What Was Your First Great Vintage Find?

[LizzieMaine]

What was it, when was it, where did you find it? What discovery really made an impression on you when you were starting to collect?

For me, it was the summer I was 13 years old. An old, abandoned grocery store next to my grandparents' house was being torn down, and since we were friends with the people who owned the property, I was allowed to paw around all I wanted in the rubble. Among the discoveries were a stack of Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal magazines from 1930-31 -- some of them were pretty tattered, but it was the content that really made the difference to me. I grabbed up as many of these as I could find, and looked for more. Then I found *another* stack of magazines -- this time, copies of Life, Better Homes and Gardens, the Post, and the LHJ from 1939-40.

I pored over these over and over again, until they were ragged -- and there are still specific articles and images from them that are burned into my mind. Probably the one that had the most significance in the direction my life would take was a two-page piece in the October 18, 1930 Post -- an ad, actually, but presented as a short article on life behind the scenes at a radio network. I was absolutely fascinated by it -- and it was the main catalyst that led to my interest in broadcasting history.

I still have most of those magazines today, or what's left of them. I had always been interested in the Era, but they helped give that interest a real, concrete form and direction, and in a lot of ways set me on the path I'm still on today.

 

[KittyT]

I've owned vintage things as long as I can remember. My parents always dragged me to antique shows (which I hated back then), but I always ended up coming home with maybe a cute piece of jewelry, an old Nancy Drew book for my collection, or one of those little dolls of the world dolls representing different countries, which later turned into a rather large collection.

My first notable vintage find was when I was probably around 9 or 10, a 1940s royal blue cotton or silk velvet dress with these great oval shaped brass decorations around the neckline and on the front of the belt. I *loved* that dress. I still have it packed away at my parents' house, and boy do I wish it still fit me!

 

[Miss Sis]

My great vintage find was my Nana - and all her wonderful stories she used to tell me about her childhood in the 1910s/20s, what life was like in the Depression, Wartime and when my Mum was young in the 50s/60s. Along with family photos I used to spend hours engrossed in the past.

Amongst other things, I have a black and dusty pink 40s crepe and lace dress that was hers. I first wore it when I was about 13 and still have it. (Luckily, it still fits!) I also have lots of china that belonged to other family members before my Nana. My favourite piece is a Clarice Cliff wall plate that belonged to my Great Grandmother. It hung in my Nana's kitchen, so has very happy memories for me.

Little did she know what path she had led me onto! I think she would laugh if she saw me now.

 

[Flivver]

I first became interested in radio in the summer of 1966 when I was 15. That summer, I got 1930s vintage radios from both my grandfathers. But I had seen 1920s radios advertised in old copies of the National Geographic and I really wanted one of those...however I had no idea how to go about finding one. So I built one from scratch! I didn't have any antique radio parts so I installed a modern "All American Five" chassis in a 1920s style cabinet I designed myself. I finished this "replica" in January 1968.

The day after I finished the replica, my Dad came home from work with the news that there was a *real* 1920s radio at the local Salvation Army Store. One of his friends at work who was helping me learn radio repair had told him about it.

We rushed down to the Salvation Army and there it was...a beautiful 1926 Super-Zenith 28...a 44" long table model on tall spinet legs. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen! It was $15, a huge amount for an old radio in those days, but I bought it with snow shoveling money I had saved up.

I put an ad in Electronics Illustrated's Swap Shop seeking a schematic and some missing parts. Another collector from Mass sent me the schematic and we became good friends. He's still one of my best friends!

That Zenith remains my favorite radio, even though I've acquired many more over the years. It still sits in the spot in my bedroom where I placed it the day I got it over 40 years ago!

 

[Johnny B]

The first was a cream and red '53 Philco "V-Handle" refrigerator, just sitting out on the curb in a very quiet, very empty suburb from an 80 year old woman who was moving overseas. Apparently it still worked she told me (because I wanted to take it). I went to my girlfriend's to borrow her van, and when I came back, it had been picked up by scrappers

 

[Ugarte]

This may not actually apply, but...

My tiny home town had what at one time was a curvy cool old Ford dealership on Main St. It may have actually been Art Deco at one time. It went out of business sometime in the late '60's and had been rented out as a mechanic's shop off an on since.

I was working on the lowest rung of the oilfield service ladder during the boom in the early '80's and my boss had started collecting classic cars. He evidently purchased the building, or he leased it with the idea that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. What he wanted was to house his car collection there. For that to happen, the roustabout crew I was on had to clean it up.

Most of it was pretty cleaned out since it had been used occasionally. Office space was what you would imagine in a garage just a cut above a"shade tree" mechanic's and the service floor, workbenches and wash stall were basically immaculate. But above the office space was a loft.

Initial inspection yielded about 30 years of dust with some cardboard boxes peeking through. We donned some basic paper masks and started going through the mess to load it up and haul it to the dump. We couldn't really spend a lot of time doing it, and the other two guys were hardly interested -- Jesse, the pusher, was not really from Lovington and Esteban was an illegal from Mexico.

Basically, we stumbled onto a small trove of local information. There were calendars and other promotional materials for Fords throughout the 50's and 60's and all manner of paperwork related to sales, service, warranties and anything else car related.

It was kind of wild thumbing through the paperwork and finding a record of the brand new 1957 Crown Victoria purchased by the former school superintendent who was long retired and dead by the time I got to junior high. There were plenty of other records related to other retired school teachers and local figures of note.

Probably nobody in the world but me would give two hoots in a rain barrel about such things, but I enjoyed seeing it.


Mark

 

[SpitfireXIV]

this is an excellent thread! :eusa_clap


it's a toss-up for me; i found a pink crystal rosary with a Bakelite cruficix with the "Seven Sorrows of Christ" at an antique show for 15$ when i was in (you guessed it) Catholic High School. Yummy butterscotch bakelite... ooh, i still love to rub it and smell the formaldehyde!

i also found an ivory silk waistcoat from 1928 (if the date stamped inside the pocket is indeed correct) at a shop that sold antique dolls primarily for about 12$.

that was the start down my long road of vintage collecting...

 

[The Shirt]

When I was 5 or so I wanted to become the female version of Wolfman Jack I think. I was obsessed with playing DJ with my parents old albums. I would scour the covers. This began my fascination with nostalgia. I still have most of those albums and still a love of old music.

I don't think I have that one item of clothing that has defined me quite yet. Many pieces I love though. I suspect if the house was burning down (after the pets are safe) I would just reach in the closet and grab as wide of a section that my arms would carry.

 

[Ace Fedora]

My first true vintage find was in the early-Internet, pre-eBay era when I scored a number of detective pulps from an online dealer. Took about a month for the transaction to go through, after sorting out shipping, money orders, and exchange rates... but it was worth it to lay my hands on those magazines.

The 1932 "Detective Fiction Weekly" is so brittle that it crumbles every time I glance in its direction, but reading it gave me a buzz no reprint could hope to match.