Trailer Trad Collecting: Late Summer Finds (reshown)

At first blush, this lamp looks like an ordinary study lamp, doesn't it? I found it in the basement of an estate sale and it is considered to be an important piece of Bauhaus design. Designed by Christian Dell for the German manufacturer Kaiser Idell in the Forties, its streamlined design and great manufacturer's stamp on the top will look great on my desk.

More shop stools. I've come to favor the steel ones with weathered oak seats. I acquired the short one on the left this past weekend. It may have been used by porters and ticket takers on America's railroads during the Thirties and Forties.

North Carolina is a very beautiful state and I'm blessed to be here. Which is the State more noted for; its mountains, its Piedmont, its Sandhills or its miles of beautiful coast? Sometimes, I think that its wonderful western, mountain region is given short shrift. That's why I was so glad to find this wonderful poster from the U.S. Forest Service.

It is a nice, large size poster in it's original oak frame. How old is it? It could be from the Fifties but I'd guess that it is considerably older. Notice that the road is referred to as a 'Turnpike' or a fairly major road. -But it's a dirt road! And it's also hand-colored, which also places it in the Early Fifties, at latest.
I found this 1940s Indian blanket hanging in a closet of an estate sale. The colors are great and look great on my Mission Oak rocker.
This piece of folk art is a 1930s era water tower from an 'O-Gauge' train set-up. I sold the other pieces, like the ticket station and the lighted bridge, but kept this statuesque tower for myself.

What can I say about this leatherette and steel lounge chair? Makes me want to open up my collar and listen to it's wisdom. "Listen," it would say. "I went through times like this in the Seventies. -Go to the bar and order something with bourbon in it and make it Jim Beam-no small batch rubbish. Then, come back here and recline. No argument."

It must have been hard to sell refridgerators to homeowners one hundred years ago. "We will sell you this thing that will sit in the corner and keep things from rotting." "-Really?" This Turn of the Century salesman's sample was meant to help people invision what an 'Alaska' brand ice box would look like. A lot easier than lugging around an actual example!