collectors tales

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RELATED LINKS

collections: The Ku collection

website: Hong Kong Heritage Museum

In the exhibition catalogue ‘The Fun of Collecting’, Jennings Ku explains how he became interested in card cases and why he continues to be under their spell.

"People often ask me why I started to collect card cases. Being trained as a graphic designer, my first commissioned project while I was still a student in the US was to design a business card for a restaurant, so quite naturally it was love at first sight when I was given my maiden visiting card case. A card holder with a glamorous past and such romantic appeal.

I never imagined I would get serious about building a collection of card cases since I knew very little about their origins and social history.... Immediately after I purchased my first

two cases, my interest in the subject began to grow rapidly with more frequent visits to antique shops, markets and fairs. I am drawn like a magnet by their beauty, design, patterns, variety and charm.

Some collectors say that if one case 'gets away' there is always another waiting around the corner. I have learnt over the years that this might not necessarily be true. There are a few cases I wish I had bought but did not because of their expense or because somehow I thought a better one would come by, but it never did. Having said that, finding a unique case is such a joy that it is difficult to described in words - the feeling is very much like being reunited with a long lost family member for whom I had been searching for a very long time.

Will I ever stop searching for the next case? This is a wonderful addiction and provides much pleasure in my life so it would be hard to give it up. I enjoy wandering through antique markets and crowded alleys, staying up late or getting up in the early hours of the day to make a bid on e-channel. Since my first attractive little card case, this addiction of mine has grown into a modest collection filled with the fond memories surrounding every purchase I have made. "