Antiques and Artifacts

This entry is as much about a life-saving prescription for the love of your life, as it is about an antique and artefacts extraordinaire cum collector and dealer.
Antiques and Artifacts at Casterbridge in White River is more than just a quaint shop where you can buy expensive and not so expensive gifts - it is a trip down memory lane. "I love every item in this shop and will simply not display anything that I don't like," says owner Angie Bunyard.

Angie can probably write a book on people's responses, remarks and body language as they walk through and explore the many pages of history - all cemented in the minds of young and old. Angie is in fact, in my mind, selling memories - reconnecting people with experiences on an academic and emotional level.

"I meet the most extraordinary people, we engage and talk about everything and all, they share and sometimes, I can be but only amazed."

Angie thrives on the solitude and quietness of nature which nourishes the soul like nothing else. She grew up in Rhodesia. As the owner of a Safari Travel company in Botswana for more than 20 years, she supports various causes but "I am most certainly not an activist for anything," she says. She still organises Safari Travel for a very specific conservation market.

Angie studied fashion design - explored some opportunities in Los Angeles and New York and the rest before her stint in Botswana. "Nature, and to a certain extent also antiques, offers authenticity which is not to be found anywhere else. And, she landed in the antique business purely by coincidence, but that's a story on its own.

She supported Greg Duffy in Rocky's Drift with his antique business before setting up this business which offers a fusion of African art and artefacts, morphed with various genres of furniture and interior design. And, for a moment my attention is drawn to the music playing in the background - "Bob Dylan and tequila" she chirps - beautiful...

Yes, actually this is a place for peaceful and quiet contemplation, where every piece in her store has a story to tell - and sometimes, just sometimes, that story is yours. This shop really offers a "breyani" of life experiences and things.

But it is time to get a little technical. This is also the destination where you can now get that life-saving prescription for your classic or older-generation car. Angie has recently been appointed the exclusive supplier of the Castrol Classic range of engine oils in the Lowveld.

The range includes six engine oils as well as a Running In oil for rebuilt engines and transmission oil. These products have been developed specifically for owners of pre-1980 vehicles and motorcycles and offer a 100% correct formulation and viscosity as per the original engine manufacturers. "A classic car engine can have the opposite characteristics with cork/graphite/rope seals, low-pressure gear-driven pumps, larger oil galleries and greater dependence on splash and cling lubrication compared to modern engines," says importers Paul Williams and Giovanni Schule.

Using these products will prevent the scouring effect from carbon flake-off blocking jets and oil galleries. "With its perfect corrosion inhibitors, the engine components in these older engines, will enjoy significantly better protection than what modern oils - as good as it is - can provide, says Paul.

Well, Antiques and Artifacts is a destination shop for both connoisseur and casual browser. It offers perfect warm-fuzzy-feeling prescriptions. And, in this day and age, the latter are priceless.

Authored by me and was first published in the Autodealer Lowveld.