Category: ANTIQUES

Old stuff

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Heritage – Week 2

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heritage 2

A flight across time and distance

Those of us with a penchant for garage, boot and estate sales are more than well aware that the bits and pieces once held dear collected over a lifetime often wind up in the hands of strangers.  It is always odd to see things coldly lined up on display, away from the groups of objects they were once a part of and, in a sense, out of context. What kind of voyage have these pieces had over the course of the years and what tales of love and strife, harmony and discord, laughter and tears would they tell us if they could?

These collectables have a monetary value based on age, rarity, curiosity, desirability and provenance but rarely is the sentimental worth taken into account. There can be no price attached to memory.  It is only when we ascribe a history to those things that have made up the backgrounds of our lives, why they were important, how they came to us, were created, found, bartered or haggled for, that they become truly interesting to those we would pass them down to, and like this fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme, a part of our – Heritage. 

Last week, Across the Bored asked “How does heritage look to you?” –  A stately building on the street, long-lost cousins that you meet, a silver tea pot or favourite recipe, a packet of heirloom seeds or string of coloured beads… We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Heritage

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ancestors

where life took one along a narrow path

It must have been a wonderful day to let all thought of work and responsibility slide softly away on the sweet summer air, to take a hamper of cold meat, berries and pound cake, a few pints of lager and a pot for boiling tea down to the quarry, to sit in the warmth of the sun and talk of love and dreams and plans and maybe even… escape. To have the whole of time ahead spread out like a silky blanket where one could rest on bent elbow, gaze on delicate wildflowers and listen to the poet’s voice lull. For one afternoon.

Little has survived, the names lost on the lips that once uttered them freely, the homestead vanished to circumstance and the landscape to the passage of time and industry but the few photographs that remain are as clear as the day they were taken. The stories they tell belong to us and like The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge surmises, the importance we  attach to them becomes our  – Heritage.

“How does heritage look to you?” –  A stately building on the street, long-lost cousins that you meet, a silver tea pot or favourite recipe, a packet of heirloom seeds or string of coloured beads…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Photograph Something New

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Something old, something new…

Some of us are curators for OPS – other people’s stuff – whether we choose to or have the mantle bestowed upon us by family and friends.  With some of it, we scratch our heads and wonder what the initial attraction was and then gently pass it along; other objects have  their own fascinating history – where they came from, whose hands caressed their smooth surfaces in passing, why they were so well-loved in the first place.  These things become our legacy, but unless we take the time to tell their stories and get others to look at them in a new way,  it is just OPS…

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Photograph Something New asks us to cast an eye on our immediate surroundings – See what fresh perspectives have been captured there!

For more on giving your belongings a voice, have a look at What is the Memory Book?

A Word A Week Photograph Challenge: Mother – Part 2 & Love

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Just couldn’t seem to get it together in time last week but as the cosmos will have it Across the Bored scored a bonus round for two A Word in your Ear’s Word A Week Photograph Challenge – Mother (part two) AND  Love. They triggered this anecdote:

Weekly summer auctions weave a spell of their own with trash and treasure piled deep, all manner of oddments from all sorts of lives thrown together without rhyme or reason.  One can spot a thing of beauty or value and fall in love – one man’s junk is another man’s jewel.  Antiquers, auction addicts, pickers and their ilk might tell you that they know when a piece talks and is going to go home with them.  Lovejoy, the BBC comedy-drama series, had Ian McShane playing just one such character.

Across the Bored spied this frame hidden under a couple of amateur acrylics and knew, on the spot, that it was the one.  The print could always be replaced and come Thursday night we bid quite vigorously only to be beaten out by an older man of questionable provenance.  We had to let it go.  The walk home that evening, empty-handed, was longer than usual and sleep even more fitful.  A few days later, at the next week’s inspection, it was revealed that the object of desire had never been picked up and was to be had for half of what it had “gone” for.  As can be seen, there was not a moment’s hesitation.  The print remains to this day, she is a comforting presence – for some things are just meant to be…

Out of the Blue

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The unexpected find of a cobalt blue Chinese medicine bottle no bigger than a thumb

Like magpies, we keep an eye open for treasure and so auctions hold the thrill of surprise for us. There is always something that we missed during viewing that sneaks its way under the hammer and into our hearts. Bidding on box lots is the big kid equivalent of cracker-jacks – you never know what the prize in the bottom may be.