Antiques Dealers Still Scoring Big Sales

For some people, the notion that any chair, let alone one upholstered in puffy brown leather with dragon-shaped arms and offered for sale during an economic crisis, might be worth $28.3 million would be far-fetched. Robert and Cheska Vallois, however, recently paid that sum, more than seven times the preauction estimate at Christie's, for a 90-year-old chair created by a pioneering designer, Eileen Gray. The sale appears consistent with a trend that antiques dealers around the country have noted: despite the recession, demand remains strongest for the best and most costly items. That may seem counterintuitive, but the dealers say that people who have a lot of money still must do something with it - and some of those people are a little down on the stock market these days.