I Won't Sell You A Haunted Antique

THE ANTIQUE BUSINESS AND THE GHOSTS THAT RIDE ALONG

I WON'T SELL YOU A HAUNTED PIECE…..I KEEP THOSE ONES FOR MYSELF

     WHEN IN THE PAST, I HAVE BEEN A TAD HARSH ON SOME OF THE DEALERS IN MY PROFESSION, IN SOME WAYS IT DOES COME DOWN TO THE WAY I BEGAN IN THE BUSINESS, AND THE FOLKS WHO TUTORED ME ABOUT THE PROTOCOLS OF BEING AN ANTIQUE DEALER. I MEAN, THE OLD FASHION VALUES. AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT THEY WOULD BE CALLED TODAY, AND BE DEEMED IRRELEVANT AND NOT IN THE SPIRIT OF MAKING OODLES OF MONEY, SELLING OVERPRICED ANTIQUES.

     OUR FAMILY WENT ON A LITTLE ANTIQUE JUNKET TODAY, AND I WAS APPALLED BY THE EVER-ESCALATING PRICES, BEING ASKED FOR ITEMS THAT ARE NOT RARE, OR EVEN IN DEMAND, WHICH AFTER ALL IS THE ECONOMY OF THE BUSINESS…..AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. POINT IS, I DON'T SEE MANY DEALERS WITH THE PASSION FOR THEIR PROFESSION, THAT OLD TIME DEALERS EXHIBITED IN THEIR FRIENDLY, PLEASANTLY CLUTTERED SHOPS AND ASSORTED NOOKS AND CRANNIES, ALL OVER THE PLANET. NOW IT SEEMS MUCH MORE OF A MONEY-CHASE,  TO GET RICH QUICK, STAFFED BY FOLKS WHO HAVE RETIRED, OR HAVE LOTS OF DISPOSABLE CASH, WISHING TO BE KNOWN AS "ANTIQUE DEALERS." HERE'S A FUNNY THING ABOUT THAT KIND OF MISUNDERSTOOD, UNDER-RATED STATUS, PART OF THE PRESENT-DAY "SURFACE LEVEL" ANTIQUE INDUSTRY. THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION, THROUGHOUT HISTORY, HAS BEEN FULL OF WILD CHARACTERS, ROGUES, CON ARTISTS, TOMB RAIDERS AND THE FRIENDS OF "TOMB RAIDERS," AND VERY MANY UNSAVORY FOLKS, CHARLES DICKENS WROTE ABOUT, WHO DEALT WITH THE PROCUREMENT AND SALE OF ASSORTED VALUABLE AND ILL-GOTTEN ITEMS, TO A SELECTION OF EQUALLY STRANGE AND CURIOUS COLLECTORS. IF YOU WERE TO DO SOME SERIOUS RESEARCH ON THE HISTORY OF THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION, AND THE LITERATURE IT INSPIRED, MAYBE SOME OF THESE COME-LATELY DEALER-TYPES, MIGHT NOT BE SO COCKY WHEN THEY ANNOUNCE AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL, THAT THEY'VE BECOME "ANTIQUE DEALERS." IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE. THERE'S MUCH MORE ATTACHED AS CHARACTER-PROVENANCE, THAT SEEMS TO BE DISREGARDED THESE DAYS, BY THE CELEBRITY STATUS OF BEING "INVOLVED" WITH ANTIQUES…..BUT FROM A STRICTLY FOR-PROFIT BASIS. HERE'S A NEWS FLASH. THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF ANTIQUE DEALERS WERE IMBEDDED IN THE PROFESSION REGARDLESS OF THE MONEY THEY MADE. THEY'D TRADE FOR FOOD AND RENT JUST TO MAINTAIN THE TRADITION. THIS PASSION IS THINNING LET ME TELL YOU.

