"Friday's Finds" Rides Again!

It's garage sale season again at last. (O frabjous day! Callooh, callay, she chortled in her joy!) They're few and far between, so far, but tentatively sprouting like the few hardy annual seedlings in my still sparse and spindling flower beds. (Hey, it's the Pacific Northwest and I live in a micro-zone called Little Alaska!)

Last Friday it was a retirement community garage sale and a church rummage sale, and I had great fun (while showing tolerable restraint) bringing home the vintage gems.

So, without further ado, let me show you the goodies I brought home from the first proper day of junking in months.

It was a good day for 25 cent items. I came home with a Vera Neumann scarf, a resin flower power napkin holder, a nifty pair of 1970's sunglasses, and several decks of great vintage playing cards, some of which have never been opened. (Can never resist those!) And a cute little wooden (teak? yeah, probably) cat with rhinestone eyes. (Not sure what it's for--some kind of lipstick holder or something.) I also nabbed a bunch of pretty novelty yarn skeins--just right for hats or other small projects. These aren't vintage, but hey! You can't argue with a great bargain. And you can't have too much yarn.

I got a couple of  good 50 cent items. One is this very cute little decoupaged plaster disc, meant to hang on a wall, apparently. The colors are so appealing! 

And I was pleased and surprised to get this wooden music box/jewelry box also for such a cheap price. 

The music mechanism isn't working, but I want this for doll furniture for my granddaughter, so that's all to the good. Just needs a good cleaning. 

Now the $1 stuff. We're getting to the quality, here!

First, I found this four-piece set of gorgeous gold tone Hollywood Regency Syroco plaques,"The Four Seasons". Excuse the lighting on my photo--these aren't actually copper colored.

Originally these cost $5 apiece or $17.95 for the set in the 1962 Wards catalog. I wonder what that would amount to in today's economy?* I have the identical set already myself so I can list these in the shop when I reopen next month. 

My very, very favorite prize of the day, though, is this wonderful large paint-by-number Collie family picture! The frame is shot, but no matter. I need to take the painting out and clean it with linseed oil anyway. 

I sure love church rummage sales! Apparently the faithful haven't caught on that these aren't merely rubbishy old amateur art works, but are highly collectible nowadays, so they're usually priced pretty cheaply. I see no reason to disabuse them of this notion. I've found some great bark cloth bargains at church rummage sales, too, and many of my best novelty print cotton fabric remnants. Once in a while I run into a dud church sale, but most of the time I find something fun.

Last, but not least, I splurged $4 on this unused vintage towel-and-washcloth gift set. 

Wish they still sold these! My sister-in-law still recalls fondly the Christmas when a beloved aunt gave her one of these sets, with a note reading, "For when you're feeling fancy!"--a luxurious gift for a young girl in those days and a memory she treasures. Aren't the aqua flowers marvelous?

* Whoa!! I just looked up this information at website CPI Inflation Calculator ("Consumer Price Index"). Turns out this set would cost $141.54 by today's standards!  

This is a fun tool; check it out:

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpicalc.htm