A Short Snatch of Autobiography

quercuscommunity

May 5

I've just searched "Victorian Insect Jewellery" on eBay. I don't know whether it's the people who put the stuff on, or the eBay search engine (I suspect probably both), but I was amazed by the number of identical Peter Rabbit brooches that cropped up.

There are three points here. Large numbers of identical Victorian items generally suggests that what you are seeing is modern reproduction. I didn't bother looking further because I wasn't that interested. The second point is that a rabbit isn't an insect. Having said that, neither are chickens, turtles, birds or fish, but they all crop up multiple times in the search.

The third point, which I admit is small (though important) compared to the two others, is that Queen Victoria died in 1901 and Peter Rabbit didn't appear in print until 1902, so he isn't actually Victorian. I actually thought he was a bit later - 1904 - but when I checked up found I was wrong. In 1903 he became the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy according to Wikipedia. Peter Rabbit merchandise was even sold by Harrods.

It's amazing what you learn when you are trying to avoid working at your computer.

It was eBay that finally put me out of business as an antiques dealer. I was always a bit borderline, because I'm not very businesslike, but when eBay and the internet came along I finally failed. eBay allowed people to become dealers without any knowledge whatsoever, and the internet started giving people knowledge which had taken me years to build up. Suddenly everyone was an expert, and they started competing with me. So, the antiques trade lost a dealer and the world of gardening opened up to me. I could have done both, but the kids started playing rugby and I was needed as a taxi driver at weekends.

With hindsight I regret not doing more to use eBay to my advantage, but it seemed a good decision at the time and it didn't work out too badly, even if I did add "Antique Dealer" to my list of failures.

Pictures are, as you can see, antiques of the sort that interest me.