By the DoItYourself.com Staff
It’s a shifty business… Attending auctions, seeking collectibles, and buying and selling antiques spans back to the Roman times, but it was a luxury only the wealthy could afford. Meanwhile in North and South America sophisticated trade and communication networks were created among tribes who offered their valuables to each other as offerings to leaders. Even centuries ago antiques were transported great distances and in all societies it appears that the owner of antiquities was considered a powerful and prestigious person.
And because antiques can outlive us, and people’s circumstances change, these valuables move around often. A common sight in Europe during the sixteen and seventeenth centuries was the confiscation and sale of people’s goods who could not pay their debts. When husbands passed away leaving families in debt the widows were forced by law to auction off their goods. And when estates were sold among the wealthy, the transaction often included the contents of the estate including antiques and furnishings. Of course antiques were also bought, sold, inherited, and given as gifts.
Antiques in America are not very old by Eastern Hemisphere standards because the history of America as a country is not very old. When explorers and families in Europe and other continents set off for new opportunities in North America, they often sold all possessions to raise money and lighten their cargo. For this reason, the antiques in America are extremely new compared to historical antiques of other countries. But even back then, people were fooled into buying reproductions and fakes that reminded them of home, which makes it even more difficult to discern between the real thing, and an old fake that looks like the real thing.
As you just read, antiques were bought and sold for a variety of reasons, but most antiques didn’t travel too far from their original home, maybe to a neighboring town, or simply next door. Today, the internet allows people all over the world to buy and sell items online meaning antiques and collectibles are finding new homes on different continents at a rate never before seen in history! In America, unless you are of Native American descent, or your ancestors were lucky enough to haul all their belongings from their homeland, your ancestral family heirlooms are in another country! Imagine buying something online that actually belonged to one of your ancestors in another country! It could happen! And it is this lure to own antiques, to be that prestigious person, and to connect to the past that makes this such an attractive hobby and profitable business.
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