In one box lot of toys we bought recently there was a coffee can full of what most would only call junk. A bunch of game pieces, toy parts, and bits & bobs, apparently saved by someone who either repaired such things — or just knew that someone would come looking for “it”, so it had better be saved.

I myself admit to such a philosophy. I’m continually saving things, grabbing them with a hearty, “Somebody wants that!”

I sorted through a number of old wooden bingo number chips, the springs from ballpoint pens, numerous sized wheels for toy cars, whistles, wooden Tinker Toy parts, little green plastic trees, and all sorts of dusty & dirty wooden, plastic and metal things. (Surprisingly, only one doll part — and arm, reaching impotently for help out of the old can.)

I have to say that this vintage wooden checker piece with it’s plastic bug gave me a good pause — who can tell for certain there wouldn’t be real bugs in this coffee can?

Many would have tossed it, or given up part way through searching. But not me. I’m insane like that.

I looked at each & every piece in that coffee can of junk, like some might investigate a pirate trunk. Even though I can barely snap a Barbie leg or truck wheel back into place, I knew there would be cool things inside…

These are a few of the treasures I’ve decided that somebody must want.

(If you see something you want, let me know!)

#1 A vintage Cootie head, with eyes. (There were a few Cootie legs in the can too… Eventually, I will piece together a whole Cootie — maybe even an entire vintage Cootie game this way!)

#2 Two teeny-tiny “Indians”. (The prongs stick into horse sides, so they can ride.)

#3 A metal Playskool wrench. (That seriously could come in handy!)

#4 A scary old clown head. (All clowns are scary to me.) This one looks a lot like Reddy Kilowatt… He’s got a hole at the bottom to stick onto a neck — maybe it was a plastic lightening bolt body? Hubby says, “No.” But I’ll be keeping my eyes open, just in case.

#5 Four matching vintage metal helicopter blades. You only had three on this model, anyway… But we’ve got four. Makes me wonder if they had more than one boy who played with (and broke) helicopter toys.

#6 Plastic Rat Fink charm. Very small, but it’s him.

#7 A retro made in Hong Kong Dume Buggy. Not, that’s not a typo — at least not my typo; it says “Dume-Buggy” on the bottom black plastic part. I’m still giggling about a vehicle to ride sand dumes.

#8 Cowboy & Indians sliding puzzle game pieces. This has got to be one of my favorite finds. You know I love a good puzzle, but how challenging to find the missing pieces and put it all together!

#9 Vintage plastic tire — with built-in flat? I have no idea what sort of toy car or truck would have a flat tire… There are no markings to help with this either. (Nearly 2 inches in diameter, if that helps anyone identify the toy vehicle.)

#10 A weird Asian face. I have no idea… It’s not a complete head. On the back is a prong, like on Mr. Potato Head parts, to stick it into something — or someone… He does look like he is wincing. Less than one inch tall. Ideas?

#11 Vintage red & green plastic covered wagon pieces. There’s enough here to put the cover on the wagon, and the two tiny pieces seem of the same hard plastic and matching color, perhaps to drive the horses? Wagon is just over an inch long.

#12 Blue plastic spacemen pieces. We figure these three go together, but have no idea what game or toy set they belong too. The two standing spacemen are not identical, and stand a bit over one inche tall.

#13 A very small cameraman piece. Lots of detail & painting on such a small piece. Again, no idea what set or game this belongs to; do you? And do you want it?

Somebody must want this stuff… If you do, or know someone who does, let me know!

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After some early luck at the Buffalo farm house estate auction, we got hot dogs & chips and, like everyone else who hadn’t brought their own chairs or arrived by riding lawnmower, sat on (sturdy) chairs which would be up for auction later.

This is a dangerous thing. Not because of the age of the chairs, but because Derek knows I ought not be near the furniture. I have a terrible time not bidding on antique furniture because it sells for such a pittance I get ants in my pants. But we’re there now… Getting him started on a tour of all the long rows of furniture will be easy if I get him talking about it, so I point to a big I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-it-is and say, “What is that?”

With each step towards it, his intellect is further engaged and he becomes eager to explain to this city kid what every farm kid (his age & older, anyway) knows. “It’s a cider press,” he says.

What little I know of cider comes from jugs of it at the grocery store, so it’s fascinating to see how it once was made. Being mostly wooden, it’s quite impressive… And I begin to wonder what I could do with it… Dangerous thinking. Especially with curious children whose little fingers might like to play with those giant gears. So I look around to distract myself — I don’t have to look far.

Next to the antique cider press is a less attractive (to me) metal I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-it-is…

This is a cream separator — a De Laval Cream Separator, number 16, to be precise.

My city-kid-brain is beyond boggled. I’m more than a bit afraid he, a non-dairy farming farm-boy, will tell me things that I’ve managed not to learn having lived nearly 40 years in the dairy state of Wisconsin. So I point to a row of chairs and skip on ahead, leaving him to follow me. (I do have the bidding paddle, so he’s best off to know where I am at all times. *wink*)

As we stop and look at a section of not-so-well-cared for antique chairs I spot a real beauty. She’s in need of some serious work — everything from the frame to the upholstery needs help.

