pottery was. Why was groovy Pottery in Boston, Massachusetts? What happened there that causes Pottery to be
created and how does this piece relate to the other pottery made in Boston at that time. Now, you’re really telling the story and what we’re seeing is that people are becoming more intelligent who really the ones who are interested are drilling down and understanding the nuances of the material as never before because this information is on the Internet. It’s out there you can you want to see what group Pottery looks like if you were to spend about three hours. You can probably look at about 2,000 pieces of groovy Pottery by searching auction websites, seeing what they look like what their
estimated for and how much they sold for that information wasn’t available generation ago. So that’s a long answer your question. But I think as Richard says the Hunt is changed and it has favored the people have changed with
Host Martin Willis (29m 39s):
- Wow. Wow, that’s really that’s really interesting. And as far as you know, the new Collector someone that is just Getting started. What advice would be the one of you give them to get started?
Richard Wright or David Rago (29m 55s):
Okay, David’s point. I think what’s great is all the information out there actually gives more confidence to new collectors so I could give you can if you want to start collecting groovy Pottery. It’s pretty easy to understand whether you’re buying an APS VPS or CPS and approximately what you should be paying and that, you know transparency and information actually build markets. So in that sense, it’s a it’s a real positive makes it hard for Pickers because people do know that
information is out there. Yeah, but you know auction houses have played a huge role in educating the market in building the market, you know, that’s true. So as far as being harder for Pickers and then select I bought 180 pieces of pottery in Brimfield the three days, right and I made X dollars. I can buy one piece of pottery now, we’ll make the same amount of money those hundred and eighty would have brought me his profit because the information Is that much more nuanced in the markets that much more evolved? So I think that the I think
it doesn’t favor the lazy if you’re willing to do the work and if you’re really good at this this information explosion that we see. Yes, that’s the qualitative dealers from qualitative auction houses.
Host Martin Willis (31m 6s):
Yeah, you know, the only double edged sword of that is what when someone thinks they have something in front of them that is similar, you know or reproduction, you know, I mean that they have their you know, they have to learn the heart the School of Hard Knocks that way. Oh,
Richard Wright or David Rago (31m 22s):
yeah. Yeah, we’ve all done it we’re offering those things in letters that are all caps and gowns and happened whether this is the best piece of tissue will ever see in capital letters. That’s why I know immediately that’s going to be
Host Martin Willis (31m 32s):
difficult. Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. All right. So why don’t you give out your information how people can get no one last question. You’re still running running and dependent auctions separately or how does that work?
Richard Wright or David Rago (31m 49s):
We are one we are one company when they shared back end and we’re operating two separate brands with Selective covariance. That isn’t confusing enough. So, you know the history that each of us have built up and it’s a quirky business. There are people that love doing business with ranko. They want to go to Lambertville. This is you know, it feel really proud of this place and they personally Love David he’s been doing it so long. Yeah, you know know right has a different if you know sort of
OC ation, so we’re able to draw the best of both of our individual Brands and then tomorrow we’re doing it one of our nachshon together, which is a co-branded sale, which I think really shows how we can collaborate in a public way. We’re publicly merge. We talked, you know Rego right all the time. But you know, it’s a two separate channels selective co-branding. You can reach us email either either.
Our website you’re going to it all goes to the back end. So that will will find you
Host Martin Willis (32m 54s):
the right as we’re speaking here your Rego right structure and ornament notice came across my screen and you know, it’s
Richard Wright or David Rago (33m 3s):
a great example because Mark McDonald is is the curator of that auction a good friend of both of ours. David knows them, you know better than I do, but I’ve hired Mark for many decades we’ve both worked with Mark. But Mark came to us to do this project because of the synergies of the merger, you know, he wanted a high production value you wanted to have the jewelry’s previewing here in Lambert Billy. One of these ghosts didn’t want to be in the midwest
well and its really worked. So our teams have worked together David has a jewelry team. We don’t have it you OT we have a design team. So we it was a perfect collaboration and a really high style auction that’s gotten a lot of attention.
Host Martin Willis (33m 48s):
Wow. David I heard I’ve read a quote you were quoting from someone that said something about competitors. Do you remember that quote instead of competing cooperate? Oh,
Richard Wright or David Rago (34m 1s):
that’s Elbert Hubbard Elbert Hubbard
Host Martin Willis (34m 3s):
said, right. Yeah,
Richard Wright or David Rago (34m 5s):
ideally in business as cooperation not competition, right
Host Martin Willis (34m 9s):
excellent more profitable and a lot more fun. Yes, and it
Richard Wright or David Rago (34m 12s):
is not something many people ascribe to but it’s something I believe in for a long long time and that was certainly was one of the driving. Being factors behind my one and emerge
Host Martin Willis (34m 20s):
excellent. All right you to thank you so much, and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. This is great to talk to you. Thanks a lot. Alright everyone. Thank you very much for listening and we’ll be back with more episodes. Hopefully you’ll find entertaining and informational. This is Martin Willis from Seaboard appraisals.com.