Transcript
Speaker: Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: My guest today is Kay Collier, who you might know from her company, Catherine Hastings & Co., or her beautiful Instagram account of the same name.
Speaker: I've been excited to talk with Kay because she practices something that I'm constantly preaching.
Speaker: Use your antiques.
Speaker: So many collectible antiques were made to perform specific functions.
Speaker: Some of those functions might be largely obsolete today, like boxes to hold your snuff.
Speaker: No offense to any snuff sniffers out there.
Speaker: But others haven't really changed much, from candlesticks to flatware to umbrella stands.
Speaker: And then there are objects that fall somewhere in the middle, things that aren't used much these days in normal life, but when you do use them, they can add a wonderful aesthetic quality to your experience and maybe even help you connect with the past.
Speaker: And that's what Kay's work is all about.
Speaker: Her specialty is wax seals.
Speaker: You know, the type small engraved metal stamps used to mold drops of wax into a crest or a coat of arms or insignia.
Speaker: to seal up a letter.
Speaker: Now these can be highly collectible objects, but what I love about Kay is she's putting them to use, just as they were originally intended, making beautiful seals that you can use for a special occasion like a wedding invitation or just for a letter to a friend.
Speaker: And they really are beautiful, especially the way Kay produces them, often with multiple colors and layers of wax and paint to create
Speaker: little works of art based in this historic form.
Speaker: And occasionally, and we'll get into this later, they can open up some pretty scandalous stories.
Speaker: As always, you can get in touch with me on Instagram at Objective Interest or via email at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: And if you enjoy the show, I'd really appreciate it if you leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever app you're using to listen right now.
Speaker: Kay Collier, thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker: I'm thrilled to be here.
Speaker: Did I just do a reasonable job of describing what you do?
Speaker: Yes, I actually have chills.
Speaker: That was so beautifully put.
Speaker: And the way that you've kind of explained using antiques and why that's important, I think regardless of what thing you collect,
Speaker: using it, holding it, having it in your space brings a little bit of that historic magic into your house and honors all of the people who've had the antiques before.
Speaker: I think in part because antiques outlive us.
Speaker: They're much older when we acquire them and hopefully they'll have lives long after us that we're stewards.
Speaker: And so, yeah, that idea of using and sharing is really important.
Speaker: So I want to start with you and your relationship with these seals.
Speaker: So what is the very first seal that you remember encountering?
Speaker: I started with a modern seal when I was 19.
Speaker: So back in 2006, I traveled through Europe with my sister.
Speaker: We visited the Amalfi Coast in Italy.
Speaker: We went to the Amatruda papery, which is one of the oldest, if not the oldest papery in Europe.
Speaker: It makes beautiful handmade cotton paper and paper.
Speaker: When I was in their gift shop, of course, I bought some paper and then I bought a wax seal that had my initials.
Speaker: And from that moment, I was hooked.
Speaker: I've always been a letter writer.
Speaker: My grandmother got me into writing cards and letters when I was a girl.
Speaker: She would send me a card every week with a dollar bill and a piece of bubble gum.
Speaker: And then, yeah, every letter that I would send her, she'd send me one back.
Speaker: So she got me in the habit of,
Speaker: writing and looking for mail.
Speaker: And for me, especially because I started when I was a kid, mail was always something exciting.
Speaker: Obviously, I was not getting bills at that age.
Speaker: And so I only saw the mail as a place for human connection and beauty and surprise.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: I went to boarding school starting in high school.
Speaker: When I was in school, I would write letters to my friends at home.
Speaker: When it was summer and I was home, I'd write letters to my friends at boarding school.
Speaker: And so that letter writing tradition continued with me.
Speaker: And so when I got that first seal, it was just kind of an extension of my passion for letter writing.
Speaker: And then on the antique side, it was almost 10 years later that I had been into other types of antiques, for instance, collecting silver cigar boxes so that I could store my craft stuff beautifully in my office.
Speaker: And on a whim, I decided to just put in a search on eBay for antique wax seal, not knowing what I would find.
Speaker: And I found the most beautiful object I had seen to date.
Speaker: It was, and I'll get a picture of this for the show notes for any of you who are listening, but it was a Ormulu seal.
Speaker: So it's looks like gold.
Speaker: The Ormulu was a amalgam of zinc and copper and it had a amethyst glass handle.
Speaker: So the object itself, it has this beautiful, clear purple handle.
Speaker: And then there's the Ormulu, so this kind of ornate gold looking top to it that has six seals that can spin around on a wheel.
Speaker: And so, yeah, on that wheel, each seal,
Speaker: is hand carved from a semi-precious stone.
Speaker: It's something common to see in antique wax seals, or sometimes we say antique wax seal matrix.
Speaker: The matrix is actually the object that is used to press the seal.
Speaker: But a lot of the matrices are carved from semi-precious stone.
Speaker: So you'll see citrine, amethyst, often bloodstone agate.
Speaker: And so that object has six semi-precious stones around it.
Speaker: encased in Romulu and then with this beautiful purple handle.
Speaker: So I didn't even know what I was looking at.
Speaker: I didn't know the history of it, but I was so intrigued.
