Dear Lee,

“You only regret what you don’t buy,” is Ralph’s motto. So before we celebrate New Year’s Eve and 2008, we thought we would look at our “regrets.” We went to a local antique show a few years after we started writing about collecting (we started collecting on our honeymoon) and we saw a coin silver teapot. It was made by a Pittsburgh silversmith and showed exceptional design and workmanship. We knew it was top quality, but the dealer wanted a week’s salary. He offered to let us buy it on time-just $10 a week. I firmly said: “No. When we start buying antiques on time, we start down the road to financial ruin.” Ralph never lets me forget this major regret. Today we have to visit that teapot in a museum.

Another time we stopped at a Cincinnati shop where we didn’t buy a remarkable Rookwood vase decorated with a single fish by Shirayamadani, Rookwood’s greatest artist. We thought it was too expensive at close to $200. We never imagined it would be worth tens of thousands of dollars in 2007. And then there was the English Delft bowl decorated with the words “Success to the British Arms.” We were under-bidders for the bowl and later saw it, too, go to an important museum.

It is not just money decisions that cause regrets. Ralph seems to like huge collectibles in distant cities. We didn’t buy a player piano, a 7-foot Mr. Peanut costume, a folk art totem pole taller than any room in our house or a Regina music box-all priced right, but all too big and complicated to ship and display.

Sometimes we regret what we do buy because of the trouble it brings. When our children were small, we bundled them in the car for a six-hour drive to Muncie, Indiana, to visit Ralph’s brother Harold and his family. We stopped at antique shops along the way and always found something. Both of us admired a traveling compass-sundial in a 2-inch-round brass case. But we were in a hurry and didn’t buy it. An hour later we arrived at Harold’s, just a little before dinner. Ralph looked at me and said, “Tell them I’ll be back soon.” He drove off to get the compass. He was two hours late for dinner. His family, especially his sister-in law, saw nothing funny or intelligent about his collecting urges. But we still tell the compass story to understanding collectors and I have long since forgiven him-after all, it was his relatives who were the most upset. The compass is in our living room.

Happy New Year! May it be healthy, prosperous and filled with no regrets.