The International Date Line, separating yesterday from today, or today from tomorrow, moved seven years ago. In 2011, Samoa lost December 30, moving straight to New Year’s Eve from December 29, so that instead of being 23 hours behind New Zealand and 21 hours behind Australia, it shifted to one and three hours ahead.
In leaping ahead of the rest of the world, Samoa aligned with its two most important markets. Until then it shared only four working days a week with them, so while everyone was at church on Sunday in Samoa, Monday business was roaring ahead in NZ and Oz.
There was a price to pay, however. Samoa had long attracted tourists who were able to stand on the rocky promontory that is Cape Mulinu’u and gaze across the International Date Line into tomorrow, just 20 miles away. Not any more.
Such is the ethereal nature of time, which evaporates into the ether without man to intervene with the steady hand of a ticking clock. And so it is with antiques at auction. The common definition of antique: something over 100 years old.
For the time being that discounts Art Deco and any number of other collectable genres. Nonetheless, despite the absence of any physical change, there is something magical about the moment the clock ticks past the century marker to transform a wonderful object into a wonderful antique object.
