Date: Oct 22, 2024
The Thrill of the Hunt | Courtesy of Diane F.
Shipshewana Misc. & Antique Auction will be hosting the sale of a lifetime collection with a variety of unique pieces on October 30, 2024. The owner of these items is passing along her collection for others to now enjoy and she has shared her story below...
I am Diane, and for 50 years have been amassing these collections. For a long time, I thought it was just a quirk—but now I realize—it was the “thrill of the hunt”. The Victorian glass was the first collection to start. My husband’s grandmother was moving to Assisted Living and gave me a few pieces, and I loved them. So that was the beginning.
It got to a point that it was not just the purchasing and displaying of the beautiful glass, but also “hunting” through various books to find out what it was, when it was made, how it was made. The Victorian glass pieces are from 120 to 140 years old, 90% American and about 10% English. Then when I moved to NJ with this collection 42 years ago, I had probably 50 pieces. Then the collections diversified. My husband and I are gourmet cooks, bakers and chocolate makers. We have taken a number of courses at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. That started the collections of the kitchen antiques. These pieces again all over 100 years old. My husband, Tom, loved the copper molds and cooking implements and I liked the tin. Then the “hunt” grew exponentially. We now had venues for glass and different ones for culinary and kitchen antiques. The kitchen collection then grew from just molds, to pots, to appliances. So, we had the “Upstairs and Downstairs” collections—the beautiful glass and the kitchen antiques.
It got to a point when EVERY vacation, every long weekend incorporated some sort of “hunt”. We had our geographic venues as well. In the summer, when we went camping for three weeks in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York, at least one day in each week was focused on “the hunt”. Unlike others who had hiking trails, we had antique trails. If I was looking for Victorian glass, we went to the stores and antique malls/centers south of the Adirondack Preserve in Glens Falls, Warrensburg. If we were looking for kitchen, we went to Old Forge about an hour north west in the mountains. Then we had a circle of small towns and local stores in the east side of the Adirondack Preserve that had everything. For my long weekend to celebrate my birthday in the fall, we went to the stores and antique markets in Northern NJ in Andover. I especially remember an antiques mall called Scranberry Coop going north on Route 206. Then in the late spring, we would spend a long weekend at the Jersey Shore “hunting” through the stores and markets in Red Bank, Asbury Park (where Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi launched their careers at the Stone Pony), and Point Pleasant. In the summer, we would spend a long weekend in Pennsylvania where there was the Renningers large antique market and their huge Outdoor Antique Extravaganza in Kutztown and Adamstown, PA. We even engaged our relatives in the “hunt”: my sister Sheila and her daughter Jennifer. So, our Thanksgiving trips to Cleveland always included trips to antique malls like in Medina, at the Ohio border, Chagrin Falls and Ravenna.
In addition to being avid collectors of antiques, I am also an Anglophile and serious student of English history. So even our vacations abroad were incorporated into the “hunt”, for some antiques like English Victorian Opalescent Glass, but more so for Royal Daulton figurines, tiny English houses, and Belleek Irish china. Some of the historical figures are numbered, limited edition, e.g., Henry VIII, his wives and children. Then, of course, the boundaries of the “Hunt” expanded exponentially with the dawn of eBay. Now you could hunt for items that were really unusual and rare, like the English Victorian wall pockets used for displaying flowers. In addition, you did not have to wait for a vacation or long weekend, you could “hunt” from the comfort and convenience of your own home.
But, alas, now after 50 years, it is time to pass the torch to other hunters. We are hoping that with the sale of our collection at Shipshewana Misc. & Antique Auction, our collections can be enjoyed moving forward by new owners on the “hunt”.
