If You Could Meet The Original Owner

[happyfilmluvguy]

Like many antiques that were bought by you, they came from somewhere else. Clothes, furniture, records, electronics, jewerly or kitchenware. But if you had the opportunity to meet the original owner of the item, would you?

What would you say to them?
Do you think they'd remember the item?
Would you show them the item, or wear the clothes for the meet?
Have you met the original owner of an item you own or did?
What if you could meet the different owners of the item?
Antiques travel more than many, finding home after home, after home. They have quite a journey before being in your possession.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Most of the previous owners of my items will have passed, but I wouldn't mind a friendly ghost or two.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I've had German suits from the '30s. Don't know if they belonged to Nazis or to concentration camp victims. Wouldn't want to find out.

.

 

[Senator Jack]

The only previous owners I've thought about was with records. I was at a church fair and came into a box of 60s soundtrack l.p.s - Mission Impossible, The Ipcress Files, Secret Agent Meets the Saint, etc. Wondered if the guy thought he was some sort of swinging bachelor.

 

[Novella]

Aside from a few things from grandparents and great grandparents my vintage is pretty much paper stuff (magazines, postcards, etc.). I'd love to talk to those who owned the magazines before. I'd be curious to hear their take on articles in LIFE or Reader's Digest magazines. I'd love to spend a day talking about old movies and stars with those who'd owned the old movie magazines from the 1930s. And the postcards! I don't know how many postcards I've come across that I'd like to know more about. There's so little space on the back of them, that reading ones with writing is like having just a tiny taste of a much, much bigger story. I want the rest of the story.

I wouldn't mind getting a chance to talk to (great) grandparents that I never really knew either. Hear why a particular item was kept over the years, among a million other questions I'd ask.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always enjoy finding clues to past owners, and often they give some interesting little insights into their personalities. I once picked up a small lot of early-thirties movie magazines in which the previous owner, a woman identified only as "Ella," had made careful notes in the review section of all the movies she'd seen that month -- rating each one as "K-O!", "Good", "Fair," "N-G", and "Punk!" What I especially enjoyed was that on the films that we'd both seen -- seventy years apart -- we usually agreed! Here's to you, Ella, and wherever you are now, may all the pictures be K-O's!

 

[Novella]

I always enjoy finding clues to past owners, and often they give some interesting little insights into their personalities. I once picked up a small lot of early-thirties movie magazines in which the previous owner, a woman identified only as "Ella," had made careful notes in the review section of all the movies she'd seen that month -- rating each one as "K-O!", "Good", "Fair," "N-G", and "Punk!" What I especially enjoyed was that on the films that we'd both seen -- seventy years apart -- we usually agreed! Here's to you, Ella, and wherever you are now, may all the pictures be K-O's!

That is beyond cool!

 

[Quigley Brown]

A lot of my vintage neckties came right out of the closets of original owners. Actually, quite a few were their widows. It made their day that someone could get so excited about those old ties. Sometimes I had to stay to have coffee and chat with them. Since they just gave the ties to me I sort of felt that I was a 'cravat gigalo.'lol

 

[Dinerman]

I sometimes find the "if lost return to" labels in hats with the old kind of phone numbers and addresses.
It's always interesting.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Here's a more, er, colorful story about some vintage clothes I found.


Got them at an estate sale. My friend knew the person handling the sale, and she gave us the full scoop:


The couple were in their 80s, and the wife was senile. The man had a heart attack and died in the bathtub. Senile wife didn't realize he was dead, and brought the corpse breakfast, lunch and dinner on a tray for two days. Left the food by the side of the bathtub. Luckily, the tub's cold porcelain kept the body "on ice." More sadness: the senile wife would wear 5 or 6 layers of clothing, even on the hottest days. She kept a huge butcher knife stuck in the wall above her bed, in case she'd have to use it on intruders.


Frankly, I wish I hadn't learned all that. Kept one of the man's '40s ties, though!

.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Don't think I'd go for that. Just as I wouldn't want to show up 60 years from now to see some hack painting ugly pictures on my easel. Then I'd have to stay and haunt him.

A little of the history of an item is ok, but spare me all the gory details.

 

[jamespowers]

The only previous owners I've thought about was with records. I was at a church fair and came into a box of 60s soundtrack l.p.s - Mission Impossible, The Ipcress Files, Secret Agent Meets the Saint, etc. Wondered if the guy thought he was some sort of swinging bachelor.

