Thrift Shop Thrills

Thrift Shop Thrills

Our house is full of thrift shop, yard sale, auction house, and estate sale treasures.  Luckily my wife and I both are drawn to thrift shops and all their variations, wherever they are.  If we go to the beach, we go to a thrift shop near the beach and buy champagne glasses to use while sitting on a balcony, watching the waves, and toasting our good fortune of being there.  If we go to England, it is much a tour of the thrift shops as it is a tour of stately mansions and castles.

So what do we buy?  here's a sample.

Seed Planter 

I initially had no idea what this was.  When I discovered that it was a seed planter, owned and used by the father of the elderly lady whose belongings were being sold off after she passed, I had to have it and it is displayed on the wall of our TV room.  A little research informed me that it was sold by Sears and Roebuck in their catalogue, in the 1930's if my memory serves me.

Another of our treasures is an Edison wind-up cylinder record player.  I had sought an Edison for years before finding one that had all it's parts and actually worked. It was in a shop in Ponchatoula, Louisiana.  It only had a couple of cylinder songs with it, but we added a dozen more bought in a shop in Pennsylvania.  They had several dozens of the cylinder records, but most of them were damaged and we only purchased those that were playable.

Edison

The next picture is of a collection of  Moderntone blue depression glass,  representing many purchases from many vendors over several decades, from multiple States. They were very popular and sought after while we were buying the glasses, cups, saucers, plates, bowls, salt and pepper sets, and ash tray. There's even a miniature tea set in the collection.

The last piece I bought, a bowl, was offered for $18 in a thrift shop in Solomon's Island in Maryland, which I ducked into before going into a liquor store which was my intended destination. On checking out, I asked the clerk for a break on the price.  She called her boss over and asked him what they could sell it for?   He looked at it, found a tiny chip on the rim, looked at me and obviously found me worthy, though more likely needy, and sold it to me for $1.75.  An absolutely terrific markdown.  I gave him and his shop a grand review on Google Map Reviews, to which I often contribute.

Moderntone

We used to visit friends in Littleton, Pennsylvania  The route we took from Maryland away from the crush of the Interstates, took us past many thrift/antique shops.  In one of them I chanced upon an Irish blackthorn walking cane.  Though I don't need a cane to walk, it is my favorite walking stick which I carry often.  If you lived in my neighborhood, you would see me twirling it like a baton, turning leaves and such over with it to see what might scurry out, or using the knob on the cane like a golf club knocking off the tops of dandelions in seed.  I have really gotten my value out of that $12 purchase.

In the same shop I found a writing set, which is pictured with my cane.  In the drawer were a couple of ink pens, and a dozen or so letters from a very young girl to her grandmother, dated 1917.  Who doesn't enjoy looking at records of the past and imagining the world they lived in.  By the way, the letters are in cursive.  Just another reason to keep cursive in the curriculum.  You learn to read it as well as write it.

Cane and writing set

And finally, a three piece set of two armoirs and a dressing table, Italian estimated to be from around 1850.

Armoire

We ran across this set at an auction in Virginia.  They first auctioned each piece to set a bottom value and then auctioned the set of three together. Obviously we bought it and we have used it and enjoyed everyday of the decades it has set in our home.

We have a lot more previously owned items in our house than we have items bought new. In fact I am wearing a shirt right now that I bought,  along with four others, in a thrift shop in Leesburg, Virginia.  I figure they were given to the shop by a wife angry at her husband.  Hmmm. Might be a story there.