Old stuff.
I like old stuff.
When I was a kid I liked taking out the back seats of old cars and looking at all the junk that had accumulated back there. Old receipts, toys, food wrappers, money and business cards. It's interesting to dig through 40 year old trash and think about what has changed over the years.
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I always wanted to be an archaeologist, but one who got to keep the stuff I found. I guess that's called grave robbing these days. Maybe treasure diving would be better, but I swim like a lead brick. I'll stick to digging through couch cushions and old cars.
I was looking through an American Rifleman magazine from 1945. There were tons of advertisements for little mom and pop operations that made holsters, little specialty parts and tools. Out of curiosity I googled these old names and I was really surprised that over 80% of them were still in business in one way or another. The ones that had gone out of business were either in New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago...go figure.
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One of my favorite past times is reading those old books that are placed decoratively in fancy department stores. One time in Macy's they had a elementary text book from 1899 sitting on top of a display. I opened it up to a random page and it said black people are more closely related to apes than white men. Holy shit! You'd think they'd watch that stuff a little closer. Hell, maybe I'm the only person who has looked inside that book in 107 years.
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I don't actively collect antiques anymore. I don't have the room for a bunch of stuff that has the sole purpose of collecting dust. I don't want to be a slave to my possessions and now I only buy old stuff that has some day to day purpose. For the longest time, I had an old Rotary telephone from "Joe's Bar" on my desk that was plugged into my computer's modem.
I'm pretty much over being attached to "things" If the kids break something ... whatever.. It's just stuff.
posted by Bill Rowland @ November 05, 2007
24 Comments
24 Comments:
I love old stuff too. I don't actively collect because I'm a pack rat and our house is filled with junk as it is. I do esp love old stuff from family whether valuable or not. My mother has recognized at least this in me and passes mementos along.
As for checking behind car seats or couches - always check your dryer below the drum. Last time ours broke, my husband found enough money there to pay for the new motor.
Geez...I was hoping when I clicked on the photo that it would larger so I could inspect all that neat looking stuff! What a collection!
Collecting is a fascinating hobby. It doesn't matter what you collect as long as you have the interest and the drive to be fascinated by the variety of what you collect. Collecting is a way of creating a history of things. It teaches us about the past and lets us learn in a way that is enjoyable.
That's cool stuff, it looks like you already are an archeologist.
The bit about removing the old car seats reminded me of when I was a kid, helping my dad set up his new butcher shop, we removed a bunch of old cooler/cases and I found all sorts of cool old stuff under there. Including some amazing old coins.
I haven't thought of that in years.
~Oswegan
I like your antique plum bob. I collect foreign coins and some American as well as guitar picks. And every time I go to Sea World or some place new like that, I look for a penny smasher that puts a souveigner embossment on one of my pennies.
Its nice to have old stuff that has a memory attached to it. Otherwise, yep, its just a dust collector.
I've got a bit of old stuff, but it's all family heirlooms that I will pass on to the kids one day.
Oh my gosh, you would have loved it last year when we cleaned out my aunts home of 60 yeras. Being a packrat she has saves stuff all her life. And so much of it is COOL STUFF! Every National Geographic ever published. Glass bottles (milk, Coke, booze, etc) Coins, matchbook collection from around the world, ticket stubs, newspaper atricles, books, magazines, photos, buttons, marbles, all kinds of STUFF plus tons of antiques.
If you lived nearby you could come over and look, we still have boxes of it.
Kids, that's when I gave up antiques too, except for dishes. I just love setting a table with old china and imagining the conversations that happened over it when it was new.
my gnome is a lot like this too...but I call him a pack rat..lmao
Dude I've got drawers full of crap that would probably blow your mind. With you and Bruno draggin'ut old stuff like this, I'm gonna have to dust some stuff off. Yea, cool picture. And the old history books are a trip. Love them.
I finally got around to moving an old trunk I had just tossed on the floor in the corner when I got it. Underneath it I found the missing gerbil I had purchased as a gift for my brother in law's snake around the same time. It was smushed and mummified and never got around to stinking up the place. I just thought the thing escaped and found a better life when he realized he was just snake food. That's the kind of shit I find under things around here!
We have some old stuff but not much, and it isn't valuable. I love old books and have a few really old ones. I might have been tempted to swipe that book from Macy's or at least offered to buy it.
There are still a few bits and bobs that I'd be upset about if there were a breakage, but on the whole 'stuff' accumulate is part of an ongoing campaign = nothing else in unless something else goes out!
Cheers
Old stuff is always cool, many times we throw away our older things just because we're bored with them, not because there's anything wrong with them.
Old stuff is cool. Except Bea Arthur.
I love old text books and story books. I have a bunch of my mom's old ones that were probably antiques when she had them. Definitely gives you a perspective on a time when things were very different.
One of my favorite memories from spending at the night at Grandma's house was going through a Sears catalog from the 30's. LOVED IT.
Of course, my cousins thought I was a little odd.
I'm like you, it's a big oh well. I am attached to a few family heirlooms, but I keep them packed away real nice and neat. Anything I venture to put out, I risk it getting broke by one of us or a pet. That's something I'm willing to risk.
OOOh, I love antics, I love collecting, especially old things from Asia. And I already have a lot of family heirloom stuff and furniture, so I am now very careful and don't buy much unless it fits perfectly in my house, I mostly buy the very necessary things I need.I like your collection, very nice and interesting.
I like old stuff, too - and not because a lot of it dates from my childhood. I'm with you on moving to the "it's just stuff" attitude. I find myself more and more just pitching stuff that looks ratty and that isn't being used.
I, too, appreciate and tend to accumulate flotsam and jetsam of earlier ages. I'm materialistic in a way, but then again, I'm not. About 10 years ago my little dog got loose and was gone for 9 weeks. I went to the SPCA every day, and left crying. That was a pivotal event in my life, because I realized I would give up every material possession I owned to get my dog back. Just me and my little dog, living in a van down by the river, or some such. Me and my dog. Yeah, it's all just stuff. I have some particularly fabulous stuff, but I suppose most of it has a twin I could stumble across again at Goodwill sooner or later. ANd there's always ebay. I'm in a big cutting loose phase right now, with a carload of Goodwill stuff going about once a week - it's liberating.
THE POST ABOVE THIS ONE WAS NEAT
MY NEW BUSINESS IS SELLING ANTIQUES ON EBAY
SO FAR PROFITS, THOUGH SOME ARE MEAGER.
TURNED 12 BUCKS INTO 140 TODAY, SO THAT IS GOOD
Well, it seems every home has an antique story to tell, like in our house: an WWII Japanese pistol, some wavy oriental swords, a very long necklace made of 1950 coins which according to tradition here, is placed on the shoulders of a couple being wed...
More antique decors here.
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