David Manzi, Appraising History

Episode Notes:

David Manzi has a unique perspective on the little (and big!) things that make our minds go brrriiinggg! From a Paul Revere Bell to a painting by Caravaggio, his mission is to help us understand how we value these items. And, it puts him in a place where he gets to see some really cool works!

His job, as an art appraiser, is to assess an object, looking at its condition, its history, and how it fits into the greater story of our lives, and then assign a value to it.

In doing so, he must also adhere to a strict set of ethical guidelines in order to foster trust between himself, his clients and any third party. For example, an insurance company.

As a retired Marine and Rotarian, these ethical stipulations are not a challenge. After all, the Rotary motto of "Service above Self" could also be applied to the ethos of the Marines.

Join us as we talk about art, history and the stories these precious objects can tell us.

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INSIDE THIS EPISODE:

Website URL: www.manziappraisers.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/78961468/admin/

Instagram: @manzi.appraisers

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ManziAppraisers

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This episode was produced by Matt McKee, with help from Suzanne Schultz and http://www.CanvasFineArts.com, the specialists in coaching for creatives, and editing by Bill Shamlian at Orb Sound.

Transcript

David Manzi Appraising History
Cherry Bomb! The Podcast Transcription

David Manzi  00:00
And I understand its history. And I understand we can't erase certain parts of our history. I think we have to show it. And then for us to teach it and say how do we make things better? And I think God is a is a great way to do that. But the Playboy, no, she needs a hand with that. Let me know I'm happy to to praise it.

Matt McKee  00:23
Hi, Matt McKee, and welcome to Cherry Bomb the podcast a series of conversations with people about food, art and sustainability. Today I'm speaking in the studio with Dave Manzi appraiser of, among other things art. He is a US Marine Corps veteran and a longtime Boston Rotarian who follows the rotary motto of service above self. This episode of Cherry Bomb, the podcast is sponsored by do not a part of my sweet Glass series of limited edition photos at the art of Matt mckee.com. I created a series of bright, colorful, provocative images with the mission to start conversations in the room about the bigger topics of food, art and sustainability, you can check out the whole series at the art of Matt mckee.com. David, I appreciate you coming on to the show.

David Manzi  01:05
Well, thank you for inviting me, this is a it's a great treat, can't wait.

Matt McKee  01:10
Hopefully I live up to your expectations, I'm sure. So my first question really, when I was doing my homework was what is an appraiser?

David Manzi  01:19
So an appraiser is someone who values objects in regards to personal property, which I do this real property, which is real estate homes. But then this personal property, work contents of someone's home. So an appraiser would go in, develop a methodology, a scope of work, to assess these items, research and create a narrative, using guidelines set by the use pap, which is a guideline by the appraisal associations that they use, it's a national standard board, to create credibility in ethical behavior when you're looking at a painting or decorative object or a piece of furniture, for example. So somebody could just go online, and you know, eBay, for example, and see that very cool antique napkin dispenser that you have here. And, you know, they could see that's $10 But yeah, that's just a guesstimate, where the appraiser does, is trained for years to, to look at some of the characteristics, look at some of the extraordinary in extraordinary type of assumptions to develop an opinion of value. So essentially, an appraiser develops an opinion of value.

Matt McKee  02:42
Okay, and why would somebody need an appraiser? I can think of a couple reasons but so what officially is the reason for you to have your contents appraise. So

David Manzi  02:53
when I, when I started this, I started this at April of 2021. I kind of left work at the end of December 2019. Steve little background, you know, I worked in the restoration company for antiques and out work. I didn't do any of the restoration, but I was in touch with a tremendous amount of beautiful artwork for Buddy teen years. So I was getting a little tired, burnt out, I resigned, I was planning on going to Florida to our place in Florida to to, you know, for the for the winter, and then come back in the spring of 2020. But COVID happened. So that didn't work out. So during the middle of the pandemic, I decided what better, better thing to do for me is to start my own business. So I did that in April. It's been great since then, I've done a lot of insurance work. So a lot of insurance losses, damage, losses, floods, fires, to look at outwork furniture and decorative objects for restoration. And for values, comparable values. I can't restore items I can't put two sticks together. So I decided I can you know learn a little more about the appraisal industry learn a little more of how to develop an opinion of a value and I have tremendous mentors that I still work with. Now I'm doing some interesting individual pieces from individual clients not insurance losses, okay the majority of the work is still insurance but we're moving into more for example Wednesday we heading up to Vermont to look at a Paul Revere Bell those in the church the both fire it is a part of a bell however, they're not sure if it's a part of your bell when Paul Revere himself was in the foundry. So it's very exciting. I can't wait to get up there on Wednesday to look at it.

Matt McKee  04:47
So you get to check out American History World History period.