Speaker: And I'm sure other antique collectors can relate to this, that you just have an intuitive feel for an object.
Speaker: It calls you and you think, I don't know what this is, but I have to know more.
Speaker: I have to touch this thing.
Speaker: So I ended up winning the auction.
Speaker: It was more than I had ever spent on an antique.
Speaker: I think it was $600 or something.
Speaker: And kind of laughable because that's the lowest cost I've ever paid for one of those types of seals now.
Speaker: And yeah, I brought it.
Speaker: I got home.
Speaker: And my best friend, Francesca, was visiting from Copenhagen.
Speaker: She's fluent in French.
Speaker: Most of the seals, not all I'm trying to remember, are in French on that specific matrix.
Speaker: And so she went through and we had a jewelry loop to read these tiny characters and decode the messages.
Speaker: And I realized that it wasn't just sealing something to be beautiful, that every seal exists.
Speaker: had an intention behind it.
Speaker: And that just further kind of solidified me in the world of black seals, because to me, letter writing is so much about our, you know, intentional power of connecting people and sharing our love and our friendship.
Speaker: And these seals are just another level of that.
Speaker: So when you open a letter, you might see on the seal, uh,
Speaker: For instance, a bay leaf, which is a symbol of loyalty or a forget-me-not symbol of remembrance and true love.
Speaker: And one I love is a ship, a symbol of how we can ride the highs and lows of the human experience, just like a ship at sea can weather ocean waves and tides and all of that.
Speaker: And so, and that's a little bit of a long winded answer to where it started and how I got into it.
Speaker: But basically once I beheld my first antique seal, even though I'd had maybe 20 modern seals, there was really no going back because they're just such beautiful objects and they're imbued with so much meaning and history.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I really love for you how closely the act of collecting is tied with the, again, with the use of these objects.
Speaker: You're always thinking about them in terms of how they connect you with other people through this act of letter writing.
Speaker: It's, you know, it's as if I were a chair collector because I loved sitting down so much.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I do like that too.
Speaker: Yeah, I really think some of it comes down to
Speaker: how I see my purpose in life as it being a very kind of temporary time that I am here on earth and I want to have really meaningful and
Speaker: sincere relationships.
Speaker: And so I think with antiques, you sometimes have this feel of it's the only one.
Speaker: I can't lose it.
Speaker: I must have it.
Speaker: And I always try to remember that I never own the antiques.
Speaker: Again, that idea of stewardship.
Speaker: I have them for a short time.
Speaker: Maybe it's my life.
Speaker: Maybe it's just a part of my life that they're with me.
Speaker: But that ultimately they serve us to connect to our own humanity and to connect to others.
Speaker: And so I never want to feel like
Speaker: I'm some collector in my den that I'm, you know, bringing light to whatever I have and sharing it as best I can with the world.
Speaker: Well, and you do that in such an effective way on social media.
Speaker: You have one of the Instagram accounts that I really look forward to popping up in my feed.
Speaker: Again, that's Catherine Hastings Co.
Speaker: Because every time I see a video that you've posted or an image, it's something bright and optimistic and hopeful and full of energy and life.
Speaker: And
Speaker: And it always does connect to what you're just describing now, this idea of developing a relationship with other people through the medium of these objects.
Speaker: How did this passion, as you were developing this interest in these objects, how did that start to evolve into the social media activity?
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: I knew that I wanted to share the seals, but I didn't really know how to do it.
Speaker: And I was the only person that I knew who was collecting.
Speaker: I'm sure this is true of other collectors in other areas.
Speaker: It's a very solitary practice where you might live in a region that has no other collectors.
Speaker: And so for me, at least, I find a lot of mine through online auctions and through dealers that
Speaker: in the UK and France.
Speaker: And so I didn't really know how to find the community to share these with or what would resonate with people.
Speaker: And one day I had the idea, what if I take these seals and I press them and I take my favorite colors and I make waxes out of them and I create seals that people can use on their correspondence.
Speaker: So they don't have to be a collector.
Speaker: in order to have this little piece of history.
Speaker: Again, that idea of sharing something.
Speaker: Letters are the most beautiful art, in my opinion, because the creator has the experience of creating the piece of art, but then the sender has the experience of using the seal.
Speaker: It goes through the postal service and then it gets to the receiver and they have an experience of it as well.
Speaker: And so that idea
Speaker: really stuck with me in creating seals that people could use.
Speaker: I mount them with an adhesive so they can simply peel them and then stick them onto their correspondence.
Speaker: And about a year before the pandemic started, I thought
Speaker: started really sitting with that idea.
Speaker: I knew in spring of 2020, I would be launching the pandemic hit.
Speaker: And so it was kind of a weird time, as everyone here knows, very uncertain.
Speaker: And so I just started in March 2020, sharing some seals I was making.
Speaker: And they were beautiful, but it
Speaker: to where I'm at now with the seal art, they weren't very intricate.
Speaker: It was just a pretty color and then a seal press.
Speaker: Maybe some of them were painted with some gold paint, but pretty simple.
Speaker: And then in June, 2020, I opened my shop to sell those peel and stick seals.
