This summer, oldest daughter Jane headed off to graduate school and her first apartment. I was looking forward to this to see what she would pick to furnish her digs. She had grown up living in many houses across the country and, of course, with lots of different antiques. So I thought it would be a blast giving her a Victorian or Arts and Crafts or even a high style Moderne apartment. What she chose was a very 1970s look. Where in the blazes did that aesthetic come from? It was retro but not to a period or style that I thought was interesting. Where did it come from? Then I remembered the idea that children often pattern their behaviors and styles on their grandparents. While her experiences with her grandparents were not in the 1970s, their home was decorated in that style. Similarly, my grandparents home was decorated in a late Victorian style with a healthy dose of the 1920s and so that was where my first tastes gravitated. Some years ago, I got myself into trouble by stating that antiques have a cyclical nature and that collectors should not be upset when what they value is not shared by the next generation. Collectors screamed far and wide when I wrote that the problem was not that younger collectors lacked good taste but rather that they had different tastes. I also added the barb that young collectors were not willing to pay the prior generations premium prices on the antiques. A bit nasty on my part, but very true. As I look at my daughter, I realize that it is true that kids pursue what their grandparents owned and not what their parents collected. Maybe Jane will want to collect what I do or maybe it will fall to her kids someday to like the really old stuff that grandpa likes. I am proud that Jane does not want new furniture out of the box with the exception of bookshelves. Am I bummed that the horde of Victorian furniture that I am saving for her is probably going to auction? Not really. She has her own style and taste. When one looks at the history of collecting, this generational approach is certainly very true. For example, many of us who are Generation X grew up with golden oak in our grandparents homes. These were furnishings that our grandparents did not necessarily buy originally but which they had gotten through inheritance and used in their kitchens. My generation loved that look, and you saw it beginning in the 1980s and continuing until the last decade or so--a fascination with pressed oak furniture that is directly attributable to grandparents kitchen furnishings in the 1960s. So my daughters kitschy 1970s home is not that far apart from others in her generation. It really represents both the fascination and warmth that we have as a generation for what our grandparents owned and decorated with in their homes. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.