Last Post of 2010

Been kinda sick these past couple of days, but did want to get one more post out before the old year passes and 2011 toddles on to the scene.  I'll be heading back to NyQuil land right after I finish this.

So anyway, Happy New Year to all and Best Wishes for 2011 and all that sort of stuff. 

I'll be back on Monday with some regular posts again, including some thoughts on the year just ended and on what's coming up.

Take care!

Christmas Wrap-Up!

Life, as they say, is what happens while you are making other plans. I ended up being unexpectedly off the grid for the past couple of days with only one post scheduled. I had my other end of the holiday season posts in various stages of completion and no vintage cards ready to roll, so I was caught a little off guard. Please accept my apologies.

I'll finish up the holiday posts and store them away for next year. Never hurts to have a backlog. I'm planning on going dark for a couple of days to kind of recover from the holidays and get some posts scheduled. I'll be back before the end of the year.

Since the day has arrived, and I'm left with a few extra vintage cards, here is my Christmas gift to you, my three or four readers: The Parade of Vintage!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!  See you in a few.

Go-Go Ho-Ho's!

Crappy quality, but it's the thought that counts.

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

Pondering, updates, and linkages

Just a bunch of sheer randomness.  Trying to get a bunch of stuff done right now, so I apologize for the extreme stream of consciousness ramble.  Onward!

Cold weather moved in with a vengeance last week.  Snow, ice, and wind.  I can deal with everything but the ice.  Everything has been slicked over like a skating rink.  The effect is beautiful when you're looking at blades of ice-encrusted glass poking up through the snow.  Not so much when your stuck in the middle of a damn sidewalk trying not to fall on your fat ass.

Seriously, it's like we're having January four weeks early.  What's up with that?  More is on the way for Xmas.

When the storm moved in, I had a one day sales dip, but it bounced right back.  I'm over 600 at the moment.  Not sure how much higher they'll go, as I'm expecting a slow down this week.  I'd like to clear four hundred this month, which would be my new record. 

I'm holding up on re-stocking right now, hoping that the last of the holiday stuff will ride out the month okay.  Otherwise, I'm shifting things around to fill holes on shelves.  Sometimes, all an item needs is a new location  in the booth to sell.

I'm planning on calling a moratorium on merch purchases at the end of the month, after I get through the post-Xmas clearance period.  I've got about 8 large Rubbermaid tubs of stuff stashed all over the house, which should give me enough to last the winter.

Early next month, I'm sweeping through, pulling some items, marking down a bunch more, making a clearance table and completely re-stocking with fresh stuff for the new year.  I'm ending 2010 on a roll, so I need to blow into 2011 with a bang.

I had a moment of panic a couple of days ago when I couldn't remember all Santa's reindeer.  I was forgetting Dasher.  Why does Santa have a reindeer named Vixen, by the way??

I've come to realize that I could watch the Powerpuff Girls Christmas Special, "Twas the Fight Before Christmas" over and over every year and not grow tired of it.  And I'm not ashamed to admit it either!

Enough of that, how about some links?

Queen of Fifty Cents has put a new video up.  This time it's all the pets she has met while out saling this year.

Why has this not been done? Link courtesy of VRS.

Well, I gotta scoot.  More later.

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

I like the 3-D look to this one and also the kind of handcrafted feel it has.  There were six or eight of this one in the box, complete with envelopes.  It was the largest matched set of cards.

On the Third Tuesday in December, Eddie-torial Comments Gave to Me...

Patty Griffin and Natalie Maines singing "Mary."



I'm not overly fond of Natalie Maines (although they do sound nice together), but all the versions I could find of this with Emmylou had crappy, shakey video.  I knew I wanted to use this one this month for sure.  After all, according to the stories, Mary was there, right?  So it seems kind of fitting.

Happy holidays, folks!

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

We're getting close now! Only a few more (days and cards) left! So much still to do! Hope you've enjoyed this little project as much as I have.

This is actually a much more modern image than the others, but I had to include it because it's so, well, flat-out creepy! Seriously, a demented looking child staring through a window? Whose ides of Christmas cheer is that? Stephen King?

Possible captions for the inside:

Merry Christmas from the Children of the Corn!

If you're naughty, Santa will let him loose in your living room.

This year, remember that creepy soul-stealing children need love too.

That's not Jack Frost nipping at your nose.

Crazed dementia is just another way of saying "Holiday Spirit."

Season's Greetings from your local exorcist.

Don't forget to lock your doors and windows on Christmas Eve! No telling what you might find under your tree if you don't.

Okay, that's enough of that. I have gifts to wrap. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments section.

Vintage Vantage

I was going through some comics that I recently bought last night, bagging and pricing them when it dawned on me how many of them I bought when I was in high school.  Then I realized that they were thirty years old!  Ack!

Seriously, if you follow the rule that says that something has to be at least 25 years old to be considered "vintage."  Then comics from 1982 (the year I graduated high school*) are now vintage!  When did that happen?  It's hard for me to think of items that came with UPC bar codes on them as "vintage."  That word conjures up images of the 70's at least, and then on back from that.  The 80's?  No frigging way!

 Honestly, this is a vintage comic?  Really?

Nevertheless, 1980 was thirty years ago!  Hell, 1990 was twenty!  In five more years will we call stuff from the 90's "vintage"?  Yeesh!  We need a new term for more modern items that are aging.  In fact, we need a whole new scale for classifying these things.  I suggest:

1980's-90's: classic
1940's-70's: vintage
pre-1940:  antique

"Classic" conjures up the same kinds of sweet nostalgic memories that "vintage" does, but without the same connotations of "really old and worthwhile."  I like it.  Now to get everyone to start using it.

*That means my high school diploma is vintage! Does that make me vintage too? I don't wanna be vintage! Make it stop!

Marvel Two in One cover courtesy of GCD.

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

Another religious one, this time more sweet than devotional. This one also came from a religious order.

Always Remember!

Robots need love, too!



Won't you show some robot love this holiday season? You'll be glad you did.

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

Felt like it was time for another religious themed card.  This one is super fab. It came from a religious order, probably with a fund-raising appeal.  Yep.  It's a vintage fund-raising incentive/freebie.  I guess charities have been sending out those card sets for decades.  Wonder if this one also came with address labels?

I think vintage religious graphics are my favorite vintage graphics of all.  One of these days I'll scan some of my holy card collection.

We has a seecret!

Ther'z more uv us!



Secret Kitten! brought to you by Prank Videos

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

What more needs to be said?

So, how did it go?

Last weekend, the mall where I have my booth had its Holiday Open House.  As a part of the event, vendors were encouraged to be on hand in their booths to make deals.  I'd never done that for one of their special events before, but I had heard dealers who did were making over a hundred in sales, so I decided to try.

Friday, I loaded up the last of my Christmas merch, plus a few other items, including a bunch of books,  and headed to the booth to get ready for the booth.  I spent a few hours there rearranging some things, filling in holes, straightening up, etc.

As I was getting ready to leave, a customer was in my book booth, filling up her cart with all kinds of things.  I talked with her for a little while, and she got some things from my other booth too.   It was an hour or so until closing time, but I was done, so I left.

Based on what she had placed in her cart, I was potentially in for a really good day, sales-wise.  However, I've been around long enough to realize that it can go in someone's cart, but it's not a sale until it's been paid for.  I've seen  plenty of people load up on stuff, only to leave most of it on the returns table.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I got my sales report for the day in my email that evening.  Not only had she bought everything she picked up, but her purchases pushed me way over 100 dollars for the day!  That's a new daily record for me!  It's kind of ironic that I was prepping the booth to try and make the next day into a hundred dollar day on the day that I had my first hundred dollar day,  but that's business, I guess.

Saturday morning, I went to a couple of indoor sales, bought a few things, then headed to the booth.  Since some of the stuff I had intended to have for the open house had already sold, I brought in some of the stuff I had just picked up to fill in the holes.  It had actually been a good morning for second-hand shopping.  We stumbled on a church rummage sale that had not been advertised, which was full of stuff.  A lot of it was priced at ten cents, ti boot.  It was like early Christmas!

I had been a little worried about just hanging around in my space and either looking too dorky for folks to approach or else scaring off customers who just wanted to browse.  I'm one of those shoppers who doesn't like to be disturbed when I'm browsing around.  Store attendants, sellers, vendors, etc. who come on too strong with conversation turn me off and make me less inclined to buy.  I have a feeling that I'm not alone in felling this way.  Plus, an 8x11 booth is just not large enough for me to hang out in and also have others come in!  I take up a lot of space these days.

I purchased a couple of bar stools at a sale the week before, so I would have a place to sit.  (One of the lessons of this experience is that I don't have a body built for perching on a bar stool for long periods of time.)  There's an empty booth across the way from me, so I put my stool there.

For the first hour or so, I had the stuff I brought in to price and put out, so that gave me something to do.  After that, I perched on my stool and read a book.  If someone approached who was more outgoing, I'd strike up a conversation with them.  If they seemed more reserved, I'd just let them shop in peace.

A few items have been taking up space in my booths for a long time, and those were the ones I was determined to see go during the open house.  I ended up moving a few of them out.  Any time someone expressed any sort of interest in those objects, I swooped in with a deal at the ready.  And away the object would go.

A gentleman bought a truck from me that I had just bought that morning.  Turns out the name on the truck was for a Louisville-based food distributor that went out of business in the 80's.  He had worked on the railroads and used to load stuff from their trucks to the railroad cars.  Pretty cool.  He was psyched to find it.  I was psyched to sell it.  I ended up selling about half of the new items I brought in that morning!

I had at least three cart-fillers pass through, but it seems like they also bought the stuff they picked up.  I had very few returns to deal with.  Whenever I got too stiff from sitting on the stool, I made the rounds to my booths and straightened things up.  Then I'd go chat up the cashiers and check for returns.  A couple of times, I just wandered around the place to stretch my legs.  I ended up finding a book to buy that way!

Things really started getting fun when Santa showed up.  He was set up in a space right behind the one I put my stool in.  A couple of times, he let go with a hearty "Ho Ho Ho!" and kids who were in the aisle where I was would look at me like I had done it!

I nearly had an anxiety attack waiting for the sales email that evening.  I left when the open house ended at six, but the mall didn't close until eight.  The sales emails don't come until after nine.  I've not been that anxious for a report to come since the early days of the booth, but it was worth the wait.

Two days in a row over a hundred.  Who would've thought?  If the cold weather that's moved in doesn't stifle things, I'm set up to have a really good December.

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

The square shape for this one marks it as a part of the same original card set as yesterday's card, I think.  So does the odd color scheme.  This one has the more traditional colors, but in an impressionistic kind of painting style.

Interesting.

I hate it when that happens!

I was in a thrift the other day and they were playing some country station over the intercom.  All of a sudden one of those songs comes on that never fails to get stuck in my head for days.  As is typical for earworms, what actually gets stuck with me is one particular phrase, playing over and over and over again, never progressing because I actually don't know the rest of the damn song!

So, of course, I have to head to YouTube to try and find it and break the spell.  And I did:



But now, I have to wonder how badly I've screwed with my YouTube recommendations.  I mean, I listened to the Judds, for god's sake!  Will the denizens of YouTube now try to entice me to...what...check out....oh my god...Clint Black?  Garth Brooks?  Or worse?  Billy Ray Cyrus?

What's going to happen to my cool alt-countrystreet cred when this gets out?

Sigh!

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

 

I love this one for two reasons.  First off, it's just plain fun!  Almost whimsical, in fact.  Secondly, the color scheme just fascinates me.  You don't often see a lot of Christmas cards with such muted colors, even down into brownish tones.  

Oh yeah, and it's got this fun square shape, too.  There weren't a lot of envelopes with this batch of cards, and what were there were kind of hard to match up with the right cards.  It was pretty clear to me, though, which one went with this card.  

It was square.  And it was brown.

And then there was the time Olivia Newton-John, ABBA, and Andy Gibb sang a bunch of their songs together

Some thoughts:

As crazy as I was for both Olivia and ABBA when I was in high school, I'm sure I must have seen this when it was on TV. I have absolutely no recollection of it, though. The whole things just screams to be released on DVD! Whatever happened to variety shows and specials?

You know the women in ABBA were just burning with jealousy that Bjorn had kickier boots than they did!

I don't remember Andy Gibb being quite so good looking as he is here. Wonder how he would have held up over the years had he lived?

Your Vintage Christmas Card of the Day!

 

Not quite so overtly religious this time, but it's got a quiet serenity to it I think.  Reminds me a little of the legend of the animals at Christmas time.

And, it's got that sweet kind of cuteness that vintage cards seem to have.  It's like another Rankin-Bass cartoon scene that you never saw before, but should have.