Take a drive out to a small country town in the Ottawa Valley because you're curious about what might be on offer at an antique show and sometimes you find yourself in interesting territory. As far as what might be on offer is concerned. You can get suddenly buttonholed by a countrified old-timer bewhiskered in white runaway hair who speaks to you as though he recognizes the ardency of a fellow traveller. He knows all about the antique show venues, large and small, from Brimfield, to this little one you both find yourselves trekking around. You also suspect he's from Perth, where you've made an afternoon destination for something to do on a summer week-end.

Or you could come across an aesthete whose stall is replete with the most exquisite examples of fine 19th-Century Japanese traditional arts, who knows whereof he displays and speaks because he lived for fourteen years on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. And with him you share fond memories of your own privileged stay in that fascinating cultural environment with its incredible artistic heritage. And you tell him what he has on display is more than equal to the quality of items you saw while attending special displays of Japanese treasures while in Tokyo. You weren't able to afford to acquire them there, any more than you can now.

The all-encompassing surprise of the visit to that site in Perth is that, unlike previous such shows you've attended, this one can genuinely boast the appearance of vendors who are so obviously capable of  recognizing an authentic antique of value when they see one, and whose inventory includes quite a few objects you find desirable for their beauty and craftsmanship.

And the final discovery, of a vendor whose academic and publishing credentials identify him as a professional in the field of discovery, cataloguing, museum acquisition, and appreciation of Canadiana. His field happens to be that of Canadian folk art, but his professional and academic experience is inclusive of all types of art; sculpture, paintings, etchings, furniture, whatever constitutes an element of that aesthetic identification in Canadian history. What's more he has a personal knowledge of every one of the antique dealers you can recall from your own long history of hunting out antiques, from fifty years back.

Your discussion is mutually engaging, and it isn't, after all, so surprising that it is from his inventory of highly unusual items that you make your final choices of items to acquire for your home which over the years has been transformed to a personal gallery of time, place, and very fond memories.