Steampunk. What the heck is it? Here is a primer. Why should anyone care about it? Because it's a big deal among some folks, and the movement seems to be growing. Look, there are 12,795 eBay listings that include the keyword Steampunk. What's there? A ray gun and old cloths. But look further. There are clock parts. Another futuristic gun. Mad scientist glasses. More ray guns. Jewelry made of watch parts. Ok.
So, science fiction, mechanical (analog, really) stuff, old-timey clothes such as big dresses and corsets. I read the Wikipedia article, as I hope you did, and figure this is a pretty odd set. Ray guns and watch parts? You couldn't make this stuff up. But this Steampunk stuff still seems to be a pretty big deal. There are 4.6 million google results for it.
But lots of Google and eBay hits shouldn't automatically make me care about something. I mean, like many folks, Google is at least partially responsible for a lot of what I know. But I also wonder about where these Steampunk people fit into collecting and dealing in antiques.
I still hear a lot of folks say "young people don't like this stuff, antiques are dead." Well, when did young people EVER like antiques (more on this in a future blog). I really doubt that during the 1960s you could go to an auction and see a bunch of young people there. They were all out having fun being young (for some, like me, going to auctions IS fun, even at a young age), and would grow older and eventually turn into today's auction goers.
But these Steampunks are different. It's a typically young movement, in so far as the fashion, art and decorative movements are concerned. So that means young people truly are getting excited by the past. It's a complicated movement too. I think it takes the constant drumbeat of modern technology and alters it to fit this quaint time that was the Victorian Age (in retrospect). So it may be about a reaction to modern technology, and a not uncommon yearning for some filtered image of the past.
But it also opens the door for the exploration of the love of the past, and respect for it, and appreciation for its material tailings. And so I hope that it also continues to drive a market in old stuff. There just can't be too many young people with an attraction for the past and its artifacts.
Sure, there are things that annoy me about Steampunk. I'm kind of a purist, I don't overlay modern or futuristic science and technology atop earlier times. I just like to experience antiques for exactly their time period, with nothing wacky, a la Steampunk. Making a tintype, skeleton key and lamp pull chian into a necklace sort of torques me off. Tintypes weren't meant to be put on a necklace with a skeleton key, just hanging like that from a pull chain!!!!
But, I also appreciate the fact that Steampunk is not antique collecting per se, it is this strange amalgamation between fantasy, science and a love and nostalgia for the Victorian Age. In that time, like today, techonology was progressing quickly, and the world was changing fast. Cities were coming into being, farms towns were shrinking. But purist collecting it is not.
With that being said, it still keeps the flame of a love for history alive. And when that Steampunk-associated couple buys that previously unsellable, over-the-top, dark, elaborate piece of Victorian furniture for $650, I will be very happy. And they do. And that's why I have started paying attention to Steampunks.
PS: Check this out. I went looking, on Google of course, for Steampunk Victorian furniture. I came to this link and it took me forever to figure out what I was looking at.. Even Second Life has Steampunk. Yes, there are people creating this Victorian/Science Fiction fantasy world in the modern computer fantasy world of Second Life.
I'm going to bed. (it's late as I write this, I've had it)
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