Thursday Thirteen

You can’t buy everything you find, no matter how much you love it. Either the empty wallet or the full house (and storage spaces) prevent it — in my case, it’s both. But now that cell phones have (nearly mandatory) cameras, I can at least snap photos of my finds. Lucky you; you get to see thirteen of them. (Click the images for larger versions.)

1. A three-piece retro ceramic kitchenalia set (s&p shakers and a napkin holder) of big-eyed puppies! Never seen ‘em before; may never see ‘em again. I was sorely tempted, but the $22.50 was more than I had on me in cash — and the chipped cold paint, while understandable, prevented me from rationalizing use of the debit card. Maybe I’ll go back soon and see…

2. An amazingly mod — and purple! — hanging lamp made of Capiz shells. Totally worth $69, but even if I had it on me that day, it would become a tangled mess in a box as our home is stuffed with retro lamps and light fixtures.

3. I have a friend named Libby & I’m always singing the old jingle to her, so when I spotted this retro Libby Libby Libby on a table table table, I had to snap a pic.

4. A very luxurious vanity set in a beautiful satin-lined case — in lovely condition.

5. Also for your vanity or dressing table, but much kitschy-er, a large ceramic snail hat pin holder — with plastic antenna. (I’ve seen other pieces from this set before, but I cannot remember the maker.)

6. These kitschy vintage salt & pepper shakers confused me with their Humpty-Dumpty-esque yet concave egg-heads.

7. This set of four old framed humor prints amused me, but even with the nice price of (as I recall) $25 each, the total price (and wall space) was too much for me… I did settle on one that I really really liked, but decided I couldn’t, wouldn’t, break up the set for another collector.

8. This kitschy shell concoction sat on the floor in the corner of one antique booth. Large (roughly 12 inches in diameter), with a plaster base, I wondered if it was a manufactured souvenir or handmade one-of thing. But like I said, it was a large plaster piece with shells and plastic stuff glued on it, sitting on the floor; I didn’t dare pick it up for closer inspection. (There’s a free tip there for sellers who want to sell the stuff in their booths.)

9. This vintage ceramic elf playing a drum figurine caught my eye for my elf collection… But he was missing his drumsticks. And I’m not super fond of the matte face & hands next to the glossy finish… Seems ghoulish somehow.

10. A retro plastic advertising sign for the whiskey and Squirt “Glow-Ball” drink — “Don’t monkey around order another!” This had no price on it, so I couldn’t buy it, no matter how much I wanted to. (Another tip for sellers on why they miss-out on sales.)

11. Already over my agreed-upon spending amount for the day, I couldn’t spend $3 on this vintage automatic hook rug needle in the box. (I cross my vintage crafting fingers that it will be there waiting for me my next visit.)

12. These old hairdryers were so hot on eBay when I first started selling online that I got greedy & sold my own personal one. Since I no longer style my hair that way, I couldn’t justify the purchase at the local thrift store. (I bet by holiday season I’ll be kicking myself in the tush about that.)

13. I rounded the corner in a local antique mall and spotted this retro cat figurine with fur. The top hat and the comical “licking its own face” had me laughing out loud — so loud that I heard hubby say, “I’m two rows over and I hear you laughing,” as he made his way towards me. Once again over my limit when I spotted it, I am saving my pennies so I can add it to my collection.

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Sometimes I don’t think I’ve a very good collector. There. I’ve said it.

While I have sagging shelves, buckling record bins, cluttered horizontal surfaces, boxes of ephemera, and general piles of stuff, I sometimes get the feeling I’m not a real collector. But maybe I’m just feeling neurotic… I tell you what; I’ll list all my symptoms, and then you tell me if I’m a collector or not. (And if I’m not a collector, maybe you can tell me what I am?)

Thirteen Symptoms That May Or May Not Mean I Am A Collector

1. As I said, I have sagging shelves, buckling record bins, cluttered horizontal surfaces, boxes of ephemera, and general piles of stuff; some of it was purchased with specific intent (i.e. on a list or at least within an actual defined category).

2. As I can (and do!) throw out lids to Cool-Whip bowls, used tinfoil, broken rubber bands, coupons that have expired, etc., I no longer worry I am a hoarder.

3. I devote most all of my free time with my “collectibles.” I read the texts, listen to the audio, & spend hours, days (weeks?) obsessively researching objects, places & people connected to them — no matter how small & obscure the tangents.

4. And then I write about it. Exhibit A: Riding a toy train into Death Valley to meet Native Americans & interred Japanese Americans being photographed by Ansel Adams.)

5. I know of and understand collectible grading systems; but, like square roots, it is meaningless math to me. This is to say that I appreciate value in terms of conditions (and therefore completely believe in inspecting items & sellers’ honest descriptions) — but, for example, when some vintage magazine tickles my fancy, I don’t care so much about a few holes in the old paper. (If you’re looking for some grading guides, see this one for vintage magazines & this one for vinyl records.)

6. I take a deliciously perverse delight in not paying the price marked on stickers and tags; I also will pay a ridiculous amount for something I’ve never seen before, just so I can look at it longer. After negotiating a score (or either variety), I brag about it. Endlessly.

7. And then I’ll write about it.

8. I am perplexed, if not actually saddened, when I hear that a person does not collect anything.

9. I fall in love with the stories about things as much as the things themselves. This includes, but is not limited to, discovering something new (especially if it’s old), the passion a collector has for their collection (or the pursuit thereof), even typos and oddly phrased stories.

1951 Elephant Collection Article

Exhibit A: This short article from the March 1951 issue of Profitable Hobbies Magazine about Mrs. Alta White of San Lorenzo, California, who collects elephants which reads, “Today her whatnot is full of them.” A lady with a whatnot full of elephants?! In 1951 yet!

10. Often, I’m so charmed by the stories, I covet am inspired to start collecting those things myself.

Exhibit A: Once I stopped laughing over Alta’s article, I briefly considered collecting elephants simply for the joy of recalling “her whatnot full of elephants.” Further fuel to that fire was considering the delight in exclaiming with each elephant acquisition, “Another elephant to squeeze into my whatnot!” (Typing that, elephants remain a collecting possibility.)

11. Sometimes, I’m so oddly charmed & amused by these things, that I’ll nearly pee my pants laughing so hard.

12. And then I write about it.

13. Due to all of the above (plus the basics, such as spending time with family, eating, buying toilet paper because I’ve been eating, etc.), I spend virtually no time dusting my collectibles. (Plus, I believe that dust is a protective patina.)

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I adore Cliff Aliperti. I ought to be jealous; he does what most of us dream of — making a full-time living off doing what he loves, dealing with collectibles. But in this case, my envy over such a lifestyle is overcome by my feelings of camaraderie with Cliff who identifies himself as a obsessed, addicted, collector-historian with definite hoarder tendencies.

#1 How did you get interested in collecting and what do you collect?

I started collecting baseball cards like a lot of kids when I was about 7 years old. My dad had collected cards as a kid (and some of his survived), then comic books, and was seriously into stamps and eventually came back to baseball cards himself. My Uncle has been a baseball card dealer since 1979. Beyond baseball cards, growing up I had spurts of collecting stamps, coins, newspapers, and more and in adulthood have gone the sports collectible route, rediscovered comic books, collected modern first editions for a bit. I like clutter. I mean I have collections that I barely put effort into but somehow amount to enough items to create a collection — pens and book ends come to mind. I like having it all, by this I mean, if I’ve got something, I want more of it then all of it. I tend to take my interests to extremes.

Now I think of myself mostly as a dealer — I tend to think of my collection as the items I archive on my web sites as I sell them. So in that general sense I collect Movie Cards and Collectibles from the Silent Age through the Golden Age and General Magazine Back Issues from the Nineteenth Century to present. More specifically, I do have a small but varied collection of items featuring the 1930s and 40s actor Warren William — those aren’t for sale. My collections tend to be the tiniest slice of a niche. I’m not active at it now, but I was collecting information, articles, ephemera and trinkets related to President James K. Polk at one time too. I also have my DVD collection, though I tend to only think of vintage items as those I’ve collected.

Warren William Film Poster

#2 What is the ‘crown jewel’ of your collection?

Tough question. My dealer mentality says everything is for sale… But I guess my favorites right now are a couple of movie posters featuring Warren William that I’m trying to figure out how to frame at a reasonable cost. Actually I know how, but have been putting off getting the materials for a long time.

#3 What’s your criteria for selling vs. keeping? Is it difficult to make such decisions?

It’s pretty much all for sale. I don’t buy anything, even items for my little Warren William or James K. Polk collections, without knowing I can flip it for more than I paid. If you’re working on a budget you’ve got to have rules, that’s mine.

#4 What two characteristics or personal traits you feel are essential to being a collector?

No wrong answer here, though lots of different ones. I think it’s going to come down to what the person you ask believes about themselves, and so I’ll say 1) Attention to detail. What’s the use of putting a collection together if you aren’t taking a deep interest in the subject of the collection. You want to know it all and you’re hunting down any loose info in your spare hours. 2) Storage space.

#5 As a collector/dealer, what’s the one thing you cannot live without?

Nowadays, I’d say my internet connection. It blows my mind that back when I did baseball card shows I used to rely on a couple of magazine & trade paper subscriptions and attending shows where I’d either see the same buyers (or sellers, depending on which side of the table I was on). If my internet goes down for any length of time, I’m probably out of business.

Kromo Gravure Trading Card of Mary Pickford c.1917

#6 How many hours a week do you think you spend collecting? (This includes, but is not limited to: shopping for items to purchase, admiring or talking about your collection, blogging/writing about your collection, attending shows/events, researching, dusting. Feel free to give breakdowns &/or rationalizations if you’d like.)

Hah, basically you want my work week. Well, it’s pretty crazy, but it’s filled with passion and I love it. Every waking hour is close to the correct answer here, but I’d say an accurate count would be about 12-16 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. I prepare sales listings during the afternoon, which also consists of researching items. I tackle blog posts, at Vintage Meld & Profiles & Premiums & for example, and my column at the Examiner.com at night. I do most of the work on my static web sites over the weekends. I keep very busy, and again, it’s great!

#7 We’ve all heard that eBay killed the mom & pop antiques store/mall… Do you agree? Disagree?

Killed it? No. Antiques and Collectibles dealers have never had so much opportunity in history. I can recall before I ever did anything online going into a rare book shop in the neighborhood and being excited when I saw the elderly proprietor entering items for sale into his computer as I browsed. My Uncle, the card show dealer, he’s the one who first showed me eBay sometime in ‘99 and I was completely blown away. If the mom & pop antique mall is dead or dying chalk it up to progress. We can lament the death of the VHS tape too, or we can buy a DVD, Blu-Ray or just download the damn thing. Take advantage of the available resources and more possibilities can open up than ever before.

#8 We all have our usual collector haunts online (websites, communities, blogs etc.), places we regularly read &/or ‘talk’ at. Please list your top three for us.

Hah, most definitely twitter, @moviecollector and @andotherstuff. I comment as often as is relevant on Marty Weil’s ephemera blog. And NewspaperArchive.com.

Vintage Look Magazine With Marilyn Monroe Cover

#9 Do you have collecting ‘bibles’?

A The Antique Trader Vintage Magazines Price Guide made me a good deal of money when it came out, pointing out key magazine issues often overlooked by online sellers. Now I just found Dr. Steven Lomazow’s American Periodicals: A Collector’s Manual and Reference Guide through a post on Marty Weil’s blog — hoping that’s the next great resource for me.

B Sports Collectors Digest Standard Catalog of Sports Memorabilia — Love the detailed sections on sports magazines.

C A little spiral bound self-published guide titled Dixie Premiums Checklist by Tom Popelka which I purchased from the author himself on eBay. Extremely niche subject but provides instant identification of any Dixie Premium I handle, which is important to me.

#10 Did you ever get an item so cheaply that you felt like a thief? Ever stumble into such a great find that your fingers shook when you picked it up?

Oh, this is kind of commonplace for me, I’m looking for the big mark-up, and yes, I can get a little shaky or light-headed when I really score. I don’t have the pics, but I’ll tell a similar story from the old days. I was doing one of the bigger card shows in the area and these guys from St. Louis were also doing the show. They were very interested in a 1965 Topps Steve Carlton rookie card I had for sale (Carlton began with the Cardinals). After being asked about the possibility of a trade I went over to their table and they had the oddball type stuff I liked. This was the early 90s, so I was deliriously happy to deal the card, which I’d graded in the EX to EX+ range for a boxful of 60-70 St. Louis Cardinals programs from the 1940s and 50s. I was so happy I left a friend at the table and took a walk to calm myself down.

I came back and my friend tells me, “Those guys you traded with just came over and called you a crook!” What! “They said the card was trimmed.” So I went over, they showed me the measurements, I apologized profusely, and insisted we reverse the trade. I just handled too many cards to measure them all and had never really been exposed to any fraud such as that. So I took back my Carlton rookie card, which I just thought scored myself the motherlode of vintage baseball programs, and wound up cutting it’s price to a tenth of what it had been marked. Elation to frustration all in a few minutes.

#11 We all love our collections, but how much… If you were stranded on a deserted island, would you selfishly want your items with you, or would you prefer they were safely protected back at home?

Give me movies and I’ll be happy. Lock down my stock and protect my eBay feedback!

#12 What is the most ‘over the top’ item in your collection? Something you paid the most for, is the most mocked by others, an item you went to great lengths to get, was once greatly desired by you but now seems silly, or, somehow, is otherwise outrageous or has an outrageous story behind it…

I try not to make buying mistakes, so let me think… Okay, let me preface this by saying autographs scare me to death. I don’t trust them unless I get them in person. In fact I can barely understand the desire to acquire them when not acquired in person — well, I do get it, part of the collecting bug, but with the inherit danger of fraud and the lack of personal contact I just never really got why autograph collecting was so big. Anyway, I mentioned I collect items of the actor Warren William, right? I don’t know if I should really circulate this info, but what the heck — there’s a price I’ll pay for Warren William autographs, and he died in 1948, so they’re not terribly common, and I pay up to my price just assuming I’m buying a fake.

A Real Warren William Autograph?

I can never be disappointed that way, right? Even I think that’s kind of silly. Maybe someone can tell me if this one is a fake or not

#13 What ‘holy grail’ are you currently seeking for your collection?

I hate to dodge this, but really, from my perspective my holy grail is just the next cool item I need to have — I don’t know what it is yet. It might be an item for myself, more likely it’ll be an item for resale that I haven’t seen before and want to research. It goes back to your question when I talked about taking a deep interest in your collection. My passion is identifying and researching items that I don’t know about and can’t find any info about. So to answer this one, I’d say “the unknown.”

“The unknown,” that has to be my favorite answer of all time. Amen, Cliff, amen.

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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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Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

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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