Vintage Letter Blocks

A few months back, I found an entire box of vintage letter blocks at an estate sale. I'd already sold a set of blocks in my JillHannah Etsy shop so I was very excited to find quite so many of these fabulous blocks.

But now I face a problem: how to sell them. A lot of people already do custom names and things, others have words like "FUN" and "LOVE" available for sale. So I can compete with the existing or I can innovate. My initial innovative instinct? Sell words like "SHIT," "ASSHAT" and "NUMBSKULL." They'll sell, or at least get attention, but do I want my shop going in that direction? It's not exactly classy.

Maybe today I'll work on listing the vintage popcorn popper and see what other people think.

Other people? You out there?

"How do you KNOW it's vintage?" DUH Edition

Because it's stamped right there on the shoe last. And the stamp and date fit with the item, so it's not like someone randomly wrote the year on something they bought yesterday at Target. For as much as I love the information hunt, it's really nice to find an easy, obvious item like this. United Last Co. 1942. Brookton Branch. End of research.

Wish I could say the same for its more mysterious cast iron friend...

"How do you KNOW it's vintage?"

Art: Know It AllNo 2 Pencil Set by paperpastries

As a writer, I go back through notes and restaurant specials menus and old newspapers just to make sure it really was a Tuesday when my family left for San Diego. For a person who doesn't believe in "The Truth," I'm a bit obsessed with finding as much accurate information as humanly possible when building and relaying a story.

This goes double for my vintage and antique finds. I will research every mark, every classic seam and shape of an item to find its story. Often, a particular logo or trademark was only used during a set number of years, or a company produced a model between very specific dates. Sometimes I get lucky and find a dated magazine advertisement for the exact item I've found. Often it is a known piece of vintage history.

Those are these easy clues. But there are times when I find something truly wonderful without easy to define date markers or labels. What then?

Art by ModishVintage: vintage miniature collection under glass

I'm not one to play it fast and loose. But one time I found an estate sale of a woman who had just moved from her condo to an assisted living community. The gentleman who had been taking care of her ran the sale at her directive while the landlord wanted her completely out as soon as humanly possible.
Her condo was incredible, with pristine pieces of American history from the past 75 years. I'd already spent an hour combing through boxes and collecting dishes, knives, irons, place mats, and clocks when somebody asked, "have you been upstairs?"
Apparently, the woman's sister had lived in an almost identical condo two floors above but died 30 years ago. Unable to cope with the loss, they put everything in plastic bags and closed the door, leaving this second condo a perfect time capsule. There was more clothing than I could handle, souvenirs from the sisters' world travels, accessories to make you squeal and knick-knacks telling stories of long-gone times. In this time capsule, I didn't have to worry about things being truly vintage because nothing in the entire condo had been purchased since 1980.

Demolition sales are less clear cut, but if a house is from the 1940s (as most of my favorite ones are), the doorknobs and the railings are probably from the 1940s, too. If I'm lucky, I get to speak to the house owners and they know exactly when different elements (paricularly cabinet knobs) were added to the house. Sometimes, I'm stuck looking at the house and the element itself and I have to make an educated guess. I hate doing that and frequently leave the age blank.

I'm not going to say something is vintage unless I truly believe it is more than 20 years old. If you discover something in my shop isn't what I say it is, please let me know. I am operating on my best research and information, that doesn't make me infallible.

ramble VICTOR whirrrrr ADDING fizzle MACHINE

I want to list things but my brain is Swiss cheese. Can I just post pretty pictures with semi-coherant rambling sentence fragments?


Victor Adding Machine
Model 60-85-54
Green
Lots of number buttons
Plug it in and it turns on and makes lots of noise and does stuff but I don't know how to use an adding machine so I don't know if it "works."
Produced 1950-1956
More information from this German site here: http://bit.ly/victor60-85-54
Did I mention it's green?
Weighs like 20 lbs. Convert that to kilograms yourself, dammit, I can hear my brain doing the Alka Seltzer fizzle.
It's really cool. The top swings open and there's all this mechanical stuff inside.
When it's plugged in it sounds and smells like my mom's old typewriter.
Yesterday when I calculated the 1951 price in Saar francs (from that German site) and converted it into 2010 US dollars it came out to almost exactly $700. I guess it was the office computer of its time - a big important investment.
It has no zeroes. This boggles my mind.
There's two shades of green: forest green and bright spring green. It's almost a mint green but not quite blue enough.
If you press a key while it's off, the key stays down. The second you plug it in, it springs back to life.
The body has a hump on its back. I was looking through patents and other models of the Victor adding machines and most of them don't have the hump. It reminds me of a car with some extra curvy piece to appear aerodynamic and sporty. I don't know why it needs the hump, if it's style or if there's an extra function that takes up more room. Whatever the rationale, this would be the coolest adding machine on wheels. And it's green.

Fabulous Find: Wrought Iron Arch

From a demolition auction in River Forest, IL:
As per demolition sale rules, you have to remove your purchases yourself ASAP. I figured a sledgehammer and my brother would do the trick no problem, but in the end my brother, father, and roommate all put forth a brilliant effort in getting the arch from the demolition site to its new temporary location:It's a nice piece, just waiting for the right home.
There is a ring hanging down in the center from which you could hang a lantern, sign, or anything else.I haven't removed the lights yet in case someone wants them on there.

More photos:


Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing the arch. I can deliver to non-axe-murderers around Chicagoland.

Vintage Supply that Begs to be Artified

I found this ring at this guy's warehouse-that-will-turn-into-a-store-if-the-loan-ever-comes-through sale. I wanted to jump into business with the guy and turn his space into something for as close to $0 as possible in return for sharing the venue, but that's another story.

The ring!

This ring is a crafts(wo)man, artist, and jeweler's dream project. It is a 1920s vintage element with structure and an art deco design for inspiration and direction, but there is so much possibility.
Someone unceremoniously ripped out the five stones settings and all, leaving behind cut marks on the gold.
A person with talent and more metalsmithing/jewelry background than a few summers at camp could make this thing gorgeous.



Any ideas?

Where to Screw Email

The Screw Email Blog lives! In my estate sale scavenging, I found two shoeboxes of letters and postcards for sale, postmarked and filled with abandoned story and sentiment. (I'm the only person at these sales who looks for non-blank cards.)
Now, I have over 100 cards, so I can keep the blog running for at least that many posts, and by then I figure it might actually catch on enough for people to be comfortable sending me things.
You are included in people.

As a result of my postcard shoebox purchases, I now also have a whole ton of blank vintage postcards, too. I figure I can sell five postcard grab-bags, but here's the question: do I sell them with all my other vintage finds on jillhannah.etsy.com or do I put them on Off the Wall Greetings because they are cards and a bit off the wall?
Suggestions? Inklings? Comments?

Red Fish

I had an hour and a half to kill before an appointment in a town I never go to. I wandered into a resale shop. I'd taken public transportation, so I was limited to things I could home carry in my bag--probably a good thing or I would have ended up with giant cork lamps and random pieces of bric-a-brac to sink a boat.
One thing in particular could not be left behind:

Created with flickr slideshow.

I see it in a room with animal print and reflective surfaces, or against white walls and modern lines. It smells like an ashtray, alludes to being a soap dish, and would gladly keep a ceramic panther company on your mantle.

My listing on Etsy is mildly entertaining, too.