By the Chimney with Care

And their stockings were hung by the chimney with care…. A colorful line-up of stockings hanging at The Depot at Gibson Mill in Concord, N.C.

A beautiful vintage toy fire truck, more valuable now at over $500 than when it was first sold.

I love, love, love trains and have wanted a set more as an adult than when I was a kid.

I had the dump truck as a kid. Now it’s an antique…okay, not quite antique but we are both getting there.

I am at a point in life where if I want something I either get buy it myself or do without.  It hasn’t always been that way, of course. As a child, the anticipation of Christmas morning was significant. It was worse than the Heinz ketchup commercial from the 1970s (if you are too young to know what I am talking about click on the Youtube video below). I was an early riser at a young age and on Christmas morning would get up at 5 a.m. to see what delights Santa had brought.

More and more, I find that I can do without, but I’m not a complete killjoy in the present department. I love to surf through the shops in Etsy or at antique malls to revisit Christmases past…my past and the past before my past. I love vintage toys like the firetruck (pictured above) or the Tonka trucks from my youth. They remind me of the roads I “built” through the bark mulch under our Walnut trees in California. I love seeing the toys I yearned for but didn’t get like the electric trains. I would still love a set but don’t have the space for what my imagination envisions the final layout to look like (think dozens of square feet with multiple tracks winding through towns and pastures and hillsides).

It’s more fun now because I generally can afford what I want or don’t want it. But, there are  few things I’m hopeful will show up under the tree on Christmas morning.

Visions of Sugar-Plums Danced

Vintage Christmas ornaments make this time of year so festive. I love to get in close with my camera and filter out the background.

Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads…. I grew up in a home that celebrated Christmas with food. We baked dozens of batches of cookies each year with inviting and exotic names: Russian tea cakes, Finska Kakors, Santa’s whiskers, Almond Roca cookies, delicious thumb-prints filled with jelly. I don’t recall ever seeing a “sugar plum” in my youth (or since) but they sound delicious. I love the name and how it is a memorable line from the Clement Clarke Moore poem that stays with us. I imagine candied fruit–deep purple colored sugar-encrusted, jellied plums arranged on a plate. As it turns out (thanks, Google) sugar plums are candy, have a variety of fruit but do not have plums in them. They can be any of a variety of colors and are typically round or oval in their shape. They sound and look yummy.

Bright Christmas ornaments arranged in a bowl are holiday “eye candy,” evoking memories of all manner of treats.

I think in our house, we’ll stay with the cookie tradition for now, so I am not running out to buy ingredients to make sugar plums, but I have had some other visions dancing around my head. I was in an antique mall a week ago and was amazed by the beautiful and colorful vintage ornaments. Some hung from trees while others were arranged in displays or set out on plates or in bowls as table decorations. I focused in close with my camera and cut out as much of the background as I could. I was like a kid in a candy store at Christmastime…all eyes on the treats.

An old Shiny Bright Christmas ornament hangs from a vintage aluminum tree that was all the rage in the 1960s. The metallic accents on the glass ball look like icing on a Christmas treat.

The ornaments are creative and “delicious”! They are manifestations of my mental image of what a sugar plum should be like… visually rich with a mix of inviting colors and touches of “icing.” There are so many to choose from–beautiful glass balls; hand-sewn cloth Santas, elves, and angels; wooden trees and wreaths; and clever ornaments made from dried okra, barn wood, and old bed springs.

In these photos I focused on the more traditional form of the round ball ornament made from blown glass, paper mache, and lucite. Among my favorites are the Shiny Bright glass ornaments that were common when I was growing up but seem antique now. I have seen many of these this year in their original boxes lined up four by three like a dozen pieces of candy in their wrappers. Others had hand-painted images of Santa or angel choirs of children signing holiday hymns. I found one bowl of heavy lucite balls that looked like rolls of red, green, blue and yellow Christmas ribbon.

I love these sugar plums, beautiful and delicious treats that bring holiday joy but don’t add pounds.

A Right Jolly Old Elf

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I have a confession to make. Although a professional skeptic by vocation, like the bad guys in the movie Miracle on 34th Street, I secretly wear an “I BELIEVE” button inside my jacket. Like many, I find the holidays stressful but also a wonderful time with family that bring measures of comfort and joy. Call me silly, I enjoy Christmas and its traditions.

In our family, traditions include baking several different kinds of Christmas cookies–dozens and dozens that we give out as gifts. Throughout the holidays we watch classic and not-so-classic Christmas shows including It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph (the Rankin-Bass stop/motion TV show from 1964), Christmas with the Kranks,  and, of course, Miracle on 34th Street (both versions). Jon Maria cooks soup on Christmas Eve and have family time or go to a Christmas Eve service. Christmas day begins with presents (yes, the mad dash through wrapping paper) and moves on to a big breakfast, and then we skip lunch and collaborate on a big Christmas dinner. We decorate our tree with ornaments that go back to our own childhood and beyond and put out lights and stockings and all the trappings of the holidays that is a part of our tradition.

I am fascinated by tradition, those shared rituals we often do without much thought. I am aware of the danger of tradition–in mindlessly repeating things from the past. But, I find comfort in reliving parts of our shared history.

Recently, I was at The Depot at Gibson Mill, an antique mall in Concord, N.C. where we live. I had my digital 35 mm camera and took some time to “see differently” images and traditions on display in the booths there. In this post I share some of the Santa images I found. They are cropped and edited (altered) but evoke to me the myth and reality of St. Nicholas–that right jolly old elf!

All the Write Stuff

The beautiful green glass keys of a vintage Royal typewriter circa 1940s.

One of the great joys of buying and selling antiques and vintage items is that you can indulge your own fads without going bankrupt. You’ve heard…and perhaps been told…”that’s just a passing fancy.” Well, one of my passing fancies is vintage typewriters. Admittedly, I’ve always liked typewriters so my fancy might best be described as intermittent. When I was a kid, I took over our family’s electric Smith Corona. Later, a friend bought me an antique Underwood typewriter as a gift around the time I got married (I can’t remember if it was shortly before or after we got married). We kept it for years but a bolt or screw had rubbed through a rubber foot and it scratched the heck out of a desktop, so I finally parted with it years ago.

An antique Royal Portable typewriter from the 1920s .

A few months ago, Jon Maria saw and purchased a Montgomery Ward Signature 300 Portable typewriter on ShopGoodwill.com. It’s a mid-century beauty and bears the iconic name of the former retail giant, Monkey Wards. It has a greyish green cast and types beautifully. It pounds out a nice, neat Pica font with the attendant sounds of click, clack, ding!  About a month ago we bought Remington Quiet-Riter from a dealer at the antique mall where we have a booth. The typewriter and case are in excellent condition and I couldn’t pass it up. I should have known then that I was beginning a new collecting fad.

Two weeks ago we were on a scavenging trip near Asheville, N.C. and went through the town of Fletcher, just off Interstate 26, where we stumbled across a wonderful flea market. We stopped and waded through vendors selling food, new clothing and shoes, used tools, household items, baby stuff, musical instruments and well…junk. It was a flea market after all so a little of everything. We didn’t have much time so we split up and walked through different sections of the market and I came across a pair of beautiful vintage Royal typewriters. It was love at first sight. We negotiated, and I walked away with both. One is a 1940s office typewriter with a bulky industrial look and gorgeous green glass keys. The other is an antique Royal Portable made in the 1920s in a leather covered wooden case sporting white glass keys. Both were in good condition and work great.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I love these machines and their visibly complicated mechanics that allow us to put type–letters, words, and sentences–onto paper. Up close their inner workings resemble an industrial version of a piano. Press here and get an “A,” press there and get a “G” and so it goes in playing a tune or creating a letter, novel, or writing a short note.

Like the piano, each typewriter has its own personality with its own unique touch and sounds and print quality. They are the precursor to the computer on which I am typing but unlike the computer, they make sense. I can see how in pressing the “Y” key I get a “Y” on the paper. I’ve read a great deal about ROM, RAM, circuit boards, operating systems, and transistors but cannot work out how pressing a key on the computer keyboard gets this blog post on the computer (and forget that it is actually on a server hundreds or thousands of miles away and not even on my own computer).

Like so much that is vintage, I love the art and history of old technologies. I appreciate my typewriters for showing us the path over the past century that led to the development of this digital machine that connects us and allows me to share these thoughts.  Don’t get me wrong–my nostalgia only goes so far. I am not trading in my computers for a manual typewriter, but I do miss the click, clack, ding.

You can visit our typewriters in our Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/EclecticPerspectives.

Reuse/Restore/Repurpose…rethinking the 3 R’s

Reduce/Reuse/Recycle is the “green” mantra. It’s a great phrase that is part of the ethos around sustainability and I embrace it. However, I want to suggest a modification that seems a better fit to those of us with a passion for the vintage and eclectic: Reuse/Restore/Repurpose.

A vintage Bulova wrist watch

I love antiques and vintage items. A week or so ago Jon Maria brought home some wonderful finds from a non-profit resale shop we frequent–some beautiful jewelry (including a gorgeous gold and jade pin marked 18K gold…stunning!)–but also a vintage Bulova gold-tone wristwatch that I am wearing as I type. I will be sporting the watch for some time to come which brings me to a point: I don’t want to “reduce” my consumption of vintage. I want to find more to use and share! Let’s bypass “reduce” and move straight on to “Reuse.” It’s at the heart of the vintage ethic.

Reuse. Dust it off, polish it up, or simply leave it as is. Recently, we passed by a yard sale

A vintage wooden box with great patina

in Asheville, North Carolina as it was beginning to close up, and as Jon Maria looked over some vintage housewares, I zeroed in on a pair of well-used wooden boxes. They are black with age, scuffed and show signs of wear that are a testament to their long lives and usefulness. I am guessing from the grain peaking through some worn edges that they are made from yellow pine or a similar soft wood.  They are joined at the corners with finger joints and have recessed handles on the sides–a testament to the craftsmanship of an earlier time when a storage box was well made and not thrown together with a pneumatic nail gun. I love these boxes as is and wouldn’t change one oil-stained thing about them. One person’s dirt is another’s patina.

A vintage metal toolbox I restored

Restore. To me this runs the gamut from refurbishing to refinishing. With restoration I follow the adage of do the least harm. That leaves open a range of options but generally means trying to bring back or clean up the existing finish, not stripping it off and replacing it. Around the time we were setting up a new workshop space in our house, we came across a vintage metal toolbox and a metal tackle box. There were great pieces that we could clean up and sell or use in our shop. We went the latter route and put them to use. The tackle box is a tan enamel and in great shape for its age (30 to 4o years old, I’d estimate). We use it to store some of beading tools and wares. The toolbox, which is painted has two fold-out trays, was in rougher shape with a good deal of rust inside and out. I thought about repainting the toolbox turquoise or some other “in” color but I really like it the way it is. However, I didn’t think I could put anything of value in it with the abrasive and rusty surfaces, so I decided on a middle ground. I used some rust solvent to bind the rust inside and out and sprayed a clear coat all over it. The solvent turned the rust black and sealed it up from doing any damage, and the clear coat created a clear, smooth, sealed surface. It is a shinier version of its old self. With all its character and signs of use it now stores some of out tools including my Dremel and bits.

An ornamental dangle created from Scrabble tiles and beads

Repurpose. When I find a vintage item that is in such bad shape that it is beyond restoration, I consider repurposing. I can take apart that broken vintage wind-up alarm clock and glue the face on an old wooden box I am repurposing. Add a coat of red paint and some vintage wooden blocks that spell out R-E-A-D to a stained and beat up book stand from the 1970s and you have a cool and colorful magazine rack or book stand fit for a classroom or child’s room. We purchased some gold-tone wire magazine racks from the 1960s and 70s and painted those turquoise and created a fun dangle that has vintage photos and text on one side and spells out R-E-A-D on the other (a theme for the book-loving educators in us).

A magazine rack circa 1970 we’ve repurposed.

When all else fails–and sometimes it does–we recycle, but I am surprised how few vintage things we have to put in the recycle bin or send to our non-profit thrift store of choice. The challenge and fun are in looking something over and seeing what we can do with it. It involves something I’ve written about previously in this blog…learning to see anew. That’s the joy of the vintage life. We celebrate the past but find new life for it in the present by reusing, restoring and repurposing. That’s a vision for sustainability that has style.

Want to see more of our vintage finds? Check out our store in Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EclecticPerspectives.

We also have a new store in Etsy that features items we’ve created or repurposed. Go to Eclectic Perspectives, Too at http://www.etsy.com/shop/EclecPerspec2.

Let them eat cake…in style

Disclaimer: the author of this blog post is neither an art historian nor is he an auctioneer, appraiser or expert on vintage cake plates or scholar regarding style in any sense of the word…which begs the question, “why bother with this post?” Read on if you dare, but count yourself forewarned.

I love the clean, unadorned lines of the BeautyWare stainless covered cake plate.

Last week we bid on and won two vintage cake plates at a resale store in our community. These were two silent auction items I had seen a few days earlier while on one of our explorations to find vintage stuff. I wanted them badly enough that I took time during the lunch hour to go to the store for the last 15 minutes of the auction. I updated my bids and walked away with both–a beautiful Fostoria square clear-glass pedestal cake stand and a Lincoln BeautyWare stainless covered cake plate.

What I love about them is that even though they come from the same century–in fact, they were in use at the same time–they represent two different ideas of style. Although the Fostoria has clean geometric lines and lacks the colorfulness of art glass, it’s easy to see why it is known to collectors as elegant glassware with its Victorian-inspired flourishes.

And the elegant flourish of the Fostoria clear glass cake stand

On the other hand, the clean, unadorned functionality of the BeautyWare bespeaks of mid-century modernity with its attention to form and function over embellishments.

It’s easy to brush off style as window dressing, but it’s what took the boring beige personal computer and turned it into an Apple. Steve Jobs took style seriously in designing the iMac (remember the blueberry?), iPod, iPhone and iPad and Apple’s sales skyrocketed. Kids bikes were just bikes until Schwinn came along with the Stingray with its banana seat, gear shifter and high-rise handlebars. You were the envy of your neighborhood if you had one of those. I saw one this week in near mint condition for $1200. Don’t tell me someone is willing to pay that simply to get two pedals and two wheels. It’s style!

Style is what’s missing from so much technology today. I love my flat-screen TV. The picture is stunning and changing channels with a remote easy, but it lacks any sense of style like the console set we had when I was a kid. Ours was set in a large wooden cabinet, but our neighbors had a really cool tabletop TV in a bakelite case. A friend of mine had a small two-tone Sylvania Duelette from the 1960s in coral and cream. Can you imagine a 42-inch flat screen in coral and cream?

Form, function and style are ingredients in a recipe that makes something more than useful…it makes us want to use it. It’s also what makes something desirable years later when it achieves vintage or antique status. I won’t get into a debate about which is better–the PC or Mac. Both work just fine, thank you. A better question is which one do you want to use? How and where do you want to spend your time? When I have a choice, I want a little style.

In our shop at home I have a small Danish modern table where I do my computer work–editing photos, writing posts, uploading stuff to our Etsy store. It’s a simple, clean surface on which sits my laptop and one other item at the moment–a Rodney Kent aluminum tulip dish filled with some of my favorite vintage glass marbles. There is nothing about the colorful marbles and the monotone flourish of the dish that go together, but I love both so there they sit.

Back to my cake plates…which would I use? Both and at the same time. I imagine a holiday dinner in which an array of colorful cookies are arranged on the Fostoria and a marzipan cake sits under the shiny lid of the BeautyWare plate. Such are the joys of eclecticism…mix and match with abandon. Fortunately, I won’t suffer through that dilemma as both are for sale in our Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EclecticPerspectives.

Marie Antoinette is credited with saying, “Let them eat cake” (okay, in French, “let them eat brioche”). To that I would add, “And let them do it in style.”

Local booty

As a kid I loved pirate stories. My dad took me to the library each week and I remember when our journey for books shifted from the children’s section to the adult section. My dad was a savvy reader who eased me into the world of pictureless chapter books for adults with pirate and adventure stories. I read Rafael Sabatini’s The Black Swan and The Pirate by Sir Walter Scott then moved on to Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall. I was drawn into these stories by the thrill of the hunt, the search for treasure, and the bravado of the characters.

A beautiful rhinestone broach

A cloisonne bead necklace…another beautiful find we purchased at auction near home

These stunning Damascene cuff links are made by Amita and feature a pagoda scene with Mt. Fuji in the background.

A vintage Dutch porcelain and sterling silver ring made by Delft.

A Kaiserlautern pin from Germany.

A tie tack and cuff links in a gold tone setting featuring beautiful tiger’s eye stones.

I’ve moved on from pirate stories but haven’t lost my sense of adventure. I think it is what makes exploring for vintage treasures so interesting. It brings together the things I am passionate about–travel, research, photography, and writing–and did I mention that I get to do all of this with Jon Maria, my partner in all things important.

We have explored in Texas, Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, North and South Carolina and other states. This summer we went to Nicaragua, but most of our exploring takes place in our own community around Charlotte, North Carolina. We go to yard sales, antique stores, resale shops, auctions and junk stores. At a recent auction we sat and watched as boxes and boxes of toys, electronics, clothes and household items made recently in China were auctioned off. It’s not our thing, but what kept us in our seats were a few items set out on a table in the back of the room including a board with some beautiful jewelry like the rhinestone broach pictured in the photo. We waited a couple of hours, but our patience paid off when some of the “treasures” came up for auction. Our first purchase was a beautiful cloisonné bead necklace and then the rhinestone broach. Few others were bidding on the jewelry so we made an offer for a group of tie tacks and cuff links, a Delft ring and some other wonderful pieces including an unusual pin with the word Kaiserslautern across the top. There were some beautiful pieces and we were thrilled to buy them.

We took our finds home and began the process of examining them more closely (ahh, the wonders of a 30x eye loop) and learning about them. We have since learned quite a bit more about Delft and Amita jewelry, their maker’s marks and histories. For example, Damascening is a process of inlaying precious metals into other metals that has a long history in Japan. Did you know that Delft is not a manufacturer but a style of jewelry that dates back to the 16th Century? I didn’t but do now. I had not heard of Kaisterslautern but now know that it is a city of about 100,000 in southwestern Germany, home to a large NATO base, and it was heavily bombed during World War II.

I no longer harbor dreams of sailing the Seven Seas in search of pirate booty, but, as it turns out, I don’t have to go far to find vintage treasures–they are right around the corner from our home.