Speaker: And I still sell those types of collections, but I've moved away from it a bit.
Speaker: I'm starting to produce more modern seals.
Speaker: not quite into replicas, but again, taking something that's from a antique tradition and bringing it into the modern day.
Speaker: And so basically just through that process of starting to share one seal after another,
Speaker: I started to meet people online who were into letter writing and like I had been, they didn't know about antique seals.
Speaker: And so there, you know, became many people who all of a sudden just found this passion like I did.
Speaker: And then through that, I also finally met those other collectors who had also been working kind of in their own world of collecting without really having that community around them.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it's been,
Speaker: very much an organic process.
Speaker: And I also feel that it makes me really appreciate the time that we live in now, no matter how niche your passion is.
Speaker: I think about, oh my gosh, I'm interested in antique wax seals.
Speaker: Who knew?
Speaker: But there's tens of thousands of people who have the same interest.
Speaker: The world is big enough.
Speaker: The internet can help reach those people.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: I don't think that I had a plan of how to reach people.
Speaker: I just started sharing.
Speaker: And then with time, you know, the kind of the audience grew.
Speaker: So I'm amazed sometimes in the social media environment, particularly at how fearful people can be about actually handling and using antiques.
Speaker: I was actually in a, but almost entirely by accident, I was in a TikTok video not long ago, holding this important Sev porcelain piece in my hands while I was talking about it.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Some of the comments were just shocked that I was holding it.
Speaker: Or, you know, people will tell me that they're upset when they see me touching antique silver without gloves on.
Speaker: But you're using these pieces constantly.
Speaker: Have you ever encountered anything like that?
Speaker: Not, yeah, not really.
Speaker: I've had my fair share of trolls.
Speaker: I have, you know, about 100,000 Instagram followers.
Speaker: So naturally, there's people that have issues with things that I do, but not using the antiques.
Speaker: It usually comes down to a particular motif.
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: So for example,
Speaker: I, even though I do have a lot of positive content, I'm not afraid to go into darker themes, you know, death, we're all going to die someday.
Speaker: It's important to remember that.
Speaker: So we can really appreciate life.
Speaker: Sometimes when I share those types of images, I get feedback that people think that's negative.
Speaker: But yeah, none as far as using the antiques.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I have had people respond really well when I wear white gloves.
Speaker: I have a seal that has a very fragile box.
Speaker: And so when I handled that box, I wear white gloves just to make sure my sweaty little palms don't hurt the box.
Speaker: But I've almost found, yeah, that's the only spot where it makes people think it's more precious because I'm wearing the gloves where
Speaker: to really effectively work with seals you can't have gloves on.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I haven't found a problem with that.
Speaker: And I've developed techniques to keep the antiques safe as well.
Speaker: So this is the example I gave earlier of the seals that have
Speaker: precious stones that are mounted and stones are carved, the intaglias, you have to be very careful when you press those because if you just pull the seal away from the wax, the wax will adhere to the seal and rip it out of its setting.
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: through trial and error, and I have made mistakes of actually hurting antiques.
Speaker: Luckily, I've been able to pop the stones back in and get them back to their original.
Speaker: But I've developed some techniques that then I teach other collectors who want to use their seals.
Speaker: So as stewards, we're not hurting the history in any way, and we're able just to kind of honor it as we grow.
Speaker: And there's some amazing collections of seals in the world that are in museums.
Speaker: but they're often just in drawers where people aren't seeing them.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: they don't know what it feels like to hold them and to actually use them.
Speaker: And so I'm not sure how this will work, but at some point in my life, I'd love to have at least some of my collection go into museums where there would be docents maybe once a month who would allow the public to actually use these pieces and to touch them and press their own seals.
Speaker: Because I think that's, again, that importance of history that you, you appreciate as well as it's living with us.
Speaker: It's a part of our,
Speaker: our moment now.
Speaker: And we shouldn't be, you know, building just mausoleums that we have to kind of have all times of history fold in on each other.
Speaker: And if you can do it in a way that doesn't do anything deleterious to a seal, in my opinion, I don't see any reason not to use them.
Speaker: I love that idea.
Speaker: And I think that's a good model, actually, for a lot of other types of objects as well.
Speaker: I'd be so happy to see that implemented.
Speaker: But, you know, so we're getting into the history a little bit here.
Speaker: And I want to help listeners and myself get a sort of a better handle on the origins and the evolution of these objects.
Speaker: how far back do they go and what's the sort of sweet spot period for you?
Speaker: Yeah, so I think the seals actually date back to the Sumerians.
Speaker: I could be wrong on that, but seals have been around for thousands of years.
Speaker: Their initial function was a security measure.
Speaker: A seal does two important things.
Speaker: So first,
Speaker: It seals a correspondence so that when it's traveling, if someone tampers with the letter, the wax seal would either be broken or the page would be torn.
Speaker: And so it ensures that from point A to point B,
Speaker: It remains secure.
Speaker: It also verifies the sender.
Speaker: And this is something you see a lot in kind of period piece movies, someone using their signet ring.
Speaker: It has the family crest.
Speaker: Heraldic seals are a big part of this tradition of black seals as well.
