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I have too many collections.
I have a collection of 50's diner ware (matched, flawless, full service for 6! THATS RIGHT BITCHES!)
I have a collection of metal Tonka trucks and cars
I have a collection of eggs
I have a collection of things which are spherical (round rocks, globes, old bocci balls, slag...)
I have a collection of old pop bottles
I have a collection of paper ephemera
I have a collection of 60's era underground comix
I have a collection of mid-century modern display pottery
I have a collection of dead animal parts
I have a collection of glass measuring cups
I have a collection of vintage kitchen utensils
The only collection I have displayed in its entirety is the pop bottle collection. The rest are in storage, either in part (eggs, display pottery, animal heads) or in whole (all the rest of the stuff I haven't mentioned.)
My husband got me started collecting purely by chance, way back in 1986, when I mentioned that I needed a measuring cup for the kitchen. He brought me home a depression-era glass mug-style cup. "Aw," I thought, "how nice."
60 measuring cups later......some of which I still have....and use....
A need for an eggbeater (still in use) brought a 1942 Foley with a green handle into the house. Similarly, when our coffeemaker tanked, we picked up a 1935 Pyrex glass percolator (still have two of them, guts included.) Of course, by now we were both hooked. At one point I had every single item in this collectors catalogue:
(...well shit, I sold it and I don't recall the name. Had to get temptation completely out of my path. Anyway, it was a pretty comprehensive book.)
...and some that they'd never heard of. Including hand-made ones. 25 different egg beaters. 17 different pancake flippers. Tasting spoons-5. Choppers-5. Cake knives-4. Tinned milk openers-7 (including one given away as a premium by a funeral home. WTF?) Sub-collections included advertsing premiums, red handles, green handles, yellow handles, Foley, Formay, black composition ware....
In the meantime I had branched out into collecting antique working kitchen appliances, Bakelite, vintage crocheted hot mats, vintage Fire King and Pyrex (curse you Martha Stewart for making latter so desirable that it got priced out of my reach, you bitch!) and I had the Biker halfway talked into doing an entire 1940's kitchen.
Because I was working in rental properties I had my choice of any style of vintage appliance or accoutrement I wanted just for the asking. And they ALL WORKED. Condenser-top refrigerators, gas ranges, you name it- anything my demented little heart desired. Wringer washers? Check! Enamel double-sink with attached drainer? Yup. Light fixtures, fans, hardware, counters, trim....fricken' towel bars, even. LIGHT SWITCHES.
Bear in mind that at the time, we lived in a MOBILE HOME.
I finally woke up one day right before my daughter was going to have a birthday party and looked around at a kitchen that was almost entirely encrusted in vintage kitchen tools and asked myself "Self, why are you nuts?" I sold it all. Well fine, most of it. At least didn't lose money, but still. The habit remains, and I still find myself looking without even meaning to.
Same with the pottery. I found a lovely ikebana piece and it fit so nicely in with my decor. Then I found another, and it complimented the first one, and it was only .10 so how could I NOT buy it, right? And so on, and so on, and....yeah.
The dead animal parts collection is just strange on a couple of different levels. Once again, my husband started it. He presented me with a deer skull with antlers intact, and I displayed it, and then one of his buddies brought me a badger skull, and another guy brought me a coyote jawbone, then my daughter found an entire coyote skull...a crow in a tree dropped a squirrel skull right at my feet one day while I was gardening....the neighbors cat drug a rabbit into my shed and the bugs did the rest. I figure when the Universe wants you to collect something, you'd better heed it.
The problem is, I live in a small house. I really don't mean to accumulate all this crap either; its just once you develop an 'eye' for something, you see it everywhere. Like when you buy a certain make of car and suddenly it seems like the entire world owns the same one. And if you're me and you have the scrounge-bargain gene, you see it everywhere, for DIRT FRICKEN' CHEAP.
Whats a little Muk to do?
...Get buried in crap like the goddam DiAmato brothers if she doesn't watch out.
Anyway, I am seriously thinking about selling the mid-century modern pottery. Here's some pictures. You can enlarge them and enjoy the dust and smudges! The only one with any kind of a flaw is the tall white vase, and it has a chip on the base. Which you can't see in these pictures. So, yeah.
Anyone interested? I've got some sweet stuff. Gimme a dingle.
*flaunts collection of vintage Fiestaware*
ReplyDeleteThat’s right, bitch.
Dinner plates, side plates, soup bowls, water pitchers, the works.
Even the radioactive red that will make your uterus drop out if you eat off it.
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ReplyDeletePlease take a pretty picture of your mid century pottery. I would LOVE to see it, please?
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure what mid century pottery even looks like...I better go google. If you have a yard sale, I will drive up to darn close to the Canadian border.
MJ: now had you said Bauer, I might have flinched. As it is, your poopy old radioactive Fiesta cannot penetrate my modern design force field!
ReplyDeleteRetro: you know, I will. let me get my groceries unpacked here and I'll do that.
FIRST!!
ReplyDeleteDivorce and bankruptcy is good for getting rid of shit. Two years ago I only had like a few bags of stuff after clothes and books...
