2011 © Antiques in Bethania
COLLECTIBLES 101
Most people use the words "vintage" and "collectible" to describe anything made in
the past that is collected. This includes most of the items bought at flea markets,
house sales, and shops, such as toys, sheet music, radios, folk art, comic character
and TV show memorabilia and almost anything that relates to the years from 1900 to
1999.
Some people refer to a collectible as a Tchotchke. Contrary to Urban legend
- a
Tchotchke is not a piece of worthless crap, nor is it simply a knick knack, trinket,
toy, gimmick, or promotional item, which serves little or no purpose.
A collectible can be ephemera. If you are into collecting vintage paper, advertising, memorabilia and ephemera blame it on the Greeks, who coined the word ephemera, meaning something that was transitory or lasting no more then a day. In fact any material that was written or printed was intended to be thrown away, as we do today with junk mail. However, enterprising and industrious people found other uses paper material rather than throwing the product away.
St
ill, it wasn't until an Englishman named John Johnson who was born in
1882, changed the way the world viewed printed material.
A while ago, I stumbled upon this great web site even though its been around for several years called I Antique Online. The site is sort of a conglomeration of antique shops, dealers, collectors, experts, newbies and everything and anything you could imagine that has to do with world of antiques and collectibles.
There are numerous groups that you can join within the site itself. The editor and webmistress for the site is C. Dianne Zweig and she is the author on several great books on collecting. So pop in and visit and find why it is so easy to get hooked on I Antique Online!
- A collectible is something made between 1963 - 1980.
- You own more than two of something that you have no use for.
- Something that brings you happiness.
- Part of a group of something that I want to own.
- It's a focused and special way to connect with a part of life.
- A collectible is anything that is non-essential that someone wants more than one of.
- Useless stuff in lots of different colors.
- Anything that wasn't meant to be and is.
- Something that has an emotional connection to you personally.
- Collectibles are things you collect.
- Any object that has special meaning to a person.
- An item that's valuable to you personally no matter what the actual value is.
- Anything desirable that people are willing to pay money for (to add to a collection).
- Something you must have to add to other like objects.