This is how this sudden passion was born. “I became a compulsive buyer. I have purchased hundreds of rods, sometimes in batches. I've had over 2000.” Which makes Gilles the biggest collector of old canes in Belgium and France.
Secret canes
The most interesting rooms contain secrets, often well hidden. It is by handling them, cleaning them, that Gilles sometimes discovers what they hide. Here, it's an umbrella cane; there, a pipe cane or even a nursing cane. “It contains in its tube a glass syringe, which proves its age, and everything necessary for a field nurse.”
Others were carved by soldiers during the 1914-18 war. Poilus who were bored in the trenches and had to find something to… kill time.
The materials are often of high quality: precious wood species, copper, bronze, brass, but also porcelain, glass, silver, even gold. This increases the rarity of the item and its value.
In Gilles' collection, many sword canes, whose sheath hides a pointed blade. “But you cannot travel on public roads with a cane that hides an object.” Wise precaution.
In every room of the little house, whole baskets of canes of all kinds, sometimes simple pieces of wood, sometimes precious objects which revealed the standing of the person using it. Because if canes are now somewhat obsolete objects, which are gradually coming back into fashion in certain circles, such as that of steampunk, there was a time when the cane was an essential fashion accessory to ensure one's image or impose the nobility of his rank.
For some, it was also a work tool, like this geologist's ice ax cane. The most surprising? The Toulouse-Lautrec cane. “We know that the painter was a bit fond of the bottle. Hidden in his cane, a tiny glass and a cognac flask.”
From the sword to the bottle, from the syringe to theater binoculars, the cane was, for centuries, much more than a simple everyday object.
Gilles Debiève resells a good part of his collection on the internet.