But just look at the lovely carved arms! I called them dragons, hubby called them lions; I said, “Dragons, lions, foo dogs — whatever. They are gorgeous.”

At my right I hear, “Isn’t that a pretty chair?” And soon we are chatting with a relative of the woman whose estate sale this is. First we talk chairs. She’s after a green & white antique chair, missing its caned seat (a bit of is is seen in the bottom right corner of the photo below). “I have one at home, given to me by her, with a plant in the broken seat. Chairs number two, three and four are here and I’m hoping…” she says. “Don’t bid on them, will you?” she adds hastily, wistfully. We assure her we won’t — and that we don’t have the room for all the lovely things we see here today, no matter how I wish it weren’t so.

“What will happen if it all doesn’t sell today?” I ask her. Her answer confirms my worst fears, “They’ll dump it, I guess.”

I’m sure my face conveys my horror. But there’s nothing hubby and I can do with our small home & even smaller wallets. But from here it’s easy to get hubby to stroll the big rows of antique furniture with me; it would be rude not to now.

We both admired this pretty antique hall mirror with green painted accents.

And it’s been quite some time since I’ve seen an old wooden wheeled service cart like this — complete with doily under the glass!

When Derek was taking this photo of an old ice box, a woman walking by asked, “Selling it on eBay already?” It was more of an accusation than a question. We both laughed because if we could afford to bid & win, we certainly wouldn’t have sold the old beauty. As a woman, I find such cubbyholes and storage possibilities too delightful, and the wood was just beautiful — what a wonderful, practical piece.

We hurried back to the auctioneer, so that we would be able to bid on that fourth trailer which had all the boxes of books we were interested in.

Back at the trailer area, we arrived in time to hear the auctioneer’s announcement that inside the house was an “antique ornate leather sofa” which they could not remove. It had been put into the old farm house back when the front porch was an open porch, but years later when the porch was made more functional as a walled-in addition, they had not found a way to get the old couch out of the house. “Buyer was responsible for its removal — and they could not hack a hole in the house to do so. Serious buyers should contact the staff or family to see it.” While I was dying to see it, I was not a serious buyer — not in terms of cash, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face at the buyer’s predicament either. *wink*

Now the bidding on the fourth trailer would begin.

Again, I remind you that we were up against some serious collectors and dealers here; we weren’t sure what we could hope for.

Long story short, we ended up winning a few rounds at “choice” bidding (in which you bid a rate per box, then get your choice of boxes — each times that rate). But the holy grail was when the bidding per box was at $5. The auctioneer then set the bidding to be for all the boxes which remained; at this point, that was about 1/3 of a eight foot wide by 12 foot long trailer. The auctioneer started the bidding at $25. No takers, so he lowered the start to $5.

Derek bid.

I held my breath as no one else bid… I was afraid to say anything — or even blink — for fear it would bring attention and another bidder. But going-going-gone! And we were the winners of all those boxes for just $5!

We should have — would have — taken a photo, but it was time to move all of that into the van. We had so sort books quickly (making over half a dozen boxes of Readers’ Digest Condensed books to donate on our way back into town), and pack and re-pack the boxes so that everything would fit. (Fifty plus flats of National Geographic magazines just had to be dumped loose between the seats, so that the two of us could fit inside the van too.)

While we did so we were asked the usual questions:

“What are you gonna do with all of that?”
“Do you own a book store — are you going to open a book store?”
“Do you sell online?”

(Apparently no one believes us when we say we read and love books, so the questions kept coming.)

The van was packed to capacity.

Not just the inside, but the weight. Look how low the van sat with all that weight.

By the time we were done, we were hotter than heck — but our glow wasn’t just from our sweat. We were beaming with excitement & looking forward to rummaging through our new loot. (We’ll be sure to share the details of all the books, including at least 5 different sets of antique encyclopedias, with you in the future.) It was enough to make me, temporarily, forget about not being able to stick around for the furniture sales.

If this day was a MasterCard ad, it would look something like this:

Lunch: $6
Winning bids at auction: $72
Day with hubby: Priceless

PS The $6 lunch now seems a ridiculous price to pay… I wonder what part of a trailer — or a furniture lot — we might have got for that? If we only had the room…

PPS I had a dream that night that the lady we met at the auction called me & told me that all the unsold furniture was still on the lawn — the junk man would be by to burn it and scrap it later in the week. If we wanted anything, we should come get it. I really wish I had given her my number… Just in case.

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We’ve talked before about digital collections & how they are both practical, saving the collector money and space, and an act of posterity, keeping information & items safe yet ‘alive’ and accessible. While some of us collect audio files for listening pleasure and others scans of old papers for posterity, the folks at Internet Movie Cars Database combine a love of automobiles (and other vehicles) with film (and other moving picture media), creating a resource for the rest of us schlubs who wouldn’t know that Chevy Chase drove a 1983 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce in Fletch in 1985.

