Favorite Vintage stuff that just hangs around.

[amynbebes]

My house was built in '59 and there are various elements of if, lighting fixture, old electric outlets, etc that are stil there We actually (unbeknownst to me) had a beauty shop museum in a local town that closed. I found some really cool 40's still in the package tweezers as well as some bobby pins still in their box at a local antique shop.

 

[Widebrim]

A lot of less-prosperous public school districts will also hold onto stuff long after it's passe elsewhere. My first-grade class (in 1969) still had twenties-era wooden desks bolted to the floor, complete with inkwell holes

We had those, too, in L.A. county...

 

[Atterbury Dodd]

Around here I see lots of guns that are used forever. I know somebody that has a Winchester model 12 shotgun, and somebody else with a 1906 pump twenty-two.

Pick up trucks from the late seventies.

Guitars and fiddles.

Tractors of course. The little gray Fords are common.

 

[Cobden]

We had those, too, in L.A. county...

We had the British type of open-up-able inkwell desks at my junior school (mainly 1930's-50's)...in the late 1990's, along with Victorian radiators (and 1920's boiler!), and pre-national grid electricity sockets. Plenty of other stuff from the 1950's and earlier, but most you'd expect to find in a building of that age

 

[reetpleat]

Vintage? How about NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINES! First published in 1888, some people (myself included) keep on saving them virtually forever I'll bet that literally millions of people have them stashed away!

I love reading old copies too. I would rather know what China, or Argentina or whatever, was like in the 50s than now.

 

[Deleted member 12480]

I live in a house from around the edwardian era - we have a stained glass front door with the lead all holding each panel together and when we first moved in we still had the original bath, sink and toilet pan (and i think toilet seat! - it was square and wooden) also we still have the 'stove' in what is now the dining room with a tiny little kitchen with the original sink which i think would've been the scullery.

it was beautiful and so sad to take it out (it was virtually un-repairable). It'd been passed down through a family of 3 sisters and none were married. The lady who died left it to six different charities.

 

[Deleted member 12480]

i meant to add that we have some odd screws around the windows which we think held blackout boards up - how authentic!

 

[December]

Ephemera. Namely magazines and sewing patterns. These are usually things that run their courses and then get tossed. I am grateful for the "hoarders" of the past that we have these things today

I am one of these people! I like to think that in 50 years time, someone will love the stuff that seems worthless today.

Annie, that sounds amazing! I love little bits of history. I'd much rather own something imperfect that gives a hint of the previous owners' lives than something in immaculate condition.

 

[The Good]

These might be classified more as antiques than vintage, but we actually keep an old Victorian or Edwardian era bathtub on the side of our backyard. At my grandparent's house next door, there's also a wagon wheel of about that age, or possibly the 1920s, early 30s too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ghost signs on brick walls.

(I'd also say Uneeda Biscuits are a favorite vintage thing that just hangs around but those halfwits at Kraft-Nabisco discontinued them last year, after 110 years on the market. Idiots.)

 

[vitanola]

Kraft discontinued the manufacture of Uneeda Biscuits.

I cannot imagine the company responsible for the extinction of the only really great American type of cheese, Leiderkranz, would do such a thing.

As a youth I loved Leiderkranz, greatly preferred it to the far less subtle Limburger, and often enjoyed it spread on the sturdy, neutral Uneeda Biscuits.

I've found no cracker as well suited to serve with creamy , crumbly, or semi-soft cheeses.

 

[cptjeff]

Kraft sells something they call guacamole, that is made without avocados. Do you really need to know more?

 

[KY Gentleman]

Hand tools. My dad has tools from his father and grandfather. So do I now. Whenever I go into someones garage or basement workshop I hear stories about where the various tools came from.

 

[sixties.nut]

These might be classified more as antiques than vintage, but we actually keep an old Victorian or Edwardian era bathtub on the side of our backyard. At my grandparent's house next door, there's also a wagon wheel of about that age, or possibly the 1920s, early 30s too.

One never knows when a good wagon wheel will come in handy. That's the ole 'Be Prepared' spirit Mr. J_B

 

[fortworthgal]

Our home was built in 1958 and we have the original paper house plans, as well as the materials list. Also while doing some work in the garage recently we ran across a paper inspection tag from the garage door in 1959. Pretty neat.

A lot of less-prosperous public school districts will also hold onto stuff long after it's passe elsewhere. My first-grade class (in 1969) still had twenties-era wooden desks bolted to the floor, complete with inkwell holes, and nearly a decade later, in my tenth-grade world history class, we were issued a textbook published in 1937. (I wonder how that business in Spain worked out?)

I grew up in an extremely rural area ("unincorporated community"), and my elementary school still had those desks in the early/mid 1980s. It was built in the teens and at least one of the original buildings is still in use today.

 

[The Good]

One never knows when a good wagon wheel will come in handy. That's the ole 'Be Prepared' spirit Mr. J_B

That old bathtub and wagon wheel actually come from back east, in Tennessee, where a branch of my family is from in the Appalachian Mountains (our family technically still owns the property, though I'm not sure if anyone's actually living there right now, it's more of a vacation home now). They lived in the general vicinity for generations since at least the late 1700s and early 1800s, but the farmhouse I know of was built in 1834. My great grandmother (born in 1928 I think, still alive) moved to Chicago in the 40s after World War II (her husband fought with the Marine Corps as a Corporal). Somehow, those two things, the tub and wheel, ended up here in California. Must have been a bit of work to transport it over here... I'm not sure if it was by road, or flight.

 

[fortworthgal]

These might be classified more as antiques than vintage, but we actually keep an old Victorian or Edwardian era bathtub on the side of our backyard.

Semi-related note - I went to an estate sale several years ago that had the original clawfoot bathtub out of Ginger Rogers' childhood home, which was here in Fort Worth. The house is still there, but has been used for commercial purposes for a while, so I can only guess the tub was removed during a remodel at some point. I went back on Sunday and the tub was gone, so some lucky duck bought it.