Being a Collector

As a young child I was an avid rock collector. Whenever we were outside walking or on vacation, I would usually have my head down looking for any unusual rocks that I might stumble upon. Most of that collection is gone but I do still have some amethyst and lava rocks that where part of my most treasured pieces.

As a teen my father took our family to many antique shops as he is an avid antique collector, and my thing was glass bottles. I loved all the unusual shapes and colors of the past that are less seen these days. But once I had kids, there weren't too many safe places for me to display these bottles, and my husband felt that they were taking up a little bit too much room in our storage space. So I went through a purge and got rid of the more common pieces that I have and only kept the more unique ones. I also tried to turn my focus towards smaller glass bottles, so they couldn't take up as much space.

In the past few years, I have broaden my antique collecting horizons and branched out to larger pieces of furniture.

One of the most notable pieces that have been picked up recently is an antique wall phone. It doesn't even have numbers for you to dial, you just crank and get the operator! This particular piece has gone through some updating by a previous owner and actually has a dial inside the box, so if we actually had a land line, we could hook it up and still use it, how cool is that! And boy where things made to last back in the day. This phone is still in really good shape, really solid, and boy is it HEAVY! In case you were wondering, we actually came across this piece at a garage sale close to where we live. After some intense negotiating with the seller, I was able to get it for almost 45% less than the asking price.

Another piece is an original Eames chair that I picked up for free from a Craigslist posting of garage sale leftovers. Granted this chair has a few points on the leg that requires fixing and the seat needs some recovering, I can't believe no one picked this up during the actual sale and that the owner had no idea what they were giving away! It is going to require some research on how to properly refinish this piece, but I am really excited about it!

Now that it is getting warmer, it means garage and yard sales will be starting up again which I am totally looking forward to because it means more opportunities to find unique and rare pieces, I can't wait!

Did you collect anything as a child? Do you collect anything now?

Zi