Speaker: But that would tell the receiver that this correspondence originated from the person that it did.
Speaker: So it very much was a security measure.
Speaker: The period of time I'm most drawn to is late 18th, early 19th century.
Speaker: And that's a period where seals started to shift from just being heraldic seals to having more playful motifs and
Speaker: being a little bit more accessible.
Speaker: They were always designed for a pretty wealthy audience just because of the materials that were used to make them.
Speaker: But it wasn't just for patriarchs in the family or, you know, professionals that needed their seal.
Speaker: There were seals that a lot of women would use that would have a kind of fun symbolism behind them.
Speaker: So I mentioned some of the earlier ones of the bay leaf.
Speaker: The one that I posted recently this week was a snail and it says always at home.
Speaker: That idea is that the snail is happy wherever he lives.
Speaker: He has his home with him.
Speaker: And so there's kind of just a playful meaning that can be put on a letter, but that same motif could be sent by many different people.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be a way to authenticate.
Speaker: the original sender.
Speaker: And then in the 1850s or so, there were some pretty interesting seals that were made.
Speaker: There are cube seals, which are made from brass, and the cube has six different sides.
Speaker: Each side has a different motif, and so you can really just turn the cube and press it into wax and choose different motifs that you might use.
Speaker: send 1850s obviously Victorian era so a lot of those cube seals have a bust of Queen Victoria on them and then as you get into the late 19th century the tradition of these kind of playful motifs starts to go away it became more accessible to have initials carved in seals and so as you get into kind of Edwardian era and then you know
Speaker: further into the 20th century, you start to see more simple seals, just, you know, a couple initials carved in kind of a beautiful cursive.
Speaker: And so for me, I kind of feel like that sweet spot is where the materials are still really beautiful.
Speaker: They're using semi-precious stones, but there's also a lot of meaning behind it.
Speaker: It's not just someone's family crest or their name.
Speaker: There's a lot more symbolism.
Speaker: Music
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Speaker: Now, there's one particular sealmaker that I wanted to talk to you about because his story is just incredible.
Speaker: This is someone you've brought to my attention.
Speaker: I had never heard of him, but I think more people should because it's both a great story and I think it's really illustrative of the time period.
Speaker: And that is the 18th century Frenchman
Speaker: Jean Voyer.
Speaker: Who is Jean Voyer and why should we know who he is?
Speaker: Oh, Jean Voyer, a wily man.
Speaker: They believe he was from France, just given his name.
Speaker: He is primarily known as being a potter.
Speaker: We know through historic records that he had been employed by Josiah Wedgwood as a potter.
Speaker: And while he worked for Wedgwood, he learned a lot of the trade secrets.
Speaker: And with that, he also learned how to carve seals.
Speaker: Wedgwood, in addition to having beautiful pottery,
Speaker: also had some intaglios that could then be plaster cast or framed as art pieces themselves.
Speaker: And so John Boyez kind of learned all of the secrets in house at Wedgwood.
Speaker: And in 1769, he was arrested and sent to prison for stealing models and molds from Wedgwood.
Speaker: And there's not too much that we have from primary sources that let us know how long he was imprisoned.
Speaker: But it's assumed that it was within a year or so that he was out of prison.
Speaker: Josiah Wedgwood was in a difficult position because he
Speaker: He obviously could not trust Wedgwood, or Josiah Wedgwood obviously could not trust John Boyer stolen from him, but John Boyer also had all the trade secrets.
Speaker: So Wedgwood decided not to employ him and John Boyer started his own company.
Speaker: He started carving basalt seals just like Wedgwood had, and he named his company Wadgewood.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, the audacity.
Speaker: So he just changed one letter where Wedgwood is W-E-D-G-W-O-O-D.
Speaker: And then Boyer made his company W-A-D-G-W-O-O-D.
Speaker: So basically looks the same.
Speaker: And then on the back of the seals that he made, he made the A...
Speaker: a little off kilter.
Speaker: It wasn't fully filled in.
Speaker: And so the line on the left-hand side of the A was stronger than on the right-hand side of the A. Is it an A?
Speaker: Is it an E?
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: So he really tried to make it look like Wedgwood and he succeeded.
Speaker: My first piece that I acquired
Speaker: is a beautiful basalt seal of a hunter.
Speaker: He's standing next to a tree.
Speaker: He has his rifle in his hands.
Speaker: He's ever the dapper gentleman with his waistcoat and long tails and his hat.
Speaker: And then next to him, there's a greyhound.
Speaker: Greyhounds are a symbol of the aristocracy.
Speaker: It was about 700 year period that
Speaker: you weren't allowed to own a Greyhound unless you're part of the aristocracy.
Speaker: So it's kind of this beautiful hunting scene that's reminiscent of the aristocracy.
Speaker: And when I acquired it, I was told it was Jean Boyer and Wedgwood.
Speaker: And so I didn't even know the history of Wedgwood or any of that.
Speaker: And then through my research, I ended up finding this whole story that, okay, if you have a Jean Boyer seal, it's not going to be a Wedgwood seal.
Speaker: Chances are he did make some Wedgwood seals, but you look very carefully with a jewelry loop at the back.
