Diane and Tom - What We Collect
Diane and Tom are avid collectors--real pack rats. We think a great
vacation (except for camping) involves great food, great wine and lots of
antique stores. We hunt down antique stores and malls where ever we go--even
in the Adirondack Wilderness. We started out just collecting Victorian
opalescent glass, but have since blossomed into many other areas. Our
insurance company finally refused to believe that we could have everything
we do in a 2 bedroom apartment and forced us to do an inventory. We will
share our main ones with you. At this point, we have all our walls covered
with curio cabinets, shelves, hand painted plates and kitchen
antiques. We laugh when friends suggest that we provide museum-like
commentary sheets in every room to describe what is on the walls. Diane
collects Victorian colored glass, mainly opalescent and Victorian hand
painted floral porcelain plates. Tom collects copper and kitchen antiques.
We both collect antique Christmas ornaments and Santas.
Victorian Colored Glass
I have over 900 pieces in my Victorian glass collection. It spans the years 1860 to 1911,
with over 99% being over 100 years old. The glass is mostly American.
However, my collection of English
and German pieces is growing rapidly. I first got interested in this glass when my ex-mother-in-law gave me a
few pieces from her mother. Well, you can imagine I don't have those anymore--but I
replaced them with a lot of others. The only drawback to being an avid glass collector is
that it takes five full weekends to wash everything. Would you like to take a peek at my
collection? We added over 20 new pieces in 2008, including the addition of
very rare Arabian Nights and Christmas Snowflake water pitchers. 
Visit Victorian Glass and Victorian Glass Page 2 .
Kitchen Antiques
What would you think "foodies" would collect? What else but kitchen and cooking
antiques. In the last couple of years, we have made substantial additions to this collection, which now numbers
over 400 pieces. Our den is the kitchen antiques museum, with many things nailed all over
the walls. Tom's collection includes things like cake and jelly molds, grinders, cherry
and raisin pitters, butter churns, sausage stuffers, egg poachers, mayonnaise mixers, egg
beaters, sugar cutters, marmalade cutters, asparagus buncher, butter molds,
cork screws, hand-cranked cake and bread mixers, nutcrackers, and other utensils of all kinds. The collection
is mainly Victorian and involves items made out of tin, cast iron and glass. The fun thing
about collecting these types of antiques is that we frequently have no idea how a
particular item was used and have to research it for the answer, e.g., a very rare tin
Victorian egg whipper, or our latest find--an antique cast iron bread crumber!. Our best
piece so far is a hand forged cast iron baker's paddle from the mid-1700s. Why not take a
look at Kitchen Antiques.
We've added over 25 new items in 2008 .
Copper
Tom's copper collection has close to 400 pieces, and spans Victorian and early art deco
periods. It includes cooking items (of course), as well as other decorative items. Copper
is another maintenance-intensive collection, because copper tarnishes. It takes about
14
full days to polish everything (if you also include our copper pots and pans). But, unlike
glass, this is a task delegated to our cleaning lady, Michelle. Every time Tom gets a new
piece of copper, Michelle groans. Why not check out the full collection and all our new
2008 additions in Copper
Hand Painted Porcelain Plates
Diane started to collect hand painted plates during 1998. More things to nail to
the walls! During the Victorian period, painting porcelain plates was a highly desirable
hobby for well bred ladies. Our plates are mainly Bavarian, with a few Limoges, Royal Doulton and Nippon (turn of the century Japanese). We use them as dessert plates for
our dinner parties and ladies tea parties. Here we go again, a labor intensive collection.
When I use these they have to be hand-washed! In nine years, Diane has more than
doubled her collection . Please take a peek at the new plates we've added in 2008 at Hand Painted Porcelain Plates
Christmas Antiques
We have been collecting old Christmas ornaments , Santa figures and other
antiques Christmas items for the last 15 years.
The ornaments are mainly European blown glass and spun cotton of all different shapes and cover Victorian
to pre-World War II periods. As with all our other collections we started buying things
that were reasonably priced, but are now into ornaments and Santas that are harder to find
and, of course, much more expensive--for example , Victorian scrap (paper that is over 100
years old) and tinsel ornaments, German Santas, cotton-batting ornaments, etc.. During the
last couple of years, we concentrated on adding a number of cotton batting and fabric
Santas and Russian ornaments. Since the fall of the Soviet Union,. Russian ornaments
from the 1920s and 30s are starting to be available. If you are interested--take a
look on Ebay. We also started a collection of "chef " and wine maker Santas, nutcrackers and "smokers " (German wooden folk figurines),
and snowmen--many purchased from the Christmas Market on Diane's trips to Nuremberg.
We have over 250 of these now. We also have pre-electric lighting items, e.g., Victorian
metal and glass candle holders. We have accumulated so many ornaments,
and lights, and glass beaded garlands that we now put up multiple Christmas
trees. We have 9 in all,
(3 for our antique ornaments; 1 for antique Kugel ornaments; "feather"
trees for our Belleek porcelain and miniature British house ornament
collections, trees with cat and cooking themes, and a big folk art tree.) We have accumulated enough of those post-WWII Japanese
and European felt and
cotton Santas (remember the kind you got for 10 cents in the dime store that now cost a
fortune) that we had to make use of the tops of nine large china cabinets to
make special "Winter Santa village" displays. We used the tops of
cabinets for these displays because we now have 10 cats (ranging in age from
1 months to 5 years). I must admit,
we did find a couple of dismembered Santas in the mornings, and did have a
number of experiences with cats climbing a large tree covered with antique
ornaments, especially this year with one of our two newest babies,
Tangerine--a real scamp!!! Can you imagine 9
Christmas trees, 8 Chef/Wine maker Santa/Nutcracker displays and
9 antique Santa displays in a 2 bedroom apartment--with
10 kitties!!! Neither could Tom.
The whole collection includes over 1500 glass, paper and fabric ornaments and Santas,
over 100 candle holders and glass fairy lights, and 75 glass beaded garlands. Why not
peruse our updated inventory in Christmas
Ornaments and Christmas Ornaments
Page 2 .We have added over 20 new items.
Antique and Collecting Hot Links
Auctions and Antiques Sources
Replacement Services, Collector Forums and Reference
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| Antique Net | Antique Week On-Line |
| Glass Museum On-Line | Swappers and Collectors |
| L-W Book Sales |
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These collections are under continuous update. Please check often.
Revised February 3, 2008