Do you ever get freaked out by antiques?

Yes!!! I have no idea why but antique stores freak me out!

Gargoyles kind of freak me out… Sometimes… Other times I kind of like ‘em. The one thing that really freaks me out about any antique is the way it smells… I swear they smell like their previous owners.

They don’t freak me out but I can imagine being freaked out by the belongings of dead people, like they are looking over your shoulder. And with military stuff you know a little more about those people’s lives than with random articles which almost anybody could own.

No, antiques in general don’t freak me out. There are certain types of antiques that I’d never ever buy just because of what they are. Like, I’d never get an old ventriloquism doll, but I’d never get a new ventriloquism doll either because they really do freak me out.
Antiques, in general, aren’t weird to me.

I bet you already know what my answer is going to be…..

I will occasionally get a bad vibe or bad juju from a particular antique, but that will just make me want it more. I have a few antiques that I’m convinced are haunted (well, if I believed in ghosts) and the spooky aspect is actually very exciting for me, rather than repulsive.

For instance, I have a death mask from the Congo and a Phillipino mask designed to ward off evil by absorbing it (it has 6 eyes and fangs). Just about everyone who sees these masks gets scared by them, feels like they are being watched, etc. I personally love them and couldn’t imagine my collection without them, and I also don’t get a particularly “bad” vibe from them. Just a spooky one.

I also have a couple of Victorian post-mortem cabinet photographs that my mom and I share. Most other people can’t even stand to look at them (two of them are children) but for my mom and I, they are simply spooky remnants of a different era and culture.

Also, being a collector of antique and vintage military guns has definitely put me in contact with some things that would creep out people with less fortified constitutions. For instance, I have a German pistol from the ‘20s that has been to China, Russia, Germany, and the US and the souls of many would-be revolutionaries, soldiers, and civilians could very well be imprinted on it’s parts, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Personally, I can understand why someone would have an aversion to, or downright fear certain antiques. Particularly because we, as humans, are spiritual, superstitious beings and we absolutely love to assign mystical and otherworldly characteristics material objects. When I hold my fertility Idol from Zaire, or my ‘50s autopsy camera, or my photograph of a dead man which has been lovingly altered to make him look alive, or my old British rifle made in India with its bayonet that has blood rust on the blade, I can feel the uneasy “aura” that may drive other people away, but I’m comfortable with it. For me, it is a tangible link to the lives and deaths of people just like me who lived in the past and not something to be afraid of. I’m drawn to this particular feeling that seems to drive so many away.

And well… nothing bad has happened to me yet. No curses or visitations by ghosts or whatever. I guess that’s because I see my ownership of these old records of life and death, and tools of killing and worship as an honor to the people who were tied to them before me. All of these spooky antiques are now lovingly cared for, researched, and displayed by me, and I feel like that is a way to honor the dead- the same dead whose memory wards off others.

One of the creepiest things…

@jjmah I concur!!!

@jjmah
Here’s a very recent instance of posing the dead. Link is safe for work, the photo is not gruesome.

Jalopnik.com-Funeral Home Displays Shooting Victim On Motorcycle For Wake

I don’t mind antiques, I actually love the questions that come with them and the wonder. And the gruesome stories.

I have a WWII Japanese rifle, an American Helmet and a canteen with a Japanese soldiers name embroidered in the strap. I know for a fact that the men who owned these items are dead, my grandfather took the items off their bodies in combat. We also have a bloodstained bayonet. I know someone killed with it, and was killed by it.

I like the history. Maybe it’s a bit twisty of me.

I love antiques.
The only thing that would creep me out would be in there was a particular painting with a freaky-looking subject.
Or taxidermy animals. * cringes *

@jjmah, yup, I have a few of those.

@asmonet, awesome. Do you know what type of bayonet it is?

This stuff is fascinating to me.

@As and @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, I like what you like. I need to be a little more brave (I know that it seems silly).

