Thoughts

I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and offer my good wishes for 2009. May you find that elusive piece or missing item to complete your collection. I hope your purchases at sales, auctions, boot or yard sales are the stuff of antique and collectable hunter's dreams. We have many exciting new things to look forward to here at Millers, so keep coming back for the very best news, views, tips and information on collectables and antiques for everyone

Recently I saw a piece about antiques saying that they were "a lesson in history." It's something that we're probably all guilty of forgetting at times. We come across old pieces and we get wrapped up in talking about how and where they've been made, the process by which they have been manufactured and of course the age old question of how much the piece might be worth. It's just as important to think about who may have owned the object or used it in the years since it was made. I'm not talking of items that may have had a famous owner or one with some other kind of notoriety, I mean items that were owned, loved and cherished by ordinary people. It's like the early 19th Century rummer I wrote about a few days ago. I wonder how many people have drunk from that one glass over the course of the last couple of hundred years? What events in history, big or small, were perhaps toasted with this glass full of wine? It's worth pondering on when you next hold something rare, precious or even commonplace.