My garage is filled stem to stern with antiques. Lamps, magazines, clothing, dishes, art, there's even a huge fucking stained glass window from a church that was bombed in Dresden.
I've been storing in it in there for my parents for almost three years now. I'm in this constant state of mild irritation every time I open the garage door for some wretched grave robber of an antique dealer so they can pilfer 700 square feet of other people's stuff. At least a lifetime of hanging out in auction houses and junk shops has given me enough leverage not to be brutally raped by these vampires that come by.
There's something I despise about antiques people. I'm not sure if it's that for the most part they're hoarders who've turned their illness into a job, or if it's that for people who trade in history they seem to have little real value for it. It bothers me when I have to listen to a gaggle of them caw and crow over what something is *really* worth. Case and point is the Stained Glass Window.
My parents came to own the window in a trade involving a mercedes benz, three rose marble lanterns, and an armoire. Mom has the eye, and always knows the most expensive piece in the room, Dad has a freakish gift for barter. I, on the the other hand, have always been interested in the lives our pieces had before they came to us, before they lost all importance beyond monetary value. I had asked the man we traded with where he got the great huge thing. He said it had been in the family a long time, and had come over with his grandfather during WWII.
The window stands 10 feet tall, and nearly 6 feet wide. It comes to a peak near the top and is still cased in it's original frame. When looking at it in a room or garage the glass seems almost black, and only the intricate lines of where the pieces meet and are joined with lead told the story of the image. As we hoisted it up to see it in the sunlight we saw the detailed painting of the face of Saint George. It remains to this day one of the more impressive things I have seen.
It wasn't long before we had several interested parties for the window. People from churches and museums. One guy from a funeral home. Another from a downtown arts building project. Still vast others from other antique stores. Many lookers, but no takers. The window is simply too large and delicate to transport easily, and transporting it professionally gets expensive quick. So It sat in my parents antique shop for over a year. Propped up and backlit it became the jewel of the shop.
Then the shop went under. We were forced to move the window again, and more callers came looking for a deal. A WWII historian was the most persistent, and also willing to pay the least. She came around 6 or 7 times before she realized my father wouldn't sell it to her cheaper. Of all the people who'd come to look at the window, with any real interest in purchasing it, she had been the one I'd have given it to.
The first day she spent over an hour looking over the wood housing the window sat in, and another going over ever tiny pane of glass. She explained that the window was German in origin, probably from a smaller Catholic church as opposed to a cathedral. She said that one of it's size and it's condition were very rare, particularly since it had some how made it all the way to California.
On her next visit she would further detail that many of the churches in Dresden were completely destroyed after being bombed by the allies during WWII, and many of the relics and religious type remnants had been carried out of the city by the faithful. This included giant stained glass windows.
As she left I was already thinking of the history of our window. I imagined young deacons racing to free the beloved window and carrying it on their backs to safety, dodging explosions and gun fire to save a 400lb piece of glass. That these boys then escaped Germany, taking the window with them, as a reminder of their home.
Of course, there's no real way of knowing how the window came to the US, no one willing to ask or willing to say how it escaped Germany. There's a certain romance to it, a mystery. A beautiful piece of art, and the potential for an equally beautiful backstory. I then made the mistake of asking my Dad to give the window to the historian, because she loved it, and it deserved to be loved.
Dad has always had a way with cynicism. He told me he knew the window was from Dresden, and that someone had probably risked their life to preserve it. He went on to say that letting yourself get carried away with a pretty story was juvenile. People don't become successful antique traders by under selling their wares because someone will love the piece. The objects we sell are sold to make money, money we used to keep a roof and food. These objects may have been witness to great and terrible things, lived lives of their own, but this knowledge only adds to their monetary worth. Once something is in the peddler's pile the sentiment vanishes.
Now, nearly 12 years later, this beautiful window takes it's residence in my garage, next to old life magazines, and dusty lampshades, cramped in the back with no Sun. Every so often I have open up my garage and let the vultures circle for a little while. Occasionally I get asked about the big window in the back. I say it's a depiction of Saint George from a chapel in Dresden. I tell them about altar boys prying it from the walls with their bare hands as the allies were bombing the holy fuck out of them, and then carried it up hill in the snow all the way to AMERICA. Okay, so maybe I don't go that overboard, but I do give them the romantic version. It's not like they are listening anyway.
I even pointed out to the asshole this evening the irony that next weekend is the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. I guess the irony is lost when the subject truly doesn't care.
The habits of gypsy thieves and junk peddlers aside, I think there is a real nobility [however lost on them] in the service they do in providing precious memories with new homes. I imagine my daughter won't be nearly as attached to my old comic books, and teapots once I pass. She will keep what meant most to her, and that's fine. I hold no illusions; many of my things will end up in a hoarder's garage. That's fine too. It's not the object that's important, it's that it was important. Maybe, if I'm lucky, my prized blowfish teapot will wind up in the garage of someone who thinks it's half as cool as I do; and if I'm really lucky it will pass then to someone who loves and treasures it the way I did.