David Manzi  04:51
Yeah, and I think with this one, I think we're gonna document a little differently so that the whole trip so we can get that whole story out. because I think it it's going to be a very interesting piece of American history because there aren't many of those left and very excited about that.

Matt McKee  05:09
Who are your clients, though? I mean, obviously the insurance companies want to make sure they can value things so that they're paying out correct what they need to not more than us. But you also said you have

David Manzi  05:21
private clients that when I present a contract with them, we go over everything, whether we can use their pieces and promotional material, whether they want to be kept confidential or not have more be kept confidential, of course, but there are going to use some photos, just not names, but some. Some of the great masses and modern masters that we've seen in the past couple months have been Alba's facet rally Picasso. There's been quite a few, you know, those great known artists. But then there's some of these just trinkets, right? There's this like Turkish shoeshine antique shoeshine kit that my client was over in Turkey, didn't have a whole lot of money to give for a tip to this gentleman gentleman said was fine. He did come back he gave him some money. And then that shoeshine man was so impressed by that, and he gave him that shoe shine kit is tremendous, beautiful. And you see is something that somebody made 1000 years ago, and you're looking at, you're touching, you're feeling it, you're trying to see any markings, any type of signatures, Maker's Mark. Yeah, even you look inside that. Inside that bowl, for example, a recent piece that I was looking at that the hands that created this bowl had seen tremendous things, you know, probably 1000s and 1000s of years old, and just kind of amazing. Who saw that bowl, who drank out of it, who used that bowl. Those are the questions that keep you keep you thinking, thinking it's just incredible. So I love to see the pieces that people have the stories that people have of those pieces that are praising, or evaluating or assessing is just, you know, remarkable this past week was on the cape prior to the big storm, looking at some artwork that his sister was the the artist in some shows in New York, some hanging in the the museums in New York City. These were damaged by a water mold and sad when just the just to know this stuff here the stories that she was with people like I can't think of his name. The gentleman who painted the tomato can. Andy Warhol thank you to be in a show with him. Speaking to him. That must have been pretty, pretty intense. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah.

Matt McKee  07:49
Although the question I always occurs to me is, you know, when you're in history when you are in the moment, yeah, Andy, here comes Andy. Yeah, you know, but yeah, he's famous now. But you know, it's just another person. Correct? Isn't until later on. Yeah. That was Andy Warhol. Yeah. And he was famous, and he turned. Okay.

David Manzi  08:07
And it's like that, like to start with the bowl? Yeah. Have these historical figures that we read about? And in textbooks in history books? Have they use this specific bowling events? As a beautiful feeling?

Matt McKee  08:22
Yeah. No doubt. Well, that's actually part of the reason why I did my tool series, which there's an example up here on the wall. There it is. Yeah, I got fascinated by looking at these old wrenches that dated back to early 1800s, late 1900s, that kind of thing. And it was just, you know, somebody designed this wrench or customized this wrench to solve a certain problem. Yeah, it was that person. Why did they have to solve that problem? And, yeah, they just, you know, this was a tool that they use, they didn't think anything of it. I look at it as a beautiful piece of sculptural.

David Manzi  08:55
Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, everything in the studio is but that when you look at that, it hasn't changed. You know, so you can't make it better. No.

Matt McKee  09:03
So that's amazing. Is there something specific that is your favorite part of your job right now?

David Manzi  09:09
Yeah, again, I think it's the the history I was a history major in college. So you know, the history of pieces, particularly American history is to be as fascinating in just to again know, we looked at one time, the drop front secretary, you've seen them, you get the pull outs it holds it draws inside the pigeonhole this hidden compartments are always so fascinating. And inside one of those hidden compartments was a was a letter from the 1700s Oh, my gosh, during the Revolutionary War, the client did not know about it. So you read them and like they were right there, Darren, during that battle in Lexington and Concord and to know this family member, whether they were directly involved, or you know, The piece was purchased. They couldn't go back that far to say this was sort of a family's piece, but it was. It's tremendous find and, and not just for the value, but the historical component of that. And that's what I liked. I liked to hear the stories from people from how they inherited these pieces, how they accumulated them. What happened in history of those pieces that are some documented, I'm working with a client on Beacon Hill now that has a genealogy book. And you know, she is trying to find out if that's her family, but when you look at some of these people on this genealogy, it's it's pretty impressive. Wow. Yeah. I'm hoping to find out a little more on that.

Matt McKee  10:45
I wonder about how I mean, my fascination with the tools and your fascination with with American history. I think that we have a drive to find out what our story is, of what our family's story. Yes. And of course, we always want to see it in a good light. But that's, yeah, what's the oldest item that you've appraised?

David Manzi  11:03
I'd have to say that bowl. It's probably at least 2500 years old. Maybe older.

Matt McKee  11:11
This was the Turkish bowl.