Speaker: And if that E is kind of an A, chances are it's a Wadgewood design.
Speaker: I purposely seek out John Boye's seals because he was a very talented craftsman.
Speaker: They're beautifully carved.
Speaker: It wasn't just taking a mold and duplicating it.
Speaker: These were all carved by hand.
Speaker: And so I find, I'm sure at the time it was frustrating and they weren't as valuable then.
Speaker: But I actually think modern day, they're in many ways more valuable because they have such a personal story with them.
Speaker: And I have multiple basalt seals.
Speaker: There are ones I know for sure are Wedgwood.
Speaker: I have multiple of the three graces.
Speaker: I have Wedgwood and Bentley ones.
Speaker: So it's clear those are Wedgwood as well.
Speaker: But then there's a couple that are still questions.
Speaker: Is this a Wedgewood or is it a Wedgewood?
Speaker: And it's near impossible to tell unless you can really look closely at the back of the seal and see if it's an A or an E.
Speaker: I love this 18th century corporate espionage.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, you know, there's an old history, of course, of craftspeople stealing from each other and or imitating each other and passing their work off as somebody else's.
Speaker: We think of that today in the context of fakes and forgeries.
Speaker: But, you know, if you think of Gorham and Company, the great American silver manufacturer, you
Speaker: Their mark, their maker's mark, the recognizable symbol there is the symbol of an anchor, which was the same mark that was used by the assay office in Birmingham, England, for all of the silver that was assayed there.
Speaker: And so it's a what we call a faux hallmark.
Speaker: You know, Gorham was trying to give their customers the perception that this is sort of like an English piece and therefore of higher quality.
Speaker: And then strangely enough, over time, the Gorham symbol becomes more recognizable than the Birmingham signal.
Speaker: And, you know, pretty soon people are, when they see the anchor, they think, oh, great, this is a Gorham piece.
Speaker: I guess Wadgewood never quite got to that level, but it sounds like he really, he sort of deserved the acclaim.
Speaker: Yeah, he did.
Speaker: And I'm fascinated by the Gorham story.
Speaker: I actually have a fair amount of Gorham silver, including some inkwells and a desk set.
Speaker: And I'll be sure to take a picture.
Speaker: As with my antique seals, it's a piece that I use.
Speaker: It's on my desk.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: But I'll look at it and see if I can get a picture of the marks so that we can share them with all of you who are listening.
Speaker: But yeah, and after Jean Voyer...
Speaker: made basalt seals.
Speaker: He then worked for other potters in, I think, Staffordshire mostly.
Speaker: I know he worked for Enoch Wood in Burslem and then I think one other after that.
Speaker: And so for Wedgwood, it really put him in a difficult position.
Speaker: The basalt seals are just kind of a small asterisk in Josiah or in Jean Boyer's work.
Speaker: Museum pieces of Jean Boyer's tend to be pots and, you know, other earthenware that he'd made.
Speaker: But yeah, there was just this 10 year period where he had Wedgwood and was really giving Josiah Wedgwood a run for his money.
Speaker: It's just occurring to me now that, you know, another sort of point of interest here is how similar their names are.
Speaker: Josiah Wedgwood versus Jean Voyer, both J, well, JW versus JV, very similar initials.
Speaker: Yeah, I wonder if there was a bit of a inferiority complex at work there.
Speaker: It could be.
Speaker: And we don't know much about Jean Voyer.
Speaker: So was he actually French?
Speaker: Was that actually his name?
Speaker: We'll never know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fascinating.
Speaker: Well, thanks for sharing that.
Speaker: That's just such a sort of fun story of intrigue and something for collectors to keep an eye out for.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And I'll put the photos together so you can see the two ones that I know for sure are Jean Boyer and then I'll put the other ones.
Speaker: And I'm curious when you see them, are you able to tell the difference or not?
Speaker: I think it's pretty much impossible from my perspective.
Speaker: Oh, well, listeners, this will be a test for you.
Speaker: How many seals do you have?
Speaker: You've been at this for a while now.
Speaker: I think I have about 500.
Speaker: And when I say 500, I mean intaglios.
Speaker: So the image that you can press into wax.
Speaker: So as an example, the one that has the six on a wheel that rotates, I'm counting that as six because there's six different motifs there.
Speaker: There are also interesting...
Speaker: multi seals that were made by the same maker of the wheel seal.
Speaker: A lot of those really intricate seals were made in Palais Royal in Paris.
Speaker: In addition to the amethyst glass handled seals, they made a twee seals.
Speaker: A twee is the French word for case.
Speaker: When you look at the seal, it looks like a normal desk seal.
Speaker: It has a large metal handle.
Speaker: On one end, it has an image.
Speaker: But then if you pull the back of the seal, it is actually a case.
Speaker: It's a little drawer that comes out.
Speaker: And inside, there are tiny plates.
Speaker: Each plate has two sides.
Speaker: And each side is a different image.
Speaker: On the bottom of the seal, you can pull a little cap off and put one of those plates in.
Speaker: So when you first see it, what you think is just the main seal is actually just a little plate.
