Recent Junking Finds

Here are a few recent junking purchases acquired at local estate and yard sales. This mint little badge was attached to 1930s/1940s automobiles to signify that they carried State Farm insurance-I think.

I love vintage clothes but they are SO hard to find because men simply wear out everything that they buy. Exceptions are special items that they hold onto, like this wool baseball cap from around 1960. Very nice, soft condition but too small for my size 7 and 24/8ths head.

These 70s plastic chairs probably aren't worth that much because I don't know the manufacturer or designer but I do know that that they look really cool and that they were bought by the owners out of the window of Raleigh's best Mid-Century furniture store Father and Son Antiques.

This a cute little whale. It's a 1940's bedside change stand that a guy would use to hold his pipe, wallet, change etc. Very charming and functional.
Judging by the tall ship rigging, I'd guess this framed photo is from the 1940s or so, maybe earlier. Nice, large image with cool subject matter.

These french signs are from the 1950s or 1960s and went in restrooms, etc. 'Salle de bains' means restroom while 'defense de cracher' means no spitting. -Seriously.

Trailer Trad Collecting: A Coke and a Smile

A gentleman at the flea market brought a very nice collection of Coke trays. These are not reproductions but the original lithographed trays produced by Coke in the 1930s through the 1960s. 

Summer Junk 2012

While other people escaped to Wrightsville Beach or to cool(er) Blowing Rock or Bath in the mountains, I sweltered in Raleigh this summer while digging around for fresh junking treasures.

These 1950s signs advertising tourist trinkets bring back a lot of childhood vacation memories. -Pretty rare to find a complete set, I thought.

I have a couple of Atlantic service station signs from the 1940s/50s so I thought that this would make a good addition. Orange and blue is my favorite color combination (no, I'm not an especially big UVA fan even though my hometown is near Charlottesville). 'White Flash' was one of Atlantic's popular fuel formulations and had been around since the 1920s.

This very groovy chair looks like a prop from Space: 1999 and probably had it's share of Tang spilled on it back in the day. -Quickly wiped away spotless by Mrs. Brady, I'm sure.

Slap this 1940s lumber mill smock on and you'll instantly be able to fix your leaky tub and update your kitchen. By yourself.

This groovy little cocktail table is just swank. Pure and simple.

Although these rusty industrial artifacts resemble old milk cans, they are actually fuel cans from the 1920's. They sat in an Ohio barn for decades until they were brought to Raleigh by the original owner's grandaughter when she relocated her family to The Old North State.

June and July Junk

A picker at the flea market brought out some old junk that he pulled from a really old country store and textile mill about an hour outside of Raleigh. This sign was pulled off of the wall in this incredible old store/post office out in the NC countryside. -I was amazed that raw, 19th century storefronts still existed in their original, untouched condition. If you look really close, you can see my old sign hanging under the arch and to the left of the doorway inside the large window.Supposedly, there's an equally amazing old textile mill across the road from these store fronts. Fun stuff.

In its own way, this 1930's country store display is nearly as rare and I grabbed FOUR of them at the flea market last weekend. They came out of an elderly homeowner's garage whose family must have been in the restaurant/ food business many, many years ago. They are store displays for (rather well made)little juice extractors. One would punch a hole in the top of an orange/grapefruit and stick it in, tip it up and drink the juice! These would be perfect for 'Florida' collectors.

The graphics on these displays are really nice. You don't always find advertising in this pristine condition and with all of the merchandise still attached.

This is another estate sale that I went to. It was right down the street from that killer sale that I chronicled in this post. -What a cool neighborhood! Unfortunately a lot of people also thought that so, although there was a lot of old great junk at one point, it was cleaned out with great precision by the time I got to it. -I was shut out, pretty much. Oh well, can't win' em all.

Once in a great while, good 1950s advertising will come available for a bargain price. This 'Green Spot' soda tray has the streamlined design, great colors (orange is my favorite) and super clean condition that I couldn't pass up.I'm always socking away the odd kitchen accessory and this was just really cool. German (from the 1930s?), this manual slicer probably beautifully prepared a lot of Braunschweiger in its day. A very nice gadget that could prove useful one day when I'm busy with the task of building the greatest sandwich known to man.