A recent forum post bought this thought to mind, What regrets have you had about selling a particular bottle. This was one of my posts at the time which I think is worth posting here with a few amends:
...I sold my seal collection about 20 years ago. It was my early life's work at the time, bought mostly from the proceeds of tiresome and boring weekend work when I was at art college, and could stand equally alongside many superpaid mature collectors collections and still draw glances of envy from them. I was bloody proud of it...
...But also it was a millstone because it was worth so much that it was frightening. It could have been shattered in an instant and become worthless. Then, sometimes I used to fondle my best sealed octagonal in my hand (Foote/Harwood/1731) and think about what it was "worth", and what it all really meant, and then I'd think of my kids and wife....and think that "this bit of glass will be around long after I've gone, and they've gone, and what's the point of it all, all of this collecting and hoarding and chasing singlemindedly after the next item to add to the collection shelves, while the kids will be growing up, and the wife and I will be struggling to make ends meet and getting older"........
...so I sold it all...got good money for the time.
Honestly?...yes of course I "regret it", especially now that it would be worth three or four times what I got at the time, but it was the right decision for then. Sometimes I enviously glance at the images of it in it's new owners collection, and think of the unfairness of life, of silver spoons etc, but you can't fight against that, you just gotta move onward and upward.
But I'm lucky. I've got the best job in the world, dealing full time in bottles, also now I have an easier attitude to life that means I am free from all this bottle world squabbling and fighting over juicy bottle titbits from the carcass of the latest naive bottle seller, or the hunting of the next ego massaging bottle.
Now it's just business, just an interesting way of making money, which is ultimately a better standard of living for the family. there's still the thrill of the hunt, and the acquisition, and the profitable sale, and now I can own the top historical pieces...for a short while, before I have to pass them on.
Collecting wise, I personally get just as much thrill, more even out of getting a meagre little sheared lip lamp I haven't got, for the huge sum of £10 or less, than "yet another sealed onion" at £3-£4k. The latter are just my bread and butter, common to me, but no better essentially than the crude wonky bubbly little utility that costs under £100, which I also collect, or the tiny little early phials, full of history, plain but practical.
Soooo, whether you manage to keep it, or if you end up letting it go, it's all just the same, we will all be letting go of our collections sometime, it's just how much we think it's worth paying for the privilege of "looking after them" for a short while until then...
"but it was the right decision for then."
ReplyDeleteEnough said. I've sold or had to part with otherwise so many things I sort of wish I still had. My motorcycles and a couple cars come to mind as do many other things. A lot was sold or thrown out before moving to make it easier. A lot was before the internet. I lost a lot due to breakage, moves, separations etc.. You can't keep everything.
Regret? Yup, but it is what it was.