Hands Off! : Untouchable Collectibles

Julie Kirkwood of the North Andover (MA) Eagle Tribune recently endured what appears to be hours of being told “don’t touch.” You might think she was visiting an art museum or poisonous reptile exhibit, but it turns out the subject of her article were people like you and me. I know, it’s an assumption, based on your reading a collecting website, but, well, we all know that there’s something in your house that nobody’s allowed to touch.

It’s easy to expect people to keep their dirty hands off the carnival glass and Swarovski Crystal, but when the item is something meant to be handled or used, well, the wrong assumption might be made. I’ve been known to open up an unplayed record and drop the needle on it, but that’s intentional. I suppose when it comes to that Billy Beer you’ve got on the shelf, it’s obvious enough not to drink it, but a well-meaning house guest might accidentally toss the six-pack of OK Soda in the fridge… because that’s where it belongs, right? Now, this is a bit of a stretch, allowing for an unforeseen string of events to occur in just the right way for it to accidentally be imbibed: mistaken drink sits in fridge unnoticed, and it is drank without being caught first. It could happen.

More likely to occur is a single, unpreventable event. My uncle once had budgies and regularly removed the eggs from the nests to prevent his apartment from being budgie-overrun. One single, unpreventable event: a friend of his mistaking them for fancy-looking peanut M&Ms. You can imagine exactly how that went. Dud budgie eggs aren’t as collectible as many aviary-operators hope, but it’s an example of how one fatal error can cause a problem.

More collectible is an autographed band t-shirt, like the one my brother used to own. Well, he still owns it, but it’s no longer autographed after an unintentional trip through the laundromat. Had it been signed with sharpies, he might have come out with at least something still collectible… but what came out of the dryer was a never-worn, sparkling-clean shirt without any signatures. Bringing out the nice china night be fun for a special occasion, but too many plates have ended up damaged or destroyed by the easy-to-use dishwasher.

Grandma always had a dish of ornamental soap for purely aesthetic reasons, but you probably wouldn’t be in too much trouble if the molded seahorses found their way into the water… but a McKinley soap baby might evoke a few tears if it was used to clean up a pair of messy hands. I know I’d probably lose a hand if any of the wifey’s soap dolls, at right, ended up at the bathroom sink.

Homer Simpson ate the Gummi Venus De Milo, and Richard Pryor mailed an Inverted Jenny in Brewster’s Millions; wasting an antique is comedy gold, so everybody would have a nice long laugh if you really destroyed something of value for all to see. Hopefully, you won’t find yourself on national television, explaining how an Edison cylinder works to the world, when it bursts in your hands. Or, showing off your Picasso, when your elbow meets the canvas unexpectedly. New rule: leave the rarest collectibles behind glass.

What makes these examples tragic is that once the damage is done, there’s no undoing it. When the antique coins end up in the change jug and are dumped at the bank, there’s no getting them back. A vintage candle can’t be unburned, a classic paint-by-number can’t be unpainted. Be careful with your treasures, and think long and hard before you decide it’d be cute to keep your antique toiletries in the bathroom: you can’t expect everyone to understand which they can use, and which are not to touch.