Antique Shop Hopping

Last week, I dragged my husband along for a little road trip. We went to several antique shops and a flea market. I'm hunting for ephemera. You probably remembering mentioning that about a million times.

How did we all survive without Google? Google is your friend when you're looking for antique shops, flea markets, thrift stores, etc. Craig's List isn't a bad place to look for goodies either! I've found several thrift stores to check out on there.

I did find lots of nifty things at the shops I stopped at last week. Some things are seriously over priced. Judging by the layer of dust on some things like cigar boxes that are nine bucks a piece I am far from the only one who thinks so. I did, however, find one vendor who had very reasonable prices for cigar boxes. They were all $2, $2.50, or $3. There were only two that were $3. A few are even wooden boxes and not cardboard! I was super excited to see those. Yes, I hunted through Howie's both and took every cigar box he had.

Being a quilter, I am always on the lookout for something to decorate my quilting space besides fabric and half finished projects. I found a couple wooden industrial spools, an industrial wooden bobbin, and an industrial spool of thread. The spool of thread has a wooden cone in it that says Chattanooga, Tennessee. Maybe a piece of history from a mill? 

I also have a little thing for buttons. I was a good girl and only purchased one jar. The jar I picked out had some pretty unique buttons in it along with some wooden Bingo numbers. Score! I even got a seashell. How often do you find one of those in your jar of buttons?

I absolutely love old fashioned printing presses. For years, I've wanted a set of letters and a tray. I bought my first wooden letter a few months ago in Brevard, North Carolina. Cute town in the Great Smoky Mountains!

I scored a small printing press tray last week. I was so excited. When I paid for it, it was on sale! Talk about fate. A few hours later I stumbled upon two full size trays. Oh it was a tough choice picking out just one.

I ended up picking the black one with a metal pull handle. Why did I pick this one? Well, the other one was missing a piece of wood that is   one of the dividers. The other part that said pick me was the name of the company on the handle. It says Keystone and that is the name of the builder that built our home  in South Carolina. So to me that was fate.

Both trays have a neat slot where you'd slide a card down through the top of the tray with the name of the font in that draw.

The last piece of history I purchased was a frequent shoppers card to the Durham Mercantile Co store in Blackstock, South Carolina. I have no idea where Blackstock is, but Google is my friend. I only purchased three of these as they were kinda pricy. They were $4 each. I thought I was getting several of them for $4. There was a pile about an inch thick. At least I got those three!

Until next time *

Have you saved a piece of history?