2015 Urban Safari Hunting Hauls (Garage Sale, Antique/Thrift Stores, Auctions...)

[Marvelmania]

Nothing Earthshaking but found 3 cool old 1971-72 black light posters I couldn't pass up. Total of $3 at $1 each. Chipped up and some tears but I had to save them. Also picked up a nice vintage Sherwood ST-801 turntable and a pair of vintage Altec Lansing 886a speakers for $20.

[Rallygirl]

The sweater is FABULOUS!

For $1, I bought the world's ugliest sweater

[marcmegomaniac]

Picked some vintage Megos, once I check them all out I'll probably list them in the marketplace.




Nice Wonderwoman, awful box



Thanks for checking out my finds!

[SentientApe]

ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND, PART I

Well, it would appear I need to catch up in this topic. In order to do so, I will start being more selective about what I post, especially in light of the fact that a couple weekend trips this year were filled with literally dozens of antique shops. I am deliberately skipping an auction held the last day of February (where my wife and I picked up many items), as well as our first visit through an excellent antique shop in Wisconsin (I will address that location when this chronological narrative reaches our second trip), just so I can jump into our anniversary weekend trip...

To celebrate our sixteen years of marriage, my wife and I plotted, again, to set ourselves up at a Bed & Breakfast in a distant town that would normally be beyond a convenient one-day trip, from which to spend four days hunting antique stores for treasures. We set our sights on lower Michigan (where my family used to vacation in the summer) and identified a B&B in South Haven to use as the center of our operations over the extended weekend...

We averaged ten locations per day, for a total of 40 stores over the four-day period. Despite our best efforts at advance planning and online research, a few locations turned out to be closed upon our arrival, either permanently out-of-business or only for the off-tourist-season. For brevity's sake, I am omitting from this narrative several locations which I feel are less-than noteworthy.

Pull up a chair, as this is going to be a long one.

Our first stop was the 21,000 square foot Great Lake Antique Mall in Coloma. I must digress for a moment to mention that, hardly one month earlier, I became interested in participating in an upcoming WWI reenactment, which was relatively easy to do with a minor conversion of some of my extra WWII Soviet reenacting gear, with the addition of some additional items I did not yet own. This was ever on my mind during the weekend, as I kept my eyes open for specific items... Imagine, therefore, my astonishment when the VERY FIRST booth I walked into in the VERY FIRST antique mall of our ambitious weekend contained several items of WWI militaria.

Employing EXTREME restraint, I walked away only with a Red Army shinel (greatcoat) with the intent of converting it into a reasonable facsimile of a WWI Imperial Russian coat --



...and four WWI-dated postcards --



My wife found an amazing deal on a set of Sleigh Bells, which we always find, but never before at such an affordable price --



Also worth mentioning was a beautiful matching pair of prewar Schwinn Bicycles, which were priced (sadly) far beyond our planned weekend budget --



We next stopped at a store with the intriguing name Elephant's Breath Antiques in St. Joseph. My wife picked up an old necklace, while I pounced upon several View-Master disks; while one of these disks was simply of Chicago, another was an extremely rare demonstration disk that described how to have your family vacation photos mounted as View-Master disks, and two utterly unique personal family photo View-Master disks!!





Before leaving, we engaged in the obligatory conversation with the store clerk ("Where are you from?", "What brings you to town?", etc.). She shared with us two interesting anecdotes -- the first was that of a small child who was dragged into the store by his parents and, upon entering, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and paused before exclaiming: "Oh, THAT's what elephant's breath smell like."

