I was reading an article about how antiquing on the internet is the way to go. How buying antiques has been transformed from going to actual shops.
Although I buy many things online, there are several articles I want to touch, and examine before I buy them. Antiques, especially would be one, and thankfully I’m not collecting anymore. There have been only three occasions, that antiques have been of importance.
The first was my trip to England, where I was going to spend the first of two weeks in London. Besides horseback riding, I found out that on Saturday, Portobello Road is transformed into an antique lover’s dream. Besides the shops, the street is lined on both sides with stalls, selling everything from textiles, ceramics, fine art, jewelry, and books. So, I spent the entire day scouring all the shops, and stalls. It was really a treat. I can’t remember exactly what I bought, but there were five or six purchases of silver and pewter articles, dating back to the 1700’s.
When I found my new apartment located downtown in Manhattan, on the Hudson River, I wanted a dining room table, and chandelier. After searching I still couldn’t find a reasonable antique table. A friend of mine living on Staten Island suggested an alternative. There was a church on Staten Island that was selling off two of their bowling alleys. So, he and I visited the church to get some more details. The church was going to cut any size I wanted. I knew six-feet would be perfect. The width of the bowling alley is 42 inches wide and includes 39 boards of approximately 1.06 inches in width. The boards are made of Maple and Ponderosa Pine wood, with a thickness of two to two-and-a-half-inches. I found out after my piece was cut that each board is nailed, and glued to the next board, and that Ponderosa Pine is very dense. This, plus the metal bars holding it together, made the piece, at least two-hundred pounds. We managed to get the piece to his house, where he was going to finish it for me. After taking off the metal bars, he polyurethane the top. Now I had my table that sat ten, it was time to look for my chandelier.
The town of Nyack, located just north of New York City on the Hudson River, was known for their antique shops. One shop in particular specialized in chandeliers. I found this beautiful chandelier dating back to when Tiffany was creating their magnificent chandeliers. The one I purchased was made at the same time, but it did not have the Tiffany signature. One of the factors that sets those chandeliers off from the modern ones is the red color. I was told that what made the color red so vibrant, which has not been duplicated since then, was the use of actual gold in making the red color. It worked perfectly with the table.
The last, which was actually my first foray into antiques, was when I started living in Park Slope Brooklyn, NY in the late 60’s. This was a neighborhood that was making a resurgence. There were new restaurants springing up, lots of different shops, and at that time there were several antique shops.
I had just moved from a studio apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. It was located on 37th street between Park Avenue, and Lexington Avenue. The rent was a whopping ninety-five dollars per month. My new apartment was an enormous two-bedroom apartment, for ninety-dollars per month. We’ll never see those rents in New York again.
So, now I was trying to decorate this big apartment, and what I really wanted was an antique ice box which I could create into a great bar. I scouted the neighborhood antique shops, and found out that a small, one door ice box, not in great condition was going for three-hundred dollars. That was not going to work.
I had planned a trip upstate to do some horseback riding. I not sure how far up, but we crossed the Hudson River by horseback without getting wet. It was when I was driving back to New York City in my trusty Peugeot 404, that providence shined on me.
I had pulled over to an antique shop on the road side to take a break. After walking about the shop, and not finding anything of interest, I wandered out onto the back porch. There in a corner, covered with dust was a three door, five-foot-high ice box. I couldn’t contain myself. I tried to be very calm as I asked the price of this discarded item on the back porch. The owner said, “Oh that old thing, it’s only $50. $50!! I tried to act normal as I said “I would take it.”
They dusted it off and helped me put it on top of the car. The Peugeot 404 came with a roof rack, but it was made of light-weight aluminum. The ice box had all the original plumbing equipment which was made of lead. It was incredibly heavy, and the weight was going to crush the roof rack. Then we tried to get it into the car, but it was too big to clear the open back door. Now I was getting nervous. My only option was trying to get it into the trunk. We only succeeded in getting half of the ice box into the trunk. So, this is what it looked like. Half of this very heavy ice box was now hanging out of the trunk, making the front of the car rise up. Which meant that, I could just see over the steering wheel, where I was driving. I was one-hundred miles from home, and at a speed of only forty-miles-per-hour, it was long and arduous trip home.
Was it worth it? You bet!!
