My love for old things began, perhaps, with loving the old people in my life - my great grandparents and grandparents. I loved them and their ways, and their things. I particularly recall watching my great grandmother sit at her vanity and brush her long, white hair and thought her hairbrush was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.
As I grew older, I began collecting my own old things: furniture, music boxes, compact mirrors, perfume bottles, and jewelry. It was the cameos which I first loved and which I continue to appreciate. My own cameo collection includes some 300 pieces. I so well recall the first cameo I ever received, and it was a ring given to me by the first boy I ever loved. Some forty five years later, I still value that ring as one of my most prized possessions.
As my cameo brooch collection grew and enlarged, I decided to branch out into other types of vintage jewelry. I began educating myself in whatever way I could about vintage. I had the good fortune to become friends with a lady who had sold vintage at the local Memphis flea market for more than thirty years. She became my mentor in the business. As I have collected and learned, I have become well known among to the estate sale dealers, antique dealers, and auctioneers in Memphis and am well respected by them for my knowledge, and am often consulted by them for information about things they are unfamiliar with. I am always eager to share with others what I know, as well as the history that I know of the things I sell.
My daughter and sixteen year old grandson have inherited my love for the old, and they often accompany me on my buying adventures, with each of them having found their own things of interest to collect. More and more, my son and his wife are starting to appreciate the old things, too.
It was after my own collections grew so enlarged that I decided to open my shop at Etsy so that I could bring to others some of the wonderful things that I enjoy. Nothing pleases me more than the smile on a customer's face when she finds one of my old brooches and says, "My grandmother had one just like this."
I am the sole manager and operator of my Etsy shop. I am an avid photographer, so I especially love the photography aspect of my business and strive to offer good photos which well depict my items. The things I offer in my shop are of good and high quality, and I strive to find things which are just a little unusual. I am always happy to answer questions about the things I sell. I have two Etsy shops, VintageAndOld, as well as VintageAndVictorian.