Every town has its share of undiscovered works of art and rare vestiges of history lying obscured beneath decades of dust, or stacked against the back wall in an old farm- house basement, so turn your RV vacation into a treasure hunt. On a per-capita basis, for instance, B.C. alone has turned up more than its share of rare and fascinating treasures over the years – each with a unique story to tell that reveals – in part – some of the history of the place. Several years ago, a Star Kazak
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rug, one of a few dozen known in the world, surfaced at the estate of a deceased Canadian diplomat living in Abbotsford; an original Picasso painting that first appeared in an edition of Playboy Magazine in the mid-sixties, was rescued from certain death in a trash pile in Peachland; a Picasso vase worth three-quarters of a million dollars now resides at a home somewhere north of Kelowna; an exceptionally rare box – possibly a medieval reliquary, hand-craſted from 22-carat white and yellow gold and fine silver, estimated to have been made somewhere between 1200 and 1500 A.D found its way from a Bastide in the north of France, to Kelowna; a photograph dated c.1860 of a non-descript yet subtly distinctive character, seemingly not much beyond the norm at the time, turned out to be an extremely rare photograph of Louis Riel taken while he was attending the Collège de Montréal as a young man.
It now resides in Vancouver. Tough major finds like this are
the exception, not the rule, the objects found in small-town B.C. and Alberta essentially tell the story of “place” and the social culture that exists there. “Te quintessential country antique store isn’t just a store-front loaded with junk,” says Peter Blundell, a well- known Okanagan arts and antique appraiser, “It becomes a time-capsule – a testament to the layers of history and the evolution unique to every town.” What did immigrants bring
with them when they settled? What did they leave behind? Te results are indicative of economic periods of growth and recession, striation of consumer goods from different, well delineated eras: kitch (1950’s) ; period furniture from England or Spain - remnants of inheritances some four, perhaps five generations off; folk art; Mission style or Arts and Craſts period furniture. Every antique store and discerning collection will likely have a cross-section of period design to varying degrees, but going into it with a context afforded by fore- knowledge of the area may reveal that there is oſten more than meets the eye; that in each object there may well be something greater than the object itself: local legend, a little-known tradition, a previously unknown testament on obscure or infamous bits of history. Each piece in itself becomes an education. Happy hunting.
Story and photos by Dean Unger
HUNTERS & COLLECTORS Planning Your Antique Hunting Road Trip
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