When she was in her 60s, Nula Murphy Thanhauser turned her passion for collecting antique and vintage purses into a second career, selling, appraising, and lecturing about them all over the country. She favored the most whimsical of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Egyptian Revival handbags and accessories. At one of her first shows, in 2006 in West Palm Beach, Fla., “customers were six deep in her booth,” Antiques and The Arts Weekly, a trade publication, reported at the time.