Speaker: And these could have up to, I think, 48 different motifs that were in them.
Speaker: They came in different sizes.
Speaker: There were different metals that were used.
Speaker: Some were brass, some were silver, some were silver with gold plate.
Speaker: And those, you know, that obviously ups the seal count quite a bit.
Speaker: So yeah, I would guess it's around 500, but I don't know as far as individual object, if I were to add a wheel and a twee and just count those as one, how many I have.
Speaker: As most collectors are, you have kind of your main goal or passion with
Speaker: whatever you collect.
Speaker: For me, it's really about looking at the breadth of wax seals.
Speaker: I do have some medieval seals, but for the most part, I'm drawn to that period I mentioned earlier.
Speaker: late 18th, early 19th century.
Speaker: And for that period, there are the wheel seals, there are the etui seals, the little case seals, there are rotating seals.
Speaker: So a seal that maybe has, let's say three different motifs on it, and you can rotate it to each different motif.
Speaker: There are also fobs.
Speaker: So fob would have been worn with a pocket watch.
Speaker: Again, thinking about the class of people that owned these types of seals, fobs tend to be made out of precious metal, usually gold, and then some type of stone that's been engraved on it.
Speaker: And then it was an ornament that they would have on the chain of their pocket watch.
Speaker: And so when you think about these objects, they weren't necessities, right?
Speaker: They were really meant to just be enjoyed.
Speaker: They could flaunt status a bit.
Speaker: And then they would be practical.
Speaker: You know, someone from the aristocracy might actually seal their correspondence with the fob that they wore on their hip.
Speaker: And so I do have fob seals as well.
Speaker: And then loose seals.
Speaker: There's different forms of loose seals.
Speaker: Some were ones that had been engraved with the intention that they be mounted in rings or fobs or pendants.
Speaker: And then there is also a tradition of glass seals that are kind of larger chunks of glass that are maybe a centimeter thick.
Speaker: and they'll have an image engraved on them.
Speaker: They weren't intended to be mounted into any type of jewelry and really just used as seals to press.
Speaker: So those are the kind of the main categories.
Speaker: And then the very traditional seals with
Speaker: let's say a wooden handle and a metal matrix on the end where you can press.
Speaker: And those tend to be heraldic seals.
Speaker: So crests of different families.
Speaker: And I have some really beautiful ones from France, the UK and the Netherlands.
Speaker: My favorite ones are the Dutch ones, but they're all quite similar as far as the overall design.
Speaker: You told us a little bit about the first one that you bought at auction, but obviously you have a lot more experience now.
Speaker: What have you learned about how to buy these objects?
Speaker: Well, first and foremost, there are always more.
Speaker: I believe that the right pieces find their way to the right homes.
Speaker: Sometimes I have to remind myself that when I really feel like
Speaker: I've missed a seal that I really wanted.
Speaker: I just remind myself, don't worry, there'll be another.
Speaker: An example of that is that there was a bob that I really wanted because it had a beautiful bow on it.
Speaker: There was an auction for it.
Speaker: I was out with my family on the Olympic Peninsula.
Speaker: I live in Seattle, so really beautiful nature here.
Speaker: I just totally forgotten about the auction, enjoying time with my family, being in nature.
Speaker: I came back to see, oh, I missed it.
Speaker: And it was a fine price to pay.
Speaker: But I wrote my friend, Melissa, who's a fellow collector.
Speaker: And I just said, I know there's another one out there.
Speaker: I know I have to take my own advice, but I'm frustrated.
Speaker: I lost this seal.
Speaker: And then I wrote the seller and I said, I was so bummed to miss it.
Speaker: I just totally blanked.
Speaker: It wasn't at the auction.
Speaker: I was looking for a seal with a bow.
Speaker: And they said, oh, I'm sorry you missed it, but I do have another with a bow and I'll sell it to you for half the price.
Speaker: And it was a more beautiful seal.
Speaker: And so it was a lesson for me that has happened again and again.
Speaker: there's always another piece.
Speaker: So again, we don't need to kind of grasp or try to hoard anything.
Speaker: You just kind of trust that the right pieces find their way.
Speaker: Negotiations.
Speaker: I think that negotiating prices, if you're not buying something from auction,
Speaker: the more you know, the better, but you always want to be kind.
Speaker: And especially as a woman, I know that my strongest way to move a conversation forward is just to ask more questions.
Speaker: And so rather than telling someone a price I want to pay,
Speaker: or being a little hard of like, oh, I'm gonna really low ball you on this and try to get them to move.
Speaker: That strategy might work for some people, but I think some of the research too around negotiation shows that that strategy does not work well for women.
Speaker: So I just ask questions.
Speaker: Oh, well, you know, what do you know of its provenance?
Speaker: SEALs, very hard to know provenance.
Speaker: But it's a good question to kind of have someone think about, oh, well, how do I know this is valuable?
Speaker: Or even just tell me a little bit more about how you're arriving here.
Speaker: at that number of what you want to sell it for.
Speaker: Asking questions, do you have multiple?
Speaker: Would you be willing to give me a break in pricing if I bought a couple pieces?
Speaker: And of course, always just being friendly, open, non-confrontational.
