I have a silly hobby of collecting battered metal toolboxes. I like the fact that the history of their usefulness is displayed as the dents, scratches, rust, etc.

The nice thing about that hobby is nobody else collects them, so I can often pick one up for a dollar.

Very interesting. I had a battered metal toolbox when I was a kid, it had been my dad's. My favorite feature was a cut through the lid where he must not have been paying attention while using it to hold some lumber off the ground. Inside were old rusty wrenches for me to play with. That way he never got mad at me for leaving tools in the rain - they are already as bad as they can get.

I guess it depends a bit on what the type of play is.

I grew up with antiques my parents inherited. They were resilient to rough and tumble play. The antiques would hurt you more than you'd hurt it. But with arts stuff, there were strict rules because spilled paint or glue with damage it in a permanent sort of way.

It's also amazing how quickly one can do a number on a table when one discovers that a nice dark patina over a lighter wood makes for a really interesting version of scratchboard. It's really fun. Or at least, it is until your parents find out.

I actually think the very concept of antique is complicit in the problem here. Once upon a time, furniture was furniture, and, while nice old heirloom furniture was still nice old heirloom furniture, we didn't have things like Antiques Roadshow to tell us, "Gee, it's too bad you used that as an actual piece of furniture, because it could have been worth $20,000, but now this and that and the other thing all mean it's worth only about $3,000."

Collectible antiques (or antiques in collectible condition) are far different than ordinary antiques. Though, ordinary antiques still have the qualities of being durable and repairable. That usefulness gives them some inherent value over cheap modern furniture even ignoring the collectible value.