It's amazing what I considered my good find of the day -

[Vinca]

"new old," "Made in the U.S.A." bath towels. The elderly lady must have been cleaning out a storage closet because they still smelled of moth balls. The quality is so superior to the "Made Anywhere But the U.S.A." stuff you find now and for only a buck apiece, I was very happy. On the antiques/collectibles front . . . not so much. I was reduced to buying a Jim Morrison figurine in the original package, a Hummer model car and a couple of salt and pepper sets. It was grim.

[eleny]

1. Years ago I got two sets of Made in the USA towels I liked

It was decades ago. The towels have lasted so long that I never broke out the second set. I did buy more towels in between so that's also why the plaid ones have lasted. But I'm tickled that I have a stash of nos Fieldcrests. The colors on these old towels are still vivid. The edges are raveling these days. I thought maybe I could zigzag the edges.

When I go thrifting I always look for USA towels in good shape but they're few and far between these days. You did good finding the towels.

The rest was slim pickings. I haven't had time to go to the thrift this summer. I ought to see what's up and report back. I've had the urge a few times but just couldn't get away.

[Paper Roses]

2. Picked up at set of 12 gold rimmed wine glasses along with

6 of the same patten sherbet glasses. Don't know what they call these glasses today; who serves anything in these shallow wide glasses now?
Other than the glasses, slim pickings. Early Woolworth at best!

[eleny]

3. "Early Woolworth...."

I have two sets of dishes that my mom bought back in the early '50s as gifts one Christmas for my grandmas. They were from Kresge (now K-Mart). Early Woolworth is okay! :D

[Paper Roses]

4. I used to this phrase when I was in the business.

Many of my house calls produced lots of stuff that was just "stuff". My husband and I used to call it early Woolworth. Granted, there are many items sold by Woolworth that are now in the collectible category. What I meant, just because Granny bought the 'whatever', it is not necessarily antique. Lots of young folks think that, if Granny had it, it must be old.
Maybe I should change that to early Zayre or J.M Fields. Has not been a Woolworth in this area for at least 25 years.
My reference was to age and not to quality. Heck, I was brought up out of Woolworth.
I know my mother bought lots of stuff from their stores but I most vividly remember the underwear, socks(Buster Brown) and Tangee lipstick!

[demgrrrll]

5. Tangee lipstick and Radio Girl Perfume

[grasswire]

6. I found a huge lot of vintage towel sets once in an Amherst auction.

They were fantastic. I don't know what happened to them. I also bought a big lot of cotton pillowcases from the fifties -- pre-synthetic. Wow. They were just great.

I buy vintage pillowcases whenever I can find them at a reasonable price. Tomorrow morning I head out early to the Methodist rummage where every year I find really, really good linens at amazing cheap prices. Yayy!

Of course it is going to be a record high temperature in the nineties tomorrow, but I will be out real early. I'll be there half an hour early -- it's a parking lot sale, and they can't shut any early birds out.

[grasswire]

7. so I was there at 8 a.m. for the 9 a.m. sale

Methodist parking lot. I roamed as they emptied boxes of donations onto the tables. Ack. No cotton pillowcases this year, durn it. But I did score. My third time 'round the lot, I saw a green planter. Hey! McCoy! #1603. Perfect condition. Fifty cents!

I picked up a tartan Thermos with liner intact and cup intact. I already have a round cooler in that pattern in storage. A worker rushed over to tell me that it is worth $40 on eBay. As if I didn't know. :-) $1.

Tablecloth: I saw blossoms and took it home for a dollar. When I got home, I see that it is cherry blossoms, and that it is pre-1940 with images of the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial --- but no Jefferson Memorial, which started construction 1939. That will be fun to sell.

Big score in vintage clothes for the college sophomore who loves them! Some Methodist man's closet of top-quality clothing had been emptied. I got a seersucker sports jacket and a Pendleton madras sports jacket, NWT but vintage, for $2 each. And a dozen very cool vintage neckties, most of them made of Scottish lambswool but also some from the 1960s, skinny and retro. He's going to love that one of them is a tartan in his school colors.

