Antiques are Green!!

Say it again. Repeat. And again. It's true! This year, National Antiques Week was promoted and celebrated in Great Britain during the week of November 23 - 30, 2009. This week long event with the theme Antiques are Green came at a pivotal time for the antiques trade when public and media interest is heightened by campaigns such as "Antiques Are Green" spearheaded by Nigel Worboys and the petition on "Antiques" designed to persuade the British government to provide more support to the Fine Arts and Antiques Industry.

Why hasn't this caught on here in the land of consumerism and mass consumption? Oops, wrong question. Why aren't more people educated to the high value of recycling housewares, decorative articles, and furniture that are widely available in the antiques and collectibles market?

Let's take a look at some facts about the purchasing of antiques as recycling:

Purchasing antiques antiques results in minimal greenhouse gases; no rainforests are depleted, and no additional minerals are extracted from the earth. Their carbon footprint has long been eradicated.

When looking at purchasing antique furniture, look for pieces that are solidly built and made to last - in stark contrast to the made to items that eventually self destruct, but provide instant gratification that are manufactured for big box stores today. Also, it's helpful to try to buy local - look for styles that are native to your region, rather than ones that might have been transported at great cost over long distances to end up in the antiques store.

With a little bit of effort, we can each do our part to encourage our customers to appreciate the impact that they can have on the earth by recognizing the recycling process in purchasing antiques and collectibles over newly manufactured products.

The ultimate in recycling

As we continue to fill our landfills more quickly than new ones can be created, it's worth looking at how green it is to market antiques and collectibles. What could be more wise than to reuse an object, rather than to discard something to a garbage bin and purchase a new one to replace it?

This is more than clever marketing - this is about reducing our production of refuse in our world. If we encourage people to buy gently used glassware, linens, clothing, dishes, and decorative objects, we are preventing those very objects from becoming fodder for the overburdened landfills. It makes huge sense.

I often speak of the treasures that we find at garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. We also have things just outright given to us to resell - and these things would not otherwise be used. We aid in finding these items their new lives in peoples' homes. Buying used items means that you're not contributing to the mindless cycle of always buying new, and discarding your old, things. You're breaking that cycle - interrupting it - and also extending the life of an object by enjoying it for many years, before in turn, sending it on to another home yourself. And likewise, when you're done with enjoying something in your home, think about donating it to a charity shop, gifting it to someone else in your family if it's a precious heirloom, or have a sale of your own, instead of putting it in the garbage. Just because you're done using it doesn't mean someone else won't get years of enjoyment from it - if anything, it's kind of wonderful to think of the extension of life it will get by being passed on to another household.

It's another way, however small, to green your small corner of the world.

Why I do this

We've had our first sale from the store at TIAS - and it was because of this blog. This is not why I'm writing this blog. The store isn't even why I'm selling collectibles... um. OK. I really, really enjoy discovering treasures at estate sales, auctions, garage sales, wherever - they truly do abound, if you're on the lookout for them. I also enjoy the research process, when I look up objects on the internet to find out more about their history, their origins, their value, and their worth. Documenting the object is a challenge - I'm not naturally a photographer, but I'm learning! I always want to be able to show an item's best attributes, as well as be able to illustrate any flaws or defects that might be present. This is a very important part of the process. (Offside - I can't believe how many poor pictures there are out there. Would you spend your money based on an out-of-focus image you'd seen on an auction website?)

I mostly enjoy finding these found treasure new homes - I kind of feel like this is some kind of adoption agency; where we sometimes recondition the found objects (by cleaning or repairing them) so that they can best find their next destination. There are many times when we'll pick something up - and it will stay with us. Being enjoyed; that's the real purpose of the object, isn't it? I think of it as a "catch and release" program, where our website or antique booth is the holding pen, until the object can be appreciated, captured again, and released, by us.

To me, it's the ultimate in recycling. These are all items that were loved in someone's home to begin with: they've gone on to be enjoyed in another owner's home, instead of being discarded and put into a landfill somewhere, to be unearthed some centuries down the road by some archaeologist. (Can you just picture what they'll do when they come across some of our waste? What will they make of our civilization?) I actually prefer handling an object, knowing that it's had a lifetime's worth of use; it's getting a second life in another's hands with me or with someone else. It's also getting a better chance at having its own particular history live on with it, with its provenance and the stories that are passed on with the object from owner to owner. It really is an oral history (that I try to document as best I can) that might otherwise go undocumented.

And so, the story goes on. From one home on to the next, it's a continuing story and a comfort to me to be a part of the process.

Today's photo - a Victorian vase of Bristol milk glass, a very heavy, opaque glass. This example has a metaled rim, possibly of copper, and a floral design that covers about half of the surface. We found this vase in a small lot at a local auction.