New year… new endeavors

I made mention in my last post that I looked forward to finding some quality advertising pieces in 2017. I thought I was going to get a good opportunity to get the year started with a bang. A local auction offered a number of signs and other advertising for sale the second Saturday of January. I wasn’t the only one looking to get off to a good start however and prices were high. I guess that endeavor has hit a temporary road block.

As it turned out I did buy a nice vintage child’s saddle with wooden stirrups.

It needs a good cleaning as it is quite dusty. 

I also decided to finally try eBay as a seller. Second day I made my first sale and I have two auctions with bids that will end in a few days. That’s exciting!

Today I finally found an estate rummage sale. I know it’s the wrong time of year, but I’ve been itching for a good one. 

I found a few good items.

These 70’s tin oil cans are still full and in pretty good shape. 

I’m a sucker for old dart boards and this one is in great shape.

While not my best score these may be my favorite. I found an unopened sleeve of Pepsi Dixie cups. The slogan dates to ’69-’75. I’ll keep a couple of these and allow some other collectors enjoy the rest.

I’m eager to see what the coming weeks of 2017 bring. I’d say we are off to a good start.

Recent finds

It’s been a while since I have posted (5 months to be exact).  It’s not that I haven’t had good finds or that I haven’t thought about it.  It seems I either don’t have time or I don’t have good pictures and I hate to throw up a post with no pics.  Sometimes downloading pictures is more time consuming than writing a post.

I have pics of some of my recent finds so I decided to get back in the saddle again and share.

I’ve picked up several industrial pieces.  I really like the old mail cart and the patina on the file really spoke to me.  I’ve had a similar medical cabinet once before and did well with it.  I always do well with industrial stools and even though I prefer pairs I snapped this one up at a great price.

I picked up these duck decoys on a whim.  Don’t know much about them but the price seemed good and it appears I have sold them so I guess following my gut was a good decision.

Fisher Price always is a good choice and I especially enjoy the Little People collections.  Not sure if it’s a bit of nostalgia for my own childhood or because my youngest daughter  has accumulated quite a collection of vintage Little People.  Whatever the reason I picked up a whole tote of mostly vintage Little People items at a recent tag sale.

Toys have been a theme of late it would seem.  I bought these old toys at a swap meet.

Old steel trucks usually bring more than I am willing to pay, but these seemed reasonable and when I was able to bundle some other items with them I couldn’t help myself.

This cool wooden Coke carrier was part of the bundle.  Soda stuff is my favorite!

My final items are among my most recent finds and are season appropriate.

I found these vintage Christmas ornaments at a garage sale.  Once again I suspect some nostalgic tie to my childhood, but these are really cool.  The  lot includes some nice West German ones.

Mockingbird Lane

Although I didn’t find a buyer at the weekend flea it amazed me how much happiness this old Mockingbird Lane sign brought to those who passed through my space.  How many time did I hear someone mention the TV show The Munsters?  I even heard a little boy ask his dad if it had been his favorite show.

A couple of old croquet sets also were met with equally bright smiles as adults explained to children how they had played when they were growing up.  I even heard someone say they had played well after dark using a light mounted on an outbuilding.

Lots of people buy vintage and antique because they are trying to achieve a certain look with their décor and I am always happy to help.  My favorite sales; however, are the ones that are made because of memories of days gone by.

Blendo Glass

I mentioned in my last post that a large part of a recent haul consisted of various glassware.  When I say various I mean about any kind of glass you can imagine.  Some pieces are technically china, but I tend to lump dishware and glass together as glassware.  Some pieces can be functional while others are decorative.

I don’t buy much glassware mostly because much of it doesn’t sell very well.  I also don’t collect much of anything that falls into this broad category which kind of throws a wet blanket on this sort of pick.  There were a number of really nice pieces (check out my post “The mother lode …”) which made this an attractive opportunity despite all of the glass.

My favorite glassware was this Blendo glass salad set.

It’s a bit surprising that as popular as mid-century seems to be that many of the West Virginia made Blendo glass items can be bought relatively cheap.  I have seen several pieces for sale in the past, but didn’t know anything about this glass until my curiosity was aroused by these pieces.  What really struck me as odd was that the first bowls I saw on eBay were a chip and dip set.  The bowls were made exactly like my salad bowls.  I even found a bowl advertised as a punch bowl in this exact design.  I was relieved to finally find a salad set and to know that I didn’t have several incomplete chip and dip sets.  It is pretty cool that I also have the utensils.  This set is in great shape.

The mother lode…

I had the opportunity to purchase a basement full of vintage items today.  I don’t get the opportunity to buy in this kind of bulk very often.  I was aware of several good pieces in the lot, but much remained an unknown.  Probably the coolest surprise was finding several “smoking donkeys”.  I believe these may be a good eBay item.