The second story was an interesting tale of the no-longer-existent town of Singapore, Michigan, a story with additional segments that popped up throughout the weekend, and that I continued to investigate since then. Established in the late 1830s, Singapore's "wildcat" bank was notorious for printing currency in excess of its actual holdings. After the Civil War, this became a legal problem investigated by bank examiners -- the story goes that a nearby town (Allegan) would transfer its funds to Singapore in time for the bank examiner to see that all was well, after which the locals would drink the examiner under the table -- before he slept it off, those funds would all be transferred to Allegan to cover THAT bank's shortfall, in time for the tardy bank examiner's inspection. A devastating blizzard threatened to wipe out the population of Singapore, and might have done so were it not for a shipwreck off the coast that contained enough food to sustain its citizens until the blizzard blew over. Eventually, fires wiped out the surrounding forests which robbed the area of lumber needed for rebuilding; the resulting deforestation failed to stave off erosion, and Lake Michigan's sands slowly buried the entire town. From its founding to its final demine, Singapore Michigan lasted less than 40 years.

A few doors down the street was Days of Yore Antiques, a small store that yielded -- in addition to a set of Santa Claus mugs for my wife -- two stereo cards and a much-desired "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron" View-Master reel!



After hitting a few stores that yielded no treasures, we arrived in South Haven in time for browsing in a few more shops and dinner before checking in at our B&B. The most notable shop was Murphy's 2 Floor Antique Mall, where I found an interesting bicycle lock of a pattern very similar to those used in WWII, still in its original box --



I would be remiss were I to omit mention of South Haven's Taste restaurant. The food was excellent, but the drinks were exceptional. I had the BLT martini and my wife had the Blueberry martini. If you are in town, don't miss this place.



The following day (Friday) was our actual anniversary. Although we had agreed to exchange only cards and instead find our own presents during the trip, my wife surprised me with an antique pair of plastic/magnetic kissing kids, similar to those I had played with as a child --



Our first stop was Saugatuck Antique Pavilion, an enormous (24,000 square feet) mall with over 175 dealers. You could realistically spend most of the day there, especially since it is attached to a restaurant and brewery.



This place was packed with treasures. Amongst the many tempting items we passed up were several Cat butt toothbrush holders --



... a giant (fake) chocolate Easter Bunny --



... and a silver mannequin --



How we walked out with only a miniature silver creamer, sugar bowl and tray is still beyond me --



As I said earlier, I am skipping mention of lesser places or those that were closed. In and around the popular tourist location of Saugatuck, we found a few stores on our anniversary morning that were closed due to the off-season. One non-existent place worth mentioning was Nob Hill Antique Mall. Part of my pre-vacation preparation is to virtually travel our planned route via Google Map Street View, to investigate if online listings of stores are actually current. In the case of this particular location, the storefront sign can be prominently seen online -- actually, as we pulled up in front, it looked like everything was golden. Imagine our surprise when we were met at the door by several young men who stated that they now only hand-made guitar parts in the building. When asked why they had not removed the prominent but wholly inaccurate advertising shingle, they replied: "It's much too expensive to take it down." Thanks for wasting our time, jerks -- at the very least, why not just sell us the antique sign?



But failure was soon to be rewarded in spades... Arriving in Holland, Michigan, we encountered the treasure-packed New Wooden Shoe Antique Mall. The overly-friendly proprietor provided us with a local antiquing map which actually redirected our plans for most of the day, as it offered a list of places along Route 31 we had not previously found in our online search. I also acquired one of the best deals of the trip: a Stereoviewer (aka "Stereopticon") in its original case , along with a couple stereoview cards of relatively (for the period) racy content --



With the resource of the local antiquing map in hand, we continued along Route 31... taking us next to Harvest Antiques & Collectibles, also in Holland. In one of the display cases I found what was only the second-ever plush "Pushmi-pullyu" I had ever seen (second to the one that I already own!) --



From this location my wife added another antique wooden shoe form to her collection, and I picked up a Mattel "Space: 1999" Commander Koenig action figure --



Our next stop was the West Michigan Antique Mall in Grand Haven which, like so many stores before it, was filled with goodies. From this location I still have some "Buyer's Remorse," as I passed up a few items which, if I had not been hungry and tired and so very eager to get to the next place that had already been hyped-up, I probably would have purchased. I could not, however, pass up three three 1935 US$1 silver certificates, especially considering they were priced at only double their face value(!) -- an incredible bargain, as these things are rarely ever priced less than $7 each.



