Sunday, January 31, 2010

February 2010 Vintage Goodness Newsletter!

It's time again for me to get the newsletter rolling, here's my game plan for the Feb. 2010 issue:

Super Secret Content - Vintage Spoon Rests, My Love Affair Continues
Blog Update Roundup
Facebook Goodness
News from The Vintage List (including my coverage of the recent eBay announcements!)
Must See Links

Sign up now and I'll have it in your inbox in the next day or two! :)









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Saturday, January 30, 2010

I love my job. Or, my side trip into the world of Lathes.

Yesterday I went to a church sale, and found an interesting hardbound book of advertising circulars for the American Tool Works company. Most of them were for Lathes and Shapers, and if you ask me what exactly a Lathe or a Shaper does I'm sure I could come up with the wrong answer fairly quickly.

But, the graphics in these were so amazing, and they were all in such nice shape, that I decided to bring it home and see if I could find out more about it. It just looked like one of those things that *someone* out there might be interested in - and guess what, I was right!

I searched on eBay and didn't find anything, so I hit Google. After a long time and many combinations of keywords, I found one guy who had posted on a message board for Machinists linking to his website where he had posted a few scans of very similar ATW circulars.


I found his email and dropped him a note, explaining what I had found. He was interested, and asked for photos. I snapped some and sent them off, and I had a reply from him this morning saying that my book is from the 30's and it was likely used by an ATW salesman to promote the line of products.

He says:
"I agree on the 30's vintage of the collection, I don't have much documentation of that time-period, so the entire set is of considerable interest- interestingly, both for what it does and does not contain. Missing is any material on the line of lathes that appeared in the late 30's, which ATW continued to build up until the 70's. Additionally, the planers and most models of shapers are gone, previously the surmise was they were gone in the 30's, here is some confirmation."

Now how cool is that? I love my job, and this is why. Here is something I found that is not a common item, and that is not of interest to 99.9% of the general population. But, due to the wonders of the internet, I found someone who really values it and the information that it contains. He's buying the book, and not only am I getting a sale, I get to send it to a really nice guy who will be really happy to have it. That's job satisfaction, folks.


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Monday, January 18, 2010

Middle of winter estate sales + me + cash = AWESOME.

I was just starting to get a little itchy - I hadn't been to a garage or estate sale since the beginning of November, and every week my search on Craig's List and the local papers were turning up NOTHING. But then, last week, there they were - FOUR estate sales! I could hardly sleep the night before, woke up on my own 45 minutes before my alarm went off, and left the house 20 minutes earlier than I had to... A little pathetic. Just a little.

Anyway, I was a bit rusty - my mojo wasn't 100% with me, but after 6 hours I did manage to bring home a decent amount of goodness! I went to all four sales (one twice) and two locally owned thrift stores too, which didn't disappoint, unlike the bigger stores I went to last week out of desperation. I'm ready to give up on the big stores completely - their prices are just too high on anything that I am interested in, the cheap gem is getting more rare by the minute!

Anyway, enough rambling, I actually snapped a few photos of my haul to share with you all :D

First, my absolute favorite score of the day - you may remember this glass popcorn bowl set from my 70's Typographic Kitchenware post a while back... I almost did a cartwheel in the middle of the thrift shop when I saw it! And oh, how I want to keep it - it has EIGHT little bowls plus the big bowl and they are all in excellent condition... But, of course, it will be up for auction in the near future!

These vintage Coke glasses are actually juice sized - I think they are a bit harder to find than the larger bell shaped glasses (I actually have a set of the larger ones up at auction right now). I got a total of 24 of these juice glasses - not too shabby!

These smiley face mugs I believe are McCoy pottery - Will keeps trying to steal them, and I keep putting them back on the inventory shelf. If I can't keep the popcorn bowls, there's no way he is keeping these mugs!

The Spice Of Life pattern mixer I haven't seen before - I couldn't pass it up, a Corning Ware pattern with the typographic bold print on the side? Perfect!

You know what this little guy is, don't you? The guy at the estate sale called him a bear and I was like oh no - it's a Monchichi! He doesn't have a tag so I am not sure if he is definitely the Monchichi brand or not, I'll have to research around some and try to find out - but how cute is he? There was no way I was leaving him behind!

The corn dolly spoon rest I just love, I have a thing for figural spoon rests anyway, and I hadn't seen one like her before...

The sale where I got the Monchichi actually had a doll/stuffed animal ROOM - I was in there for quite a while! This Bradley doll has a different look that most of the Bradley's that I have seen before, plus her original tag, so of course I had to get her!

I also got this smaller, more typical Bradley doll at the same sale. The red leather 80's bow purse came from the thrift store, and the metal box came from another estate sale - I bought it with the vintage industrial trend in mind!

Here are the stuffed animals that I chose from the sale with the Bradley dolls - there is Dakin, my favorite, and also Antics and a couple of other brands, mostly from the 80's...

I'm sure I've mentioned before my eternal adoration of Calvin and Hobbes - and my goal to thrift every C&H book that is available. I have a list, out of 17 I have 4 left to get. I didn't have my list with me, so when I saw these I scooped them all up with my fingers crossed! Of course I ended up having them all already, so these will be listed soon - unless they turn out to be in better condition than the copies I already have, I haven't checked yet... ;)

All the winter coats at one of the thrifts were on sale - I scored these two with faux fur collars - yes the one on the left is long and all suede! *swoon*

I also grabbed this pea coat - the wood buttons sealed the deal!

My biggest score besides the popcorn bowls is a large set of this gorgeous platinum trimmed Amcrest Sussex china - it was literally all displayed in a large china cabinet at the first sale I went to, you could tell it was the "good china" only used for special occasions. The price was a bit too high, so I left it behind and went to all the other sales, then went back once the first sale went to half off prices, hoping it was still there. I was holding my breath walking in - but there it was! Lots of serving pieces, and not many pieces of this pattern available online right now, so I should do very well with it!

There are a few other little things I bought that I didn't get into the photos, but this is the majority of it.. not bad for the middle of winter! And my favorite estate sale lady, Holly, told me she is having a sale this coming Saturday that is actually really close to my neighborhood - I told her I will be there with bells on! ;)

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

New goodness on eBay this week!

We did manage to list a few new auctions this week, though my resolution to list some paper on Etsy nearly every day (post to come on that soon!) slowed down my eBay productivity just a bit. This week should be just as tough, I have about 90 books to list for BooksFYI so I will be a busy bee! I did score some great stuff yesterday (post to come about that later on too) so at least I do have some fun new things to go on eBay in the next couple of weeks!

Anyway, here's a few of my favorites from this week's auction offerings, some of these end later this afternoon actually!:







There's more of course - click on over to check out the rest!

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

My interview with Auctiva EDU is up!

The other day I did a phone interview with the Auctiva people for their Education section and newsletter - how cool is that? They called it Profile: For The Love Of Collecting - I love it, a big thanks to the folks at Auctiva for taking an interest in Vintage Goodness!

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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Rearranging is all the rage right now, at least for me!

The past week or so has been all about rearranging for me - it's a New Year's thing I guess! I did inventory and organized all of my filing cabinets to make space for my 2010 stuff, and I've also been reworking my Etsy shops.

Which brings me to my main announcement - my 2nd Etsy shop, Vintage Goodness Too, is now officially closed until further notice. It was fairly successful, but really I had just as much luck with the dolls, toys and games on eBay as I did on Etsy, so I decided to eliminate having to manage an extra shop and just move that stock into my eBay store.

My main shop, Vintage Goodness, got a total makeover as far as categories are concerned, in preparation for all the vintage ephemera that I am going to be working on getting listed - believe me when I say I have a LOT - it's currently the biggest backlog of inventory in my office, and I am determined to get it all listed before sale season starts up again in April.

I also moved some things that had been in the shop for a while over to my eBay store. Do you ever look at something and just scratch your head about why it hasn't sold? I have some great stuff, IMHO, that just hasn't caught anyone's eye I guess! I think of them as "Unsold Mysteries"...

Well here, let me show you some of the things that I moved to eBay from both Etsy shops, you'll see what I mean...



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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Newsletter Issue #15 - 2009 Super Scores, 2010 Goals, & More!

I know I am a little late getting the newsletter out - as per usual - but I should have it ready to send tonight or tomorrow... Here's what's up for this issue, if you haven't signed up yet do it now so you don't miss out! :)

Super Secret Content (for Subscribers Only!) - A review of my 2009 super scores and the stories behind them, plus my goals (or resolutions, if you must) for 2010

December Blog Updates

December Facebook Updates

December The Vintage List Updates

Cool Links I've Found Lately










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