There’s this old insane asylum in Traverse City, Mich. My girlfriend and I snuck in last summer to have a look around. We climbed through a broken window (bad girls). We came across of plenty old metal beds frames with the paint peeling off, empty pill bottles, and patient files scattered around. Here’s the asylum.

When I was looking into the rooms and when outside looking into the old windows, in my mind I was trying to picture what it was like back then. I tend to do that with old buildings.

@jjmah, okay, I definitely need to come hang out with you and your lady. You guys are like my kindred spirits.

What the Traverse City Mental Hospital looks like now.

Recent photos.

I love old antiques. My house is full of them and so is my parents house. But I do know what you are talking about. My mother has an Eastlake dresser that if you sit near it you get the feeling someone is watching you. I cannot explain it any clearer than that except that is it slightly unnerving.

Most antiques don’t bother me, but things like weapons and such are a bit unsettling…you never know where they’ve been or what they’ve done, you know? My stepdad has an old Nazi knife from WWII, and I refuse to touch it. I won’t buy used clothes or questionable furniture either for similar reasons.
@jjmah Those photos are downright creepy…

My girlfriend’s uncle’s house is filled with antiques (he lives in Detroit). He used to be an antique dealer and had his own shop. He’s the one who sold me a Victrola. He has this wooden chair in his basement. A rather large chair with children’s faces carved into it. Creepy. He tried to give it to Nikki, but, no dice.

@jjmah Awesome photos. Did you take them?

@jjmah, I’ll take the chair!

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I would love to see photos of that char and will be the backup if you do not take it.;)

The asylum is a fantastic building. It is a shame it is not being preserved. I found the floorplan. It is huge.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard He really would sell it to you (at a reasonable price). Too bad you’re so far away.

He’s in Kentucky right now (went to the Derby and is still visiting friends). When he gets back, I’ll get him to take pictures and I’ll post it here.

‘tis a shame indeed!

Not in general, no. However, my wife has the hat that her dad war throughout his tour in Vietnam. She rarely wears it anymore because it’s falling apart, but whenever she does I can’t help but think about all the things her dad did while he wore that hat. I guess the feeling that it gives me could be described as creepy.

@jjmah I just made that blue/purple picture of TC Hospital my desktop image. That’s a really great photo.

We have several dozen pieces of Shaker furniture made in the mid-nineteenth century. Back in the 1950s, the Shaker community in Enfield closed and the furniture was sold off for next to nothing. My grandparents bought several truckloads. I didn’t realize the pieces were valuable until an appraisal was done for insurance. This is all handmade furniture and the painstaking craftsmanship just oozes out of them. The dining room table top is a single piece of maple 48” wide, quartersawn; the tree it came from must have been unbelievably large.

Finding things in antique stores that are just like things my mother was still actively using three years ago or that I am still using now does make me shudder. My Pyrex custard dishes are antiques?? I was blown away the time I saw in the toy section some toys just like my son had had as a toddler—and he was then only about 18. What were they doing in an antique store? But otherwise no. I think old stuff is neat, and especially old stuff that shows exquisite bygone craftsmanship or that seems to be throbbing with a story that you wish it could tell.

Not yet and I’ve been antiquing with my grandmother and mother since I was a child. I’ve never yet owned anything that made me uncomfortable.

Antiques don’t neccesarily creep me out, but they give me this feeling. Like, I can feel the essence of their previous owners.

Other than military antiques, I am fascinated by antiques.

I don’t get freaked out, but can definitely feel the history; especially with military items that an ancestor carried into battle. I have a Colt M1911 that was issued to my grandfather in 1913. Three generations of us carried that sidearm in six wars between 1917 and 2003. I pick up that piece and can’t help thinking of grandfather in France or father in the Solomons.

To me, the charm of antiques is all in the history of the objects.

I adore English antique furniture and my cabinet photos are of family members. I am trying to think of what is scary. I Love the odor of an antique shop. Makes me want to buy something. I guess the only things I have that are a little creepy are hanging photos of disceased relatives. I love GWTW lamps and brass beds.

Billy Bob Thornton has a phobia of antiques. So you are not alone.