
The fate of antiques and heirlooms in a disposable age - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200824-the-decline-of-antiques-and-objects-that-last-for-generation
======
acabal
I would love to own more antiques. Many of them are truly beautiful handmade
artifacts of great aesthetic power from a time when manual skill and
humanistic ornament really mattered. If you must own something (like a chair
or table), it's nice to own something that has its own history. You become a
caretaker more than an owner. It encourages repair instead of disposal.

Personally I don't own more antiques because they are usually shockingly
expensive. The story I like to tell is that not long ago I went to get an
antique repaired at a restorer. His workshop doubled as a warehouse; he used
to be an antiques dealer but now does rentals for TV/film production alongside
his restoration business.

The warehouse was filled to the brim with beautiful antique furniture that was
literally caked in dust. He lamented to me that young people like me don't
want to buy antiques any more. I told him I loved antiques, and that
(pointing) that wooden chair over there is beautiful. Maybe I'll take it home.
How much is it? "That one? That's $4,000."

No wonder our generation doesn't buy antiques--you'd have to be a millionaire
to furnish a home!

~~~
mumblemumble
I think that it may also be shifting cultural values. I frankly do not want to
become a caretaker like that.

I grew up in a house with expensive furniture, and it wasn't the most awesome
experience. There were a lot of strict rules to follow. As much as I like
having nice things, I don't want my own children to grow up in an environment
where they're not allowed to have free access to art supplies, for fear that,
in the course of normal play, they unwittingly commit a couple thousand
dollars' worth of property damage.

~~~
acabal
I suppose it depends on one's perspective.

If one is of the perspective that antiques must be carefully preserved at all
costs, then owning them might be stressful, especially with young children
around.

Personally I think that antiques (and antique furniture in particular) are
meant to be lived with. Damage is part of their history, and can almost always
be repaired and restored. Sometimes the repair won't be perfect, but that's
part of the history for the next owner too. I kind of like that.

~~~
WalterBright
I have a silly hobby of collecting battered metal toolboxes. I like the fact
that the history of their usefulness is displayed as the dents, scratches,
rust, etc.

The nice thing about that hobby is nobody else collects them, so I can often
pick one up for a dollar.

~~~
Cerium
Very interesting. I had a battered metal toolbox when I was a kid, it had been
my dad's. My favorite feature was a cut through the lid where he must not have
been paying attention while using it to hold some lumber off the ground.
Inside were old rusty wrenches for me to play with. That way he never got mad
at me for leaving tools in the rain - they are already as bad as they can get.

------
patwolf
I've had to toss out/donate a number of inherited antique items (furniture,
silver, china). It was sad to see something that once held value to someone no
longer be worth anything. However, it does give me some perspective that just
because something is old doesn't mean it's valuable or important. Similarly,
just because something may have taken a lot of hours of craftsmanship to
produce doesn't give it value either--which might be related to my developer
mentality.

My parents have decided to unload most of their furniture rather than wait for
us kids to inherit it. They don't want to burden us with being attached to a
bulky item that doesn't match our lifestyle or tastes. I think I'll do the
same for my kids.

~~~
mumblemumble
Ironically, it seems that things _not_ being valued is one of the major forces
that imparts value upon them in the long run. You can drive up a thing's price
by reducing supply, just like how you can do it by increasing demand. Once
that's happened sufficiently, it becomes a Veblen good, and then the price
takes off.

I've got a family member who, being somewhat aware of this phenomenon, has
decided to hold on to everything that they think might become valuable in the
future. I suspect that, over the years, the cost of warehousing all this stuff
has easily outstripped any potential profits. Let alone any actual profits.

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tengbretson
I imagine owning antiques would be a lot more popular nowadays if membership
in the upper-middleclass didn't require you to become a root-less locust that
drifts from major city to major city.

~~~
dfxm12
I'm sure one can find some antique luggage :)

~~~
smileypete
Or how about the finest luggage money can buy:

[https://youtu.be/6ljOj6GVcnQ](https://youtu.be/6ljOj6GVcnQ)

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RandomBacon
The article talks about a disposable economy. For most people, wealth doesn't
vome from constantly spending money on disposable items (such as the article's
mention of flat-pack furniture).

I think it was The Expanse book series that mentioned wood furniture is a rare
commodity. Depending what path we take with the planet, jobs, and commodities,
the same could be true in our future.

I'm outfitting my home with hardwood furniture. I think it's more durable,
nicer, and with the right styles and finishes - aesthetic.

I'm definitely not collecting things like a hoarder to "pass down". I have a
family member that is a hoarder, and it's completely irrational, and the
hoarding is so bad, that the items are treated poorly and lose value.
Unfortunately the tens of thousands of dollars this person is spending "for us
oneday" will be absolutely worthless.

