Any celebrity knows how easy it is to get cancelled these days. Say or write the wrong thing and it can happen within hours. You don’t even have to have said or written the offending thing recently; some celebrities have faced cancellation for things they said or did decades ago. So it’s not entirely surprising that the cancellation culture is turning its focus onto some areas of collecting.
There’s no doubt that some things that barely raised an eyebrow in the past are not considered all that tasteful today. Very few owners of champion racehorses, for example, are having their hooves made into inkwells. Nobody is using the shells of turtles to decorate their furniture, and it’s unlikely that anyone is stepping out wearing a hat featuring real birds as decoration. But these are not the things that have come under the cancellation spotlight (yet).
As it stands at the moment, a person can potentially face prison for publicly displaying any object featuring the German Third Reich swastika and SS runes. It’s illegal to trade any object of ivory except within Australia, and in New South Wales you can’t legally sell unopened tobacco even if it’s more than 100 years old. And although they are still perfectly legal, social pressure has seen the removal of the golliwog from shops and displays.
In our Winter 2026 issue of Antiques to Vintage magazine we take a deep dive into the world of cancelled collectables, with a four-page feature that explains exactly what you can and can’t buy. Subscribe today to have your copy sent directly to you.