Speaker: I found that to be one of the most effective ways because you develop these great relationships with people, everybody wins.
Speaker: And then ultimately you end up paying a lot less for things because you're able to get a person to reason down to a lower price usually.
Speaker: Is there one that got away that you actually weren't able to get your hands on in the end that you that another one hasn't come around yet?
Speaker: I'm sure there are, I'm sure.
Speaker: I have a wish list.
Speaker: I think most collectors have a wish list.
Speaker: The one that's highest on my wish list right now is a piece that's from this era that I collect.
Speaker: So in this case for the seal, it's early 19th century.
Speaker: It's an image of a witch riding a broom and holding a hammer in the air.
Speaker: The hammer is a reference to Melisimov, Melisimov, the carom, I'll say it wrong.
Speaker: The witch's hammer, the book that was used to persecute witches across Europe.
Speaker: And so it's kind of a cheeky image of a witch on her broom with her hammer.
Speaker: And it's inscribed, all have their hobbies.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: which, yeah, it just cracks me up.
Speaker: Like, all have their hobbies, including witchcraft.
Speaker: But I had bought three in my time collecting, and then it turned out that they were fakes.
Speaker: And this was the first time that I realized that this area of antiques had become saturated enough
Speaker: and lucrative enough that somebody would actually do that.
Speaker: And as far as I know, right now, there's just one person in the world who's doing it.
Speaker: Woman that's based out of the UK.
Speaker: Won't go down that rabbit hole, but not a very nice person and continually makes these pieces and tries to sell them as real antiques.
Speaker: And she's becoming more skilled and more pernicious, approaching auction houses, getting her pieces in the hands of reputable dealers.
Speaker: So it's becoming more difficult.
Speaker: She's even...
Speaker: taking, I don't know if it's a hammer or what, but breaking pieces to make them look like they're old, adding wax to them, dirtying them to make them look like real pieces.
Speaker: And so that, I wouldn't say it's necessarily one that got away, but that frustration of making a mistake, spending a ton of money on something that isn't worth that much.
Speaker: I've kept one of them and I actually will use it occasionally.
Speaker: I love the motif, but that's high on my wishlist.
Speaker: And it came up through an auction house in the UK a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker: I thought, oh, this might be the one that I get because it was a fob.
Speaker: It had a grainy picture, you know, in the listing, which was upside down.
Speaker: It didn't even say what the image was or what it was inscribed.
Speaker: So unless you knew what you were looking at, you wouldn't know.
Speaker: there was wax in it so it was hard to tell um and i just thought okay this might be the one and i put my absolute max that i would feel comfortable bidding and it went for three times what i was willing to pay so i wouldn't say i felt you know like it got away from me i don't ever want to
Speaker: bid beyond what I'm comfortable I do trust that there is a witch out there and she'll find me when she's ready but yeah that's kind of the one where I feel like there's a little bit of a sore spot and then the other is there's a collector in Israel who has some of those beautiful chunky glass seals and he found the entire collection for $50 at a open air kind of thrift market I think
Speaker: And I thought this would be a great collection because I could put it in, you know, a book someday with the other seals.
Speaker: It could go in a museum collection.
Speaker: They're all together.
Speaker: They're historic.
Speaker: And he wanted 20 times what.
Speaker: I was willing and able to pay for them.
Speaker: And then I finally got my budget together where I could get close to what he was asking.
Speaker: And then he basically doubled what he was asking at that point.
Speaker: And so again, not feeling like it got away, but just that frustration where you can see things in your collection and it doesn't come together.
Speaker: Again, though, I always come back to, OK, those are they're just clearly not meant to be in my collection.
Speaker: And I'm very big into believing about kind of the energy that pieces have in them as well.
Speaker: I'm curious if you've ever felt this free kind of can feel like a heaviness in a piece or something in the history that maybe a piece attracts you or another that looks the same, maybe doesn't.
Speaker: And I think with seals, because there's so much symbolism,
Speaker: they that level of meaning is very important to me and so i wouldn't want to acquire something from a dealer that i feel is greedy or cruel or you know whatever and i'm not necessarily saying that he is that but the feeling that i have towards him after talking with him for over a year has also made it kind of clear those aren't meant to be in my collection so it's a little bit more of an intuitive way of collecting i think than
Speaker: A lot of people will approach it, but because they're objects that I use, they're actually touching my hands, my body.
Speaker: I want to make sure that they feel like they belong with me and that I don't carry any heaviness in that history.
Speaker: Does that make sense or is that just way too out there?
Speaker: No, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Actually, I've talked about that sort of the aura of the object on this podcast once or twice in the past.
Speaker: And it's definitely something that I feel around particular pieces, especially pieces that have...
Speaker: history, whether it's history that we know or history that's just hinted at or alluded to.
Speaker: And often it has to do with these powerful images.
Speaker: I mean, the witch that you've described, that's fascinating.
Speaker: I was just thinking about we have a piece in our shop right now called, well, it's a Scottish tazza, so sort of a serving tray,
Speaker: And it has an armorial, which the crest is a hand wearing a gauntlet holding a dagger.
