Monday, June 16, 2014

Etsy Spotlight: Atomic Dimestore (Vintage Five & Dime Odds and Ends)

Good morning!

How'd your Saturday and Sunday treat you? I shopped my brains out Friday, went to a baby shower and a birthday party Saturday, and lazed around all day Sunday in between live texting my dad about the movie Face/Off ("Mom says that couldn't happen in real life she said to tell you" is my favorite text back I have probably ever received). The calendar was full, kiddos!

I have a couple weekend finds for you coming up later this week, but in the meantime, why not talk kitsch brass tacks with one humdinger of an Etsy store find from the weekend-that-was? I was ogling some celluloid pins on Etsy this weekend when, as often happens when one travels down the "I wonder what else is in this seller's inventory" rabbit hole, I was sucked into the tractor beam of Atomic Dimestore's Etsy storefront. With items like this Dick Nixon rhinestone pin...I mean, what was I supposed to do? Check it out for yourself:

Vintage 1968 Nixon presidential campaign pin with rhinestones
The story behind the store, in owner Joan Berglund's words:
I collected vintage clothing and my husband, Rick, collected comics for years....We focus on midcentury toys, ephemera, clothing, comics and home accessories. We generally have items from the 40s to the 80s, with a primary focus in 50s-70s. I like some earlier things, like 30s and 40s Miami Beach deco tropical styles, and Rick likes some 80s toys. We try to buy items that are very evocative of the eras they were made, so if we buy 50s items, it should scream 1950s at you. One of the reasons we’ve really begun appreciating the 1980s stuff is it has its own defined aesthetic, you might not like that aesthetic, but you can be damn sure it’s from the 1980s.  
In the early 2000s we purchased the estate of a man who was a wholesaler to novelty and gift shops from the 1940s to the 1980s and squirreled away all his old stock that did not sell when it was new. So we also have a large amount of 1940s to 1980s new old stock, including a lot of actual dimestore items like toys and knick-knacks. We have all kinds of collections ourselves. I like things that can actually be used, like home accessories, textiles and kitchenalia. Almost all of our lamps are vintage, usually 50s figural ones with tiered fiberglass shades, although we have some 70s chrome in our living room that actually belonged to my parents. We also collect Heywood Wakefield furniture, which we use in just about every room. There are so many different pieces. You can usually find something to suit your needs, even if it needs a little repurposing, like using a desk for a bathroom vanity or an end table for a printer stand. 
Oh, and Halloween! We have lots of vintage Halloween, that collection is pretty deep. And vintage Xmas too. And Rick loves “Monsters driving cars”, like Rat Fink, Nutty Mads, and Weird-Ohs.
Do they not sound like exactly the kind of people you and I would like to hang out with? Look how cool the husband and wife owner team look in this vintage-in-its-own-right newspaper clipping about their vintage store (special mad props to her freakin' perfect swinging 60's, Apple Records secretary hair cut here, in spite of the year being 1990-something...you are KILLING IT, madame!) :


There are three places you can shop these vintage wares-- at the brick and mortar Atomic Dimestore in Hyannis, Massachusetts (you might even see a Kennedy!), the Ebay store, and the Etsy store. Here's what the real-life place looks like, and I am wanting to know more about that neon-pink looking dress there hanging in the window:


The Etsy store features beaucoup de old Woolworths-esque treasures. Thoughts about vintage dimestore treasures-- why do they not have things like this at the Dollar Tree? I'm in there all the time buying craft stuffs, party supplies, candles (2/$1, 50 cents a piece, baby), and silk flowers, but there's hardly anything kitschy in the whole store! I promise you, if I found a bracelet referencing the at-camp novelty classic "Hello Muddah", I would probably fall out right there on the nubby green carpet squares:

Vintage 1960s NOS bakelite or celluloid bracelets bangles Hello Muddah Hello Faddah
Vintage 1960s President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy small pitcher creamer
Vintage 1950s homemade barkcloth kitchen curtains plantation scene
Vintage 1950s LUCKY CHARMS make your own Charm Bracelet Novelty Jewelry MIP Prevue Plastics 
Vintage late 1940s or 1950s children at play novelty curtain panel 1 of 2
Vintage gold tonered rhinestone lobster brooch
The Ebay store has even more varied stock, as far as I can tell, ranging from 80's knock off Transformers ("VARIABLES: Three in One!") to The Amazing Moon Goon People (have YOU met them?). Here's some of the stuff from that front that I want to take home with me:

Vintage 1950s Irwin Tidee pony tail BARRETTE VLV Rockabilly Hair Accessory
Vintage 1960s BLACK SKELETON RUBBER MONSTER JIGGLERS Jiggler,
Vintage 1960s RUBBER UGLY MONSTER JIGGLER LARGE CREEPY WEIRD #4 Mutant Metaluna
((Have I ever loved two items more in my entire life...they were made to be together))

Vintage 1963 Hollywood FUNGLASSES Joke gag
Vintage 1977 SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Book and Record Set SHRINK WRAP
Vintage 1953 the SHE-WOLF PRESS BOOK Dino DeLaurentis John LeBold Collection

Check out Joan's Pinterest boards here, the store's eBay listings here, and the store's Facebook page here. And go buy you some goodies! These ephemera lovers are living the dream, as far as I'm concerned! I hope if I get up to Massachusetts some day, I can see the store in person; in the meantime, I'll content myself with the internal struggle of which piece of Richard Nixon campaign jewelry I can't possibly live without.

I gotta get back to work, but how about you? Which of these wacky wares would you like to take home with you? Do you have any crazy dimestore relics in your collection, or remember when you could get ceramic crocodile soap dishes and tacky, gold tone charm bracelets at your local five and dime? As a vintage enthusiast, what is it that really gets you going about particularly crazy/out-there finds? Let's swap stories!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with some real life photographs of my finds for you. Have a fabulous Monday! Talk then. :)


1 comment:

  1. Get out! That NOS is so cool, I will have to give their website a look.

    ReplyDelete