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I was packing and moving my mother's depression glass when it made me wonder. Does the younger generation collect anything? Do they set any value on antiques?
I loaded up stuff for the charity thrift store and it included an antique mahogany glass front display case that I brought from Scotland. There was a tiny piece of trim that had been broken. All the pieces were there, it was a clean break, and it just needed a spot of wood glue. The 20 something volunteer at the thrift store wouldn't take it because it was broken. It should have brought $300-$400 for the thrift store just like it sat, but the kid didn't realize it was worth something. Oh well, a different charity was pleased to get it.
I'm just wondering if all this antique stuff I have is nothing but old junk to the young kids.
I was born in 1943. When I was young I read the same question in periodicals devoted to collecting. I went to coin shows and gun shows when I was fourteen. I noticed that the serious collectors were generally old men. That made sense. Old men had more money. The shows are still full of old men or at least men well into middle age. I was an exception when I was young. I became less and less exceptional as I aged. There weren't many teenage collectors when I was a teenager, but today there are plenty of collectors my age. Obviously, many become collectors as they age. I've referred to men specifically because men form the vast majority of the collecting interests I have. My late wife collected English silver, but she was in her thirties when she first became interested.
Some years ago I was talking to a man who was a fundraiser for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He decried the fact that the audience was largely a sea of gray. It was the same, however, fifty years ago. Some interest just don't seem manifest at an early age. Collecting interests seem to bloom in summer and autumn.
People have been collecting for thousands of years. Coin collections have been excavated at Pompey. Weapons collecting was know to Cicero. Toy soldier collecting is even older although in some cases we can't be sure whether they are toys or guardians for the afterlife. Perhaps the oldest is the collecting of jewelry, dating back over ten thousand years.
Don't worry. Some of today's callow youths will become the collectors of tomorrow.
I don't know. Everything I read says the Millennials move around too much to want nice things. They buy junk furniture and dump it when they move. They refuse their grandmother's bone china and sterling silver.
Some of them are interested in furnishings from the 50s, 60s, or even the 70s, I think. But most don't seem to place value on anything except technology (and tatoos and drug charges.)
Will there ever be any interest in the beautiful antiques that our generation kept and cherished? Will all the silver be melted down for the monetary value?
My guess is that the millennials' idea of what is beautiful and interesting will differ from their grandparents'. It will also be influenced by what they can afford and what they have places to store. I can see a millennial saying: "Thanks. I'll take up preserving these treasures when I pay off my hundred grand in student loans working at this hideous retail job for just above minimum."
No, "young generation" doesn't give a crap about collectibles, and rightly so.
They've seen enough episodes of "Hoarders" to know that accumulation for the sake of perceived future "value" is ridiculous.
They know that they already have enough; MORE than enough, in fact. (as do most of us!)
My grandmother collected antiques. When she died, my mother took them and stored them. My mother has since died, so they are still with my father. He has asked if I want them. Uh.....not really. I don't want to clutter up my house with stuff that I can't use. I can't display things on surfaces, because the cats will make short work of that!
Collections come and go. The real value of things change over time. I was "gifted" with my mother's 12 setting china a few years ago. It has been sitting in our cabinet since then, and with my wife now dead is a complete burden to me. Candidly, I'm thinking of re-gifting it to the same nephew that never thanked us for the family heirloom wedding present he and his wife got from us a few years back. My reasons for the gifting are not charitable to him but more to keep peace in the family and let him carry the load.
Interest in collections seems to follow age. Steam railroad models are not as popular as a few years back because this generation didn't have first hand experience with experiencing steam locomotives as a child.
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