Those attending London’s 20th-century-design sales at Christie’s on April 7 and Sotheby’s on the 28th should heed the lesson of the December auctions in New York and Chicago. Put succinctly by contributing editor Lee Mindel, a partner at the New York architectural firm Shelton, Mindel & Asso­ciates and one of the season’s most active buyers: “Prewar designs are the new T-bill.” Pieces conceived before 1945 raked in a total of $12.5 million, with Tiffany selling for more than six times as much as contemporary design.

“People shied away from things that brought to mind their current agony,” surmises Mindel, who compares the historically important but hard-to-swallow forms of Ron Arad, Zaha Hadid and Marc Newson to “flying shrapnel that reminds us of the wounds inflicted upon us in this economy.” When we asked him to name the most intriguing pieces he bought last December, however, his picks (pictured and described below) spanned the century. He points out that even though some postwar pieces may be less appealing today, they should not be disregarded. “Everything rises again,” says Mindel.