Remember this book?

Last week, I happened to remember a book from my childhood, given to me by my great-grandfather who was as crazy about rocks as I am. His father, Palestine Hanna, was a great collector of stones, bones, and Native American artifacts. People would bring him bones and various relics from all over rural Indiana.

It was easy to find a picture online, because I remembered it it having a black cover. I posted it to my Facebook timeline, and was surprised how many had this exact little book.

I still save rocks. Not for color and shape, like I did when I was a girl, but for their geographical origins, places that hold special meanings. Today, my nondescript collection looks like a few plain stones ... completely meaningless to anyone else.

it's about passion

my vintage rosaries
click to embiggen

I'm not sure exactly how I contracted the passion for collecting, but the symptoms were evident at a very early age. Maybe I enjoy collecting because it takes me back to the simple comfort and joy of my childhood Little Golden Book and postage stamp collections.  

It may lie dormant for a while, but once you have caught the virus, it is a life long condition and it often returns with a renewed vigor. It might just be that it is instinctive for humans to collect, just as a magpie is compelled to hunt and gather shiny objects and drag them back to her nest.  I definitely like to have my things about me, like Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man.

McCoy pottery, mercury glass, insulators, tarnished silver
in my retro metal medical cabinet

chalkwork icons
click to embiggen

There is a certain explorer spirit in me. I like to dig in dusty places. One discovery often leads to another, to a fresh search and the start of a new collection. In fact, I would have made a great archaeologist.  

Garage sales, flea markets, Gee-Dub (my local Goodwill store) and various antique shops are my favorite places to forage...the junkier the place, the better.  The rarity or value of a particular piece, is not the objective for me, but the mellow and a little bit worn, the unwanted, the unappreciated and orphaned, are what happens to strike my fancy.

the manor is filled
with the scent of old books

Other people's gatherings are endlessly fascinating, since it reveals an obvious look at the personalities behind the collections.  What objects do you like to hunt and gather? 

I think that interiors need 

a bit of a twist... most have 
no sense of irony or of real life, 

and there is nothing harmonious or soulful.

  

--Hubert Zandberg

pez-a-mania

I heard a piece on NPR about all the collectors flocking to the PEZ-a-mania Collector Convention in Cleveland this week. Who knew such a big deal would be made over these little candy dispensers? The name Pez was derived from the letters at the start, the middle and the end of the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminz, the first Pez flavor. Apparently, it was first sold in Vienna, Austria in 1927 as an adult breath mint, marketed as an alternative to smoking. The first Pez dispensers were similar in shape to a cigarette lighter.

In 1955, the Pez company placed heads on the dispensers and marketed them for children. Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse were among the first character dispensers. Since then, over 1500 different Pez dispensers, including the original character dispensers have been created.

Many of these plastic vintage dispensers go for hundreds and thousands of dollars, the most valuable being pre-1985. The highest verifiable sale of Pez dispenser was a private sale of a Mickey Mouse softhead at $7000 between an Austrian dealer and a California collector. The high prices which some Pez items fetch has led to the manufacturing of fake Pez items. A clear 50s space gun sold for $11,000 on eBay in 2006, but according to noted Pez author, David Welch, the dispenser was later proven by chemical testing to be a well-made fake.

Our kids had lots of Pez dispensers before '85, but I never considered them of any worth. I wonder if any are packed away in their old toy boxes? If you don't hear from me for a few days, I'll be in the cellar digging for Pez.

golden graphics

Remember a few weekends ago, when I saw The Last Station at the charming little Drexel Theater in Bexley? They happened to have a box of free posters in the lobby. Well, I'm a sucker for free anything, so I picked one of The Wolfman, 2010. I haven't seen the movie, but Anthony Hopkins has that kind of effect on me. He makes me weak in the knees. I just might pin it to my bedroom wall. Modern film posters are great, but they certainly don't hold a candle to the fantastic graphics of the vintage variety.

Last night, TCM advertised the new book, Starstruck, Vintage Movie Posters from Classic Hollywood. It's the collection of Ira N. Resnick, which includes some 2,000 posters and 1,500 film stills from the golden age of Hollywood. Resnick is both a dealer and a collector, who owns the Motion Picture Arts Gallery in New Jersey, and is a leading authority in the world of film memorabilia.

Several images of Resnick's collection were online. I especially like this wonderful art deco-ish image of the fabulous silent film star, Louise Brooks. What a treasure. I happen to love vintage ephemera of all kinds, but don't have anything Hollywood in my personal collection.

This cool image of Blind Husbands, 1919, also caught my eye. I'm adding this movie to my queue. It's written and directed by Erich von Stroheim, who also stars in the film. Most of us remember him, towards the end of his impressive career, as the creepy enigmatic Max in Sunset Blvd., 1950.

Another form of collectible movie ephemera is the lobby card, like this one for Giant, 1956, which is a small version of the poster. They were 11" x 14", and sometimes 8" x 10" before 1930.