To counterbalance the shock of young widowhood--and the dismal grind of working in china, silver, and gifts at Stix, Baer & Fuller--my mother entered a sentimental phase. It lasted only as long as it took her to purchase, with carefully meted out coins, six Hummel figurines, one Lladro, and one amethyst geode. Years later, said figurines (can't find the geode) have been entrusted to me, and I intend to sell them coldly for the price of a good dinner. That is, if I can find a buyer. I asked at the quaint jewelry store in Waterloo, and the owner told me sadly that people don't collect anymore.
As stark as that?
"Well, they don't collect the way they used to," she said. "Certainly not in series, or everything by a certain maker. They don't have time to dust it all." Mainly, she added, they just buy things that strike a chord, feed an interest, or echo a childhood memory. I thought for a minute and decided she was right. the people I knew who collected, say, Majolica, I could count on one finger. Most of the collectors/hunters/hoarders in my acquaintance are more interested in concept or provenance than name brand.
I thought back to the Victorian days, all those curio cabinets crammed with sets and multiples. What changed us? Lack of time? Lack of storage space? Or a genuine simplifying that reduced the world to essences and needed only one of a kind to sate itself?
I'm not sure--and for the moment, a more practical question burns: What do I do with these Hummels?
--Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer
