And now we come to the end of this journey through the unblogged finds of last year. Time to wrap this puppy up. I've got other topics to expound upon.
Everything in this post was a curb find. I'm keeping my commentary to a minimum this time.
Please to ignore the fat, pasty ankles in the mirror.
I thought this old wooden outer casing for a clock would make a great niche for displaying stuff. It sold the day after I put it out.
Randomness. I like randomness.
This wrestling belt is not a toy. The belt is leather and the metal plaque is heavy. I think it may have been some kind of athletic award.
More randomness. I remembered to stand clear of the mirror this time.
Of course, there will be windows. There are always windows. Also a door.
Continuing from yesterday, here are some more of the finds from last year that got photographed, but never blogged. Unless noted otherwise, everything here is a trash find.
I always grab discarded lawn ornaments, regardless of the shape they're in. This one wouldn't even stand up on its own any more. I thought it could be painted and make a cool door stop or something. It actually sat on our stoop for a while, until Keith told me it was creeping him out.
One of our across the street neighbors is also a garbage picker. He used to do a yard sale every so often. Now he just sets his old finds out during set out. I've gotten some good stuff from his curb over the years. These wheels came from there. I grab stuff like this and toss it in my salvage booth as spare parts. Someone must need them, because they do sell. I'd rather see it go to a new person than be tossed out.
Rusty metal plant shelf.
My price tag on this one says: "Make your own 10 Commandments!" That was my thought when I first saw it. I also added another tag that says: "Thou shalt shop Booth 62!" That's an order!
I found a huge bucket of these canning jars. They're not at all old, but the rusted lids lend them that feeling. They are waiting in the shed to be filled with odds and ends. I sell lots of stuff in jars--spools, buttons, clothes pins, beads, etc. My best seller is actually just jars of miscellaneous junk, which is what I use these larger jars for. I keep one by my desk and just toss random stuff in it until it's full. Usually, it's the leftovers from a bag or box of junk I bought that are too small or uninteresting to sell by themselves.
MCM wall hangings, which I thought were cool. It's amazing what people will toss out. Even the broken one sold.
Big Flea find. I am kind of obsessed with wooden boxes, particularly homemade ones like this one. They're a top seller for me, so I jump on everyone I can find.
More Big Flea finds.
Remember the awesome cast iron vent I found a while back? I went back to that house for the last set out, and all I found was Mr. Bubble. That's kind of a metaphor for this whole business, I think.
Speaking of that vent, I sold it to a downtown antique dealer Who was a new customer to my booth. I was working my spaces that day, and we talked for a long time. I saw him again right before Christmas, and he told me that he had taken it to a big antique fair in New York and someone bought it from him right as he was setting it out. I made a real nice deal off of it, and so did he. I also got a regular customer out of it.
I found two bags of old paper in an alley, and brought them home to sort out. Oddly enough, a lot of it was papers and stuff from a tiny town in far western Kentucky where my great-grandfather lived when he was a boy. There was also this poster. Take a closer look at the bottom.
Interesting world, ain't it?
Big Flea find. Also, guilty pleasure TV. I don't actually watch the show itself. I view clips of the big meltdowns on YouTube. I look at it kind of like I do all those Real Housewives shows. I can watch a little bit of it, turn it off and say to myself: "Maybe I'm not rich, but I'm also sure as hell not CRAZY!!!"
Hiding in my front bush is a shy little squirrel blow mold I found in the alley that was strewn with stuff. He's by Don Featherstone, the guy who designed the pink lawn flamingo.
Finally, a happy find. I got this at the Peddlers Mall. The vendor had a bag of them and had misidentified them as Happy Meal toys. It's actually a vintage Wilton cake decoration. I htink it dates back to the days of the TV show.
It even look a little like Adam West.
Still more to come. Tune in tomorrow. Same Bat Blog. Same Bat Channel.
I know that I haven't been blogging for the last few months, but I've been intending to blog. That's something, isn't it? I've got a folder full of photos to prove it. That's right. I found the time over and over again to take pics of stuff for the blog, but not to actually put them in the blog. It's hard to be me sometimes, let me tell you. Sigh.
For the next few posts. I'm going to dump as many of those pics out as I can to at least give a snapshot of the junking for the last half of last year. That should give me a handful of quick posts and enough time to at least get the rest of the month planned out. Plus, I know everyone likes finds posts. Right?
Ready? Let's go!
Let me start with the first finds of 2018 (or at least a teaser), courtesy of the New Year's Big Flea. This was what Gran, my granny cart, looked like at the end.
Care to guess what's inside? I'll give you a hint:
It's the start of a vintage clock radio collection! I bought a couple from the guy, and he made me an offer I could not pass up on the rest. There are nine all together. That's the benefit of shopping on the last day of the Big Flea. Tomorrow, I'm pulling my Christmas out of the booths. I have a good idea about what to replace it all with.
If I remember/have time, I'll get some pics of everything else in the cart. We'll see. By the way, did you catch the helpful advice printed on one of those boxes?
Words to live by.
I found all this stuff in an alley during junk set out. It looked to me like someone had cleaned out a relative's house and bagged it all up for the junk pick up. Someone had ripped open all the bags and scattered stuff everywhere. (DON'T EVER DO THIS!) I ran home and got a bunch of bags and filled them all up with stuff. This is a pretty representative sample. Bith the Jean Nate powder and the Stanback stuff had never been opened or used. The Jean Nate made me think of this girl named Gina who sat across from me in my Trigonometry class during my junior year of high school. She was always carrying on about Jean Nate stuff and how good it made her smell. She would actually say things like: "Gee, I smell good today." Isn't it odd the memories this stuff brings back?
Most of the stuff from this find was paper goods and ephemera. There will be pics of some of it later.
When you find a cheap Thor helmet, you just gotta buy it. Then take a selfie while wearing it.
The long, shaggy, slightly disheveled look I'm rocking these days kind of fits with the viking motif, doesn't it? For Odin and Asgard!
There's an old Democratic Club down the street from us that was gutted and renovated over the course of last year. The dumpsters yielded wonderful salvage treasures like these. I love the detail work on the hinges. I found a dozen or so of them, and they've been popular items at the booth.
Sadly, I also found some awesome wooden drawers and two wonderful tables at this site. They went straight to the booth, but I did set them all up for a nicely staged photo, only to have my phone battery give out before I could take it. They all sold on the same day to the same person, so I never got a picture, but they were awesome. Two of the drawers were the old cash drawers from the bar.
In case you didn't know, a Democratic Club is a lot like a VFW or American Legion post, basically an open bar. I had the pleasure of speaking at one in the 90's, when we were trying to get LGBT anti-discrimination laws passed here in town. I learned that you don't ever go to a group to talk about anything, when they've invited you to come after the bar has been open for two hours, even if they do say they're Democrats. I actually met the then-Democrat state Senator for that district (which included my neighborhood) who told me I could shove the information I had brought "up my ass." A year or so later, he switched to the Republican Party. Again, odd memories, huh?
Does anyone know what this is? I thought it was some kind of jewelry holder, until I realized that there was nothing to keep it from sliding off. I bought it because I thought it looked cool.
Half-Price Books does this traveling clearance event in several cities every year. For the last three years, Louisville has been one of the sites. They reserve a big room at the fairgrounds and fill it with stuff. Nothing is over 2 bucks, and a bunch of stuff is less. This was my cart at the last one.
Not everything at that sale is new or recent. There plenty of vintage items, like this trivia game from the 70's. The book below might be my favorite find from that sale. I love kids books. I got it for the title--I'd never seen the word "Brimful" used before--and the Tasha Tudor art.
You gotta grab your finds where and when you find them. All this stuff was a curb find when I was on the way to the bus stop one day. I crammed it all in my booth bag and still managed to catch the bus on time! The baskets were an appreciated find. I use a lot of them for displays.
People seem to like these big family-style Bibles, so I pick them up whenever I can find them cheap.
This is an odd, little display I made in my salvage booth. Nearly everything in it was a curb find.
I think that will do it for this installment. There will be more to come. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some fresh buns in the fridge and I have to go get them out.
So we've gone through a week of freezing temps and snow and are getting ready to go into a week that is supposed to peak at around 70 later on. Sigh. Welcome to the Ohio Valley. Still the warmer weather will give me a chance to do some stuff outside, which is nice.
We've already started making our junk pile for the Feb. set out by the back fence and it's getting a little untidy. I would like to straighten it up a bit. Some of the neighbors have already started throwing things on the curb, even though it's early. We're a bunch of rebels in my 'hood, for sure. I need a nice day to get out and scavenge.
I'd also like to spend an afternoon at storage making a load of furniture for the booth. I'm starting to see I've got a good deal of room for some more big stuff.
SPEAKING OF THE BOOTH
I'm just about finished re-stocking. Sales have been consistent, despite the weather. I have heard that tat returns will be delayed this year until the end of February, which is worrying. I really need that sales boost. At least that gives me more time to prepare.
Today, I have to try and work another bookshelf into the book booth. I think I have figured out how to do it. Keith is getting ready to thin his books and has warned me to get ready for them.
I'm on a crusade right now to get the back log out of my house. We want to swap out my junk room and the bedroom, as the junk room has more closet space. The bedroom will be turned into a workroom/office.
Every morning before I go the mall and every evening after I get home, I try to get together a box or two of stuff, which goes to the booth the next day. I'd rather be figuring out how and where to place it there, where it can make some money, than here, where it is just in the way.
AND NOW A WORD FROM MY MOTHER
I've also been going through old boxes of stuff to see if there's anything that I can sell, donate, or otherwise get rid of. There's just too much crap around here. In the course of doing that, I found a folder of jokes and clipping and stuff that my mother used to stick in with her letters (remember those?) when I was in college. I have a briefcase full of those letters too.
Among them all was this gem, which she sent me while I was in seminary. I promptly taped it to the door of my dorm room.
If you think that my sense of humor is crazy, you should have known my mother. She was a nut!
JUST CALL ME DOPEY
I forgot to tell you all that I'm on Ritalin now to try and deal with my treatment-related fatigue. Apparently my fat, old, tired ass has a lot in common with a sixth-grader who can't sit still. It actually does help a lot, without the side effects I was having with the steroids. It's not the same kind of manic energy boost, but more of a controlled, sustaining effect. I do need to take more than one to keep going through the day. If I miss my afternoon dose, I sure start feeling it!
Sadly, there's no throwing wheel action here, but she kicks plenty of mythological ass! I highly recommend this one and am now super-psyched for the movie this year.
This is another edition of "Stuff I Haven't Shown You Yet." This time, I'm finally going to reveal the much-hinted at coolest find from our last junk set out. Hold on to your hats folks!
There is a vintage store not far from the house that always yields a few good pieces of furniture during set outs. When I was a vendor there, I used to raid the trash cans all the time. I still go by there every so often on trash night and check things out.
The alley that runs behind the store dead-ends abruptly. It's also very narrow, making it hard to turn Mazda around. A couple of doors down from the store, I saw some scattered pieces of a what looked like a castle lying in a heap. Jokingly, I asked Keith: "Is that Castle Grayskull?"
I got out of the van to guide Keith, so he could back up and turn Mazda around. At this point, I looked at that pile again and saw the figures! I ran to the van and said: "It is! It is Castle Grayskull!" and proceeded to scoop it all up.
This is a decent set of figures. There are sixteen all together, along with one guy who is not in the picture because he's missing both his legs. Orko is missing, along with Skeletor and Battle Cat, it's still a great set. He-Man himself is here, along with Prince Adam, his other identity.
Sadly, the playset itself is incomplete, so no Castle Grayskull pics, since some really major parts are missing. Sniff! I only have part of it, so I am totally not sure what to do with it.
On the other hand, there are also several vehicles.
I also found one of the mini-comics which came with the toys. I already have several of these, but nowhere near the full set.
This is hands down the most exciting thing that I have ever found while doing the junk hunt on the curbs of our neighborhood. Sheer awesomeness.
If you will excuse me, I have to go dig out my He-Man DVD sets. I feel an afternoon of cartoons coming on. Believe it or not, Keith didn't get the Castle Grayskull reference. These mixed nerd-normal marriages are rough some times. I feel like making him watch the cartoons with me, to further his education.
It may be Tuesday when you read this, but come Hell or high water, it's going up tonight. I was kind of tuckered out from the jaunt yesterday, so I stayed in and rested. I've been writing a little bit at a time through the day. I spilled coffee on my keyboard and mouse, which killed the mouse and sent me scrambling around the house to find another one, further delaying me.
MY WHAT A CLEAN EDDIE!
I guess I'll crawl out of the shower and do this week's ramble. I've been in there ever since Friday when we finally got the new hot water heater and turned the agua back on. I've never been more grateful for a material item in my life. I finally feel really, truly clean again.
Also this:
The kitty's happy. We're happy. Everyone's happy. And all is right with the world.
Like I said in yesterday's post, I finally made it over to part of the 127 sale. (What exactly did you think this section would be about???) I still have to take pics of everything, so I'm holding off on the full details for another couple of days. I will say this: MANOMAN WAS IT HOT!
Otherwise, I am back on my shopping moratorium, until the Labor Day Big Flea.
TREASURES
Speaking of moratoriums and such, how about a couple of things I haven't shown you?
I found this late 50's edition of a Masonic encyclopedia in a trash pile during set out. The cover is kind of scuffed, because someone tossed it on the pavement in the alley where I found it. Interestingly, a couple of years ago, I found a late 50's edition of Morals and Dogma not too far from the spot when this one was found.
I looked for an entry on the Illuminati, but there wasn't one, probably because this was the second of two volumes and started with the M's.
I've come to the realization that I could very easily be collecting flower frogs, if I'm not careful. I'm kind of fascinated with them, especially the unique ones like these.
I found this wooden hashtag at a church sale. The seller said that I had just missed the @ sign, which someone had just bought. I'm debating tracking down some wooden letters and making a big sign that says:
#getyourbuttinthisboothandbuyallofmycrap
AGAINST ALL ODDS
Last Tuesday was treatment day, and it was full of snags, which is highly unusual. Typically, we are in at 8 and out by 12:30, with the longest part being the wait for the lab results and the wait for the pharmacy to send the drug over. We were kind of on a tight schedule, because we were under the (mistaken) impression that we would be getting the water heater that afternoon.
So of course, my port was clogged. No labs out of that puppy! They tried everything to get it to work, with no luck. So they sent for the drug that unblocks ports, which added an extra pharmacy wait. To keep on schedule, we all decided to try one of my raggedy-ass veins for the blood draw for the labs. Two sticks. No blood. Not my day.
They injected my port with the declogger, and sent me down to the clinic to wait. It takes 45 minutes for that stuff to work, on top of the wait I was going to have for the labs (once they got them drawn) and the drug. By that point, we were making back up plans for Keith to leave me at the clinic and go home to meet the plumber. We figured it was probably inevitable.
Except that it wasn't. My labs came back so fast that I couldn't believe it, and the wait for the drug only took about half as long as normal. We were actually walking out the door at 12:30, just like always.
Of course, we didn't get the water heater that day, but I'll still take a small victory.
SAD NEWS
The Go-Gos are on their farewell tour. My favorite band of all time is calling it quits. I guess seeing them live is one item that won't get crossed off my bucket list. I'm kinda bummed.
Admittedly, it hasn't been the same in recent years, since Kathy Valentine got let go, but I was still holding out hope for one more album. Hopefully, they'll all come back together again, when/if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally pulls its head out of its ass and admits them. Hello, people! We're only talking the first all female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the charts.
HAPPY NEWS
On the other hand, there's an awesome set coming out next month with alternate takes, remasters, out-takes, and just general treasures from the classic Trio albums recorded by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and my supremely beloved Emmylou Harris.
They can't perform together any more, since Ronstadt's Parkinson's prevents her from singing, so it's wonderful to have this tribute to the beautiful harmonies the three of them made for decades.
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Mural on the wall of a bar down the street from the house. The place is called Kaiju, which is the Japanese word for those big-ass classic monsters, like Godzilla. The side panel used to say "The end is near, so have a beer." I don't know why they took that off.
