As I was typing this post about this range, I realised what an appropriate time of year it was to be doing so considering the name of the range! Regular readers of my blog or Twitter account will know that I believe that much Victorian glass is both under-rated and under-valued for what it is. […]
My friend and fellow mid-century pottery fan Emiel Monnink of Retrominded and I were chatting online last week. I had just met a friend of his at the excellent Ardingly antiques fair, and he had just found a piece of Italian pottery for me to look at. I found the story fascinating, and (almost) completely […]
When you’re researching a book, you invariably come across fascinating information which isn’t strictly related to the subject of the book, but really ought to be recorded anyway. When I was researching for my book on Michael Harris and his work at Mdina Glass and Isle of Wight Studio Glass (now out of print), my […]
At the recent marvellous Antiques For Everyone fair at the NEC in Birmingham, a friendly dealer approached me with a folder of around 50 photographs of furniture, home accessories, and room designs. Her father was a teacher and had used them in the late 1950s and early 1960s as props for lessons. Since he retired, […]
Although I’m very much a 20th century boy, my collections do vary quite widely in terms of date. One of my oldest, both in terms of the date of the objects themselves and the fact it was one of my first targets, is my collection of 19thC Mordan pencils. I’ve been collecting these since I […]
I’m pulling together my ‘top picks’ of vintage and contemporary Olympics memorabilia for my regular column for the Daily Mail, just as I did for the Jubilee. Despite taking a fair while to research and compile, I love writing these columns as they always open my eyes to the full range of memorabilia out there. […]
At the recent marvellous Antiques For Everyone fair at the NEC in Birmingham, a friendly dealer approached me with a folder of around 50 photographs of furniture, home accessories, and room designs. Her father was a teacher and had used them in the late 1950s and early 1960s as props for lessons. Since he retired, […]
At the recent marvellous Antiques For Everyone fair at the NEC in Birmingham, a friendly dealer approached me with a folder of around 50 photographs of furniture, home accessories, and room designs. Her father was a teacher and had used them in the late 1950s and early 1960s as props for lessons. Since he retired, […]
At the recent marvellous Antiques For Everyone fair at the NEC in Birmingham, a friendly dealer approached me with a folder of around 50 photographs of furniture, home accessories, and room designs. Her father was a teacher and had used them in the late 1950s and early 1960s as props for lessons. Since he retired, […]
Nobody knows everything, and you ought to run away from anyone who says they do. I know very little about tiles, it’s a very specialist market. But a specialist market that is growing in size and appeal as more choose to use antique tiles in fireplaces or hallways or, in fact, all over the house. […]
As we didn’t manage a holiday this year, and Summer wasn’t exactly hot, the banker and I decided to cash in some air miles and spend New Year in the hot sun of Florida. When I take a holiday, it doesn’t usually take long for that ‘itch’ to set in and for me to start […]
I’ve been a fan of ‘The Chap‘ magazine for quite some time now, having found issue 7 in a vintage clothes shop a fair few years ago. Who couldn’t resist a magazine with a strap-line reading ‘Divinity lies in the insouciance of a moleskin waistcoat‘? Especially as I was wearing one at the time. For […]