Antique Guides

Collecting Antique as Hobby

Hobbies unquestionably have their usefulness, and collecting is a harmless hobby, whether it be postage-stamps or orchids, Old Masters or cigar-bands. Your collector is usually an amiable person, some-times a bore, but more often interesting. Too much enthusiasm is better than too little. And the collecting of antiques begets something not unlike learning.

I have met collectors of Chinese porcelain or medieval armor whose vast knowledge and whose possession of a thousand bits of interesting information have awed me. But it is not with these that I have to do; they are beyond me. If this book is to have any value, it will be to the amateur collector, to the beginner who wants to start right and to know how to learn. Or perhaps the reader is simply the possessor of a few heirlooms that he would like to know more about. Perhaps if you poke about in the garret of the old home you will find something of value. That will be a start, and if you never become a collector, you may at least become the proud possessor of a few old things that will add distinction to your home.

And so I shall confine myself to a consideration of such things as formed a part of the home life and household equipment of our American forefathers, either before the Revolution or immediately after it. As most of these things were imported from England or other countries, the information must contain something of their foreign manufacture, but there will be no attempt to cover the entire subject of old English china or silverware, for example. There are good books to be had on any of these subjects, if one cares to delve deeper. In the space of a single chapter or two I can hope only to touch upon the more important classes of so-called Colonial antiques, and to consider only the most important facts concerning them. The beginner is sure to ask the questions : "How can I know an old piece?" "What are the essential features of it?" "How can I avoid being swindled?" "What is my old clock or my high-boy worth'?" It is such questions that I shall endeavor to answer as specifically as seems practicable.

It is difficult to give any general advice about collecting; it is so largely a matter of taste. If you really mean to become a collector, and not merely a possessor, it is wisest to choose a somewhat limited field. To collect everything Colonial means to ac-quire a hodge-podge, unless you mean to stock a town museum. Also it is discouraging. The more you get the more you find there is to be gotten, and the farther you seem to be from a constantly receding goal. Decide what interests you most, and then tackle a subdivision of it. If it is old china, try specializing on Wedgwood or Stafford shire. Or con-fine yourself to old mirrors or old clocks. In this way you may in time be able to assemble a collection that will really be worth while as a collection, in which completeness and continuity are always desiderata.

The day has gone by when a casual drive through the country will be likely to result in precious finds. The old villages have been scoured by collectors and dealers, and people who have antiques to sell nowadays have a pretty clear idea of their value. Still, this is the pleasantest way to collect. Old-china hunting is the most delightful of sports. There is more of a flavor of adventure about it than in taking a car to a shop. And of course there is always the hope of finding the thing the others have over-looked, and a bargain 's a bargain the world over.
The other way is to buy at the shops, and this re-quires considerable caution, not to say knowledge, for the ways of the antique dealer are proverbially dark. There 's a vast deal of faking in the business, and it 's a dangerous venture for the uninitiated.

There are, on the other hand, honest dealers, who will not call a reproduction genuine, but will ask a fair price for whatever they sell. If you can find one in whom you can have entire confidence, you are indeed fortunate.

The shop of the dealer in antiques, such as are to be found along Fourth Avenue, New York, is always a fascinating place to me. There is such a dusty disorder about it, such a herding together of ancients and honorable, with the dealer himself so utterly out of sympathy with his surroundings, and yet so strangely a part of the scene. Ten to one he is a man whose birth and breeding make it impossible for him to appreciate a single thing he owns, except as it represents cash, and who must look upon many of his effervescing customers with wondering contempt. Once in ten times you will find him a mellow old antiquarian who is worth knowing for his own sake, and who sits at peace among his andirons and girandoles like Abraham amid the flocks and herds with which the Lord had blessed him.

I fancy, however, that nine tenths of my readers are not collectors in the true sense, and never will be. They may be only mildly interested in the subject and may ask the leading question, "What are antiques good for, anyway?"

Take old furniture, for example. I suppose if I were a collector, with this as my great hobby, I might say that antiques existed for their own sake, to be treasured and admired. But I do not believe that. I believe that antique furniture can be made to serve a distinct purpose in the modern home, particularly the spacious country home. Let it be strong, useful, and beautiful, as much of it certainly is. No other sort of furniture can be more. But the antique means something. It interests and it charms.

But granted that we have the real antiques, and that we know how truly to appreciate them, how shall we best make use of them? Well, there seem to be two ways. One is to use a piece here and there in modern rooms where there is no attempt at consistent period decoration. They cannot help adding charm to such a room. The other way is to be thoroughly consistent and furnish the house throughout with antiques of a single style. I am not giving a moment's consideration to the house that is turned into a mere museum. The only antiques I would give house-room are those which I can use every day.

