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News and Information
October 2008 - Convention dates announced!! See Konvention link at left
August 9, 2008 - The estate of KOOKS member Jeanne Vacinek, who passed away recently, will be auctioned off on August 30, 2008. The estate includes a huge kitchen gadget collection. The auction is scheduled for 9am in Collins Center, NY, which is located just south of Buffalo. The auction is being held by carterauctions.com. Please see their website for more details.
August 19, 2007 - We would like to announce the roll out of a new web site dedicated to Apple parers and peelers. The Apple Parer Museum is the creation of KOOKS member Mike Viney. You can visit it at http://appleparermuseum.com.
June 18, 2007 - The 2007 KOOKS Convention ended today and was a huge success. The convention was attended by over 120 members. This was one of the biggest turnouts in a few years. The room sales were as popular as ever with lots of bargains to be found. The items in this year's What's It really had the experts stumped. The presentation we very informative and the banquet followed by the auction was the highlite of the weekend. Everyone had a great time. It was revealed at the end of the banquet that the 2009 convention will be held in the Nutmeg State, Connecticut. The dates haven't been set yet but make sure you set aside some time in June of 2009!
Antique Shows
Brimfield, MA - May 12-17, July 14-19, Sept 8-13, 2009
Madison-Bouckville, NY - August 15-16, 2009
Farmington, CT - TBD
Journal of Antiques and Collectables calendar
To have a show listed here send show dates to info @ kooksonline.org
What is it?
COMING SOON!
Can you identify the item pictured below? If you know the answer send it to info@kooksonline.org.
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Website Of Special Interest
So, you've spent years collecting your eggbeaters or electric mixers or butter molds or apple parers or whatever. You are very proud of your collection and would love to show it off. What are your options? Well, you can open your house to the world and let them track who knows what all over while oohing and ahing at your precious items all the while making sure nothing walks off without your knowledge or you can join an organization like KOOKS and show off your items at the bi-annual conventions but still, thats only a small, but definitely dedicated, group. You would really like to show it off to the world but how to do it safely? Up until now your choices were to publish a book or do what I did and build a web site. Both of those options could be expensive and time consuming. Now there is another choice. A web site called CollectionBuddy(www.collectionbuddy.com).
CollectionBuddy(CB) has recently opened its doors to the collectors of the world. CB, according to their web site, is “a new collaborative online resource and a social network which enables pro, amateur and aspiring collectors to capture, catalog and share their treasures; interact with other enthusiasts; and discover new collectibles to acquire”. Each collector can upload images of the items in their collection(s). You can add descriptive information about the items as well as upload multiple images of each item. This allows you to create a catalog of your collection for your personal use as well as allowing the entire CB community to view your collection. You can arrange your collection into smaller groups using descriptive keywords. The site is well designed and easy to navigate.
I did find some of the features of the site a little difficult to grasp at first and still have my questions on some things but maybe I will get used to them over time. One of the most significant ideas that you have to grasp is that other collectors can use items from your collections to create their own collections. They are more like virtual collections. You can even add something from someone else's collection to your collection. It would still be identified as being owned by someone else but it would show up in your collection.
They also have the ability, through the use of tags and groups, to create larger collections of items. For instance, I collect antique clothes drying racks. These could fall under the general category of antiques, under laundry, under clothing, under clothes dryers, under racks and finally under drying racks. This all depends on the tags you assign to your items when you upload them to the site.
Uploading items to the site is very easy. You can upload single items or groups of items. At the time of upload you can add descriptive text as well as indicate the tags you wish to associate with the item(s). These tags can even be created and added after the images are uploaded. One nice feature is that you can add additional images to the main image. Many times you may want to show the item from several viewpoints. This allows you to keep all the views of the item in one place.
In addition to being a great place to show off your collection its a great way to keep a permanent record of your collection in case of a disaster of some sort. If you have your items insured, CB can be used to record the contents of your collection. The site is very secure. Personal information is not shared with any of the other collectors. You can create a collector biography if you wish to share some thing about yourself. You can even make your own collection private which hides it from the rest of the CB community. The only concern I have is the fact that other collectors can copy the images you upload. There is an implied copyright when you upload the images but there is nothing to prevent others from copying the images you upload and using them for some other purpose. Of course, this is true of just about all images on the web. Finally, CB performs a database backup on a daily basis. This ensures that in the event of a major server problem they will have a current backup from which to restore the site. Of course, if you upload items after the last backup and before the next and the server decided to die you may have to reload the images when the site is back up.
I had the privilege of being one of the many beta testers of the site. They were very open to suggestions and some of mine were used! Being a new site, they are more than happy to take suggestions from any of the collectors. They are always looking forward to making the site the best resource for collectors all over the world.
One suggestion I have given them is to create a place on the site for groups like KOOKS to create a page to introduce other people to what we are all about. It would also have links to our main web site and hopefully, will bring in new members.
Im sure there are many other features of CB that Ive missed but I will let you explore the site for yourself and discover all you can do with CB. When I first began to create my own website I toyed with the idea of actually making something for use for all collectors. CB had the same idea and they have created a great site for the collectors of the world. I can only see this site getting better and better over time.
Jeff Kroll
Collector Spotlight
In coming months this space will be used to spotlight a current KOOKS member. You will learn all about his/her collection and how she/he got started collecting. If you would like to recommend that we feature a specific person then send the request to info @ kooksonline.org.
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