ABOUT THE CURATOR

Lucius Bane

Rare objects of mysterious provenance

Bane's Curious Goods began with an appreciation for antiques and the stories that remain attached to them.

Long before there was a shop bearing my name, I was a collector. Old books, coins, jewelry, paintings, religious objects, personal effects—anything that had survived long enough to carry with it some fragment of another life fascinated me. I have always believed that an antique without a history is merely an old object. It is the human story behind it that gives it significance.

Over the years, however, I began encountering objects whose histories were rather more difficult to explain.

A mourning pendant accompanied by remarkably similar accounts from owners who had never known one another. A coin credited with bringing extraordinary good fortune to three generations of the same family, only for that fortune to abruptly cease when the coin was lost. A small portrait whose subject appeared in no family record, despite successive generations insisting they knew precisely who she was.

There were dolls that families refused to keep, books that seemed to have been deliberately hidden rather than simply forgotten, and personal possessions accompanied by warnings far older than their present owners.

At first, I approached these accounts as any sensible antiquarian should—with skepticism.

Coincidence, superstition and the gradual embellishment of family stories can explain a great deal. But they cannot explain everything.

I began keeping records.

That decision changed the course of my life.

What started as an antiquarian's curiosity gradually became serious study. I sought obscure manuscripts, private collections, forgotten correspondence and accounts of practices largely abandoned by modern scholarship. My travels introduced me to collectors, historians and practitioners whose knowledge would rarely be found in a university library. Some were remarkably generous with what they knew. Others required considerable persuasion before they would speak at all.

And there were certain circles into which one does not simply wander.

I was eventually permitted access to teachings and records maintained by individuals who regard secrecy not as affectation, but as obligation. I will not identify these organizations, nor discuss the circumstances under which I came to know them. Certain promises were made many years ago, and I intend to honor them.

Suffice it to say that I ceased dismissing the old traditions quite so readily.

Today, my collection includes objects associated with good fortune and prosperity, protective pieces, ritual candles and prepared items, spirit-associated artifacts, and objects carrying considerably darker histories. Some I have acquired through estates and private collections. Others have been brought to me by people who simply no longer wished to possess them.

Occasionally, an object comes into my care that I cannot satisfactorily classify.

Those are often the most interesting.

I make every reasonable effort to investigate an item's provenance before offering it through Bane's Curious Goods. Where a history is known, I preserve it. Where something is uncertain, I prefer uncertainty to invention. There are already enough embellished stories surrounding old objects without adding another.

My own work has also expanded beyond collecting. Years of study have given me familiarity with ritual practice, symbolism, traditional methods of preparation and certain branches of esoteric study that I once would have considered little more than historical curiosities. Some items offered here are therefore not antiques at all, but objects prepared specifically for a particular purpose.

I have been called an antiquarian, an occultist, a practitioner and considerably less flattering things. Titles have never interested me very much.

I prefer curator.

A curator's responsibility is not merely to possess unusual things, but to understand them, preserve their histories and eventually place them into the hands of someone willing to become the next custodian of their story.

That is the purpose of Bane's Curious Goods.

You are not required to believe every account recorded here. Belief has never been a condition of entry. Skepticism, properly exercised, is a valuable discipline and one I continue to practice myself.

I ask only that you remember something I learned many years ago:

There is a considerable difference between refusing to believe in something and knowing that it does not exist.

Browse carefully. Read the histories. Make your own conclusions.

And should something in my collection seem strangely familiar to you, perhaps you should not be too quick to dismiss the feeling.

Some objects have remarkably long memories.

— Lucius Bane
Curator, Bane's Curious Goods