These guys & gals not only watch the films and shows for vehicles but take screen shots and identify them. Cars & trucks, motorcycles & farm equipment, golf carts & street sweepers — virtually any vehicle, worldwide. It doesn’t matter how obscure or seemingly insignificant that vehicle is — a blur out the window of a car chase, a truck parked at the side of the road in an establishing shot, the 1981 BMW 320i E21 following Chevy in Fletch — they find it, capture it, and identify it (even if that means a little friendly debating) — and document it online.

A real labor of love; some insanity required.

And you gotta love ‘em for it. You don’t have to be a research nut like me to have fun digging ’round the IMCDb; it’s just too cool.

Thanks to these guys & gals at the Internet Movie Cars Database, I bring you this quiz:

Can you guess the vehicle’s make, model, year — and the film/TV show/video it appeared in — from these 13 images?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

The Answers:

1 Elgin Pelican in Pretty in Pink, Movie, 1986

2 1975 Chevrolet Camero in Wonder Woman, TV Series

3 1956 Chevrolet Two-Ten Handyman in The Wasp Woman, Movie, 1959

4 1998 Chevrolet Metro in Drawn Together, Animation Series, 2004-2008

5 1966 Shelby GT 350 H in Guns N’ Roses: Don’t Cry, Music Video, 1991

6 1960 Buick LeSabre in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Movie, 1982

7 AEC Regent in They Met in the Dark, Movie, 1943

8 1970 AMC Javelin in The Junkman, Movie, 1982

9 1982 Nissan Stanza [T11] in Police Academy, Movie, 1984

10 1950 Allis-Chalmers Model CA in Flags of Our Fathers, Movie, 2006

11 1916 Packard Twin Six [135] in The Penalty, Movie, 1920

12 Harley-Davidson Servi-Car in Carnival of Souls, Movie, 1962

13 1958 Edsel Pacer in Peggy Sue Got Married, Movie, 1986

How well did you do?

If you did really well, at least with the vehicles, maybe you should help identify these unknown vehicles — 179 pages and counting need your help!

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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A few bits, boards and pieces from our vintage game/toy box…

Tigger, a piece from the 1988 Winnie The Pooh Train Set.

Vintage Game of The States box with spinners.

Retro Where’s The Beef? gameboard.

A huge metal gun from an old Clue game.

A vintage game board with multiple games (and cool graphics).

The ‘B’ side, sports games.

A Slater card from the Saved By The Bell game. (He’s soooo dreamy!)

A classic die from Skunk game, and an old plastic state (Utah) from Teach-a-Toy puzzle map of the US.

A vintage Pig Dice Game shaker cup (love, love, Love the graphics on this!)

Statler Muppets game piece.

Red”Infra-Scope Goggles” from an old Undercover game.

Retro The Jetsons Funpad Game piece.

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Here are the answers to last week’s questions taken from a vintage “Radio Guide” column. How many did you know? Would you have won the giant $88 jackpot?

From “True or False” (NBC)

#1 A person traveling on a railroad pass is known as a “deadhead.” True. (Take that, Grateful Dead!)

#2 A hoofer is a backstage errand-boy. False.  (A hoofer is a dancer.)

#3 When you buy a section in a Pullman car, you are entitled to a private room. False.

From “Dr. I.Q.” (NBC)

#4 Under what conditions may a man purchase his discharge from the U.S. Army? After serving one year, he may buy himself out by paying $120.00.

From “Information, Please” (NBC)

#5 Name the last three Presidents who wore mustaches in office. Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft.

From “Battle of the Sexes” (NBC)

#6 What is the difference between an octogenarian and a centurion? An octogenarian is one who is eighty years old, while a centurion was an old Roman captain of a company of one hundred men.

#7 When you eat the following, are you eating flower, bud or leaf?

a) Cabbage (Leaf)
b) Brussels sprouts (Bud)
c) Cauliflower. (Flower)

From “Name Three” (MBS)

#8 Name three works which have become famous but are defective or incomplete. (Unfinished Symphony, Venus de Milo, Leaning Tower of Pisa.)

#9 Name three things you should keep. (Keep your temper, keep your word, keep a secret.)

From “Kay Kyser’s College” (NBC)

#10 Who was lost in Spencer Tracy’s latest picture, “Stanley and Livingstone?” (Livingstone.)

#11 What was lost in the song, “A Tisket A Tasket?” (A letter.)

From “Ask-It-Basket” (CBS)

#12 Which of these men was the author of the following quotation: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

a) Abraham Lincoln
b) Thomas Paine
c) Thomas Jefferson.

#13 What furnishes the motive power for ships passing through the Panama Canal? (Small electronic locomotives.)

How did you do?

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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