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Author / Ellery Weil

True Collectors Know the Secret Charm of Antique Faux Gold

Every Thursday, Spitalfields antique market in London spans a historic covered marketplace that transforms itself into a maze of stalls bearing jewellery, clothing, housewares, and more. At the jewellery stalls, a shrewd buyer can find gold, silver, gemstones, and more. And, if they are lucky, and know what they’re looking for, they can find something…

A Brief Compendium of Curiosity Shops

It’s not quite a junk shop, but it’s too informal to count as an antique store. While there may be books, it’s not a book store either, and calling it a thrift store feels wrong. There’s little to definitively categorise or unify its oddities. Much easier to pinpoint is the origin of the phrase “curiosity…

A Comforting, Snackable History of the Lunchbox 

Before there were fast-casual restaurants, before there was intermittent fasting, before there were meal-replacement shakes, before it all–there was lunch. And before there were Stanley cups, and before there were insulated coolers, and before there was Tupperware–there were boxes. And one day, someone realized that you could combine these two ancient and venerable institutions, and…

Investigating Brooklyn’s 156-Year-Old Secret Society for Black Women

MacDonough Street looks much the same as any street in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood; long and leafy and residential, with historic townhouses neatly arranged in rows, punctuated by the occasional larger building. But one of those larger buildings – 87 MacDonough Street – stands out. Although today its windows are boarded, you can see the grandeur…

The Saga Behind America’s Giant Government Cheese Vaults

Not all cheese is created equally. Any American who has been around long enough to taste a slice of “government cheese” can tell you that. While the phrase sounds surreal, and is often used as a derogatory shorthand for any form of welfare, the original concept of government cheese lives on today in a very…

Footnoted as Modigliani’s First Muse: The 13 Voices of a Modernist Pioneer

It’s the first decade of the twentieth century, and you’re in London reading the avant-garde weekly magazine, The New Age. A writer you’ve been enjoying, a women’s suffrage advocate named Beatrice Tina has been arguing, via the “Letters to the Editor” section, with someone called D. Triformis. But recently, they’ve managed to find some common…
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