I think you've see the guy---Austin Powers.

Regards,

J

 

[MAGNAVERDE]

I started buying old 193Os & 194Os clothes back while i was still in school in the in the early 197Os, when it was both plentiful & cheap, and one of my all-time favorite finds was a ski sweater in grayish greenish blue--think of a piece of Wedgwood that came out of the home of an old lady with a three-pack-a-day habit: that color--and ivory, in a pattern of streamlined stags leaping over saw-tooth mountains and pine trees. Inside was a Marshall Field & Company label & a hand-sewn label woven with the original owner's name & a tiny American flag.

Ten yeras later (I was still wearing the sweater from time to time) I was doing some research on Inter-war architecture in my old town, & discovered that one of my favorite houses--a massive, hard-edged limestone bunker wedged into the side of a hill overlooking the a broad river valley--had been designed for the father of my sweater's original owner. Cool.

Ten years after that, I was in a historic area of town, taking pictures of the snow-covered trees & Victorian houses after a big winter storm and came across an old guy trying to excavate his big old Lincoln town car from a gigantic snowdrift. It tookthe two of us--well, mostly, it took me-- a half an hour, because the guy, although big in frame, was clearly not in shape for such work and while I probably wouldn't have left my cozy apartment on such a day to help out people who owned fancy cars when I myself was without wheels & dependent on public transportation, I couldn't very well just pass the guy up once I saw him struggling like he was, so I had no choice but to help him.

Afterward, he thanked me & introduced himself. And of course, I instantly recognized his name--it was my sweater guy, fifty years later. I told him the story with all the details & told him about his family's old house being my favorite, and he just laughed & told me it was still his family's house, and that the only thing different was his mother's name, because she had divorced & remarried, which, of course, was why I had failed to find their old name in the phone book.

Then he said "Hell, that's where I'm going now, to see how my mother is getting along with all this snow. She dosn't drive any more. Would you like to come along & see the house?"

What a picture perfect way to tie up all the pieces of the story. Or, at least, perfect, if, after mom's divorce, she hadn't ripped out the original 1939 kitchen in favor of Ozzie-&-Harriet Americana, or gussied up the metal-framed International Style windows with so many layers of sheers & country miniprints that you couldn't see out, or, since it was near Christmas, hung department-store-Victorian style evergreen roping on the streamlined aluminum stair railing. Even so, the place was cool and what was even cooler was meeting the guy who had been at the center of it all.
MAGNAVERDE.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

And did he want his sweater back?

.

 

[HadleyH]

98% of my books are bought in second hand bookshops, many of them have notes or drawings and things written in them... I wouldn't mind saying hello and talking for a while with the original owners...that would be fun!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chanfan]

One of my friends was at a garage sale, and ended up acquiring a book that he had lent out. The friend he had lent it to had again lent it to the garage sale purveyor.

There was his name, on the inside cover. He didn't have to pay for it, at least!

 

[Mojito]

Interesting question - I've often wondered about the original owners of my vintage clothing and antiques, but rarely thought about whether I'd like to have the opportunity to meet them.

I do have an established provenance on a few of the dresses I own, and even a photograph of the original owner in one. Her descendant, who sold me the dress, told me her name and a good deal about her life in the 20s and later, up to her death. I like associating her with the dress, and affectionately refer to it by her name, Venus (as in "I'll wear Venus' Dress to the party.")

I have a wonderful, sparkling, beaded and pailette-covered dance dress from the mid-20s - referred to as the "Hoochie Mama" dress by an American colleague. I'd love to meet the original owner...I'd say she was no introvert.

One item I have, whose owner I'd particularly like to have met, is a signed photograph of one of the Titanic's officers - it was given to me by his family. He was a colourful, courageous and sometimes irascible figure, with a wonderful turn of phrase. Or perhaps Prime Minister Chiffley, whose correspondence with my Grandfather (a good friend) is in our family collection.

 

[WH1]

I would like to know more about a Mr. E.B. Crane who purchased a set of evening dress from William Kuist Co. in Spokane, Washington on 16 April 1910.

I purchased them at a Goodwill store the week before Halloween in 1983 for $2.50. It would be interesting to know who Mr. Crane was and what he did.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I have a silk muffler that belonged to Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton hotel chain (and grandpa of Paris).

.

 

[Dinerman]

I have a '30s borsalino that belonged to JW Marriott, founder of the Marriott hotel chain.