Moving and storing antiques and valuables

You may not have anything in your collection of valuables that would excite Christies, but you’ve probably bought or inherited a few precious pieces over the years, and they’ll need special attention when you’re moving or storing them.

Some things you can look after yourself, and with others you’ll need professional advice.

With outlets in New South Wales, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra, Reliable Relocations has been helping Australians move since 1893, according to company spokesman, Lorne Jones, and they know how to care for delicate items.

“We move anything, including antiques that are normally over a hundred years old, but all the furniture moved by us is treated with the same care and attention as an antique anyway.

Furniture

“A lot of these items are of great value and can be more fragile than modern furniture because of their age, and more care needs to be taken when moving them.  Where glass is part of a unit like a china cabinet you can’t remove it.”

“We make sure they’re well padded and protected. We use wrapping with bubble wrap on one side and cardboard on the other, and wrap removal blankets on top for a double layer of protection.”

Move My Home asked Lorne about insurance for valuable items.

“Full cover is available, but only from members of the Australian Furniture Removers Association (AFRA). People should make sure they insure for the correct value and not underinsure. Generally it’s replacement value for anything under 7 years, and anything over 7 years old has a market value stipulated.”

Reliable Relocations also offers storage facilities.

“It’s mainly container storage inside a warehouse with CCTV and alarms and external fences around the building. It’s not climate-controlled, but the modern containers are painted white to keep them cool, and they all have vents to allow for  airflow to prevent mould and must.”

Wine

If you want to store good wines, however, you’ll need a climate-controlled environment to preserve your quality tipple in prime condition. Mark Stewart of National Storage says the company offers climate-controlled facilities specifically designed for storing wine.

“Twenty years ago when the building was first set up, the original owners were Italian. They were close to Lygon Street and mingled with wine people, and they came up with the concept of wine storage. Now we have 424 wine lockers.”

The lockers are used by people who don’t have suitable facilities at home.

“We have some very valuable collections. There’s one man who’d been waiting for a 1961 bottle of French champagne for 10 years and he recently paid $70,000 for it. We’ve also had a popular, famous restaurant that bought champagne from a shipwreck from the 1800s to sell in the restaurant.”

“Some clients have a wine collection of between 500 and 600 cases of wine for their superannuation, and some are mums and dads who’ve bought one bottle of Grange when their child was born and have had it in storage for 21 years.”

“There are also people who live overseas and leave their wine with us. They might work in Hong Kong and spend 3 or 4 months over here, and they’re worried about the humidity in Hong Kong.”

“Many people worry about their wine, especially in spring when the temperature starts to get warmer. We have 15 different locker sizes and a special Managed Collection section.”

“You can bring in your wine collection and we’ll catalogue it, provide an inventory list and put the wine into storage. If you want, you can have bottles taken out selectively and sent to your house to have with dinner.”

“The temperatures for the wine are between 14 and16 degrees and the humidity is between 67 and 69 degrees. That’s based on Australian conditions; it different in Europe. It’s also ideal conditions for storing old film reels and we look after some of those too.”

Mark says it costs about $30 a month to store 18 cases of wine, or around $2,000 to store palettes of wine on a unit measuring 6metres by 3 metres by 2.7 metres.

Textiles

Perhaps you’ve spent your money on something more lasting than wine, such as a valuable Persian carpet that you plan to pass it on to the next generation. Milton Cater is the founder of the Oriental Rug Society of Queensland and his business, Milton Cater Oriental Carpets, specialises in the old and antique rugs which he describes as “textile art”.

Milton has been storing and sending rugs all over the world for years.

“The best thing about valuable rugs is that they’re not breakable,” he says, “So when we used to do antiques fairs, all the other dealers had big security trucks they were always packing and unpacking, while we rug dealers would throw the rugs into the van and take off. Basically that’s what rugs are all about; they’re a high-value, low weight unbreakable object.”

“Most rugs, if not oversized, can be posted or couriered. If you have an old or antique rug, you can send it by registered post, uninsured. It may weigh10 kilos, but you can send it anywhere in world for $200 and it’ll arrive within 2 weeks. For larger carpets we use removalists.”

Milton also offers storage facilities, and a number of his customers are non-resident Indians with collections of valuable carpets.

“I store their rugs wrapped in waterproof Tyvek, which is like a plastic paper that has a myriad of uses. It allows airflow without allowing moisture.  Plain thick builder’s plastic is often used in the trade too, but only for the short term.

“We use a temperature-controlled storage facility that’s also vermin-proof. It’s a sealed room with no windows and tight-fitting door. People make the mistake of putting rugs in a DIY storage facility, which is good for furniture, but they aren’t vermin proof.”

“We often see carpets damaged by incorrect storage, especially with baby boomers. They downsize and move into a unit, and they put the carpets in storage for the kids later. But by the time the kids have families and they get the carpet out of storage, it’s damaged by moths or mice.”

“You have to be particularly careful with wool. It makes a lovely nest and you just can’t leave a nice woollen rug as a great meal for a moth. It’s the grub of the carpet moth that eats it, and no matter how much poison you have in a carpet, the grub will still eat it and then die.”

“And any little mouse or rat would love to chew off a piece of wool and take to their nest. These are the mistakes people make, and it’s more common than it should be.”

Fortunately a damaged rug can be cleaned or restored by a reputable rug dealer.

Irish linen is another textile for the ages, because it only gets better with use. Frequent washing helps strengthen the fibres, softens the fabric and brings out its characteristic sheen, so it’s worth preserving and passing on.

One of Ireland’s leading linen producers, Thomas Ferguson Irish Linen, advises that linen is naturally mothproof and can be safely stored for years if carefully treated.

Linen retailer, Jacqueline Loughray of Ivy House, says it’s best to store linens flat as folding can stress the fabric.

She recommends rolling linens, particularly high quality items such as damask tablecloths, which should be folded only once, then rolled around a cylinder for storage.

Alternatively, you can insert muslin or acid-free tissues between the folds. 

Storing Linen

• Thoroughly clean the linen before storing
• Ideally, store on slatted shelves to allow air to circulate
• Don’t store linen in plastic.  Plastic will trap moisture and encourage mould and mildew during storage.
• Don’t store linens in damp areas
• Store away from the light. Sunlight can fade fabrics.
• Don’t store in cupboards with heating pipes or in cedar linen chests, as these can discolour linen.
• Don’t fold linen for storage. Ideally, store linen tablecloths rolled

Contacts:
www.reliablerelocations.com.au
www.nationalstorage.com.au
www.orientalcarpets.com.au
www.ivyhouse.com.au

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