BOOM IN ANTIQUES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 8, 5 October 1943, Page 5

BOOM IN ANTIQUES

American Collector In Australia SYDNEY, September 30. Australian cities are. almost, untouched treasure-houses for antique-collectors, according to a lieutenant-colonel of the United States Army. During a brief stay in .Sydney the lieutenant-colonel, who is State geologist of Alabama and director of. the Alabama State Museum of Natural History, has bought two-thirds of the 159 pipes he has collected since he arrived in Australia. “No matter what you want to collect, you’ll find it in the Australian cities, he said. “I’ve only had a chance to voik over Brisbane and Sydney, and have concentrated on pipes and snuff-boxes. But anyone interested in furniture, old silver, pewter, or anything old and yaluable, will find all he wants in these cities. For an average price of £1 a specimen the lieutenant-coloned has acquiredcarved Meerschaums, delicately-painted Dutch-type porcelain-bowl pipes, a hookah elaborately-carved briars, English calabashes, and silver opium pipes. He has established that one carved Meerschaum was made in 1761. “It seems strange to see so { muon stuff in antique shops/’ he said. ‘I suppose it- was brought out here by jour pioneering families, and it seems a pity that succeeding generations have let so much of it go. (Maybe it is because yours is a new country and is looking forward to its future rather than back on its past.”