You’re ambling along a street in Tuscany, perhaps eating an ice cream or digesting a spectacular lunch. Out of the corner of your eye you spot something in a shop window: the exact painting, or mirror, or even wardrobe you’ve been trying and failing to find at home for months. This leaves you in a quandary. How are you going to get the object of your desire home? Are you mad to even try organising international shipping? What about the import duties, and the risk of spiralling costs?
Or perhaps you’ve spent years going on predictable, safe holidays, children in tow, to hotels or campsites with excellent facilities, but zero cultural appeal. But now you have the opportunity to do something entirely different, to indulge your love of history and plan the antiques shopping trip of a lifetime. Where to begin?
H&A’s contributors share their best experiences and expert tips for buying antiques abroad.
Oliver Miller
Bishop & Miller Auctions
Weigh up the pros and cons of shipping prices when visiting antiques fairs in America
The happiest holiday I’ve ever had was at Brimfield, a vast event that takes place in Massachusetts three times a year, in May, July and September. I can’treception. As you might expect, it’s particularly strong on Americana, like folk art and really characterful old advertising signs. But as the US is a melting pot of so many different cultures, they have interesting things from all over the world. Some of my favourite finds are an English frog snuff box dating to about 1800, and a really quirky vintage West African painted hairdresser’s sign.
