My mom's been an antique dealer for most of my life, and she's noticed this trend as well. Her customer base has aged along with her, and younger folks are not,

My mom's been an antique dealer for most of my life, and she's noticed this trend as well. Her customer base has aged along with her, and younger folks are not, generally, as interested in antiques as the previous few generations. She has several theories about the shift, one of them is that the things my generation and younger are sentimental or nostalgic about are just different than prior generations: Big dinners with family in a formal dining room (with all the accoutrement that entails, like a buffet table, nice China, silverware, crystal glasses, etc.) were common up until the 80s, even among the middle class, but houses for the middle class don't even have dining rooms anymore and haven't since about the late 80s. Or, having a desk where mom and dad did taxes, wrote letters and cards, etc., maybe it'd be passed down, or maybe when you grew into adulthood, you'd get a desk for your own correspondence and the general business of running a household. Sewing machines used to be a thing passed from mother to daughter...nobody sews, anymore. My younger friends don't have memories of their moms sewing costumes for them at Halloween (in general), whereas I do, and it's a pretty cherished memory (and I own a sewing machine, and have owned big oak desks like the one my dad had in his office). Houses have large closets now, no need for an armoire. Kitchens have walk-in pantries or deep cabinets with racks on drawer runners, making pantry cabinets obsolete and a waste of space. And, of course, stuff like fine China has always been aspirational for a specific kind of buyer...and it requires a lot of space for display, which without a dining room, most people don't have. And, mass-produced goods can be "fancy" in ways that cost a lot of money in previous centuries. It no longer means anything to have a plate with fancy designs on it, because manufacturers can churn out a few million of them every year and profitably sell them for a few bucks. In some regards antiques were a manufactured aspirational industry, like diamonds or luxury cars or bags or whatever. In other regards, though, they're a recognition that things used to be better made than they have been in our lifetimes. Furniture up until the mid-1800s was entirely hand-made, and it didn't start being made to be disposable until the mid-1900s. Even long after furniture making was at least partially automated, it was still made of real hard woods that would last centuries. New furniture is effectively garbage waiting to happen; you buy it today and in ten years it's on the side of the road with the rest of the trash. Several factors have converged to make antiques a shrinking market. It also means antique furniture is a real bargain, especially compared to the garbage that even expensive furniture brands are shoveling out these days.