Speaker: And on top of the dagger is a severed head.
Speaker: And the motto across the top is, think on.
Speaker: And to me, it's just beautifully suggestive.
Speaker: Think on what?
Speaker: Well, maybe you think on the consequences of what happens if you don't do my bidding.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I love these objects that just are dripping with the
Speaker: the the sentiment or the the feeling of its original owner or its maker that seem to be communicating to you in a way that's more than just what's contained in the materials and the design
Speaker: Oh, definitely.
Speaker: Imagining being a guest at the table where it seems like there's so much hospitality and then you get food off that platter.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: As you pull the sandwiches off, more of the image shows and you think, oh, Lord, this person does not seem as hospitable.
Speaker: And I think it's a reminder too that even if we're separated by people by hundreds of years, we're still people.
Speaker: We haven't changed that much, even though the technology's changed around us.
Speaker: heartbreak is a part of life.
Speaker: Death is a part of life.
Speaker: Humor is a part of life.
Speaker: There's another cheeky seal in my collection that has a man with a wooden leg sitting on a stump and it says paired, but not matched.
Speaker: And yeah, so there's kind of that, you know, play on, you know, the imagery there.
Speaker: But I think what's interesting about that seal is what was the context that that was used?
Speaker: Why would you send someone that would it be, you wouldn't dare put it on someone's wedding mail or something like that, but the sense of somebody not matching the expectations of another person as an example, would it be maybe a breakup letter or something that somebody would put that on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I feel like there's this sense, especially one that the Victorians probably would want us to have that people didn't have these
Speaker: difficult emotions or kind of animalistic tendencies, everything was kind of clean, cleaned up.
Speaker: But yeah, the imagery, at least from the, you know, periods that I work with, show the exact opposite.
Speaker: People were willing to talk about different things.
Speaker: They were, you know, making jokes with different images, again, jokes that probably now we don't find so funny, but you kind of see still that that mark of humanity.
Speaker: You've talked about or mentioned modern seals.
Speaker: What do you think the future looks like, either for the craft of producing the matrices or for the use of both new and old seals?
Speaker: Oh, it's a bright future.
Speaker: I think letter writing is never going to die.
Speaker: And in many ways, letter writing is better than it's ever been because all of those
Speaker: things that happened in the mail before, like I mentioned not paying bills as a kid.
Speaker: You don't get your bills really that often in the mail now.
Speaker: You get some junky catalogs or maybe some cards or letters from friends.
Speaker: And so I think that there's still a space for our society to really adopt letter writing more than it has.
Speaker: There's a magic to living more slowly, taking time to think about our words,
Speaker: writing a thoughtful letter to someone as a way to be with ourselves and be with others.
Speaker: And so I think that piece is very bright.
Speaker: And because of that, there is a lot more space for seals as well.
Speaker: A lot of modern seals are
Speaker: are carved obviously 3D because you have to have an impression, but it's a 2D image that's just been engraved in three dimensions.
Speaker: In the past couple years, there have been more engravers that can actually do a good three-dimensional design.
Speaker: And so I think that's really...
Speaker: good when I'm drawn to antiques, or at least initially, I was really impressed by the quality of craftsmanship.
Speaker: These were hand carved objects and very intricate, intricately carved.
Speaker: So a lot of detail and modeling into them.
Speaker: And so I think that is going to come even more to the forefront and be something that's more accessible.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: it's more a period of kind of letter writing to the masses in a way that's really beautiful.
Speaker: My art, which,
Speaker: It was a little bit different from antique collecting, but what I've done in working with wax over time, I'm always kind of getting more curious of how to make a seal intrigue me, surprise me.
Speaker: Just like that surprise of opening a letter, I want there to be something that when someone looks at it, they go, what is this?
Speaker: And what's the story?
Speaker: I've even put little LED lights in my wax seals and there'll be a little lamp that will turn on and always kind of playing with it.
Speaker: I weave waxes and that type of stuff.
Speaker: And not to toot my own horn, but I'm the first person that's done that of taking wax seals and kind of saying, how can this be an art and what are the limits of what we can do with wax?
Speaker: And so we're just a few years in to artists emerging using seals and wax as a way to make art.
Speaker: And so that's another area where I just think there's such a bright future because when you have more people tapping into that quiet, creative part of themselves,
Speaker: they're inevitably going to stumble on more artistic techniques.
Speaker: And there's just a lot more inspiration that's out there for people to play with.
Speaker: So I think, you know, in the next few years, I don't expect there to be a huge jump in the quality of seals, but I would say within 10 years, we'll actually probably be back or surpassing what was created in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's incredibly exciting.
Speaker: And what a note to close on.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, that's at least my wish and what I'm working for with everyone.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Kay.
Speaker: It's been a real pleasure to talk to you and to learn from you.
Speaker: Well, thank you for having me here.
Speaker: It's just been a joyful conversation for me and so many things that I'm now thinking about and definitely we'll take some good pictures.
Speaker: So for any of you who are listening, you're able to follow on along with some of the things that we've talked about.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bellotta.
Speaker: Sierra Holt is our digital media assistant.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
Speaker: And I'm Ben Miller.