~~~
WalterBright
I once visited an estate sale I was walking past. It was an older home, packed
to the gills with trinkets. One bedroom was filled just with Christmas
decorations.

I suspect that grandma was collecting all this stuff to give to her heirs. But
those heirs were selling it all for pennies.

It was all kind of sad.

~~~
atwebb
Unfortunately, I've cleared a few of those family houses (my family that is,
it isn't my job).

People eventually pass, it is a fact.

The vast majority of things eventually depreciate, regardless of initial
value.

It took a while, but I've really tried to focus on retaining what has value to
me (not just in general).

We kept a lot of things from relatives early on because they owned them.

We've pivoted more to:

1) Things we know for a fact need to be kept (historical records, important
documents for closing estates, etc)

2) Things that continue to have value in the present, they are either
functional (hey, I have a ladder now!) or sentimental and worth the
operational cost (hey, I have a curio!).

I type this in a room with a handful of things, it is a mix of new (computer
desk chair) and functional family items (stereo, storage cabinet).

If I can find a use for a family item, that's great, but I'm not going to
invent one unless it fits in the above 2 points.

That was long, but I'd say the estate sales aren't necessarily sad. You don't
know what was kept and why.

------
aantix
I love the term, "digital heirlooms".

Google Photos allows unlimited storage. As long as you elect to store the
photos/videos at a slightly lesser quality. Which they still look great when
browsing them.

Because of this, I've been able to index over 43,000 photos/videos of our
family from the past 10 years. I tracked down every old laptop, phone, and
external drive I could find, and grabbed the photos off of them to have them
in one consolidated place.

With Facebook, you can even export your photos from FB to Google Photos
directly. Here's the link:

[https://www.facebook.com/dtp/](https://www.facebook.com/dtp/)

Births, our wedding, soccer games, Christmas's, it's all there.

I'm hoping that the service lasts longer than my lifetime. :) And that I can
pass down the URL to my kids.

P.S. The search for Google Photos is amazing - it recognizes faces, locations,
events (e.g. concerts, weddings, etc), and even objects (e.g. red dress). It's
everything that iOS Photos should be.

[https://photos.google.com/](https://photos.google.com/)

~~~
pkamb
Does the Facebook export tool preserve any metadata? That's the major
annoyance I've had with FB photos, years later... none of the dates are
correct.

I've done the same as you, importing every family digital photo I can find
into iCloud Photos. Flip Phones, Palm, BlackBerry, early digital cameras. $10
data cables from eBay are the way to go.

I've yet to tackle the film photos and slides, but that's next on the list.

~~~
aantix
I've had the same issue with Facebook's export to Google Photo's.

The descriptions exported as "Copy of... #{description}" which is really lame.
And cumbersome to clean up.

And then there were a whole host of videos and photos that did not import with
the original date/time stamp.

------
claudiulodro
There are definitely certain categories of antiques that are still
appreciating in value and are in high demand. Art and midcentury furniture are
the two that come to mind. Storing fragile, purposeless things has a real cost
when people are renting, have small space, and/or are moving to different
cities for work. To quote the trend, the objects really need to "spark joy" to
be worth keeping.

For example, about 10 years ago, my mother gave me a stack of truly awful
decorative plates with cats painted on them, and I stored them as an
"investment" because eBay had them for $60/ea. I checked last year and now
they were selling for $4/ea, so I just put them out front in a free box for
someone with different taste to enjoy. I don't even know why I had stored them
all of those years, like I was going to get into the business of selling
decorative plates if they appreciated in value or something.

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t0mbstone
One really good reason not to use antiques are that many of them were made
with substances like lead paint or toxic glues. Your precious artifact might
actually be giving you cancer.

~~~
tengbretson
Definitely don't eat your antique heirlooms.

~~~
samatman
Note that this includes pouring acidic beverages (most of them) into old
pewter.

------
Nasrudith
If they weren't mostly lost they couldn't be valued antiques in the first
place as they would still be common. Of course scarcity does not guarantee
value either. The rare also needs to be valued by a current generation
essentially. Old and rare computers or tools may be more valued now by nerds
than good China that nobody actually uses from the connection to history and
the rise but give it a few generations and they may wonder why they paid so
much for that old obsolete back then piece of junk.

Heirlooms are more about personal sentimental value than anything mass market.
Nana's old worn out chair could be contended for in inheritance even though
you would have to pay to get rid of it instead of selling it.