The only collection I have is elephants. I have wooden ones from India with 'blankets' on their back of inlayed brass and ivory, pewter ones, stone, pottery, candles. The first one that started the whole thing was a big stuffed yellow elephant but it got so horribly ratty over the years that it got turfed.
ReplyDeleteI don't have room for any other collections. I have pets instead.
did you know there's a tree in your house. really. it's right behind you RUN there are TURKEYS IN IT
ReplyDeletenow, aren't you glad I talked you out of that big black cube pot the other day while we were thrifting? yes you are. You can collect house hippos, those are much safer.
Hey FN, those pictures are WAY cooler than what I found on the net. My notion of mid century pottery was a collection of those cheesy swans or dragons that just sat there, didn't even serve a purpose,oh wait I suppose the little 3 watt bulb served as TV light. What ever happended to TupperWare art? Our house sported a weird warped doily looking thing with long slender ice cream spoons woven in as support. We had taste for shi-at. (evil smirk)
ReplyDeleteI want that phone.
ReplyDeleteAre you on a party line?
muttley: I ended up with all the stuff in my divorce. He, on the other hand, ended up with all the MONEY.
ReplyDeletePONITA: heffa lumps are cool! pets and heffa lumps are even better!
bitchy: and you know, its still there, though...and i'm still looking at it. *sigh*
retro: you have just described the way my aunt Lillian used to decorate. plastic doilies, french poodles and plastic flower arrangements, and a tv lamp on every television (the one in the front room WAS a poodle with plastic flowers stuffed into the back of it. when you lit up the light it made the flowers growing out of its back glow. I was too young for lsd in those days; of course I hardly needed it either..)
mj: thats a shop extension. it works, but I cut the cord off it. i am mean to phones. you can pay me one MEEEELION dollars (US) and come rescue it, though.
The most astonishing thing is that most of these kitchen devices work. Quality products, meant to be repaired!
ReplyDeleteI was once working in the museum of the local energy distributor and we collected all these things. We got them from the people directly when they f.e. had to move into homes or something because of their age. Mixers, washing-machines achGott, you name it. My colleague was furnishing a fifties appartement and kitchen.
My favorite items are these old switches, I like them very well. Especially those to turn - I mean really to turn around. They still work too. A good electrician can use them.
And objects made from bacelite. It's named after it's inventor, a Belgian when I remember well.
Sadly we had no remains of early computing, I mean real large objects, some hand-mate platines and customermade wirings and all yes, but few people understood it. and younger visitors even had no more clue about floppy disks, fivers and the older eights. A shit, pereat mundus.
Why are you collecting? Things have their own logic, know some strange collectors believe me, I start to get rid of things now, slowly, but in the end it's useless, "Tand", "kannst nichts mitnehmen ..."
I collect ex boy friends. I am currently looking for my next one. Your house looks like a museum but in a good way.
ReplyDeleteTime for you to add on to the house.
ReplyDeleteWow. I was reading it thinking "when will she explain the egg thing". You never did, and the animal bone thing is bizarre. I used to collect pencils, erasers, stickers (my little pony, Snoopy and 90210) and stationary.
ReplyDeleteNow I collect DVDs and Kylie Minogue music on all formats except tapes.
*snickers at sissy boy's sticker collection above me*
ReplyDeleteEeeeee!!! This post is porn for us OCDers! I, too, am a collector. The mid-century to 70's era kitchen implements are the shit cuz they were generally made to last forever. I have an old Moulinex multi-thingy(juicer/shredder/slicer/etc) that is nearly 40 years old and works wonderfully.
ReplyDeleteFossils, gargoyles, beer glasses and kitchen implements here(to name a few). Yup.
This just in;
ReplyDeleteit's called hoarding now.
Those pieces are actually quite alluring in their simplicity and functionality.
You need to open Nation's Eclectic Emporium...there's prolly some government funding available.
I bought a box of vintage cream bottles today and it's all your fault, dammit!
ReplyDeleteHa on all of you
ReplyDeleteI dont collect anything
GO ON BITCHES READ IT AND WEEP
Nothing
NOT A THING
MWA HA HA HA HA
***capers around clutter free house***
Shuddup MJ!
ReplyDeleteBeastie you must live a very dull and empty life.
i have more than enough shit of my own...uh...i mean stuff...been throwing it out left and right...the only thing i am keeping (to this point) is my harmony kingdom collection and only because i still get some pleasure in some of the pieces...
ReplyDeleteThat's nice pottery...I'd make you anoffer but I have nowhere to put it...:)
ReplyDeleteI hear ya on the odd collectables...my husband collects old toasters and film projectors. Cool, but a bit wierd after a while. Some are on display and I wish I could get the older toasters rewired so we could use them without wondering if we'd burn the house down...I just "collect" kitchen gadgets for use - you name it, I probably have it and use it somewhere in the kitchen.
After helping family purge our house full of antiques before we bought it and moved into it...it kind of put meoff collectables for a while. Too much stuff...and where do you stop??
But eggs? Are they real? painted? ostrich? What? I'm very curious.
*hangs dingle out per nations request*
ReplyDeletei collect bauer.
ReplyDeletexoxox