    

ANTIQUE DEALERS USED TO BE A MYSTERIOUS BUNCH….WHO GUARDED THE SECRETS OF THE PROFESSION

    I feel fortunate to have spent a lot of time, in my early days as an antique dealer, associated with old-timers in the profession, who were antique dealers because of its ingrained mysteries. Some would say it was a dance with magic, and like the scorn a magician would face, for revealing the secrets behind the tricks performed, there was an unwritten code between old-time dealers, "not to tell everything you know," and that "how we go about our business of acquiring items of age, is our business. But you are welcome to visit or shop…..maybe something will catch your eye." I think it was this enchantment thing, that got me through the door of my first antique shop, with my girlfriend Gail, who was a kindred spirit, when it came to possessing antiques. The patina to us, wasn't just the wood finish of a dresser, or a chair. It went far beyond that, and I was always attracted to pieces that had an attached, verifiable provenance. If a piece turned out to be haunted, I at least wanted to know where it came from, and who owned the antique previously……and from the beginning. Today I find very little out there, in the antique malls and shops, that present anything at all, in the way of a piece's heritage, yet I know many of these vendors understand how important this can be to the value of an antique. When I travel through these huge, inventory-crammed businesses, yes it's true. I am attracted to those pieces that, in a spirit sense, are pissed right off, at being removed from their familiar places……the homes and rooms they occupied through so many family milestones and tragedies. I can't afford to buy them all, but I do feel the aura of their presence, and like the Island of Misfits, on the Christmas cartoon, of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," these disjointed occupiers, are looking for a kindred spirit, to take them back home. This is a simplification of a much more complex relationship, some of us sage dealers have with the paranormal hitch-hikers. At Disney World, in Orlando, I was always fascinated by the trip through the haunted house, when a supposed mirror, at the end of the ride, shows that a ghost hitch-hiker is riding in the same car with you. Well, same idea with antique pieces. May seem like fiction, but there are lots and lots of stories about haunted antiques, to well……fill a book that I may write one day.

     Dealers when I was apprenticing, back in the mid 1970's, always seemed mildly intrigued by a young couple interested in old stuff. Maybe this was the transition period, where these vendors were readying to pass the torch, but were finding a lack of sensitivity among the new breed of dealer setting up shop. I had a ball visiting these mom and pop antique shops, and while they wouldn't reveal their sources and strategies, they let me in on something much more valuable. They made me appreciate what a commitment to history means. By the way, the "history" side is what I believe is missing today, in the antique trade. It's much more capital intensive, and I don't see much evidence of the passion I once knew, of most tenured antique folk I met with, and talked to, for the first twenty years of a long, long apprenticeship. The dealers who introduced me to the intricacies of the antique profession, knew something about the spirits that often hitch-hiked on the pieces they hauled home from estates sales and farm auctions. They weren't staunch believers in the paranormal, like I was from a young age, but you could tell they were wise enough to allow for such possibilities. They didn't come out and suggest, "We believe in ghosts." They didn't have to. You could just tell, that in their opinion, over their lifetime chasing after elusive antique pieces, they had been in many circumstances, when the only explanation for an occurrence, was the work of the dearly departed, hanging onto pieces they cherished in their former lives. Family heirlooms. Antique rockers and cupboards, tables and chairs, grandfather clocks and pine cradles, that had been in close vicinity to the creation of life, and as well, its cessation. Consider the old pine rocker that moves on its own, in the middle of the night, creaking on the wood floor. Now what the dealer may not have informed you, upon its purchase, was that it had been the parlor accommodation of grandma, who died in its comfortable embrace. Think about it for awhile. How much do you know about the antique pieces in your house? Do you have items that refuse to stay in the place you leave them the night before? Can you explain the sound of tinkling ivories in the music room, after midnight? Why is the antique cradle rocking on its own? I'm not saying the antique dealers who sold you the pieces, were aware of these anomalies, but in my vintage, they most certainly would have been, and they wouldn't have been shy to tell you about the ghostly hitch-hiker you may be getting for the ticket price……if they were willing to sell the article in the first place. By the way. We have a death bed in our bedroom, that was once used by a minister, in the manse, to accommodate visitations prior to actual funerals. It was common practice to do this, and the bed was always a nice one. To think of all the mourning, not to mention bodies, in and around this same wooden bed, one might expect a little haunting…..don't you think? Not a thing. Not a late night whimper, or any kind of floating mist above it or beside. The bed is comfortable and storied, but definitely not spiritually occupied.

