Posted by R. John Howe on June 11, 1999 at 04:07:23:
Dear folks -
One additional question I should have asked at the beginning, has to do with sharing with the novice collector what expectations he/she should probably have concerning the likelihood of collecting mistakes, what the soundest reactions are to them when they occur, and whether even very experienced collectors still make them.
Mr. Timmerman, about whom I spoke at the beginning of this salon, confesses that perhaps his most serious mistake was to turn down once a Lotto rug (the real thing) with wonderfully saturated reds and yellows and a very low price.
One of my own initial collecting purchases was a mistake in the sense that not only did I not recognize that this little finely-woven, complete Tekke torba was full of synthetic dyes; not only did I not see that it had likely been chemically washed; I bought it in part because I rather liked the color! (As Doris Beck once said "tongue in cheek" and at length in a TM rug convention presentation, "What's wrong with orange?") And I still own it, despite several opportunities to sell it for what I paid. It may provide stern evidence, suggesting that I have not yet reached that elevated state that Katharine describes elsewhere here as that of a real "collector."
What are we willing to share with the novice collector concerning our collecting mistakes?
Regards,
R. John Howe