For Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn’s latest project, Significant Objects, they find inexpensive collectibles at thrift stores and garage sales and match them with writers who write a fictional story about each object. The item and the story are then posted on eBay for anyone to bid on, sometimes fetching 10 times what was originally paid (according to their website, they've made $247.30 to date)...
The story about the spotted dogs above by Curtis Sittenfeld actually made our heart skip a beat and made us seriously consider whether a good story really can turn trash into treasure?
For anyone who has ever felt conflicted while standing over the "to donate" box, trying to decide whether the sentimental value of a certain object outweighs the desire not to go down the slippery slope of collecting pet decor, the answer is probably an emphatic “yes.” And for anyone else, look only to advertising’s ability to sell us millions of things we may or may not need by harnessing the power of a good story.
Robert Walker and Joshua Glenn happen to be experts on the topic of consumers' relationships with inanimate objects. Walker wrote Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are and writes the “Consumed” column for the New York Times and Glenn wrote Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance.
To read Curtis Sittenfeld’s story about the spotted dogs above or place a bid on them, click here to go to the eBay listing. To find out more about the project, visit Significant Objects.
Do you own any treasures (or what some might call trash) with great stories behind them?
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Ummm...does it bug anyone that the object in the story was given to the girl in the late 60's and this was obviously made in the 80's?
view pancakebear's profile
Somebody must read Daily Candy (or vise versa.)
view spinsLPs's profile
Oh yeah, I really liked the story, though....
view pancakebear's profile
So, basically, you bid on, essentially, a piece of crap that has a load of BS attached to it?
I'm stunned at the stupidity of this on every level, and I work in advertising so I've seen A LOT of stupidity.
view modtramp's profile
Wow modtramp, do you just really have something against fiction? "A load of BS?" Wow.
I wouldn't buy the dogs. That particular story doesn't trip my trigger, but I have purchased things that remind me of books that affected me, and I keep things that are "pieces of crap" because -my- story behind them imbues them with a value beyond their price. Finding meaning in apparently meaningless things is part of being human.
And it's kind of what AT is about--all of us attached to and deriving meaning from our decor, whether it's "unsentimental" minimalism or chock full of tchochkes.
view seraph's profile
I've bought things at yard sales and sold them on eBay for 10 or 20X what I paid... and I didn't have to farm the stuff out to get a story attached.
Just sayin'... The story thing is a cute idea, but there are faster, easier ways to make money on eBay. Go to Granny yard sales and buy MCM stuff, then sell it to hipster kids. :)
Mary
view Mary B C's profile
That piece of crap would never be a treasure.
view DealHuntingDiva's profile