WHAT does it feel like to be living in a flat chockfull of valuable items? Adel Fahmi, an amateur antiques collector, is proud to wake up every morning and admire the antiques all around him. Every nook and cranny, even in the bathroom and kitchen, of his 176sqm flat is full of precious items that he's been collecting for the past half a century. Fahmi is fond not only of vases, clocks, tapestries, chandeliers, statues and anything else that bears an aesthetic touch, but also of coins and stamps. He started his hobby when he was only eight. The first thing that caught his attention was the tiny ivory elephants, which his mother kept on the piano. Today, Fahmi owns 100 ivory statues of various sizes. Fahmi, an elderly bachelor, has spared no time, effort or money in pursuing his hobby, which has taken him to many countries. Unlike many other collectors, he never trades his valuables, which now number in their thousands and fascinate his friends and relatives. His flat is more like a museum and indeed, when he dies, Fahmi would like it to be declared a museum named after him, under the auspices of UNESCO. He told October Arabic-language magazine that he wants this to happen, as none of his heirs is interested in antique collecting. Fahmi possesses an LE100 banknote minted in 1913, which, at the time, would have bought you a luxury flat, for instance, in the prestigious Imobilia apartment block in Zamalek, where businessmen, actors and other celebrities lived. He also owns 1 million stamps, his favourites being an album containing200 stamps of Princess Diana, issued in 50 countries. Many readers might not realise that buttons and soap bars are collectibles. Fahmi told the magazine that he loves collecting uniquely shaped soap bars, adding that an exhibition of such bars is held in Italy. Fahmi is by no means unique. Ahmed Abdel-Salam, 62, from el-Sharqia governorate started collecting antiques, when the enthusiasm of foreigners for old Iranian carpets rubbed off on him. He gradually began to understand the value of such things and started going to auctions, gradually learning how to assess antiques. By the age of 17, Abdel-Salam, who used to weave carpets in Khan el- Khalili, had saved up enough money to buy his first old Turkish and Iranian carpets. He tours Arab countries buying valuable carpets, often from rag-and-bone men in the street. Abdel-Salam's family, who are of humble, rural origins, failed at first to understand his fascination with carpets, accusing him of being crazy to spend a fortune on what they considered to be ‘useless' items. “Today they take pride in my collection, realising how precious it is,” he says. He uses a flat in the building he owns in Derb Negm to keep his huge repertoire that also includes paintings, silverware and much more. But the place has become too small to accommodate all his valuables. Abdel-Salam welcomes the visitors who drop by from time to time to have a look at a home-cum-museum.
