Ho Ho Hi: Pre Christmas vintage scores

Good morning!!

How's tricks? Have you been busy as Santa's elves these last couple of days? I am ashamed to say that I'm still a gift or two shy a full Xmas sleigh's worth here at the homestead, but I hope to remedy that toute de suite after work. Orrr...break down and buy gift cards, Big Lots commercial ladies' admonishments be damned. I HAVE been shopping for myself in the last few weeks, because, really, what else do I do in my idle moments, few though they be? I thought I would show you some of the treasures I've picked up along the way, before they're fully integrated into the house and I forget what's what and where it came from. Ready? Steady? Let's go!

Mmmmm, build your own bloody Mary bar....yours truly at Sunday brunch. Note oversized garnishes in the background. Once a fat kid, always a fat kid.

My folks and I drove A-L-L the way to Columbia the other day for an MT sale...it's about an hour outside of Nashville and what a long, two lane highway ride it was. It's funny how being from Nashville I think anything beyond the county line as being emphatically rural, though there was plenty of civilization out there once you got to about the car plant. This was the rare occasion where all three of us found something spectacular-- my dad scored a WWII tank driver's paper compass, in a little leather carrying case, for I think a dollar... my mom was over the moon to scoop up this vintage hot potato toy from the sixties' called, appropriately enough, "Spud", and yours truly? Oh, not much, just this LADY'S HEAD VASE. I already shared it on Instagram but if you missed it over there, really, it was a lulu of a deal if ever I got one. Fellow vintage lovers, chime in-- these things are a) highly collectible and b) usually north of fifty dollars in the price tag department. For four dollars, I was glad I'd driven all the way out to Maury County (pronounced "Murray" county, for those out of the state...still a bit of a headscratcher but it's their county and they can say it how they want, I guess). Look at her flirty expression and Dietrich eyebrows, I could die.

While in Columbia, I was really into seeing all the gorgeous, gabled, columned, regal looking antebellum-to-the-thirties' houses along the way. We kept doing something I used to do all the time as a kid as we drove around Belle Meade on Sunday drives..."Oh, there's my house. Nope, I take it back, that one....OH WAIT, LOOK AT THE ONE WITH THE GAZEBO. THAT IS MY HOUSE." Plus ca change. For those of you dizzy over the sky high numbers in the Nashville real estate market, I present for your viewing pleasure a house I actually drove by on this out-of-town jaunt, and you should have seen my eyes pop out when I saw the price tag. I've made you a pretty little dream collage not unlike something I would draw out to spec in my fourth grade journal, but for more pics, check out the Realtor.com listing here.

Did they switch a one with a four there or something? How is that less that $300k? BECAUSE IT'S IN MAURY COUNTY. Orrrr...it's haunted, but that's not really a problem for me, bring on the poltergeists. My heart hurts thinking about the Gibson Girl realness I would perpetrate on the scene, and the fantomas I would befriend. But I digress. On the way back to town, Mom and Dad wanted to stop at another estate sale in Brentwood (because they are estate sale junkies, I have turned my parents on to the addiction, apparently), which I was going to pass on but went to humor them. Um, good thing I did. The house was pretty much empty, and in one of those bleh subdivisions that are all over the main drag in Brentwood, but lo, as I crested the top of the carpeted stairs, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a pair of these midcentury Danish chairs. There were four total, actually, but two of them were a brick red and while I didn't need two chairs, I REALLY didn't need four, so I left the rouge part of the set for someone else to love. At $15 apiece, they were irresistible. 

Some intense googling sessions later, I was able to track down the maker and model number on this Australian purveyor of vintage furniture's website, which listed an ash blond pair of my chairs as "Vintage Jørgen Bækmark Chairs Model J104 FDB Møbler. $450ea ". Did you get a load of that price tag? I didn't do too badly for myself!! According to this website:

Jørgen Bækmark was a member of the team established at FDB Møbler by Børge Mogensen in the 1960s. FDB—the Danish Consumers Cooperative set out to develop practical and inexpensive furniture following design principles that had their origins in the German Bauhaus. Recently furniture manufacturer HAY has begun to manufacture some of these early FDB pieces—the J104 chair, originally designed by Jørgen Bækmark in 1966, being an excellent example. The J104 range of furniture shows definite Shaker influences. Its understated simple elegance fits into any interior.

Thank you, why yes, it does fit any interior. I might have to axe a chair in one of the other rooms to make room for this guy's mate, but I'll get it figured out eventually! Here are some markings from under the chair, including instructions on how to mount the legs and the maker's label:

What else, what else...a trip to the flea market last weekend yielded up a half dizaine of weirdities, including these glass photographic plates:

I'm kicking myself for not taking a better photo, but imagine that these are clear glass plates onto which an image has been printed to somehow be turned into a 1940's children's book illustration. The guy in the booth had a large crate full of picture-portrait sized plates and these about-the-size-of-a-trade-paperback ones, and while I have a set of glass negatives with just 1890's people running around the world, making me wish I was one of them, those are negatives, with the colors inverted and spookiness abounding-- these, as you see, are just like what would end up in the book, except on glass. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. When you remove the paper from the back (they're just sitting on the paper, unattached, the image seems to fade away for a minute as the contrast disappears. I'm not sure how I'm going to display these, but as that has never stopped me from buying something I'm interested in, so the tradition continues (and these sit atop my chifferobe wrapped in paper until I can figure out what to do with them).

Last but not least, I splurged mightily on these Victorian-and-later masonic mourning pins in one of the antiques booths at the flea market-- at $10 apiece, they were my most expensive find, but it was really a matter of how-can-I-not after I realized what they were. The left and right hand ribbons are probably a little later, while that center ribbon, if you can tell from the typography, looks older. Best part?

The one on the left is reversible! Got a parade to go to right after a funeral? Don't bother having two pins, you can just flip over the one you have. Weird. Wild. Right up my alley.

I have to get back from  my lunch hour to the Christmas Eve day grind-- still a lot of work to do! But I will see you guys back here just after Christmas for a look at a couple other things I've dragged home with me-- including a pair of items that are currently in fierce competition for the coolest article of clothing I own. But how about you? Any last minute Christmas gifts you're still wrapping? Witnessed any Christmas miracles in finding bargains? Buy anything nutty for yourself? I'd love to hear about it.

Have a very happy holiday and we'll talk soon!! :) Catch you then.