All the Best Rubbish

The Classic Ode to Collecting

Ivor Noel Hume

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780061809897
• eBook ISBN: 9780062312006
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

“A delight. All the Best Rubbish is one of those rare volumes that both instruct and entertain. I recommend it to any collector.” —Harold L. Peterson, Chief Curator, US National Park Service

Ivor Noel Hume, the former chief archaeologist of Colonial Williamsburg, offers a delightful, anecdotal, and informative celebration of the joys of collecting. 

In his newly revised edition, All the Best Rubbish traces the fascinating history of collecting from its recorded beginnings and describes the remarkable detective work that goes into establishing the probable facts about uncovered and often underappreciated treasures. Now expanded with hints, tips, and helpful information about antique-hunting online, All the Best Rubbish is the ideal book for the antiquarian or amateur.

Noël Hume has pursued bottles, pottery, clocks, and coins through junk shops, street markets, attics, and cellars on two continents. He's unearthed the most fascinating—and valuable—rubbish from the most unlikely places: the shores of the Thames in London; the lagoons of the Caribbean; the bottom of Martha Washington's well. Hume knows everything that's worth knowing about collecting—why we do it, what we can find, where we can find it, and what we can learn from it.

Searchable Terms

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

Numerals in bold face type indicate those pages whereon the indexed subject is discussed and/or illustrated.

Academy of Armory, Randle Holme’s, 231

Adam and Eve on delftware, 11, 12, 165–66

Adams, Elizabeth: portrait of, 245

Adams, Mrs. John, 50

Adonis, death of: on Roman pottery, 138, 139

Advertisements, antique dealers’, 259–60

Akerman, Richard: jailer of New-gate Prison, 215

signature of, 217

“Akerman’s Hotel”: see Newgate Prison

Akhetaten, 300

Alchemist’s workshop, 241

Aldermanbury (London), bottles found in, 179, 181, 182

Alexandria, Virginia, 95, 153–54

Allen, Jeffreys: M.P. for Bridgewater, 161–63

election jug made for, 162

Allen, Mea, 29

All Souls College, Oxford: bottles from, 197, 198

Americana, collecting of, 44, 268

American Philosophical Society, 45

Amorous Club, Oxford, 222–23

Anemia, sickle-cell, 191

Anne, Queen: counter from reign of, 110, 111, 112

Antiquaries, Society of (London), 22, 23, 102–3

Antique dealer, murder of, 247

Antique, definition of, 51

Antiques as an investment, 51, 64, 193–94, 272–73, 283, 285

condition of, 272–74

source books for the study of, 228–38, 257–59

the new, 202

Antiquities, British in America, 122–24

Egyptian, 18–19, 31, 32, 296–302, 297–301

Roman, 11, 12, 14, 32, 37, 85–86, 87, 89–95, 92, 93, 95, 121, 127–41, 128, 129, 133, 135, 138, 140, 286

Apprentice Lists, 257

Arawak Indians, 264

Archaeology and collecting, xi, 1–4

Architecture, English village, 205–6

preservation of, 66, 210–11

West Indian, 204–5

Archivists, 212

Aretine, “posture woman,” 179, 180

Ark: see Tradescant’s Ark

Arlington, Virginia, Custis family home, 184, 190

Armor, 285

Army and Navy Stores (London), 229

Ashmole, Elias, 23, 26–32

his collection destroyed, 30

Aspley Hall, Nottinghamshire, 220

Astbury ware, 150, 151

Ascension Island, bottles from, 196, 197

Athenaeum, British literary weekly, 100, 102

Auctions: see Salesroom

Austin, Richard: Boston pewterer, 254

Australia, convicts sent to, 213–15, 216

Awls, 75, 76

Bailey, Nathaniel: his Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 41, 232

Baillie, George, 233–34

Ball, nun’s brass, 27

Ballast, Thames gravel, 122–23

Balsam, Turlington’s, 199, 200

Bapchild, Kent: jug from, 20

Barge, discovered in London, 91

Barbed wire, 268, 269

Barnes, discoveries at, 86

Barnum, P. T., 294

Basins, Victorian ceramic, 239–40

Bassert, Rebecca, 224

Bateman, Hester: silversmith, 142

Bath, plunge, 21...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• ONE: “What’s Past Is Prologue …”
• TWO: To Have and to Hold
• THREE: Cabinets, Closets, and Dubitable Curiosities
• FOUR: In Search of Bald Sextons
• FIVE: Something for Nothing
• SIX: Billie and Charlie and Margaret North
• SEVEN: Of Mud, and Pots, and Puppy Dogs, and Mistakes that Come Back in the Night
• EIGHT: Adam and Eve to Caroline, with Intermediate Stops
• NINE: History in a Green Bottle
• TEN: “All the Best Rubbish Is Gone”
• ELEVEN: A Word in Your Eye
• TWELVE: Of Mermaids, Fakes, and Other Grave Matters
• THIRTEEN: And Then What?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Searchable Terms
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher