And even if your own two legs don't yet need help, keep your eyes peeled for those umbrella stands often tucked in a corner of your favorite antique store. The odds are good there's a cane or two ...

“Canes were not carried; they were worn, and they were worn by men of means,” says Taron, the 72-year-old proprietor of Tradewinds Antiques & Auctions, an auction house and online retailer in ...

The ritual has endured, if not as robustly as it first began. Dozens of the now-antique canes have been lost or stolen. Some have been recovered after yearslong searches. And those that remain are ...

Canes go all the way back to the Biblical `thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,’ probably back to the caves, where they were used to fend off wild animals,” says Henry A. Taron, antique cane ...

Canes were used not only to aid in walking, but also as part of European and American fashionable dress in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many canes had an extra function, too. Some held swords ...

Tish decided a gaggle of umbrellas looked ugly, so she bought him two antique canes instead. “So I thought, OK, now I collect canes,” Robinson said. Having been burned once in an eBay ...

In towns across New England, antique canes or their replicas are bestowed on the oldest residents. By Jenna Russell Photographs by Sophie Park Reporting from Rye, N.H. For more than a century ...