Today my husband and I have tickets to the Vintage Market days event taking place at the Florida State Fair Grounds.

One of our favorite things to do as a couple is to go antiquing. There is something about hunting for treasures and amazing deals that brings so much happiness and joy. I think what makes hunting for treasures such a joyful pastime is the history we encounter and the history that inspires us to learn.

Last year once restrictions started to lift and which much care and protection we started to venture back out to go antiquing. Being able to travel and drive around and find those eclectic out-of-the-way places is part of the fun.

One of our favorite items to collect is antique books that are over one hundred years old. Older books to me give us a snapshot of time, it gives you an idea of how people spoke or lived during those times. It’s about perspective, for example, one of our favorite books is a two-volume set about the American Revolutionary war that was originally published only 50 years after the war. To put things in perspective 50 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, imagine having a book series published 50 years after the revolution. There would have been many people still alive during that time who had lived through the war and made history happen.

In our collection are Roman artifacts that have been dated from the time of Jesus Christ and were excavated from Jerusalem. Just the thought that in our hands is an item that is over 2,000 years old is something that to me still boggles my mind.

With every find, we always feel elation at discovering something of historical significance, feeling like in the hundred or more years that item existed who else could have handled it, loved it, or cared for it.