Like the Red Violin, except, y'know, a teapot.
I've been storing in it in there for my parents for almost three years now. I'm in this constant state of mild irritation every time I open the garage door for some wretched grave robber of an antique dealer so they can pilfer 700 square feet of other people's stuff. At least a lifetime of hanging out in auction houses and junk shops has given me enough leverage not to be brutally raped by these vampires that come by.
There's something I despise about antiques people. I'm not sure if it's that for the most part they're hoarders who've turned their illness into a job, or if it's that for people who trade in history they seem to have little real value for it. It bothers me when I have to listen to a gaggle of them caw and crow over what something is *really* worth. Case and point is the Stained Glass Window.
My parents came to own the window in a trade involving a mercedes benz, three rose marble lanterns, and an armoire. Mom has the eye, and always knows the most expensive piece in the room, Dad has a freakish gift for barter. I, on the the other hand, have always been interested in the lives our pieces had before they came to us, before they lost all importance beyond monetary value. I had asked the man we traded with where he got the great huge thing. He said it had been in the family a long time, and had come over with his grandfather during WWII.
The window stands 10 feet tall, and nearly 6 feet wide. It comes to a peak near the top and is still cased in it's original frame. When looking at it in a room or garage the glass seems almost black, and only the intricate lines of where the pieces meet and are joined with lead told the story of the image. As we hoisted it up to see it in the sunlight we saw the detailed painting of the face of Saint George. It remains to this day one of the more impressive things I have seen.
It wasn't long before we had several interested parties for the window. People from churches and museums. One guy from a funeral home. Another from a downtown arts building project. Still vast others from other antique stores. Many lookers, but no takers. The window is simply too large and delicate to transport easily, and transporting it professionally gets expensive quick. So It sat in my parents antique shop for over a year. Propped up and backlit it became the jewel of the shop.
Then the shop went under. We were forced to move the window again, and more callers came looking for a deal. A WWII historian was the most persistent, and also willing to pay the least. She came around 6 or 7 times before she realized my father wouldn't sell it to her cheaper. Of all the people who'd come to look at the window, with any real interest in purchasing it, she had been the one I'd have given it to.
The first day she spent over an hour looking over the wood housing the window sat in, and another going over ever tiny pane of glass. She explained that the window was German in origin, probably from a smaller Catholic church as opposed to a cathedral. She said that one of it's size and it's condition were very rare, particularly since it had some how made it all the way to California.
On her next visit she would further detail that many of the churches in Dresden were completely destroyed after being bombed by the allies during WWII, and many of the relics and religious type remnants had been carried out of the city by the faithful. This included giant stained glass windows.
As she left I was already thinking of the history of our window. I imagined young deacons racing to free the beloved window and carrying it on their backs to safety, dodging explosions and gun fire to save a 400lb piece of glass. That these boys then escaped Germany, taking the window with them, as a reminder of their home.
Of course, there's no real way of knowing how the window came to the US, no one willing to ask or willing to say how it escaped Germany. There's a certain romance to it, a mystery. A beautiful piece of art, and the potential for an equally beautiful backstory. I then made the mistake of asking my Dad to give the window to the historian, because she loved it, and it deserved to be loved.
Dad has always had a way with cynicism. He told me he knew the window was from Dresden, and that someone had probably risked their life to preserve it. He went on to say that letting yourself get carried away with a pretty story was juvenile. People don't become successful antique traders by under selling their wares because someone will love the piece. The objects we sell are sold to make money, money we used to keep a roof and food. These objects may have been witness to great and terrible things, lived lives of their own, but this knowledge only adds to their monetary worth. Once something is in the peddler's pile the sentiment vanishes.
Now, nearly 12 years later, this beautiful window takes it's residence in my garage, next to old life magazines, and dusty lampshades, cramped in the back with no Sun. Every so often I have open up my garage and let the vultures circle for a little while. Occasionally I get asked about the big window in the back. I say it's a depiction of Saint George from a chapel in Dresden. I tell them about altar boys prying it from the walls with their bare hands as the allies were bombing the holy fuck out of them, and then carried it up hill in the snow all the way to AMERICA. Okay, so maybe I don't go that overboard, but I do give them the romantic version. It's not like they are listening anyway.
I even pointed out to the asshole this evening the irony that next weekend is the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. I guess the irony is lost when the subject truly doesn't care.
The habits of gypsy thieves and junk peddlers aside, I think there is a real nobility [however lost on them] in the service they do in providing precious memories with new homes. I imagine my daughter won't be nearly as attached to my old comic books, and teapots once I pass. She will keep what meant most to her, and that's fine. I hold no illusions; many of my things will end up in a hoarder's garage. That's fine too. It's not the object that's important, it's that it was important. Maybe, if I'm lucky, my prized blowfish teapot will wind up in the garage of someone who thinks it's half as cool as I do; and if I'm really lucky it will pass then to someone who loves and treasures it the way I did.
Like the Red Violin, except, y'know, a teapot.