~~~
loosescrews
> If they weren't mostly lost they couldn't be valued antiques in the first
> place as they would still be common.

Not necessarily. There may never have been enough. That said, even if none
were lost and there were enough available to meet demand when they were made,
population increases mean that the number available per capita is going down
increasing effective scarcity.

------
starkred
I think the author is quick to blame right-to-repair and throw-away culture
when my experience is that modern generations just have less interest in
owning items just for the sake of "cherishing" them.

I've been through a few iterations of "clean out Grandma's house" by now and
the grandkids, by and large, have the attitude of "Do I have an immediate use
for X? No - throw it in the appraise/donate pile"

Blame Marie Kondo if you like.

> “It seems illogical to buy mass-produced modern furniture when the 200-year-
> old skilfully(sp) hand carved antique pieces now compare so well in price,”

Not if you care about comfort more than appearance.

------
known
[https://yts.mx/movies/the-best-offer-2013](https://yts.mx/movies/the-best-
offer-2013) is a very good movie on arts/antiques

------
wakawaka1
If anyone is interested in antiques from medieval eras, imported from
mediterranean countries, I highly recommend this place in Santa Fe, NM. They
also do reproductions. To be honest, I wish I had the sort of job they do--
traveling around Spain, Portugal, Italy, identifying antiques. To me that
sounds like a dream job. One thing I thought was super cool: authentic
conquistador's leather clothes chests.

[https://mediterraniahome.com/](https://mediterraniahome.com/)

------
kevin_thibedeau
I often wonder who's going to buy all of the boomers valuable stuff when they
are gone.

~~~
imglorp
There's a glut of vintage silverware and china right now. Things treasured and
guarded by the last generation sit unused in a cabinet if lucky, or
consignment or Goodwill if less lucky. I think many couples inherit several
sets from their parents and now don't know what to do with them.

I guess you could use it every day and enjoy the quality, but even then you
don't want your kids bashing on it.

~~~
zucked
I have a set of both - China and Silverware. I've never used either.

I believe the older generation wants us to have their fancy heirlooms - 12
piece dining room sets, silverware, china, their most giant gaudy antique
armoire.

Converelsy, what I have tried to instill in my parents as they downsize their
belongings is that I want the practical stuff they used every day. A quality
set of dishes (not china!) - my mom's chemex. What's left of their old solid-
wood furniture. That stuff has value to me - it was made differently - better
quality, thicker, etc. Items that were part of pomp and circumstance used once
or twice a year back then don't interest me.

~~~
nkrisc
> Converelsy, what I have tried to instill in my parents as they downsize
> their belongings is that I want the practical stuff they used every day.

Amen! The most useful thing my parents handed down to me was the dishes we
used for my entire childhood. They're just pretty basic stoneware dishes made
in the ol' US of A but they held up for 30 years, starting from before I was
born up until I got my own place after college. Then I used them for the
another 10 years, and apart from some chips on some of them, or not having a
complete set due to the few that broke, they look like they could be only a
few years old.

It was kind of neat watching my son eat off the same plates that I ate off
when I was his age.

We eventually got some new plates but have the old ones packed away. I'm
curious to see how long the new ones last, I don't know if they make them like
they used to.

~~~
sumtechguy
Corningware for me. That stuff is borderline indestructible. All the other
stuff I have bought over the years is broken, chipped, etc. But that older
corningware. Good stuff. Even the shape makes everything stack nice and
compact. My mom and dad have gone thru 3 or 4 sets of other stuff. A couple of
other sets for me. But this stuff...

~~~
CarbyAu
I too am a fan of Corningware. The shapes and weights suit me. It practically
defines the concept of a bowl for me.

But I note you said "borderline indestructible". Not just "indestructible".

Which means I have found a fellow victim of ceramic shard explosion! They take
a beating, but when they go, they go big!

~~~
sumtechguy
True story: My Aunt: "These are unbreakable" My Dad: "They look nice" My Aunt:
"watch this" yeeets a casserole dish on the floor... It was quite the mess.

The tea cups for me are hit or miss if they will survive. I think it has to do
with the shape. Everything else is very tough.

~~~
CarbyAu
"yeeets a casserole dish on the floor"

... you brought me to tears with laughter! :-)

Thank you, I needed that.

