Americans' taste in furniture has shifted, and that's producing big bargains in one category: antiques.
Some antique furniture is going for a quarter of what it fetched a year ago as people gravitate toward contemporary styles.
On top of that, struggling consumers have been liquidating their collections of vintage pieces, flooding the market.
Even high-end auctioneers such as Sotheby's have seen some disappointing sales of all but the rarest pieces.