Featured How Long Have You Been Collecting?

I took the photo, forgot where to post it, the picture's no longer available as my last computer died, so when I can get back to it, I will do it! Again! Please forgive my brain fog!

 

So many familiar stories. I've never considered myself a collector, just a holder for future generations sort of like a custodian.

About 75 years ago my grandma, mother and aunts would go antiquing for a day and I got dragged along with a quarter to buy a 'treasure.' My very first treasures were very fine/thin Japanese blue & white china with a howo bird or rising phoenix. I still have all those pieces I bought years ago.

I learned soooo much from Grandma. She would buy a chair, take it home and place it where she wanted. Granddad would come in and say 'Dora, where did that chair come from?' She would say, 'Why Henry, it has been there for years!' Who could say. The house was started in the early 1800s and had been added to many times until it had 12 rooms...but only 1 bathroom which Granddad added. He also connected the brick kitchen to the house making a small office for the business.

DH's family were serious collectors of KY rifles, antique fans and furniture.

So as we age, we realize our 'kids' won't have the same love of 'old things' that we have had and have begun to lighten the load. The first lot of antique furniture has gone to an estate auction. We have begun clearing the sterling and silver plate, fine crystal, china, etc, but have only made a small dent in it. Hopefully, whoever gets it will be a custodian for future generations.

Patd

 

Ask your grandkids before you get rid of things. They're the ones who will have an interest in your things. Not your kids.

 

Cluttered is right. What is considered 'collectible' tends to skip a generation. What's interesting to someone will almost never be interesting to their children - probably because they grew up around it and are bored sick of it.

But the next generation down - grandchildren and great-nephews/nieces, may be interested in it, because by the time they show up, such things would be considered different or unique and collectible again.

 

JMHO.
depends a bit on what you collected really, doesn't it ? Meissen ? better get rid of today than tomorrow, won't recover ever again.
Waterford, WMF etc. that outsourced to Eastern Europe or even China ? wait another 20 years and you can bring it directly to the dump. Stanley tools ? available from amarseon made in China ? look for a potent buyer and sell immediately.
I don't understand why we terrorize our offspring with such stuff out of the grave - just imagine how time-consuming selling is.
I decided that I will not downsize and will not start to sell my collections. I'll enjoy my stuff everyday till the end. when I'm gone, then be it and make out of it whatever you want - no regrets !

 

I agree with Cluttered, a lot of times teenagers and younger adults buy items from me that remind them of their grandparents

 

LOL FID EXTREMIST!

 

But I agree about the Stanley tools. Buy the old stuff or don't bother ... and I live within commuting distance of their old plant! Even the kids after cool old stuff don't want the pottery and porcelain. It's just one more thing to lug around. We may get a resurgence of Depression glass at some point, but don't bet money on it. Old cookbooks however might be a safe bet. Ebooks are great for fiction and things you only want to read once. They're lousy if you want something permanent.

 

I have been downsizing for over a decade and continue to do so, I'm just slow about it. I've noticed: the closer I get to death, the more I want to spend up all of my money!
Yeah and I ain't that close yet either!

 

@patd8643 - I loved reading your post! How adorable your grandma was!! <3

 

I started doing it. hot weather ? no problem, a week in the Alps. workers doing something on the house ? a few nights in the Black Forest. travelling in Eastern Europe ? only the best hotels in town, why should I ruin my back with lousy beds ?

 

Stanley is a wonderful example. the old stuff - wonderful craftsmanship and still a pleasure to work with. BUT the younger ones will only handle the Chinese stuff and the consequence is logic, the prices for Stanley collectibles will drop because people will not recognize it as what it once was, but as Chinese. same with WMF, they started to produce knives and pans in China and give the small high-end rest that is still produced in Germany, a bad name.

 

CRACKED ME UP!!!

 

THIS is true, and I hadn't thought about it, the younger generations will not have the pleasure to work with fine tools, so they'll never know the difference.

 

Going to bump this thread for newer members! Some great stories here.

 

Forever. The first things I can remember collecting as child of age 6 or so are marbles, and coins. I still have all of them. Dinky toys, started when living overseas at age 12. I think I inherited collecting from my Mother's side of the family; she still had - and now I still have - every piece of sheet music she ever owned, back to around 1922.
And a tradition in that side of the family was that when a female died, her last purse would be put in the old "secretary," a piece of furniture made by great-great-great Grandad during the US Civil War. So she had - and I still have - a collection of old purses going back to the Civil War.
More recently I've been doing: bayonets; canoe pattern pocket knives; miniature knives; more and more Northwest Coast Native art; carnival glass; musical instruments - I guess if there are more than I can play at one time it is a collection. Model model A cars. It is probably a bad sign if one can't remember exactly what one collects.....
One wall in the basement....

 

purrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

 

miniatures , you say.......

 

OOOHHHHH!!!!!! Can we see them please?

 

Collected butterflies when I was a kid, and built up a collection of about 1,000 or so. It's not politically correct to do that now.

Collected books and records as a teen and twenty-something.

I've heard that most antique collectors start off in their late 40s, and that was the case with me. We're now pretty "bought up," but there's always room for one more, as long as you're willing to get rid of something. Hoarding is not an option!