'Tis the season for giving! That's why we're bringing back some of our favourite stories from 2019. This story was originally published on July 3. Enjoy!
Alex Archbold has been buying and selling antiques since he was nine years old.
As a kid, he tagged along with his parents to garage sales. While they dug around for household goods, young Alex searched for anything “cool or different” that he could fix up, clean and resell.
Now 40, Archbold has turned his penchant for old items into a career, as the owner and curator of Curiosity Inc.
Behind its nondescript facade in a west Edmonton business park, the antiques store is a popular stop for collectors and people browsing for treasures.
It has everything from typewriters to old motorcycles, and a replica of the Zoltar fortune-teller machine from the 1988 movie Big.
“I think that I'm drawn to vintage and antique items because of the artistic merit, the quality, the craftsmanship,” Archbold said.
“You feel like you’re connected with the past. I think that these objects you get to enjoy ... can really make you feel like you're connected to everyone and everything around you.”
Rare finds
When the longtime Edmontonian opened Curiosity Inc. in 2016, he initially had to search online and through contacts to find objects and collectibles to fill the store. Now that he has developed a following in the community, the antiques find him.
He has also developed a global following on social media and YouTube by bringing his audience along with him as he discovers new treasures.
Oftentimes he’ll post items to Facebook or Instagram in the morning and they will be gone by the afternoon.
“If you're buying unique enough things and you have enough people watching you on social media, they don't want to let it slip out of their hands,” he said.
It isn’t uncommon for the antique hunter to get calls asking him to swing by someone’s house and check out what they are willing to let go.
Curiosity Inc. doesn’t open until 11 a.m. so Archbold can spend his mornings visiting people’s houses to buy antiques.
He’ll walk through the house with the person as they point out what's for sale.
Archbold then starts to compile the various objects he’ll eventually bid on as he learns about the history behind them.
One of the Edmontonians he’s bought antiques from is Jim Storey. They met because of a shared passion for vintage race cars.
Storey’s house, in the Highlands neighborhood, is a designated historic site. Built in 1912, it was used as a Dominion weather station until 1942.
Storey said it was a gathering point for 200 stations in western Alberta. Eda Owen, the first woman in the world to operate a weather station, lived there.
Given the history ingrained in their house, Storey and his wife Sandra Storey were keen to maintain the old-time feel.
“Everything in here we've bought over the years to make the house look like an old house. Probably the only things we have in the house that [were made] after 1920 or 1930 would be the fridge and stove and microwave,” Storey said.
Windup toy cars, a Pepsi bottle carrier and an 1896 plaque from Mohawk Special Cutting Tools are just a few of the treasures Archbold has bought from Storey.
“Anytime I go into a place like this, I'm trying to find something that I've never seen before. That's always my goal. Something really cool and something unique,” Archbold said.
Watch how Archbold built his love of antiques into a business.
When Archbold looks through items people are selling, he always asks what they know about each item, including where it came from and whether there’s a story behind it.
He explained that buyers want to have things in their homes that they can talk about with visitors.
“A lot of times the story is worth as much as the object.
“With any antique or any collectible, it gives us time to pause and reflect and it helps forge a better future when you can respect what we did in the past.
“If we just keep moving forward and never keep a remnant of the past around we'll lose sense of … all the experiences we had to learn from as a culture to move forward.”
‘A piece of history’
Archbold said it would be difficult to pinpoint the coolest item he’s ever found or bought, but one experience comes close: helping to acquire the car that was used for the royal tour in 1939.
“It was the one that King George and the Queen Mum went across Canada in, trying to draw up support for the war effort,” he said. “Very big piece of history.”
Archbold was asked to find a buyer for the vehicle, but instead negotiated a deal with the Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin, Alta.
“That was a piece of history that was languishing in the basement of a parkade in downtown Vancouver and is now on display in a museum where it belongs,” he said.
Archbold’s current project is a piece of property he bought in Provost, Alta., that came with a houseful of antiques. He pulled 10 tonnes of objects out of the house. Most of them got recycled or donated.
“You're buying the remnants of someone's life and so it's not just objects. You can't just think about the resale, you have to think about protecting their legacy and being respectful to who they are as a person."
Sometimes he comes across personal belongings like family photos and heirlooms that weren’t meant to be left behind. When that happens, he tries to return them to the family.
“It’s turned into a real adventure,” he said.
Most of the collectibles, artworks and other antiques from the Provost house were sold through an online auction. Archbold has also renovated the property and it’s for sale.
After years of buying and selling antiques, Archbold has learned that when you get to know the story behind a treasure, and the person selling it, it’s not always easy to let go.
“It's a challenge sometimes when you see something that you think is amazing and you love it,” he said.
For the most part, he only buys items he would want himself, so he can stand behind them and have faith in what he’s purchasing to resell.
“But it is a business after all. And I would always say that there's nothing that I own that I wouldn't sell."
That’s what Archbold thinks makes him right for this kind of business — he doesn’t get too attached.
“The only thing that is really precious to me are the adventures and my family.”