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I have been collecting dollhouse miniatures as far back as I can remember and I still own some of the dollhouse
furniture I played with over 45 years ago. When I was a teenager, most of my babysitting money was spent at The Carousel,
a toy shop located in Westport, CT, where I purchased Lynnfield and Shackman furniture for my homemade Colonial dollhouse.
I also found antique and vintage furniture at Connecticut weekend flea markets, including my first pieces of TynieToy furniture.
When I went to college in New York City, I opened my very first checking account and the first check for $11 and change was
made out NOT to the college bookstore, but to B. Shackman and Co., located only a few blocks from my dorm room. While in school,
I worked part-time at one of the very first dollhouse shops, Kathryn Falk's MiniMundus located on Lexington Avenue and 77th
Street, and after graduation, I spent a wonderful year working for Molly Brody at her shop in Westport. Molly introduced me
to artists of the mid-1970's including Betty Valentine, Helen Norman, Donald Dube, Joen Ellen Kanze, Debbie McKnight, Joe
Andrews, and I met other fabulous artists and renowned dealers of antique miniatures like Bob Milne at her twice-yearly Yankee
Miniatures Show in Darien. And I will never forget the afternoon when she took me to see Gretchen Dean's amazing personal
collection with its many pieces of furniture by Eric Pearson and other artists.
Unfortunately, Molly couldn't pay me very much and each purchase I made that year was very precious to me as I balanced my
collecting passion with student loan payments! I eventually went to work in the corporate world, but never lost my delight
in collecting miniatures. Decades later, I have the leisure time to focus my interest in antique and artisan miniatures by
researching and writing articles for Miniature Collector and Antique Doll Collector magazines (click My Articles for more
information). Through that work, I was asked to curate a museum exhibit and then asked to do appraisals and catalogue descriptions
for several major specialty auction houses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. That work (it hardly seems the right word to describe
such a pleasant occupation) has provided me with many opportunities to view wonderful private and museum collections over
the past few years, and to examine rare and unique pieces that have never appeared in publications.
I've
recently pared down my collection of antique dollhouses so I can
focus more on collecting the under-appreciated work of vintage
craftsmen. I've always collected Betty Valentine - when I worked for
Molly at her Darien show, she was astute enough to place her own
booth right next to Betty's, which gave me a lot of time to really
examine her work and make carefully planned purchases. My very first
purchase was a little tripod table with gracefully curving feet for
$20 and I still treasure it. The Darien show was also where I bought
pottery from Debbie McKnight, Jean Yingling, and Carolyn Curran. After I left Molly's
employ to work in New York, I joined the IGMA and saved for
months to buy at the annual Guild show. When I lived in New York, I
travelled across the country for my job and, when I had time, I
looked up the local miniature shops and tried to bring home
something unique to those shops. So many of them are gone now. My
first business trip was to Allentown, PA in the middle of winter,
and I found a funny little gift shop inside a family restaurant
where I was surprised to find the furniture of Robert Gray. I
couldn't afford to buy more than one thing, so I brought home his
lovely cherrywood Jenny Lind bed for $38 (I so wish I could have
purchased the bureau and washstand too!) It's odd to find his work
now re-appearing at auctions. I reduced my attendance
at shows when I began to raise a family, but I tried to go to the
Guild show or Philadelphia Miniaturia when I could, and when my
daughter was older, I was able to go to London for the Kensington
Dolls' House Festival (the best!) and Birmingham's Miniaturia. I
finally got to the Singing Tree just a few years before they closed. I really enjoy the shops in
Britain. They are often very small (like a lot of things there) and
somehow they really pack a lot into those little spaces. I particularly
liked the shops in Eton and Key Miniatures in Thame, and there is a nice
shop in Leamington Spa, too. I went to some smaller dollhouse shows north
of London when I lived for a while in England, and was pleasantly
surprised to be able to buy dolls directly from Jill Nix, and for far less
than what they cost at the Singing Tree. I haven't been to the London show
since Caroline Hamilton let it go, but I'm confident it is still excellent
and hope to return next May.
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