I’m pretty sure I can add faster in my head than I could ever do with these old machines.

There was tons of glassware.  Not my favorite thing, but some of it will sell pretty well I think.  I will have to get pics later.  Lots of sorting and scrubbing to do here.

One of the most unusual things I found was a lamp made to look like a coffee grinder.  There are old coffee beans in glass globe just below the shade.  They look pretty disgusting.

An old wooden bread box produced these surprises.

The little red AM transistor radio looks to never have been used.

Now I like about any vintage item in its original packaging so when I discovered these old, new stock can openers and bottle stoppers I was pretty excited.  The item may not be worth much, but the fact the packaging has survived is really cool.  I also like the shoe polish can.

I saved the best for last.

If this nearly 8 foot sign isn’t big enough how about doubling the size.

I like signs and just about anything soda related.  It may be hard to part with these.

A few Saturday finds

After a couple of weeks of very little activity I finally got the chance to get out and hunt up a few new things.  Saturday morning saw me making a mid morning pick up from an online sale.  Most of my purchases were a variety of farm tools.  I did buy a wooden box of small hand tools mostly because there was a neat piece of advertising in the box.  A floating fillet knife with advertising for a Gulf Oil and Tire distributor caught my eye and realizing there were enough other pieces to pay for the lot I jumped at the opportunity.  No pics yet, but maybe in a later post.

I also was able to attend an auction.  It really wasn’t one of the better auctions I’ve ever  attended.  My preference for an auction is lots of vintage and antique smalls.  I will buy the occasional piece of furniture, but that’s not what I’m usually looking to find.  I did purchase a nice primitive farm table at this sale.

One of the things I often like, but seldom buy is clocks.  I’m always afraid that there will be mechanical problems and it is generally hard to test them.

I made an exception with this one.  I figured at $1 it was a no brainer.  Turns out it works great.

The rest of the best include a couple of old tobacco knives.  These have historic significance in the area and should be an easy sell.  A Bluegrass (formally Belknap) tack hammer and a Keen Kutter stone mason’s hammer were also good finds.

Thoughts on estate finds

Real or imagined all old things have a story.  Some stories are those passed down while others are nostalgic notions.  I have always had a pretty good imagination so it isn’t hard for me to picture a worn tool preforming its task in a calloused hand or a family sitting around an old farm table enjoying a meal served on old Blue Willow dishes.

Things passed down generation to generation carry with them the story of a family.  The family china, the set of silver passed down from Aunt Edna and of course the old photo album are great examples.  It is truly sad when there is no one to pass them to.

So many of the things I buy when I go to estate sales are items that once played a big part in who a family was.  The thing that I enjoy most about what I do is placing these items with new owners bringing back old memories.  One of my favorite finds and placements was an old miner’s lunch pail.  The lady who received it said that her father had carried one just like it when she was a child.

Recently I purchased (for resell) a dozen old photographs.  Once these photos where treasured by a mother and father, but now they are simply what the new owner imagines them to be.

Good Ole Days

How many times have you said, or heard someone say “things were so much better back in the good ole days” or something similar.  It is easy to understand how we look back on a more simple time with nostalgia.  It seems that our lives are so complicated.  Despite all the advancements in technology and the improvements to the tools we use to complete our daily tasks, our work days are often longer.  Modern devices with which we can communicate seem to hinder our ability to talk to the people around us and no one talks across the back fence anymore.

Well, I enjoy buying, selling, and collecting things from the “good ole days”.  Primitives are among my favorites and I have a number of pieces displayed throughout my home.  Reflecting on a number of these pieces, I wonder how much better life could have actually been scrubbing piles of clothes on a washboard or plowing a field with a plow pulled by a pair of mules.  They make great décor, but I can’t imagine we would want to go back to using them, churning butter in the old crock churn, or reading by the oil lamp.

Maybe we should take the best from both then and now.  Let’s enjoy the progress we have made and also make time to enjoy the simpler things of life.  Take time for a conversation across the backyard fence or a visit in the front porch swing.  Oh, by the way that butter churn looks really good standing beside the fire place.

Bottle find may have been starting point

As long as I can remember I have enjoyed finding old, unusual, and unexpected things.  Whether found in a dusty corner of a barn, under the floor boards of an outbuilding, or buried in an old trash dump these items have always brought an excited smile to my face.

One of the earliest finds I can remember was an old soda bottle buried in the creek bank.  With some effort, my father and I dug the nearly hidden bottle from the dirt and washed what turned out to be a nearly perfect specimen.

Most of my finds come from auctions, flea markets, and tag sales these days, but it’s no wonder that even now old bottles are among my favorites.