The secondhand shop

bro–ker \'brokE(r)\ n -s [ME brokour, broker, fr. (assumed) AF brocour (akin to ONF brokieres one that sells wine from the tap, AF brogour untrustworthy dealer), fr. (assumed) ONF broquier to tap (a cask) (akin to OF brochier to tap), fr. broque tap of a cask (akin to OF broche tap of a cask, pointed tool) – more at BROACH] 1: negotiator, intermediary <Sir Winston’s offers of his good services as ~ between East and West – Max Ascoli>: as a: a go-between in affairs of love or sex; esp: an agent professionally engaged in the arrangement of marriages – called also marriage broker b: an agent middleman who for a fee or commission negotiates contracts of purchase and sale (as of real estate, commodities, or securities) between buyers and sellers without himself taking title to that which is the subject of negotiation and usu. without having physical possession of it – often used with a qualifying attributive <dealings with a produce ~> <wool ~s> <busy stockbrokers>; compare dealer, stockjobber c archaic: a person entrusted with the transmission of information: messenger, interpreter 2: dealer: as a Brit: a dealer in secondhand goods; sometimes : one that buys and sells the loot of thieves b: a dealer who for his own profit negotiates purchases and sales (as of negotiable instruments or commodities) himself taking or holding title to and often physical possession of that which is the subject of negotiation but usu. not altering or processing it – not used technically in fields in which a broker is primarily an agent; compare stockjobber, processor 3 Brit: a person licensed to appraise or sell household distrained goods.
bro–ker–age \'brok(E)rij, -krej\ n -s [ME, fr. brokour, broker broker + -age] 1: the business of a broker 2: the fee or commission for transacting business as a broker

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. 1971, vol. I, pp.281-282.

Prêts Galitch Antiquités, Neuchâtel.
  

The secondhand shop

The secondhand shop is undoubtedly the place where most of the objects that are liable to be considered as «artistic» will end up, as they are or after being restored. It is the epitome of a place for the mixing of genres and the redefining of categories because it is linked to both junk – the street – and to antiquities – the galleries and the museums. For Pierre Galitch, for example, the antiquarian is «a rag-and-bone man who has been successful», even though the profession is often a matter of inheritance.
As in many professions with direct contacts, the circle of secondhand goods sellers is rather closed and you have to be one of them if you want to keep track of the business in progress or to participate in the auctions without being skinned alive, because the real sale takes place afterwards and internally.
The secondhand goods sellers offer objects of every kind, from Egyptian antiquities to the most contemporary paintings. They are, however, well aware of the fact that the demand of the customers themselves creates, to a certain extent, the object for sale by means of a fashion-orientated, radical selection. Today it is difficult to sell a copper samovar or a neolithic axe to amateurs who snatch up the works of Gallé, Daum or Walter (master glass-painters and -blowers from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century) or the water-colours by Marc Tobey.

Une histoire de l’anthropologie et de l’art moderne implique une double conception de la collection: une forme de subjectivité occidentale et un ensemble mouvant de pratiques institutionnelles fortes. L’histoire des collections (sans la limiter aux musées) est fondamentale si on veut comprendre comment ces groupes sociaux qui ont inventé l’anthropologie et l’art moderne se sont appropriés les objets, les faits et les significations exotiques. (S’approprier: «faire sien», du latin proprius, «propre», «propriété».) Il importe de voir comment les puissantes discriminations qui se font à certains moments, constituent le système général des objets à l’intérieur duquel les artefacts cotés circulent et font sens. Cela soulève des questions de fond.
Quels critères valident un produit culturel ou artistique authentique ? Quelles valeurs différentielles accorde-t-on aux créations anciennes et nouvelles ? Quels critères moraux et politiques justifient les «bonnes» pratiques de collection, responsables et systématiques ?

James Clifford. 1988. Malaise dans la culture. Paris: Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, p. 220.