Sunday, October 11, 2015

September Vintage Acquisitions

September's vintage acquisitions for my Panoply booth and / or home use came mostly from a single, prominent family estate sale that spanned two weekends. I was interested in one piece of furniture, particularly: an Asian, campaign-styled cabinet. I have been on the hunt for years for good furniture pieces to store and / or display my dish collections upstairs versus in my basement. Being of solid wood construction, this one seemed a good fit for at least one or two sets of china.
The piece (pictured above) is nice - solid wood with heavy brass trim - and has one, adjustable, interior shelf. It's a versatile 30"H x 28"W x 18"D size. I really wanted it for home use (probably my living room), but figured if it got nixed by you know who, then it could go into the booth space. More on that in a minute.

While I was at the sale the second weekend, the host made an offer I couldn't refuse on the French Provincial style buffet you see pictured below. Also solid wood, it could hold even more dishes than the Asian piece, I thought, and could go in my dining room (with a bit of rearranging).
Both of these pieces were hauled around in my car for a week, as Mr. P. (aka Mr. Doesn't Like Stuff) had no inclination whatsoever to even look at them, and was dead set against either one coming into our home.

So, one week after the sale, I literally hauled these two pieces of furniture out of my car, by MYSELF, to clean each piece up, in preparation of taking them to the booth space (sister M agreed to help me haul them back into the car). Somewhere along the line, Mr. P. warmed up to the Asian piece. I didn't press the matter any further, and took the French Provincial piece to the booth space, which you can see styled in our formal living area at the antique mall, below. Compromise is good for a marriage. It's definitely a two-way street.
The rest of my acquisitions from this same estate were smalls. I scored some great vintage linens for really good pricing (read: nasty shelf and drink stains from age and use). After a good soaking and pressing, they turned out nearly pristine: 1 pair of embroidered pillowcases, and 4 cotton tablecloths (one with six matching napkins). The photo below is the 'after', glamour shot. (Postscript:  A couple readers asked what I used for the linens, and the words above - "great vintage linens" is a hyperlink to a post I wrote on tips and success with vintage linens).
I picked a few smalls that were Asian-themed (photo below): a celadon vase with different floral reliefs on each side; jade colored, alabaster grapes; and a handpainted, handless cup and saucer. The cup and saucer are actually Dutch faience (Hoyrup).
I chose some metals, including a stepstool, cricket bootjack and a doorstop replica of Columbus' ship (Albany Foundry). All of those are already in the booth space at the antique mall. The metals you see below were selected the second weekend of the sale at half-price: a 1926 family Chevrolet dealer sales division trophy, and a solid brass fire hose nozzle.
Another addition to my religious relic collection, the madonna and child medallion pictured below also came home with me. It's only about 5" across, but very old, with a gesso frame. The family traveled, you could tell, and had several beautiful, international religious icons I would've loved having, but they were already scooped up when I arrived thirty minutes into the sale.
Another, different estate sale yielded just a few finds, including the Currier & Ives fabric fronts in the American Homestead series for Spring and Winter (pictured below). I'm not sure if I'll make pillows, frame them or what, but I liked the images. Unfinished, they're each 16" x 14" (and very wrinkled).
Then, there was this little concrete guy, below, sitting on the street curb during a morning walk with Mr. P. The owner had died, and the family put the bunny out to pasture. Even the trash men didn't want him. Thank goodness he couldn't hear them talking about how heavy he was. :'(
Bunny No Gogh
I went back with my car and rescued him after he was passed over by the weekly trash pickup. With a little cement glue and a new name, meet Bunny Van Gogh. He'll stay in foster care in my garage through winter, and then I'll see if he goes on to his forever home elsewhere - or in my garden.
Bunny Van Gogh
The community yard sale we Panoply sisters participate in was postponed for rain from September 26 to October 3rd (and again until yesterday, October 10th). We were oh, so ready that first weekend, so what'd we do? Instead of making money, we spent more money, shopping for treasures, of course! It was a fun day, spent in a small town in eastern WV. Sister J scored the most and best (primitives), none of which I photographed, but sister M and I did pretty well for ourselves, too. My picks from that day follow (below).

In the collage below, it's mostly industrial items I chose. Starting on the right, top frame: a 1931 Cincinnati Post baby beauty contest trophy (5.5"), a pint jar of pea-size marbles (and a few clay ones); a surveyor's leather pouch (belt loops on back). The middle frame shows both sides of a 1951 Boone Supply Company $5 coal mining scrip, which was a token exchanged for company store merchandise (classic, "I owe my soul to the company store" era). The bottom frame is two brass coal miner's tags, historically used for personalizing a miner's belongings on his shower basket at the coal mine. Similar tags were also used for loads of coal, mined and shipped out. Lastly, the stool in the left frame is a heavy oak plank on steel frame.
On the more feminine side, I purchased a crocheted pair of ladies' gloves, and a personal clothing brush, sized for traveling at just 3.5". The brush complements my whisk broom collection and the gloves coordinate with my vintage mesh and beaded purse collection.
Buy / Sell / Find / Keep / Binge / Purge, Repeat. It's our idea of fun. What's yours? Leave a comment and spill on your favorite hobbies or finds. I'm all ears, unlike Bunny Van Gogh! ;)

As always, I appreciate your visit! 
Rita C. at Panoply
(A special thanks to Kathy for featuring this post on her Home and Garden Thursday party at A Delightsome Life ).

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