My wife, ever the lover of All Things Plaid, picked up a Green metal picnic tote.



...and it is here that I must break this story in the first of three parts, for the next location was more of a museum than a store, and I took so very many photos...

[SentientApe]

ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND, PART II

Still with me? Picking up from where we left off...

The next location, Depot Antiques in Spring Lake, was the one I had been most eager to visit. The gentleman who had given us the map (at the Wooden Shoe Antique Mall in Holland, as mentioned in the previous segment) mentioned that this place "may not be all that interesting" as it was "mostly military stuff." Of course, that only piqued my interest! Similarly, when we mentioned this to the people at our previous stop, they repeated the cautious non-endorsement, while mentioning the store displayed an original Indian motorcycle that the owner refused to sell.

This one place alone was worth the entire trip; in fact, I am tempted to make the long drive just to visit this single store again. And yet we purchased NOTHING while we were there. Did I call it a store? Truth be told, it is more a museum.

The exterior of the store was littered (as is not an uncommon practice) with enticing large items for sale; statuary, benches, planters, architectural structures... and a goat cart, which is something for which we had long been searching --



The first room was, admittedly, filled with mostly military collectibles. As interesting and eclectic as these items were, nothing particularly moved me to a purchase. And I forgot about all of them when we entered the larger room...

Mounted in crossbeam rafters throughout the entire space were several dozen antique and extremely collectible bicycles of virtually every desirable configuration. Frustratingly, not a single one of them was for sale. I'm not even going to bother narrating these following photos, but offer them for your perusal. That aforementioned Indian motorcycle is in there, as are a few wood-frame bikes and even a driveshaft bicycle. Enjoy...













We were told that "the barn is also open" so, naturally, we walked next door to see that space. It was indeed a barn -- the second floor also had rafters and (you probably already guessed) with old bicycles similarly out of reach for display only (no sales). Ugh, you're killing me...









The unavailability of the enticing bicycles was perhaps overwhelming. I still don't know why we didn't purchase a single thing, especially since there were several items of militaria that I would have liked to add to my collection. But it had been a long, long day.

On our way back to our B&B -- where we were going to freshen up before our Anniversary Dinner -- the sun was beginning to set on the OTHER side of Lake Michigan. We pulled over to take a few photos of the remaining ice floes on the lake and the lengthening shadows...



The story continues...

[SentientApe]

ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND, PART III

We woke up Saturday morning with two full days remaining in our trip... and it felt as if we had already put in a week's worth.

Our first stop was the Anderson Schoolhouse in Fennville. It was clearly closed, but we pulled into the parking lot to start calculating what our next location would be. After a few minutes, a man walked up to our car and said: "I'm just now opening up." This was clearly a former and very large schoolhouse, with multiple rooms filled beyond capacity with items of every description. Judging by several factors which I am not going to relate here, it appeared that the owner had fallen on hard times, and I felt compelled to make a purchase, no matter how small -- this ended up being a very nice Manganese glass bottle, of which he had an extremely large selection.

The next town on our list was Allegan (the same town that had the shady bank back in the 1800s, remember?). Of the couple stores we visited there, one had been a "Must See" from the inception of this trip, if only because of its incredibly clever name: The Little Shop of Hoarders. I picked up yet another much-needed snap-brim hat that actually fits my melon --



The next town worth mentioning was that of Galesburg. All of our early research had indicated that the Burgess Antique Center was the one that we should visit, and that was on our list from the beginning. However, we seemed to encounter some sort of local "Bad Blood" feud in this regard: there are a number of antique shops in Galesburg, but they appear to belong to only one of two groups, and "never the twain shall meet." Nearing Burgess (which was the address typed into our GPS), we noticed we were passing a couple of antique stores, so we stopped. Sure enough, these were the smaller Galesburg shops that were on our list: the Corner Station Antique Mall, the Lilac Lane, and Grant's Antique Mall, all adjacent to each other. Grant's was really the only one of the three worth our time; my wife picked up a set of Santa mugs with matching rack, while I purchased a M1918 US messkit for a fraction of what they are priced elsewhere, and a very interesting Popeye pipe-kazoo...



