False Values

Fiorella is both fascinated and horrified by Antiques Road Show.  Fascinated because of all the interesting and weird stuff people bring in, and horrified by how much it is supposedly worth.  It is WRONG for fake jewelry to be valued at thousands of dollars just because an actress wore it in a movie.  It is WRONG that a stupid-looking piece of "art" that looks like a preschooler composed it would sell for more than $100,000.  It WRONG that people fork over fortunes for useless junk, stuff with implied value rather than real value, when they could be aiding the needy or supporting medical research.

What a sad, desperate way to live.

Let's Get Our Values Straight

It infuriates Fio when Antiques Road Show appraisers estimate the value of old furniture in the thousands of dollars because it means there are people out there who will pay huge amounts for trophies like these when what they should be spending their money on things that promote the public welfare--education, medical research, or maybe even raising the pay in the sweatshops that supply their good fortune.

Fio will allow for museum displays of old furniture, and she does have some sentimental (probably worthless) pieces in her home, but otherwise, old furniture is just old furniture, nothing that should be venerated, nothing that should be worth more than the cost of a decent community college education.

Antiques

Sorry, my darling daughter, but Fiorella is not about to wrap the Limoges up in tissue paper and store it away in the attic rather than set the table with it for holidays. Sure, some of the gilt wears away with each use.  Sure, some of the pieces will get chipped or broken--some of them already have--but so what?  It's only china.

Fio has a double set of Haviland, inherited from her mother and Husband's grandmother. It's a pretty, springtime pattern of pink roses, more intense in Husband's grandmother's pieces than in the earlier version from Fio's family. Doesn't quite work for Christmas, but ideal for Easter, when Daughter and her husband joined us for a holiday dinner.

While appreciating Daughter's appreciation of antiques, Fiorella has less reverent attitude: if the china/chest of drawers/chair/whatever serves no purpose, it's useless. You will never see Fiorella on Antiques Road Show checking out the value of the breakfront desk that Husband inherited because Fio uses one drawer for correspondence, one for important papers, one for bank records, and one for current bills.  However, on  the glassed-in shelves on top, she'll admit she's arranged photos and well . . .

antique keepsakes.
 



   

Antique Values

You won't ever see Fio in line for the Antiques Road Show.  Between inheritances from her mother and her mother-in-law, she is loaded with old furniture, but she also uses each and every stick of it.  Furniture is not sacred to her.  She paints it, re-upholsters it, changes out the original pulls and knobs for ones that will work--all of which lower the value of the pieces.

Too bad.  Fio is busy taking care of people and doesn't have time to take care of things.