1977
1977.
There was this:
And then there was this:
Nostalgia makes me weak-kneed. I just can't help myself. The other day I actually spent good money (just $1 per issue plus shipping but still) on a year's worth of issues of Hobbie’s Magazine from 1977.
I started collecting antique salt dishes when I was 12 and within a year or two I’d started collecting pattern glass salts, then lacy salts, then pattern glass, then early glass….. I got the collecting gene from my mother---no doubt about that. With my mother’s vicarious pleasure encouraging me, and my father (Mr. Soft Touch) willing to do whatever my mother and I wanted…..much, much time was spent studying antique glass, talking about antique glass going to antique shows, talking to dealers, and buying glass. Holding glass, touching glass.
A few weeks ago Ernie and I were at PACA and picked up a copy or two of some old antiques journals from the 1970’s. Looking at some of the ads in them made me nostalgic for the days when the arrival of Hobbies in the mailbox was a time for great joy so I found myself perusing eBay and sure enough....there were old copies of Hobbies for sale! Hobbies was published in Chicago so we (living just outside Chicago) often received our copy before the dealers who advertised in it had received their copies. I would pour through the ads and call my mother up at her job (where she was working as my father’s legal secretary) and tell her that so-and-so had a piece of Leaf and Dart for sale….what did she think. We’d talk it over and then she’d tell me to go ahead and call about it. I would eagerly call and talk to the dealer. Sometimes they would ask how old I was and of course what dealer wouldn’t love having a young kid into collecting. I would exchange letters with some of them. I still have a box of letters and notes somewhere. Those of you who know how much I hate phone calls will find this shocking...but hey....for the love of 19th century glass.....
When we got home from Chicago the other day there was my heavy box of magazines waiting for me. They smell a bit musty but I have gotten an almost embarrassing amount of joy from going through them. So many familiar names: Anne Serra, Bette and Chub Wicker, Judith Cronin, Arthur E. Strom, Oland’s Antiques, C. Oscar Black (he signed his letters to me as ‘Uncle Oscar’). Other ads are incredibly familiar even though I never ordered from them. The show ads feel like old family too!
Some things surprised me---for instance, how many women listed themselves as Mrs. So and so instead of just their name. Actually some of the prices surprised me too. The market has shifted so….you’d think the prices would look dirt cheap. However, while prices look low on some things, the thought of someone taking a full page ad to advertise EAPG sauce dishes, egg cups and the like today is laughable. There are some things I could probably buy more cheaply now….but then again other things have risen in price dramatically. It was merely a different time, a different world of antiques than there is today. And I kinda miss it.