Being a Wholesaler Requires Dealing with People All Over the Nation

A large crate newly arrived from Syria sits in the center of a room, an anxious young man pries the lid open, his father watching with anticipation.  “You never know what’s going to be in one of these shipments”, said Mehrdad Sadigh, a New York-based antiquities dealer.  “It’s like opening up a tomb”.  The contents will range from ancient Luristan bronze knives to pottery, jewelry, mosaic, marble figurines and the occasional Egyptian mummy—a representative sample of the arts and crafts of ancient civilizations, and all part of a typical day for an antiquities wholesaler.  A 30-year veteran of the trade, Sadigh represents the bread and butter of ancient coin and antiquities business.  As a wholesaler and networker, Sadigh is responsible for many of the bulk and high quality items made available to the public through galleries and dealerships in the United States.  Coins are a large part of Sadigh’s business.  “I deal a lot in hoards of ancient coins as well as individual pieces.  Usually about 100,000 coins pass through my hands in a year”, he says.
Worldwide contracts“I have contracts in every part of the world of antiquities; Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, England, Italy—all over Europe and the Middle East,” Sadigh says.  “This is the only way to get enough merchandise, to deal with as many people as you can from all over the world.”Sadigh’s stock turns over frequently, sometimes in less than two weeks.  “That’s how you have to work it as a wholesaler—keeps merchandise moving by offering low prices”, he says.Another of Sadigh’s strengths is that he’ll buy almost anything, from 6,000-year-old jewelry to Islamic flatware only a few hundred years old.  This keeps him in favor with suppliers who don’t worry about having items returned which are lower qualities or not in great demand.  “People dig up all sorts of things in places where ancient peoples once lived and they send them to me,” says the Middle Eastern emigrant. “I’m usually the third middleman in business—there’s the person who digs up the antiquities, a regional exporter and then me.”Being the third middleman, Sadigh says, gives him a distinct price advantage over retailers in galleries and mail-order businesses, who are usually the fifth middle man.  “I saw one piece that a New York museum bought from a gallery for $27,000, an item which I had sold to the gallery owner for $5,000”, he said.  “Now I am doing more business with museums and individual collectors as they find out about wholesale antiquities.”
Dealing in QuantityBut the expensive items are not the standard fare in the antiquities business.  Sadigh, like most wholesalers, deals in quantity.  Since rare and expensive items do not exist in quantity, most of the antiquities which Sadigh buys are priced at less than $100.  “I have 2,500-year old bronze arrowheads for $10-15 as well as many inexpensive jewelry and terracotta items for under $75.  These are all things from famous civilizations—dynastic Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Greece, the Roman Empire, and others,” he says.Being a wholesaler requires dealing with people all over the nation and the world—and a lot of telephone calls.  “I do about 80 percent of my business over the phone, so I have to have a 1-800 (free telephone call area code exchange) number to keep things moving”, he says.  “The customers appreciate it and it keeps expenses down”.  Unlike uptown galleries with sterile, “price-on-request” environments, Sadigh’s business is more like a mid-Eastern bazaar—the only one its kind in the country, he claims.  “Everything is always changing around here, we like to deal with people and we’re friendly.  Doing business is only part of it, you have to enjoy what you’re doing or it’s just a job.” At the end of a typical 10-hour day, Sadigh sweeps the dust of the ages off the office floor, wondering what tomorrow will bring.  “Perhaps we’ll get another mummy”, he says jokingly, “as our sun sets, a new day is beginning for the people in the ancient lands.”