...But at each of these stores, we enquired about the Burgess Antique Center which, according to our calculations, was only two blocks away. Each of store clerks at these three stores referred us to the other two adjacent stores, and refused to give us a straight answer whether the subject of our inquiry existed or not, if it was any good, whether they had ever been there -- or if they had even heard of it.

Sure enough, the Burgess Antique Center was only a couple blocks further on. With 22,000 square feet of space, I assume they gave the other chain enough competition... but, seriously, was that any way to treat out-of-towners? My wife made several purchases, including a Tartan-pattern Thermos tote, two silver compotes and an extremely interesting apple-picking basket with opening canvas bottom (for ease of dumping unloading collected apples).

Of the three stores we visited in Kalamazoo, we only made purchases at the Garden House Antiques; these which were an Enamelware bowl and a Thimble (photos later), as well as a quaint Fabric cat + kittens door stop --



As it was already after 5:00 PM, our plan was to return to South Haven, to again visit Murphy's 2 Floor Antique Mall (the same place we had been on Thursday) where we knew they were running a Saturday/Sunday only store-wide sale, with special late hours, before getting dinner. And it was worth the trip, especially with the free snacks offered throughout the store, which eased my rumbly tummy. We walked away with many good bargains, including an old trunk, a Model G View-Master (small diffuser openings and round lever variation!), a WWII-era Boy Scout First Aid pack, and a boxed "Rat Patrol" model which, when opened at the register to check its contents revealed to instead contain some very interesting Western models --





The next day (Sunday) was to be our return trip home, hitting the many stores that were located in Niles, which is a Michigan city that is closer to Chicago (thus shortening our final leg home). At Michiana Antique Mall, my wife picked up a Mr. + Mrs. Claus set of mugs for her ever-growing collection and a book on "Bulbs; four seasons of beautiful blooms". I picked up books on "The British Army 1914-18" (Osprey: 1978) and on "Psychical Research" by Barrett (1911) (a WWI-era book on paranormal phenomena? Yes, please!), as well as 12 packs of "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" collector cards (and was glad that I had passed up four pack a couple days earlier that would have cost me the same amount of money!) --



There were several other Niles shops that we visited, each of which is worth a visit, including Picker's Paradise Antique Mall, Alley Katz Antiques & Collectibles, and the Four Flags Antique Mall. At the Main Street Antique Mall, my wife picked up a pair of fashionable mink cuffs and an interesting Polka dot drink dispenser, while I got an Enamelware lunch pail with lid. Around the corner from the larger mall was a storefront simply labeled "Flea Market", which appeared to be a temporary business; but I found a very useful WWII Soviet-pattern Green enamelware mug.

The following photo shows several items that were mentioned previously from their respective locations, specifically: Enamelware lunch pail with lid, Manganese glass bottle, Enamelware bowl, Manganese glass bottle, Thimble, WWII Soviet-pattern Green enamelware mug and M1918 US messkit --



But one of the stores in Niles, specifically Cross the Street Collectibles, is perhaps the most interesting one to point out to this group. It is crammed from floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with toys and various collectibles, including old advertising. My wife picked up a Fruitcake tin and a Santa Claus tin, while I picked up four Winnie-the-Pooh "spoon-slider" breakfast buddies... Just as we finished paying for our items, I inquired about an 8" action figure sitting behind the counter. The lady said she had no idea what it was, and asked if I wanted to make an offer; pulling up the back of the shirt, I saw the words "AZRAK HAMWAY," and tried to briefly explain what I could about AHI -- and finally just asked if she would take $10 cash, as I really had no idea what it was worth. She agreed, and it is MINE.



A quick trip to a local Starbucks was needed to give us the required human fuel to make the final drive home. The trip was an exhausting, yet thoroughly rewarding, way to celebrate our anniversary ...