David Manzi  11:13
No, this is a Mesopotamian bowl. That pretty, pretty fascinating. But I probably say that there's some classics that I'm working with now that I can't say for sure where we are with these, but the client is pretty well known in this field. So as a collector, so I would assume this is 10,000 years old. Oh my god. So yeah, it's pretty, pretty interesting. Wow. Yeah.

Matt McKee  11:40
When it comes to things like this, you said you were a history major in college. But for these things that go back, I mean, this is if you're talking 10,000 years, you're talking archaeology, you're talking a whole nother science, right? How do you go about assessing something like this?

David Manzi  11:56
Thankfully, he has all the documentation. And he's very well educated in this field, and has the connections in Europe. For this. Here in America, what two 300? Is old pieces that mean? We can say that extremely old? Look at what's over in Europe or Asia?

Matt McKee  12:17
Well, that's for the Western culture, but you also have the indigenous cultures. Yes, back.

David Manzi  12:24
That's right. Yeah. So there's a sounds like a lot of homework. One of the mentors that I'm working with had looked at a lot of Native American beautiful pieces. And again, history those in, I think it was Red Cloud, personal items. And so it's just incredible to look at it and to know the history of Red Cloud and what these personal items that he had in his life to see them so unique.

Matt McKee  12:50
Yeah. Wow. What's the most famous item that you've had the opportunity to assess?

David Manzi  12:56
Oh, famous in, in the sense of name recognition? Yeah. Probably Picasso. Because I think most people know that. Yeah.

Matt McKee  13:06
It was prolific in terms of like drawing on napkins and yeah, and to other patrons.

David Manzi  13:10
We'll be right. Don't we address them throwing that napkin for you? Maybe you never know. But I think I'd say that. Obviously, this part of Isabel is going to be one of the hopefully one of the biggest ones for European pieces that we've assessed. There's a it's still some debate as to if it's a you know, actual Caravaggio, a lot of all of these Masters would be in their shops and and they would have the students paint things. And then they would just, you know, put their name on the, on the bottom of the painting. But there's this quite a few. It's very hard to do, because I see so many of them. But you know, right off some head probably probably those. Yeah,

Matt McKee  13:53
that's amazing to be able to reach back through history like that. One of the things that occurred to me as I was learning a little bit more about your story, and obviously from looking around my studio space in here with all the BRIC a BRAC I've gotten here. How often do you want to take the piece home with you after you get done assess? Yeah,

David Manzi  14:10
I want pretty much all the time. But I was just saying on Vegas the other day again, with another client who has this extremely well known artist, that I'm not at liberty to discuss a lot of it but one of the founders of the Hudson Valley painting school, and it's gorgeous. And he's like so you can take that give me I can't even walk straight. At least cobble Street here in town. Yeah, I want to make it across the common to my office. And my insurance wouldn't cover it. Yeah, we also do some brokerage part of our business and I'm helping to broker some way on sculptures they be they gorgeous, they beautiful. I'm a little nervous to buy a check. For my insurance company, they were good to go and covered in my vehicle and in my office. So,

Matt McKee  15:05
yeah. Oh, to be holding that much history in your hand go whoops. Yeah, exactly. You had touched on something earlier, when we first started talking about ethics and that kind of thing. And one of the things that also occurred to me was, you know, especially if you have something where you're crossing over doing, not just assessing, but also being able to do brokerage work, which is basically consignment Yep. How does the ethics side of things, it has to be there in order for the trust to be there with your client,

David Manzi  15:33
there is a and with her, we have a long history, from previous employment, there's a lot of trust there, you know, part of my training, I take a lot of ethics classes and but I don't need ethics classes. I mean, people know, you know, what, what to do and not to do. But ultimately,

Matt McKee  15:52
people know what not do it anyway, that's true between your Marine Corps training, as well as I'm also a fellow Rotarian. I didn't know that. Yeah. Great. Neponset Valley, Sunrise Rotary.

David Manzi  16:06
Oh, great. Wonderful.

Matt McKee  16:07
How has that impacted? How your outlook on life about doing these dealings? Yeah, and things like that? So

David Manzi  16:15
in the marine club, it's a spree decor, the honor, courage, commitment, and all the other what normal people people think of that Marines do that aside, but but for rotary, of course, you know, the four way test, is it true, is it fair to all concerned will be beneficial to all? And is it goodwill?

Matt McKee  16:36
I you know, the Yeah, well, this is a never recite them. But right.

David Manzi  16:39
So my Rotarian friends who listen to this, they're going to be very upset that a for a past district governor and three time President of The Boston Globe, but it's those values that evokes trust, and it's proven as trustworthy in as far as to broker something with a client, they have to have that trust, I mean, to to get what is fair value, and and I would expect it to be fair, I wouldn't expect it, whatever the highest bid is. And I don't think my client would feel that way too. Because I think she has the same type of morals that I do. So and I believe that it's not necessarily the highest offer, you know, who's buying it? What do they do with this piece? Anytime when you have some questionable pieces, I wouldn't get involved in any ivory type of sale of any ivory. I want to get involved in any negative history type of pieces. Anything that's vulgar, I would not get involved with selling or help sell, and or assess. Luckily, it hasn't happened yet. Because it's a conversation that you might you're not going to get the business word of mouth may hurt you, but you got to stand by your convictions in you. You believe so?

