Treasure Time!!

I don't know if I shared this yet with everybody, but after retiring from a career in nursing, my plan was to renovate an older house across the street from where we live and eventually open an antique and collectables shop. Just for fun.



Our little town sits on a lake and has a lot of other little shops that are visited by the summer tourists frequently. Many of them are old homes that have been turned into shops, and they have been quite successful.



So, my husband has been working hard on renovating a building for me to have a little shop in.

We think it will be ready late this autumn or by the next year's tourist season.



Part of the reason I had this retirement dream was because we have collected antiques and collectables all of our married life.




We had a huge Victorian house full of them for over 15 years and when we built our log home on the lake, we sold part of them and put the rest in storage for the future dream of having a shop.


We still go to rummage sales, auctions, and estate sales whenever we can. We are addicted, and now, with the shop coming in the horizon, we will again have a reason to feed our addiction.

Which brings me to today's post!

Yesterday, there was a small ad in the paper advertising an estate sale that was only going to be going on the next day for four hours in a town about 30 minutes away from where we live.

So, we made a "date" to go out to eat a nice breakfast and then get to the sale a few hours before noon.

By the time we got there, we walked in the tiny house it was being held in, and it was almost naked. Evidently, the sale was so successful, they sold out of almost everything before we got there. There were a few things left on the dining room table for sale and then the guy said there were "boxes" in the garage and that if we wanted to rummage through them, and make an offer for anything we wanted to buy, we could do that.

Now, this was great news to us. A treasure hunt!!!! Bring it!!!

We found some great things at some incredible prices.

First buy:



a pretty blue, pressed glass candy dish:




Then, I spotted this really cute puppy PAINTING stuck behind two boxes in the garage:




Then, my husband had to have this God-awful, uglier-than-shit unique wooden bird bowl:

And stuck in a old grocery shopping bag with some other dishes was this goofus-glass vase:

Next, we found this: (Do you know what it is?):

Here is another shot, with the lid off to give you a second guess at what it is:

This is a salt dip. Back in the day, at fancy dinners, women slaves hostesses would place one of these at each place setting for guests to dip celery etc. into.

They had a set of 8, but only had 6 with covers. We bought the entire set. The people selling them didn't have a clue what they were as I laughed all the way to the bank.


Next, we spied this: Do you know what it is?

We have three of these at home. This one is a newer "remake" of the old antique ones.
So we decided to keep this one at home and sell our other three at the shop.
Any quesses yet? Here is another clue of how you use it:

It is called a "ricer". We bake potatoes in the microwave and when they are done, we cut them in half. Then, with the cut side down, you place the potato in the bowl part and lower the handle and squish the baked potato through the ricer and it comes out of the little holes and looks like rice. But the baked potato tastes great this way, with a little added sour cream or butter.

Next, I saw this curious box in the garage, buried under a pile of stuff. I thought I knew what it was. What do you think it was?:

When you look at the next photo, you will know for sure:

The box looked like new, so I started to get excited. Because I knew it was very old. So, I carefully unhooked the locks on each side of the box and look what I saw inside!!!!:

There was one of cleanest, hardly-used OLD portable sewing machines I have ever seen. A cute little cast iron Singer portable electric sewing machine.

Surely, I thought, it doesn't work after all these years. Too bad it doesn't have its original manual or parts to it. But it would make a really cute display item in the shop.

I asked the guy how much he wanted. he said: "Make an offer!" I jokingly said: "Three dollars? It probably doesn't even work!" He said: "yeah, your guess is as good as mine...sure you can have it!"

Thrilled, I re-hooked it and took it home.

We got home and I unbundled it again. And plugged it in. It purred like a kitten...just like new!!! We looked at it a little closer and this is what we found:

It had the original manual AND the original box of parts, just like when it was bought. It was a 1941 !!

The manual was so cool....full of old pictures and instructions:

And the parts were all there!:

How cool was that??? We figured that some girl took home-ec and sucked at it and never touched the brand "new" portable sewing machine again. Her loss, our gain!

That's the problem with antique hunting. I don't think it will end up in the shop at all. This one just might be a keeper...

And the total for our day of fun treasure hunting?

A whole $11.00 !!!!

I am going to LIKE buying inventory for the shop at this rate!!! (If I can part with the treasures we find, that is!!)

Wait.

Isn't how I got into this predicament to begin with?