[Drzsmith]

Nothing Earthshaking but found 3 cool old 1971-72 black light posters I couldn't pass up. Total of $3 at $1 each. Chipped up and some tears but I had to save them. Also picked up a nice vintage Sherwood ST-801 turntable and a pair of vintage Altec Lansing 886a speakers for $20.

i love these

[Marvelmania]

Again nothing that I'm going to get rich on but basically stuff that I bought to keep. I just have fun going out and seeing what I can find that's interesting to me. I don't take it to seriously.

a 1977 Ideal Mr. Muscle Game, It's missing a plate or 2. $5 and a Spalding Dr. J ABA All Star 1973 1974 MVP 1974 Leading Scorer 1973 & 4 basketball $1 I think it's from around 1976. Has a needle inside it, lol.



Pair of 1970s Japanese Sonics AS-303 Speakers I love old 70's stereo stuff but couldn't get the grills off to see if the subs needed to be re-foamed so I was walking away since I'd never heard of them then the lady said if I'd carry them off I could have them. Tested and works great!

They're sitting on top of the Altec Lansings I got last weekend.


Chicago Album still had the poster in it and a Three Dog Night Album with the cards still inside of it. .50 each at The Haven of Mercy. All LPs are nice and clean.

[Marvelmania]

Anyone find anything this week? I couldn't find a thing but my last stop on the way home I did pick up a very cool 1988 (I think) Purple Sony Trinitron color TV, one of the 13" ones but still I thought it was cool because it's purple. $10 and works like a charm. Was missing the remote but I just tuned in a universal one.

[Rallygirl]

Oh I see, you drove within eyesight of my farm and a just a couple miles from my house and didn't stop to visit a fellow Mego enthusiast.

ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND, PART I

But failure was soon to be rewarded in spades... Arriving in Holland, Michigan, we encountered the treasure-packed New Wooden Shoe Antique Mall. The overly-friendly proprietor provided us with a local antiquing map which actually redirected our plans for most of the day, as it offered a list of places along Route 31 we had not previously found in our online search. I also acquired one of the best deals of the trip: a Stereoviewer (aka "Stereopticon") in its original case , along with a couple stereoview cards of relatively (for the period) racy content --

With the resource of the local antiquing map in hand, we continued along Route 31... taking us next to Harvest Antiques & Collectibles, also in Holland. In one of the display cases I found what was only the second-ever plush "Pushmi-pullyu" I had ever seen (second to the one that I already own!) --

Our next stop was the West Michigan Antique Mall in Grand Haven which, like so many stores before it, was filled with goodies. From this location I still have some "Buyer's Remorse," as I passed up a few items which, if I had not been hungry and tired and so very eager to get to the next place that had already been hyped-up, I probably would have purchased. I could not, however, pass up three three 1935 US$1 silver certificates, especially considering they were priced at only double their face value(!) -- an incredible bargain, as these things are rarely ever priced less than $7 each.

...and it is here that I must break this story in the first of three parts, for the next location was more of a museum than a store, and I took so very many photos...

[Nostalgiabuff]

did not find much this weekend but I did get this cool LP cabinet, which I have been looking for one like it for a while, and some great vinyl, all for $20

IMG_0449.jpg

IMG_0450.jpg

[Nostalgiabuff]

IMG_0451.jpg

this is the vinyl I got, the ones in the cabinet are just my small collection

[Marvelmania]

Love that LP cabinet. Very nice!

[justzeg18]

This weekend was pretty solid.

Saturdays haul, all from thrift stores, about $8.00 for it all:



The GEM of that pile was the Blythe.



I cleaned her up and put her on eBay that night, and she sold in about 20min.

Sunday was also pretty good, $5.00 at an antique store:

[Nostalgiabuff]

not much this weekend, but I did get some really nice vinyl for a buck a piece, Floyd, Zeppelin, The Who and Queen

also got a travel version of the Nintendo game cube, in a travel carrying case, with 7 games, and all attachments and a battery pack for $15, my son was pretty happy. now I have to see if I can plug it into our portable DVD player so he can play it in the car