Weekend Finds: 1940's Handpainted Ties

Good morning!

Well, all my hard work of mapping out this week's estate sales, getting out of a very comfortable bed at 7 AM, etc, etc paid off this last weekend-- I hit a bonanza! As I channel Diane Keaton in the photo below before going to Sunday brunch with Alyx and Frankie, do you notice anything striking in my ensemble?

Oh, maybe it's just this HANDPAINTED TOREADOR TIE FROM THE 1940'S! Yes, I'm pulling the big guns to meet with my lady friends, but also to celebrate a heckuva find. This is my favorite of five ties I found this weekend in Donelson:

Aaaah! I saw these in a preview photo for an estate sale this weekend at a house off Lebanon Pike. Noting it was of my favorite estate sale companies, I thought, "Well, sucks I can't go until Saturday morning, but they'll probably have a few treasures left." And did they! These ties were still sitting in a room off the main hall, bunched in with a lot of other, more contemporary ties. There were five handpainted ones in total, each masking-tape priced at $8. A little steep for my taste, but still reasonable for the knock-your-socks-off impact of the little graphics! Somebody was a loud dresser in year of our Lord 1948.

Being as it was half off day, I figured on getting these for $20 total. I made a pile, said hey to the cashier that I like, and headed down to the basement. In the basement, there were a bunch of middle aged dudes noisly rummaging through what seemed like a dozen or so metal toolboxes (who has this many toolboxes?!). In one corner of the semi-finished cellar, an actually pretty artistically gifted teen in the 70's had painted a numeral one in red, white, and blue, with the words "HARLEY DAVIDSON" printed inside the base of the number. Another wall had an entire American flag squarely painted. On a third wall, the kid has started on a Ford Mustang Cobra logo, but lost interest after the initial outlining. Maybe he bought another car! Who knows. After making a Silence of the Lambs joke to my dad about a single porthole-style window on one side of the barely lit basement, I headed back up to see what the damage was. For a wall hanging that was supposed to be $5 (half off the first day price, $10), and a cover-for-a-household-implement-I-will-show-you-tomorrow that was $1, and all the ties, the saleslady quoted me $8.50! SCORE! She also mentioned she had a lot of forties' dresses she hadn't put out yet at her brick-and-mortar store, and I told her I would visit ASAP. Amazing!!

I am unable to take unblurry photos of my own finds, but imagine this is what the tie would look like to you if you'd already had two or three drinks at the Mocambo circa 1947. "Harry, Iwannatellyousomethin', isssh a wunnerful tie you got there..." you would have managed, seeing the wearer through daiquiri-impaired little peepers. I love the ship ALMOST as much as I love the marlin bursting forth from its briny sea home.

Not sure what the abstracts on the tie on the left are, except they look vaguely Mayan to me. I almost didn't get this duck-themed mauve tie on the right, but then I was like, just get every forties' tie there and then you won't have any regrets about "leaving such and such" behind!

In my 10 years of serious estate-saling, I have to say, I've only seen handpainted ties like this one other time. I have a pair of horserace/jockey themed ties in yellow, maroon, and periwinkle (no joke! What a color combination), one of which features a whole-scene of the jockey on the horse, on the race track, with a grandstand in the back ground, being given a trophy, I think, and the other of which is a comparatively sedate trio of horse-heads set in horse-shoe festooned medallions. Each was a dollar at an estate sale in a huge old house in the Belmont where I bought my first (but sadly, not my last...I have compulsions!) fine fur stole. "Oh! You got the stole! And daddy's ties, too. Aren't they a hoot?" a sweet woman at the checkout said to me. Now, somebody who has a CRAZY awesome collection of ties, would be SoCal's own Mr. Tiny over at Wacky Tacky. I think I mentioned these horse ties in a blog a long time ago and he linked me to a post he'd done on his tie collection. Drool....drool....DROOL. One should be so lucky.

If you've got a hankering for some vintage neckwear, check out these fine and fabulous ties I found on ebay and Etsy. Some are even in a good price range! (Some are not, but wow, what eyecandy...)

Vtg Rare Esthite 40s 50s Handpainted Men's Neck Tie 

Vtg Crosley 40s 1950s Rembrandt Handpainted
 Horse Head Shoe Neck Tie

vintage mens ties 1940's hand painted arco 

Vintage Hand Painted Necktie Oil Derricks

Look what happens when I try to use the reverse camera thing on Matthew's iPhone:

Haha! I'm all misty from dirt in the lens! A pointillist version of your humble narrator. Can't say I don't like it, though! :)

How were your finds this weekend? Do you have any bold-as-brass ties in your collection? How do you feel about vintage neckwear in general? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but more finds (Lord willing) tomorrow! Talk to you then, kiddos.