Featured Do you use antiques for their original purpose?

Is it just me that gets a lot of satisfaction when I find that I can use an antique for the same purpose for which it was designed?

Latest example was this brass match holder, which instead of going in the scrap brass box, now sits on the mantel above the log burner

 

I use quite a bit. What fun is having it if you don't use it.
I put a cut glass water carafe on the table with meals.

 

I love using my antiques! Often that is what convinces me to buy a piece is if I can use it!

 

I wish I could use more of mine , more often !

 

There are some that really only have one use. But a yummy one.

 

A working piece, at least in the furniture world is a piece that has a chance to survive, if it ain't working, it ain't gonna hang around long.
I have a late 17th century american chest of drawers, it holds my socks just as well today as it did someone else's 300 years ago.

 

i try not to, because if it breaks, there is no ,or hard to find , expensive parts available to fix or repair it/them .

 

It all depends.....If I can use it...absolutely!!!! Bureaus - clothing, Sea chests - whatever inside & great coffee tables!, Wash tub - full of wood by fireplace!, dishes & pitchers - dinner with company!...suppose could keep going if I thought long enough!!!!! Love them all and love to use them!!!!

 

but i use my vintage stuff all the time

 

We're like Aquitaine and use as much as possible. This oldie (fish bowl?) became the bloke's sock receptacle, and apart from appliances I don't think there's too much new in the house.

 

I have NEVER seen one like that!

 

@CheersDears
That is a spectacular looking jardiniere! ! !

 

It is very large -- nearly 13 inches high and more than 15 inches across the opening. Alas it is two broken halves glued back together, but we don't know much about it. I always assumed it's for keeping koi? Maybe I should start a new "please tell" post. It holds a lot of socks

 

I'm still using the living room set my grandparents moved into their house in 1927. It wasn't new then and it's Mission/arts and crafts style so it could have been 10 years old when they bought it. It's been reupholstered since but it works fine. The oil lanterns we use when the power goes out are all 100 years old or close to it. Work like a charm.

 

I tell time with my antique pocketwatches.

I have an Edwardian carriage-clock ticking on my desk.

I shave with my Victorian straight-razors.

I grind things up with my brass mortars and pestles.

I use my antique candleholders for mood-lighting.

I write with my antique fountain and dip pens.

I keep string in my Victorian brass string-caddy.

I keep peppermints in my Victorian glass apothecary's jar with the 'Breath Fresheners' glass label on the front of it.

I keep my silver Victorian beaker on my desk as my drinking-cup (I only put water in it, though).

I carry my Victorian pocket telescope in my bag when I go out (terrible eyesight, I have...!!)

I eat with my vintage sterling silver chopsticks.

I sew things and make things with my 80+-year-old Singer hand-cranked sewing machine.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on...It'd probably never end, if I thought about it long enough.

I use almost all my antiques. I don't believe in buying these things, only for them to just sit and gather dust. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought them, and would've saved myself the money.

 

It's a Dominion, aluminum with porcelain lid and bakelite handles.

 

I'm still not sure what it is.

For cooking something? Waffles?

 

i had an antique/vintage crystal ball (pole) lamp with small and large crystals , it was beautiful ,until my kids were fooling around and fell into it , very badly chipping one of the irreplaceable large balls. ended up reusing the crystal balls for other things .