Other finds: green wood-handled vintage kitchen tools at 25 cents each. Two dozen retro teak-handled dinner forks made in Germany, all for a buck.

A huge package of vintage handwork pattern books for ten cents. Probably forty books in all. I know they aren't worth much, but more than ten cents!

I passed on a couple of boxes of Christmas ornaments just because I had walked there and was getting too loaded down.

And I bought some really pretty pottery bowls for home.

It was a fine, fine day. Too bad I have to wait 'til next year for them to do it again.

[Vinca]

8. That sounds like a great sale! I missed the church sales in the spring

because I was recovering from the hip replacement surgery, but I'm raring to go for the fall sales. I went out to tag sales today. It didn't begin well. I drove a couple of towns away to an early sale because they had advertised Barbies. I hate Barbies, but anything for a buck. In any case, I was the first one there and said I'd come to see the Barbies and the woman told me she had included her phone number in the newspaper ad and someone called and bought them all yesterday. GRRRRR. I was so annoyed I didn't bother looking at the rest of her stuff and headed back to the town with the most sales. I managed to find some decent vintage jewelry and what I think is a gold watch. Not a terribly good one, but I'll take it to the jeweler who buys gold for scrap and make a few dollars. I picked up a signed picture that I think is considered a digital painting. It seems to be associated with Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series somehow and that seems to have a bit of a cult following as far as I can tell. I'll need to do more research. I also found a really nice Imperial Glass footed bowl with an underplate that is in a zodiac design and still has the old labels attached. Sadly, worth zilch on ebay, but I'll be able to sell it in the booth. Great weather over in Vermont today and fun sales!

[grasswire]

9. I hate when sellers accomodate early birds!

Boo! Hiss!

I think I need to get a space in an antique mall again. There's one within walking distance of my new digs. It's a cool building, with an authentic old original working soda parlor inside. One of the stools is memorialized, because John F. Kennedy sat there on a campaign tour years ago.

Anyway, if I had a space, I could sell some of this stuff that has value under $20. Maybe. On the other hand, if I just sold 10 items a day on eBay that made $5 profit, that would be a nice egg. Of course I would have to list 20 to sell 10, probably.

I realized last night that I could have bought more of the vintage menswear and sold it on eBay or taken it to a resale shop and made some $ off it. Really top quality stuff, it was. But alas, I was on foot.

Meanwhile, this McCoy planter is calling my name. It wants to sit on my shelf with my other green pottery pieces.

I'd like to pick Vermont. Is there fall color yet? Still in the 90s here today.

[Vinca]

10. The leaves aren't turning yet in the south. Usually peak for foliage

is the second week in October in our area. The shop I sell at in Brattleboro has been a bit slow given the floods and a serious Main Street fire earlier in the year, but I'm going to hang in there. A bigger problem at the moment seems to be theft - especially of silver items. Someone had a small, locked case on a display at the back of the store. It was filled with sterling flatware. It turned up in the far reaches of the store, jimmied open and empty. I'm in an end-of-aisle booth near the cash register so I'm not as concerned, but I have recently lost a nice paperweight that was fairly valuable. It makes you want to just put worthless crap in the booth.

[grasswire]

11. yeah, theft has really ruined the trade for many dealers and malls

I talk to a lot of people who say "I used to have a space at xxxx but the shoplifting ruined me."

I was really stupid about that. I had a basket full of WW2 money -- various occupied currencies. I put it in my space. It was gone overnight. Heh.

Oh and Brattleboro is nice! I had a good cuppa espresso there once in a little shop that was more like one in the Pacific Northwest. Real coffee! (I did not have a lot of luck finding espresso in N.E. -- that was about ten years ago, though. Did find some in NoHo and in Concord NH.)

[Paper Roses]

12. Shoplifting happens in shops too. A lot of smalls have walked out the

door of my friends shop. Did for me too when I was in the biz. There is also the ticket switching that causes you to lose.