Bric-a-brac Collecting

Bric-a-brac Collecting is the pursuit of gathering bric-a-brac, the miscellaneous small decorative curios whose French name, entering English use around 1840, comes from the 16th-century phrase a bric et a brac, meaning at random, any old way. Victorian-era collections typically held decorated teacups and small vases, wax-flower or feather compositions under glass domes, decorated eggshells, porcelain figurines and painted miniatures, sold by shops the period called purveyors of fancy goods and displayed on mantelpieces, tables, shelves and glass-fronted curio cabinets. The term has since broadened to cover items of modest value found in street markets and charity shops, making bric-a-brac collecting today an accessible, low-cost form of curio collecting rather than a formal antiques discipline.