Did you hear the joke about " The tin of sardines "
The Tin of Sardines
There’s an old joke about a man who buys a tin of sardines.
He opens it up, takes one look, and recoils.
“These sardines are off,” he says.
The seller looks at him and replies,
“These sardines are not for eating there for selling .”
That, in a nutshell, is half the antiques trade.
People often walk into a shop, pick something up, turn it over, peer underneath, and ask the wrong question.
“Is it good?”
“Would you use it?”
“Is it perfect?”
Sometimes the honest answer is: it doesn’t matter.
Some things are bought to live with. Some are bought to sell on. And some — the clever ones — manage to do both.
There’s a modern obsession with “loving” every object. If you don’t adore it, you shouldn’t buy it. Nonsense. Plenty of very successful dealers — and collectors — have made money buying things they didn’t particularly want to keep. They weren’t eating sardines. They were trading them.
But here’s where it gets interesting.
The best antiques aren’t just trading sardines. They’re the rare tins you can both trade and enjoy. You can live with them, learn from them, show them off, and still know — quietly — that when the time comes, they’ll turn back into money. Preferably more than you paid.
That’s the anti-dealing bit.
Anti-dealing isn’t about flipping junk at speed. It’s about buying well, buying calmly, and letting time do the heavy lifting. It’s about recognising that an object can be decorative, historical, useful, and financial all at once — without shouting about any of it.
If you only ever buy things you want to “eat”, you’ll miss opportunities.
If you only ever buy things to “trade”, you’ll get bored — and probably sloppy.
The trick, as ever, is knowing which tin you’re opening.
Some sardines are meant for supper.
Some are meant for sale.
And the very best ones?
You can happily keep them on the shelf — until someone else is suddenly very hungry indeed.
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