Then why use antiques? If the fake and the genuine piece look alike, and what you want is usefulness and beauty, why aren't the fakes, which are cheaper, just as good'? It is all a matter of taste. To one man nothing but the real thing will ever do, and you can never argue him out of it. Another man will tell you he would rather have good, clever, new things from Grand Rapids than all the old cast-off things you could give him. And they cost less.

Personally, I find myself somewhere between the two. The old styles I admire, whether in the original or in reproduction. And I love the old things that have belonged to my own ancestors. But when it comes to other people's heirlooms, purchased in a shop, my enthusiasm begins to wane, especially when the cost is high. And yet I cannot leave the decision there, for there is a beauty in old oak and mahogany and walnut that time alone can give, and a rare quality in the workmanship that our century has not equaled. Reproductions never have the charm of originality about them. "Copy" is stamped on their face by modern appliances for carving and shaping.

I still feel that a word needs to be said in favor of good reproductions. By this I mean, of course, frank reproductions, made, sold, and used with no intent to deceive. Reproductions are so much less expensive than antiques that they open up delightful possibilities to people who could never afford to own many antiques. Of course all this sounds like heresy in the ears of the enthusiast. It is all a matter of taste.

However, we were speaking of genuine antiques, and it is in the possession of them, after all, that the real joy lies. The matter of style remains for consideration. Antique is a broad and somewhat vague term. The average antique shop is a hodge-podge of unrelated styles. You don't want your home to be like that. Choose some one style and follow that consistently, seeking for fine examples in season and out.

Now, the best styles for the modern American home, it seems to me, are those of the Renaissance period and later. I include here Italian, Flemish, and French Renaissance in one group, as the earlier period. Later are the styles of Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, and the Empire; Dutch Colonial; Old English, including ,Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Queen Anne, and Georgian; and American Colonial. The later group is by far the most desirable for the average American country house. The contemporary styles are all more or less related and may be used together harmoniously, as, indeed, they were in the American colonies from one to two centuries ago. Moreover, the best of our country houses are being built in these or kindred styles of architecture.

I would advocate the preservation or purchase of furniture of the Colonial period (using the term in its broader sense), particularly the English and American pieces. While Flemish and Italian antiques appeal wonderfully to the collector, it is in the furniture of his Colonial ancestors that the chief charm exists for the average American. And with his furniture let him possess some of the other house-hold goods that went with it-candlesticks, dishes, old pewter, and old brass. Now if this suggestion of old furnishings in modern homes appeals strongly enough to a man or a woman to create a desire for possession, the question of ways and means naturally arises.

For the wealthy, of course, this question is of little consequence, but a perusal of the following pages will show that antiques of real quality and beauty are not cheap. Knowing the importance of this side of the subject to most people, I shall try to give an idea of values, and to give, as nearly as I can, the prices at which such things can be bought at the present writing. But let not these prices discourage you. Visit old houses in the country, poke about among the shops, and buy one thing at a time.

I can conceive of no more fascinating pastime for a young couple furnishing a home for the first time. Perhaps one of your mothers has a mahogany work-table or a piece of old china that will do for a start.

Then add little by little, and in each piece acquired there will be a twofold value in association as the years go by. I fancy that the very lack of unlimited means will make the selection more careful and the possession more keenly appreciated.

Make your antique furniture a means, not an end. There is a charm and beauty in it, when it is chosen with good taste and good judgment, which the devotee can never adequately express, nor the Philistine ever understand. It is desirable only when it is real, when it is beautiful, when it is good for something, when it means something. In short, when it is good, it is very, very good, and when it is bad, it is horrid.

About such a home, in which antique furnishings have a part, there hangs an aroma of the past, telling of long winter evenings in the old New England kitchen, of the stately hospitality of some old Virginia mansion, or the stirring days of '76 in little old New York. Above the mahogany stand hovers the form of a gracious dame in brocade and lace, pouring tea into delicate Lowestoft cups. In yonder roundabout sits the austere elder with his ivory-headed cane between his knees. A demure, gray-clad maiden in kerchief and cap is lighting the candles in the gilt girandoles, while a sturdy swain sits on the edge of your Heppelwhite chair and watches her intently.

I know that every writer on old china has quoted Charles Lamb on the subject, but somehow the gentle Elia knew how to say things with such a tender grace that we cannot hear him too often. I urge you to read again the essay on "Old China." Perhaps the time will come when you, too, will look back with fond recollection to the day when you scraped together enough money to buy your first piece of Old Blue, and when the handling of it will produce a sensation not unlike the hearing of an old love-song.