Gifts to treasure

Press, 17 December 1985, Page 8

Gifts to treasure

Do try to visit some of your favourite antique establishments and secondhand markets during your Christmas shopping rounds this year. You will probably delight your friends and family with unusually acceptable gifts, and will certainly enjoy the experience. Sellers have set out amazingly varied displays of the most fascinating objects.

Fellow customers seem to be every bit as interesting as the things they have come to buy. In one shop two husbands in quick succession chose fine silver pieces for wives who had been delighted with similar gifts from the same place last year. A kindly lady bought a sterling silver teaspoon for a favourite son-in-law who liked to stir his “cuppa”

with a special spoon, and another went off happily with some plated tablespoons for a daughter who had been wishing for some.

It seems there will be quite a few happy collectors on Christmas morning. It is quite impossible to do justice to the many worthwhile antique dealers in and around Christchurch in one week. So I did a quick round of some of

them, selecting a number of pieces which might help in selecting gifts for friends and family. There is certainly a wide range of acceptable gifts available at prices ranging from a few dollars to those in the hundreds and thousands bracket. Those illustrated are from four different establishments. You are quite likely to find similar or