As Precious as Gold

More than half a century ago, my mother, Marnee Bramble, began collecting tea caddies. She purchased her first tea caddy at an antiques fair in Easton, Maryland, without knowing what the little four-and-a-half-inch high jar was for. She’d been attracted to its “charming shape and size.” She soon learned that it was an 18th-century Chinese export, sloped-shoulder tea caddy. Thus, began her quest to collect and learn about tea caddies. She attended local auctions and estate sales up and