People think it's luck. That I just happen to pick the right box, the right case, the right dusty ledger from a heap of junk. They don't see the years behind it — the hours spent with my nose in other people's paper, learning the weight of history in my hands.
It started when I was ten. My mother dragged me to a church jumble sale one Saturday, the kind where everything smells faintly of damp hymnals and lavender polish. I was bored stiff until I saw a tray of trinkets — costume brooches, broken chains, a few odd buttons. Buried among them was a tiny silver box, no bigger than a matchbook, with a grille on the lid. I didn't know the word then, but it was a vinaigrette — Victorian, late Regency at a stretch. I bought it for fifty pence. Sold it a week later for fifty pounds. That was the first time I felt the spark.
By twelve, I was hunting for it. At a parish fair, I found a railway timetable tucked inside a family Bible — printed for the opening week of the Metropolitan Railway. The stallholder thought it was a bookmark. I knew better. At fourteen, a neighbour clearing out her loft called me over. She thought the old trunk in the corner was full of rags. I pulled out a bundle of letters tied with fraying ribbon — Crimean War, written in a hand so fine it looked etched. She gave me the lot for nothing. I still have one of those letters. Not for sale.
College didn't change me. If anything, it sharpened the habit. I studied history, but my real education happened on Saturdays, in flea markets and estate sales. While my classmates were nursing hangovers, I was elbow-deep in boxes of paper, looking for the one thing everyone else had missed. I started posting my finds online — "Find of the Week," I called it. Victorian trade cards, cartes de visite, annotated hymnals. People noticed. A few collectors reached out. Then a museum. Then a prop buyer for a BBC period drama. That was the first time I realised this could be more than a hobby.
After graduation, I set up on my own. No office, no staff — just me, a laptop, and a growing network of dealers who knew I had the eye. My first big score was a box of ledgers from a rural auction. Everyone else saw mould and mildew. I saw a brewer's log from 1850, complete with recipes for stout and porter. Sold it to a regional museum for enough to cover my rent for three months. Another time, I picked up a bundle of Victorian mourning cards for a fiver. They ended up on screen in a drama watched by six million people. I didn't get a credit, but I didn't care. I was building a reputation — the man who finds the good boxes.