[Arran]

Some of the antique shops here are more or less a 'hobby' venture for the owners. Mainly a wife with a well to do husband that funds the shop, just to get the wife out of the way for a few hours a day. Neither one is focused on actually selling anything, the stuff is so high .
I asked one lady about the prices and she said if they were any lower, her shelves would be empty. Well duh! Isn't that the goal?
A hobby business. Usually the stuff will show up at an auction complete with the old price tags, and be liquidated in one afternoon.

I've seen that sort of thing too, and I bought three or four sets out of maybe a dozen at one such auction, I saw some of the original tags and they were just out to lunch for unrestored sets. The funniest part is some of the highest prices were on a small collection of Guild novelty radios from the 1950s, one was the "Town Cryer" lantern radio, they had a price of $350 on it, I can't remember the rest. However I think that a lot of the "Hobby" type antique shops are also used as tax writeoffs for the well to do husbands.
But in all seriousness there are businesses in my area, antique and otherwise, that are little more then fronts for money laundering, sometimes out in out drug dealing. The smart ones are operated like a proper business with proper sales, the dumb ones never sell anything and will eventually get caught, one was a hair salon another was a tattoo parlor. We have a problem in our area where the nearest RCMP white collar/commercial crimes investigator is 40 miles away so this place is somewhat of a haven for such business, as well as so called pawn shops which are basically loan sharking operations. There is even a local Ford dealer whose owner went to jail for cocaine dealing in the 70s and allegedly used the money to finance the business.
Regards
Arran