"Friday's Finds" Rides Again!

It was a day for funky finds on the junking circuit. Probably not the sort of stuff to appeal to every collector, but that's fine with me, because it leaves me with a clear field to scoop up the odd and the outlandish. Someone else can have the tasteful, elegant beauties.

Here's what I came up with today.

 Now maybe you don't have any particular yen for a purse made of coconut pieces--come to think of it, neither did I until I saw it--but this item is so unusual and offbeat, I decided it was well worth $1.
Here's another look:

There's something tortoise-like about it that I find especially appealing. The marks you see are not damage, but the natural striations and flaws in the surface of the coconut shells. The surface is actually quite smooth to the touch, and I'm thinking a bit of a polish will render this quite glossy. This was doubtless a vacation souvenir from some tropical port-of-call visited decades ago. 

At the same sale, I found a boxed set consisting of a horse head style shoe horn and clothes brush. Anything vintage that's still in its original box is always worth a second look, but as it happens, just last week I found a similar horse head shoe horn at another sale, and it sold promptly for $3.75, so I'm sure this little set should fetch more. These are also in better condition than the one I just sold.

Lately I've had my eye out for interesting vintage sewing patterns. This one was worth the price of the package alone. These seventies ponchos really take me back!

My last find of the day was the most exciting. At a dusty, cluttered little thrift shop, I passed a bin of rolled up old posters. Something made me stop and take a better look. Normally I would have ignored these. But imagine my astonishment when I unrolled this:

This is not a printed poster at all, but an actual pastel drawing with the artist's signature. It's huge, and my camera isn't doing it justice. The cats have such presence!

Not quite believing my luck, I unrolled the remaining posters. Promptly I found another pastel:

The proprietor of the shop told me they'd been drawn by a woman she knew named Patty Kline, and she pointed out a few framed oil (or acrylic?) paintings the artist had also done, but they were dismal affairs--the ubiquitous "old shack by the water" genre. I found that puzzling, since those were in a completely different style and so amateurish and ordinary.  It wasn't until I got these home and examined the artist's signature that I realized she'd confused these works for those of the Kline woman. 

This artist's name is Bill Hutton, and he did these pastels in 1972. One of them is signed "Wild Bill Hutton". I'm going to have to do some research and see if I can find information about him.

   
Not bad for $1 apiece, eh?!

 


I'm especially excited about these posters, because they'll be put up for sale in the MyPalPeppy shop, where they'll help raise support and adoption funds for Displaced Pets Rescue. Our "virtual adoptee", Foster, (above) is such a beautiful little dog. I just got this update about him a few days ago:

"He is doing good.  The sores on his back are all healed and he is beginning to get more hair I there.  We are going to be at Petco this weekend and he is coming with us to meet people J This will be his first excursion so will tell us a lot about his personality.  I also have an application on him – they are going to come to Petco this weekend to meet him."

I'll close for now. The weekend looks to be another cold, rainy one so I'll be inside, continuing on my stack of wedding favor bags. They're coming along a treat, but I don't dare slack off.