Vintage view: Tasty collectable

Kya deLongchamps believes browsing through smaller collectables can bring its own rewards.

I had an exciting wee find last week. Nothing screamingly valuable, but a fascinating and perfect Georgian thing. It was winking at the back of a cabinet in Bygone Times in Dungarvan, a feast of unusual, unfussy and affordable antiques and collectables by Caroline and Damian O’Malley.

A small golden face lifted into three dimensions by an egg sized chunk of cut glass, the portrait was submerged in a pleasing crystal concave- rather like those Connemara worry stones we massaged on our school-desks in the 1970s. I paid €15 for it as my innards told me this wasn’t just a pretty little nothing. I did at least know it was a ‘salt’ for a dining table.