The man in the dusty antique shop

Over the past year  I have been using some wonderful vintage keys in some of my necklace designs. I love the mystery behind old keys... wondering what doors they once opened? Were they keys to the doors of country manors, or simple city homes? Perhaps they were keys from a secret garden gate, or a backyard garden shed. Some are keys  that were used to wind old clocks, and some of the smaller keys were probably from well traveled trunks and old leather suitcases.  While on my recent trip to England I managed to acquire some fabulous old keys from a small antique shop in a picturesque Yorkshire village.

 

 We arrived in the village, and my sister-in -law, brother, I strolled around taking in the sights, and browsing through some of the local shops. My son and husband had wondered off to do some antiquing, hoping to find some antique locks for my sons lock collection.  About an hour later, we met up with them and they had great exciting news about an antique shop that they had found. Out of a brown paper bag came several wonderful old locks and keys that had been purchased by my son, and for bargain prices!  Apparently, the owner had taken a liking to my son and his passion for collecting, and they had been let into the owners special attic area and allowed to dig through forgotten boxes, looking for old locks.  Well, this is an antique hunters dream come true! My husband and son were so excited, and said there were tons of old keys, and that I had to come back to the shop to get some of them for my jewelry. Well, I did not need much convincing, so off we all went back to the shop. We arrived to a small shop, filled to the rafters with all kinds of wonderful things.

 Once there, we were allowed access to the attic, and the boxes of many keys. My son was up the ladder, and passing boxes down to the rest of us, who were madly digging through them trying to find the best and  most interesting keys.  Meanwhile the owner, asked us in true British style, if we would like some tea! Well of course, we would...this was becoming a  real adventure! I think I managed to get about 5 pounds of weight in keys, and we proceeded to come back down stairs where  not only tea awaited us, but cookies as well! The teapot even had a tea cozy over it, to keep the tea warm.

 

 Here is my sister-in -law next to the  fresh pot of tea, and mugs.

This lovely  soft spoken man with the graying hair, had invited his neighbor over as well, and here we were sitting in this eclectic antique shop, surrounded by all kinds of stuff,  chatting and having tea and cookies! The bargain price for the keys was exceptional...he must have thought I was mad wanting all that "junk". 

After we had all left and were on the way home, we started thinking...what if we went back, and he wasn't there,  perhaps he was just a magical old spirit from beyond, like in a Hollywood movie!

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