Just to allay your suspicions, the antiques in question are automobiles, not members of this forum. :-)
This weekend in nearby Sant Pere de Ribes there is a Concours d'elegance, a classic car show. And I do mean "classic." The criteria for entering the show are 1) that the automobiles have to have been made before 1927, and 2) that they are still capable of making the 10-kilometer drive from Sant Pere to Sitges, where they par- ticipate in a grand parade, and then drive back again. It's an annual tradition here, and it's a shitload of fun. This is not my preferred era of classic cars; I tend to like the racing automobiles of the Stirling Moss/Juan Fangio era of racing. But I can appreciate the investment of time, money, and emotion that has gone into making these cars forget for a day their real age, and go on a Sunday drive as if it were still the early 1900s. Two of the automobiles in this parade are over 100 years old. The others are 78+ years old. But boy! are they dressed up for a Sunday drive. Waxed, made up, detailed to perfection, these automobiles are the equivalent of modern Victoria's Secret models. They make the other cars on the road want to curl up into a fetal position and die of shame. So do the owners of the automobiles. One of the things that makes this parade so much fun every year, and that has filled my town with tourists, is that the people who own the cars *dress the part*. They wear the clothing of the era that the car is from. Another thing that makes the show fun is that it is in Spain. Unless you are a classic car buff yourself, you probably don't know that some of the greatest marques of that era came from Spain. Hispano-Suizas, for example. There is a Hispano- Suiza in this show that once belonged to the King of Spain. Some of the stars of the silent movie era in Europe were driven around in these cars. And so now the current owners play "dress up" several times a year in different places in Europe, playing the roles of the stars themselves. It's an expensive hobby -- some of these cara are worth hundreds of thousands of Euros, and have required that much again in restoration, maintenance, and upkeep -- but it seems to me to be a benevolent hobby. The owners acually *drive* these magnificent automobiles. A lot of classic car collectors don't. I knew a guy in L.A. who owned a Ferarri Testarossa. Not the 2nd Testarossa, like the one that Sonny drove in Miami Vice, but the *original* Testarossa. It was worth over a million dollars. I asked him once when the last time he drove it was, and he had to think for a minute before coming up with, "12 years ago." His idea of what it means to own a masterpiece is to put it in a garage and leave it there for 12 years, waiting for it to "appreciate in value." I wanted to say, "Dude. Wake the fuck up! These cars are like beautiful women. Would you marry a beautiful woman and keep her in your house for 12 years? Or would you take her out on the town every so often, allowing her an opportunity to dress up and play to the admiring crowds? Would you dress up yourself, so that you looked good on her arm, and didn't mar her image?" I don't have to make that little perched-on-the- soapbox-of-my-own-superiority speech here. The owners of *these* beautiful woman of the street *understand* beautiful women. They are temperamental. They cost you a bloody fortune to acquire in the first place, and then they cost you far more than that in maint- enance and upkeep. But damn! they are worth it. Every penny. And the way you demonstrate that is by taking them out on the town every so often, dressed to the nines, dressed to impress, so that they can tell from the approving glances as they strut by that they are NOT past their prime. They are still beautiful. They still have the ability to allure and to elicit genuine appreciation. They are not old women. They are grandes dames.
