Panoply Travels, July Finds

This post could just as easily be titled "Strangers in a Strange Land".

The Travels
July had nearly come to an end, and the Panoply sisters had yet to have a road trip for vintage shopping in 2017. Since we were together in West Virginia for a farm-to-table event the last weekend of July anyway, we decided to venture out for a little vintage shopping, in a little vintage town called Harrisville, West Virginia. If ever you go there, don't blink, or you'll miss it altogether!

Why Harrisville? Well, our primary mission was antiquing, but we'd heard Harrisville also has one of the oldest, if not the oldest (as they claim) five & dimes in the US. More on that in a minute. First, we hit Arlo's antique mall.

At Arlo's we were greeted with an outdoor section full of architectural salvage, piled all around the building's exterior, as well as under a carport/porch sort of entry with taxidermy deer stacked high, and peeking around almost every nook and cranny. It was a rainy day and we didn't want to get filthy bugs right off the bat, so we went inside where the decor was, well, let's just have a look-see....

Is that Tippi Hedren, and is she wearing a taxidermy bear coat??

Besides being a taxidermy haven (we resisted), there were aisles and various floors full of stuff, and the place was like a labyrinth to walk through. Naked mannequins positioned alongside reliquaries, deer head on top of most everything, and lots of the typical glassware, kitchenware, china, pottery, etc.

Strangers in a strange land: each aisle stranger than the one before, or the next to come

Though not too many things, and not at very great prices (disappointing!), we did manage to pick a few things at Arlo's.

Onto Berdine's Five & Dime, which has been around since 1908, we'd  been given a heads up by a dealer friend that this store takes only cash and checks. :)

Berdine's Five & Dime Since 1908

Stepping inside was like walking into the past, creaky floors, tin ceiling, wares and all, including candy sold by the pound.

I snapped the photos below without customers, but the place was packed with customers shortly after!

While my sisters were picking out a few novelty items as gifts for kids and grandkids, I couldn't help but choose the two little items pictured below: a cute little lamb, and a WV handcrafted hummingbird nightlight.

After Berdine's, we stopped for lunch next door at Carolyn's. Carolyn's only been around 50 years. ;)

Finished with lunch, we traveled further down country roads until we got to a point of zero wi-fi in a town called Cairo. Zero, as in my cell phone couldn't even navigate. A one-truck, multi-purpose town, or so it appeared.

It could have been Cairo, Egypt for all I knew, but they pronounce theirs as "key row". I had to look at a map to get us back to civilization! We walked into an antique store which had no one working and, in fact, no one around, but the doors were open! We walked right back out when no one answered our calls of "you who?" Talk about Country Roads! Strangely, I had taken a photo of  the antique mall but it disappeared into the Twilight Zone through which we were traveling so I cannot prove it.

Antique Mall of Marietta, OH

We then headed across the river into Marietta, OH, and hit the Antique Mall of Marietta. This turned out to be our best vintage shopping of the day. Situated in an old school building, the 8,000 square feet of creaky wooden floors, old subway tile walls and remnants of perhaps a principal's office housed about 100 separate, small booths.

The Finds
So, what did I buy? I picked a few mantiques, including a pair of vintage Canadian snowshoes, a 1952 TX Medical Field Service School framed photograph, a 'W' sports letter, and a pretty cool vintage air pump with wooden handle and brass body.

I also picked a small, Alfred Meakin (England) "Tintern" green and white transferware pitcher.

All in all, the resale pickins' were slim for July, but I did manage to also get to an estate that yielded the items pictured below: a small, rattan side table and three quilts. The quilts are nice, but machine made, not hand-stitched, which makes them less desirable to me (no desire to foster, that is, but will offer for sale right away).

That's it for recent Panoply travels and picks.

Mid-June yielded but one auction's finds, of which I'd almost forgotten about. One is already in the booth, a Mail Pouch barn sign, (regionally painted) oil on canvas.

The other two items are a child-size Windsor chair and homemade, hand-painted toy chest.

While I could probably get into my basement stash and find other things I've long forgotten about and feel as though I just went shopping, my Panoply sisters and I are already making plans for another trip over to the Cincinnati area soon. We seem to always do well there, and sister J's husband cooks for us. ;)

Thanks for coming along for July's weird sort of antiquing adventures. Have you ever been a little disappointed in scouting out new-to-you places, whether it's retail, antiques or estate sales?

(A special thanks to Linda at Coastal Charm's Show and Share No. 374 and to Dagmar Bleasdale's Home Link Party #180 for featuring this post!)

Rita C. at Panoply

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