Matt McKee  18:00
Good friend of mine is a boudoir photographer down in Rhode Island and she has a collection of vintage playboys dating back to the first issue. So is that not be something that you would want to

David Manzi  18:11
know was I think that's artwork. And I think that's in some of those early editions and extremely valuable

Matt McKee  18:19
for that barn find Marilyn Monroe

David Manzi  18:21
issue. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Good luck. But what I'm thinking of I'm thinking of, you know, anything that has some vulgar, racist type of okay. Yeah, statements. And, and I understand its history. And I understand we need to, we can't erase certain parts of our history, I think we have to show it. And then for us to teach it and say, how do we make things better? And in our lives, and and I think God is a is a great way to do that. But the Playboy, no, I should she needs a hand with it. Let me know. Happy to, to praise it.

Matt McKee  18:59
I'll pass that on. I guess a big question that I keep on asking people, especially in the arts field, as so what is your definition of art?

David Manzi  19:09
That's a good question. I think art to me is what I see is, you know, not excuse me, not necessarily beautiful, but interesting, provocative work can be a topic of discussion, a topic of very heated discussion, I think is that so those that's just the short story at the the ICA in Boston, it's a great museum. Yeah, they had this painting. It was just a white canvas on a wall and I was like, I, I kept going back to it and I was like, How was this? I can't I can't wrap my mind around the how is this art is like somebody went to you know, Blix that took the plastic off a canvas and just put it on the wall and I don't know who the artist was, but I'm gonna I'm gonna do a little research on that. But at the same time they have this exhibit that had paper clips or something that's a big cube. Oh, I don't know exactly what it was, because that's fascinating somebody to take the time to strategically put these on here are the toothpicks to keep them on it from falling upon that That's odd, you know, food can be at, I like to write poems myself on social media, November 10, I wrote a poem for our Marine Corps birthday. So I'm excited to send that out. Hopefully, people get a nice reaction to it. So my value of that could be anything. And I think I think a lot of people might share the same maybe it may take you a little better than I did. But I, but I think a lot of people feel that the same thing is, it's when people look at something that they love that they can appreciate, and respect. And display.

Matt McKee  20:57
I think that's a, that's an interesting perspective on it. I like that. The first thing that went through my head was that art can be very conceptual. And the blank canvas, it's the blank canvas becomes the the, the placeholder for the concept. And then the next thing that you mentioned food, and the next thing I thought of was the banana duct taped to the wall. I don't know if you remember that one,

David Manzi  21:22
too. Yeah.

Matt McKee  21:23
How would you assess? Yeah, something like that? It's,

David Manzi  21:27
I'm not too sure. I mean, there's a question I have from my, my two mentors, though. That's a sure.

Matt McKee  21:34
I would be very curious. Yeah, answer because the concept is there. Yeah, sure. But, you know, after three days, you're ready to scrap the banana. And yeah, all you're left with is some duct tape and some paint peeling off. Yeah.

David Manzi  21:46
Is this remarkable though? Yeah, it certainly is.

Matt McKee  21:50
What do you wish you knew when you started doing this? That I should have started

David Manzi  21:53
20 years ago? Oh, I think although I love what I did before, I wasn't really hands on as much. Just more Yes. surance companies gonna say it's worth X amount, and it's gonna cost us X amount to repair it. But I think we're COVID happening that change the direction of this world. Now I have an opportunity to create a, you know, a lasting company that my kids can, hopefully someday take it over

Matt McKee  22:25
my final question for you something I bring up to everybody. At the end of your long day of appraising or brokering and looking at Picasso's and Paul Revere bells, go home, reached into the fridge for your comfort food at the end of the day. What would you be reaching for?

David Manzi  22:42
Wow, it's a good question. Yeah. I'd say cereal cereal. Wow, he's getting cereal.

Matt McKee  22:51
Thanks for listening to this episode of cherry bomb the podcast. I'm your host, Matt McKee. And today we're speaking with David Manzi. I'll have links to his website and social media in the show notes and at the art of Matt McKee calm just click on the link for cherry bomb the podcast. Please share this episode to your Facebook, Twitter and all your social media so your friends can listen and join in the conversation. I'm also available on Twitter for questions and comments at McKee photo. This episode of cherrybomb the podcast could not have been done without the help of Suzanne Schultz and campus Fine Arts the specialists and coaching for creatives and editing by the always magnificent Bill Champlin at orb sound. Thanks for listening. And that start the conversation