General Chat

My ex from way back had a thing about Ercol furniture

There have been things I have got rid of cheaply or given away and regret to this day. I think that's why I hoard now.

Lizx

When my grandmother died in the 1960s and my grandfather was moving in with a daughter her children gave away all her furniture to neighbours or to charity.

It was beautiful well kept Art Deco stuff but "old fashioned" in the eyes of my mum and her sisters. I keep seeing the same stuff in antique shops and on antique type programmes on TV worth lots of money.

I was only young so couldn't house anything myself but managed to salvage a lovely Deco mirror and some ornaments which I still have.

whenever I watched the Antiques Road Show with my Mum she often said "I used to have one of those, I threw it out" :-D

We got rid of a lot of Ercol furniture when my mum died......


I was at an antiques fair once (about 5 years ago). they had a soldier nutcracker that I had as a child - it was, apparently, 'antique' - not even 'vintage'.
I argued with the stallholder.....

I was in my very early 50's

we left most stuff in the UK when we emigrated in 1967.

I went back when my dad died in 1971, and had some stuff shipped out, but not much ............... I did include a Victorian "mother's" chair, and a lovely late 18th / early 19th century wood hall chair


Mother-i-l sent over a grandfather clock and some smaller items (including OH's Meccano sets) when they downsized in 1974


M-i-l sent a pile of stuff over when she moved from her 3 bedroom house into sheltered care in 1984 ................ not all of it what OH or his sister (who also lived over here) would have wanted.




we've often seen things on the Antiques Roadshow that sold off by our parents, left in the UK or didn't come over here later :-)


things such as a horsehair sofa, or set of horsehair dining chairs :-)

Gutting, isn't it :-|

it is indeed!!

OH's father gave him a Rolls Razor for his 21st birthday in 1959 ..........

he used it for many years, still has it, and often took it when we went camping or where there was no electricity for his more modern electric razors.

See this in wikipedia if you're not sure what I'm talking about


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls_Razor



About 20 years ago, we went to a local "village country general store" set up as a Museum of the store as it was in the 1930s ...........................


and there in the display unit under the glass counter, shown as an antique, was a Rolls Razor :-0

:-D :-D

I wonder what the oldest piece of furniture is in your homes.

Most of ours is modern and nearly all is new because we moved house 6 years ago and bought nearly all new stuff.

But at the same time as we were moving I was unable to resist a Victorian roll top desk which is upstairs in the "library". We shelved a wall in the smallest bedroom in an attempt to house our massive collection of books. The shelves are already overflowing even though when we moved we took loads to the charity shop. Time for another visit, I think.

But it's his books that need pruning, not mine, obviously.

I see lots of items on those programmes that we had passed down to us, but Dad used to go to the local auctions at the Cornhall and sell things to get some extra money. Those big blue and white meat platters, some lovely chairs and such like. My brother bought an old vicarage for him and his wife, no kids - don't know why they needed such a huge house, 8 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, but Mum gave them my aunt's Singer treadle machine which was supposed to have been for me, they use it as a hall table. They also got the lovely copper kettle and jugs and some more things, I was peeved.

I have a lot of older furniture in my house as I bought it secondhand mostly. The modern stuff I had in my previous flat was sold to friends as it didn't look right in the house. I have a Rexine? two seater sofa which my son loves, must be quite old by now but it was comfy. Leather look Rexine and velour cushions.

I like an individual look that others don't have so wouldn't buy much modern stuff even if I could afford it.

Lizx