The collector’s syndrome

Sometimes we’re sorting through a box of old bobbins straight from a mill and find bobbins unlike any we’ve ever seen before – unique, beautiful, with lots of history and flair. And that’s a hard thing to say because all of our bobbins are beautiful, with lots of history and flair but some have a really rare design that makes them even more precious. Of course it’s not said that there are not more of these seemingly rare bobbins hidden away somewhere but after a couple of years in this business you get to know a lot of designs and old manufacturer’s marks.

In these moments with exciting finds under grease and dirt it gets very difficult sometimes not to hide these treasures away and to keep them. In fact the whole team is suffering from a bit of collector’s syndrome and only a lack of space keeps us from hoarding old industrial implements, tools, etc. Even though we buy these bobbins specifically to put our paper yarns and paper twines onto them and sell them again I can tell you that it’s sometimes really hard to send them out again even with the knowledge that our customers share our love for these artifacts of textile history.

I do not even want to imagine how difficult it must be for sellers of a diverse range of vintage goods to let go of their product – while we have “only” bobbins to let go they have whole furnishing houses of beautiful, old goods to say good-bye to… It’s the bobbins you see here that prompted this little blog article – after having them on the desk for a year and a half it seems finally time to let go of them and send them out to a new owner. Please treat them well.