     Here's why. In the antique trade, there were folks who felt the pull of history…..and had a huge interest in the ambience that prevailed in the company of antique furniture, quilts, paintings, glass, ceramics, and anything else that had a vintage and could be placed in a house, cottage, lodge, or mounted on a wall, that would "liven" up the digs. Some of those pieces were a tad haunted, you might say, but for those in the profession, it wasn't a Hollywood kind of possession. If any of the antique dealers I knew, as a wide-eyed apprentice, found a rocking chair moving on its own, without a visible occupant, the only running he or she would do, wasn't out of a sense of fear or danger……but rather, to make a new price tag, adding another few bucks for the "enchantment factor." They wouldn't necessarily put up a sign like "this chair haunted," because buyers are kind of sensitive about hauling home an unwanted ghost. But the extra patina, makes such a ghost-chair or cradle, more of a shop believe-it-or-not……attracting curious shoppers, and giving them a reason to remember the antique vendor when they're back in the neighborhood. I have had quite a few opportunities to make big money from allegedly haunted pieces, I've owned over the years, including the haunted portrait of a young Victorian girl, who refused to hang straight, and often fell to the floor of our house with a spirited tantrum. You can read more about Katherine by archiving back through my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghost site. I was offered five hundred dollars for the portrait and I refused to sell it. No kidding. But it is a little more involved than just a picture hanging crooked occasionally. She was quite a trouble-maker for us at home and in our Bracebridge shop, and on stage…..as a theatre prop.

     What I'm really trying to say here, is that there was an inherent understanding that, like items pulled out of the Egyptian tombs, that some pieces brought bad luck, and ill will, and thus, were considered cursed. Maybe you think this is impossible, but from the early days of my involvement in antiques generally, I have felt about these pieces, the same way I will feel in a house that I know is occupied by the spiritkind. I am, for whatever reason, acutely aware of paranormal activities, and those antique pieces that carry a little extra, not noted on the price tag. I don't know whether today's profit-chasing dealers care about this kind of ghostly patina or not, but in my youth, they most certainly did……and it was just part of the intrigue of historical pieces, gathered from all over the world, and most often from tragic circumstances, because this is somewhat the nature of the enterprise, that most of our items come as a direct result of someone's demise. Some of these former owners, aren't finished with the pieces, even though they're, in fact, pushing up the daisies. We have already had dozens of patrons to our new shop, part of Andrew's Music and Collectibles, comment about the ghostly aura of the vintage dolls in our glass showcase. Of course, dolls are known for this, and are often used as props in ghost stories as told by Hollywood, in grossly embellished profiles of hauntings. The other day however, Suzanne had just finished using a pair of scissors, while repairing a vintage quilt, when all of a sudden, they did a little jump and smack-down on the glass top of the case. Was it the handiwork of a doll in the showcase, the quilt's former owner making a statement about the quality of a repair, or something else inherent to the thousands of items in the shop, begging for recognition…..that they still walk the earth.

     After a few years in the trade, frankly, the hauntings become rather familiar and while interesting, not considered a major event worth writing about. Since the days of my first shop, at the very haunted McGibbon House, in Bracebridge, I've learned to live contently, in the company of things that go bump in the night…..and in the shop. Dealers don't talk about this too much, and in the past, it was considered a perk of the job, to have an antique piece with a little extra on top…..or inside, or elsewhere, that added to the exceptional mysteries of being a dealer in the first place. Maybe we were keepers of secrets. Maybe we did know more than we let on. And maybe it was the allure of possibility, beyond financial reward, that kept dealers questing, and sorting through old houses and buildings, for something that "spoke to them." Getting into an old victorian era house, and being able to rummage through at your leisure, to pick the antiques you desire to buy, is like opening a door to another era…..and it is with that sensory perception, that most of us, with experience in these matters, fully anticipate to have company on the tour…..and of this we're not freaked out. But we will expect to be enthralled and have our curiosity peaked. That's why I joined the antique profession. Not because I might get the opportunity to own some haunted antiques in my life. Rather, the fact I would be exposed to paranormal situations constantly, on these seek and discover missions, and as a life-long believer in the after-life, well, then being an antique dealer for me, has meant having a little slice of heaven with my actuality.

     I'm not scared of ghosts. You shouldn't be either. And if you suspect your rocking chair might be spiritually occupied, that's no reason to stop sitting in it……but best to say "excuse me," before you land on the ghost's lap, just the same.

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