A Week At Roche Bridge Antiques

Whilst I enjoy almost every aspect of what we do, along with the “yay!” moments, there are inevitably times when it gets a bit grrr.

This week has had a smattering of both.

A request for more photos of an item, led to a whole sweaty day of searching for it. Humping boxes around and having to empty every single one grrr. The upside was that I “found” things I’d put aside for later, some of which were “good” yay!

Things I "Found"

Japanese Dragon Bowl

Lobmeyr Service 54

Earlier in the week I took a nice drive to collect a lovely art deco chandelier. Anyone who has ever bought things online, will know that sometimes, the photos aren’t necessarily the true picture. The chandelier although gorgeous wasn’t in a saleable state. Dirty, degraded lacquer, smelled of nicotine and needed to be made safe by rewiring. Right, yep, we can do all that but not before a lot of swearing trying to get modern electrical wires down skinny 1930s branch arms, and not before tripping out the electrics! It was well worth it though.

Before

After

Some antique dealers sell things as is, but I can never resist trying to improve upon them. I bought a green Galle style, Mosanic grotesque cat that also had a missing foot, missing eye and a chipped ear. Why? Er I’m not sure really. But I couldn’t bear to part with him after all the TLC I’d lavished on him.

Before

After

To polish or not to polish (metal) seems to be a contentious subject too. I do understand that years of hands touching wood shouldn’t be erased but when it comes to metal I take a different view. Brass for instance was often lacquered to keep it looking bright and shiny, but years of use and damp garages and lofts are not kind to lacquer. If it looks pants then it has to be cleaned. I mean you can’t tell me that these little lamps look better with their “patina” than they do having been cleaned.

Before

After

I doubt the prissy Victorians would have given a dirty lamp house room!

Happy Sunday

Tracy Skeates