A brave new world

How long has it been since you ever tried to do something new?  It can be a bit scary to step out of your comfort zone, but it can be fun too as in some instances, you have nothing to lose.

At least that’s how my girlfriend Anne and I view our new venture which we will be launching on September 22.  Both of us have either moved or are in the process of moving, and when you have lived in one place for years – in my case 28 years - you can bet that you have accumulated a fair amount of stuff that needs to be shed and found a new home.

So what are we up to?  We have set ourselves up as … wait for it…. The Antique Annies, and on Saturday, we have a booth at the Aberfoyle Antique Fair, and  I can’t tell you how much fun this has been.

First we had to cull our loot and see what would fit under the “antique” category and fast as I would put items aside, my husband would declare them off-limits.  Fortunately he has, of late, got with the program and is more willing to part with his treasures, but it was tough going at the start.

And it is tough to part with family heirlooms, but I just know I am not going to polish that silver, nor am I ever going to don my mother’s fur coat.  So it has been a cleansing process as I have weaned myself off parts of my childhood.

Once we’d sorted through what we had, we realized that we really knew nothing about what to charge, and so we went off to do our due diligence and check out the prices at different antique shows.

Trouble was we never left empty-handed, something we hadn’t factored into our fact-finding mission.  Heaven help when we are at the show – I fear we may well leave with more than we brought, which would truly defeat the purpose of the whole exercise.

We’ve also checked in with antique experts who have helped us come up with reasonable prices. As Anne observed, it’s not really about making lots of money, but we also don’t want to find that we’ve just “given away” a real treasure.

Another part of our research has been on how to best display our goodies, and we’ve been quite creative, I think, on how best to “stage” our booth.

So all told, it has been fun, and surprisingly relaxing as we’ve prepared ourselves for our maiden voyage.  If you’re at a loose end on the 22^nd – come along and visit us, you may find one of our treasures just calling to you and we’re ready to barter.