Saturday, August 7, 2021

Town Sale Days

Last Sunday, we went to look at a trunk on an online market place. It is covered with pressed tin in different patterns. The wood strapping is all intact. I need to polish up the hardware on it. I want to line it with a pretty paper. Tim is having a fit because he believes that will reduce the value. I want it to be pretty. I have a plan for it. I'm going to consolidate all my Christmas decorations into place. It will fit nicely under the clock in the upstairs hallway. For $25, it was a bargain. 

The guy was a pretty interesting fellow and he had a shed full of interesting things. Northsider? He had one of those teapots that your wife collects. He wanted $8 and I was sorely tempted, but studying, I noticed that it was pretty plain. Just a little thatched roof cottage. Not knowing her tastes, I decided against it, but I could be persuaded to run back and pick it up...just say the word! 

Tim spied something tucked away in a corner that caught his eye. "What's that?" he wanted to know, and the man said, "Well that's a lightning rod. He pulled it out of its corner, went to a box, unwrapped a glass ball which dropped over top of the rod. He said, "The special thing about this is that I've got the weather vane as well," and he went to another box to retrieve it. 

From the look on Tim's face, I knew that weather vane was coming home with us. I also knew he'd be putting it on his garage. 

After 25 years, I can read the man like a book. 

I could tell the man was pleased to discover a pair of customers(suckers) like us, alright. He let us know that the local town was having a sale day the following weekend, and that he'd be setting up outside with a lot more things. 

This morning, Tim got up and said, "I want to go back to see what he has..." 

And so we did. 

Tim spied, with his little eye, another lightning rod/weather vane combo. 
This one was smaller, 

Just the right size for a green house. 

I caught sight of a brass clock. I know that I take crap pictures, but this was very hard to take a picture of because the glass in the front is convex, but it is a brass General Electric Telechron clock. I guessed from the thirties. (I was incorrect. It's a Debutant model that was produced between 1944 and 1949). 

 I have another General Electric Telechron in my collection with a bakelite case (see above, not my picture so you can better see the details of the face), so I recognized what the brass clock was as soon as I saw the red dot on the face of it (before the days of battery back up, this was used to let the owner know that there had been a power outage and the clock would likely need reset). I grabbed that heavy clock up and said, "Does this work?" And the man said, "Bring it over and plug it in." 

I did.

 It did.

Five dollars!

Tim knew right away that clock was coming home with us. 

After 25 years, he can read me like a book.

There were other small things that we picked up stopping at the different sales. 

Two books, two DVDs, a collection of burlap sacks, a new camo coat, a pair of brand name sunglasses. some saucepans for the camp, a cast iron nutcracker, a tiny little brass bird to hang on the wall, a clock from a school building for Tim's garage, a old traffic sign (also for his garage) and miniature porcelain copy of my gentleman rabbit that stands on the steps of the greenhouse. 

We came home, happy with our finds. We did some finishing up work on the garage. We are a half dozen battens away from being done. Well. That and installing a lightning rod. 

I spent just long enough in the garden to pick cucumbers and squashes, but there was no time for any other work, I am sad to report. 

15 comments:

  1. Oh my word. I am so envious. All of those wonderful treasures would have come home with me too!

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  2. I reckon you and Tim were pirates in another life. Some people use those shipping chests for coffee tables. It sounds a great day out.

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  3. LOL. Northsider. We have a steamer trunk for a corner table in the livingroom. I got a piece of safety glass to set on the top of it, so that we can set our drinks on it without fear of marking up the top of it. It has a tag with the name of the woman that it belonged to on it. She lived in the town that I was born in.

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  4. You two do a lot of reading, it seems. :)

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  5. Tim rarely reads unless it is for information or to learn how to do things. I read a lot. One of the books was for my grandson. The other was called "Arc of Justice" by Kevin Boyle

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  6. Very nice finds!
    Online can be good, but I love a fleamarket or car boot sale!!

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  7. What a fun day! (A couple of fun days, I guess.) You got some great finds there. I gotta say, Tim is probably right to be cautious about papering the inside of the trunk, unless you do it in a way that will make your paper easy to remove. Does it have any covering on the inside now?

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  8. what a great day and your finds make me jealous!!

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  9. That's an amazing price for a beautiful old trunk. My husband would love a weather vane too I imagine. He has a weather station but a weather vane is large enough to just glance out the window to see the wind direction.

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  10. It is amazing how going to those things always results in something you absolutely have to have. We had a Garage Sale sign put out at the end of our road but couldn't identify the house by number so drove back into the hollow to see which house it was. $63 later we made it home.

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  11. I love it when you find troves like that - be they private sellers or market stalls or whatever. I've learned that if I see something which really strikes me then I should buy it (within reason) or I'll regret it later.

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  12. LOL, Ed. We get it. We totally, totally get it.

    Steve, the trunk does have paper, but it's damaged and torn. I want to replace it with something that will look nice. It has a nice wooden tray that lifts out for the smaller ornaments. It's big enough that it will comfortably hold the ornaments that are now contained in three banana boxes that are toted back and forth between the attic. The domed top will hold my wrapping paper. and labels.

    As long as I can find a purpose for it, it can be justified.

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  13. PS: Mark? There is a story that you're going to love. I cannot tell it until after Christmas though.

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