Treasures Found! - An Enlightening Experience

In the early 1990s, I was picking one summer afternoon, driving east of Winnipeg, and ended up in the northern Ontario town of Kenora.

I ended up walking into the local hardware store, which still retained it's beautiful, original oak, turn-of-the-century interior, in all its glory.  My mind went to the treasures the building MUST hold...

But, as it turned out, after a good hour of scoping things out, this was not going to be the superb pick I had in my mind when I first walked in.

The aged owners, despite keeping the interior all original, had a prosperous & modern business where they kept a very up to date inventory. All new, fresh shiny inventory graved every inch and area of the place. Nothing of any real age was displayed, aside from a few store fixtures & store displays that were in use, and not a single one would they entertain selling.   It was quite a contrast, the oak cabinetry that lined the walls, and the modern inventory that it showcased. But, it was an old school, working hardware store, and it still held that magic feeling of a place time forgot.

They had made good use of the 3 story building. Even the full basement they turned into retail space for their wares.  However, despite their efforts, it turned out the place still held a few vintage trinkets.....but only on the third floor, in a tiny former storage room, frequented by only by the most curious of customers who bothered to venture up the steep worn staircase. It wasn't be retained as storage.... no, the merchandise in there was on display for sale, also!  They were certainly utilizing every inch of space in that store for inventory display! I did spot an attic door which I never did get to venture through, so who knows what it held...though, it may have been as empty and sparse as the little storage room I was in.

From the little former storage room I purchased some odd items....some NOS jockstraps from the 1970s, a bit of common depression glass, and I even pulled a couple old light bulbs from a crate on the bottom shelf. The crate was chock full of the thick-with-dust, obsolete, delicate glass & brass pieces, each carefully fitted in its own cardboard sleeve. To my surprise, each one I pulled out had a little slip of paper glued to it, with the name of the very hardware store I was standing in. Looking at the darkened brass end, it was apparent there was no way they could be used in today's Edison style sockets. The had a hole in the center, and it was apparent that they screwed onto a rod, and down into a smooth sided socket.

They would make a neat souvenir of that pick, I thought. A quaint souvenir only, because who in the their right mind would want old light bulbs?

So, then time passed....a few years of time.

eBay came into my life in the following years, and out of novelty, I decided to put one of my Victorian light bulb souvenirs up for auction.

When it hit over $140, I realized I needed to make a trip back to that hardware store!

So, I went back, and it turned out the owners had been selling the bulbs as souvenirs of the store at their front counter!

Figuring they were asking much more for them now, and not remembering what the heck I had paid for my initial purchase of them, I casually asked how much they wanted for them...

The price was $2 each!

Keeping a stone face, but jumping inside, I went upstairs and went into the little room. I spotted the crate......Luckily for me, they obviously had been slow sellers, as there looked like there was nary a half dozen more missing from the crate since I had last seen it!

I brought the entire crate down..and when they counted them up, they ended up giving me a bulk purchase discount!

Apparently, I was now in the antique light bulb business....

I sold a few more on eBay, with the price dropping a little each time... as the niche market for this particular light bulb was slowly being saturated by my warehouse find.

Despite being still significant in number, I ended up getting about $65 a bulb from one buyer for the last of them.  You see, it turned out his immaculately restored Victorian home used the very sockets these bulbs fit into!

So, in the end, my $2-a-bulb purchase made me literally "thousands" of dollars!

So, the next time you see some item that you think it neat, but worth little, think again....educate yourself, do some research! Really, on the long list of things you would assume to be treasure, the lowly light bulb is certainly something you would have envisioned to be on that list!

Consider yourself enlightened!

Weird Research Encounters - Google Results

I was doing some research this evening, via GOOGLE, and I had something....

Well, how can I say this....?   

Hmmmm.....

I guess you could say that some rather "odd" things were shown in the search results.....

Rather, um, insanitary sorts of results.

Now, before I go too much further, I should say that I have been using Internet search engines and their results for researching all sorts of vintage items. In the very nature of some of these items you tend to trip across bizarre results. Those not-at-all-relevant-to-your-search-terms results inherently pop up simply due to the "not usual" combinations of words you are using.

Now, I expect some weird results when I do research on medical items, commercial equipment, and use some terms that are more obvious in their potential to be problematic. Such examples include:
  Brass Boer War Era Enema Syringe
 Enlarger Pump Vacuum System
 Vintage Lingerie Rack
and when you do searches involving combinations of such words as:

chain
leather
lace
restraint
dominant
submit
mask
vinyl
whip
rope

and I could go on and on with all sorts of key words, but I really don't want this blog posting to be at the top of the search results for all the fetish, porn and other site searches being done....

Nothing wrong with all that, "live and let live", as the saying goes. For me, it is just that those particular  searchers are not really serious readers of this blog....!

Or, rather, I should state that those who are looking for those sites are not, at that particular moment in their day, intending to read about antiques & collectibles.

Well, not in the way I write about them, that is....and I am referring to antiques & collectibles, not the searchers..

SO, let's erase some of the images we're conjured up from our minds, shall we?

OK, so, I have gotten a few weird results while doing pretty banal searches before. One particular search was when I was doing some research on a piece connected to that classic physical comedy team Laurel & Hardy.

I typed  "Laurel & Hardy" into Google.  I was expecting to get some fan site, maybe find some history on the guys.

However, there it was....

The #1 top site was....

A porn site!

And no, it was not a gay porn site, either.

So, I suppose, considering that I am "straight" as far as my "private life" goes, that was not really a huge problem with me, if I was actually looking for a porn site involving that comedy duo's works being somehow recreated with and integrated into pornos.......!

Ah, I can see the concern spreading across some of your faces....

Don't worry, I won't be reaching into the realms of TMI...

By the way, TMI  stands for "TOO MUCH INFORMATION"...this little sidebar is for those of you trying to read entirely something else into that abbreviation!

And, btw, what ever you did read into it I can't fathom......NOR do I want to know! 

Actually, as for that #1 ranked site for "Laurel & Hardy", I have no idea what the site had as to content...aside from it being a porn site. I won't explain how I knew that, as I really don't think I need to.

(If I need to explain, well, you are very likely a minor, and a very, very, very sheltered one at that. If you are over 18 and haven't a clue what I am talking about....well, you have issues I simply can not help you with. I am a picker, not a counsellor or shrink, sorry. You must have the wrong blog.)

Besides, I was on the computer at my store at the time, during business hours. I figured it was not exactly something I needed my customers seeing...nor hearing.

I realize some people do get very excited over antiques & collectibles, yes...

But not quite THAT excited.

So, if you are not entirely distracted......

(And I don't want to know why you are distracted if you do happen to actually be entirely distracted....)

BACK to the original subject of this blog...

I had done a search on Google seeking some information on an antique/vintage object.

The item?

Take a guess...and try to think of something as bland and as non-kink, non-fetish, non-sexual, etc, etc, etc as you can.....

Any ideas?

Well, it was simply....

A doorknob.

 A very old doorknob, actually...pre 1870, I'd think. However, I don't know its age for sure, at the moment. You see, I came directly to my blog to write this after seeing the results I got for this simple, banal, 3 word search.

It happens to have some markings on it, and upon close inspection I realized they were not American, nor European, but Asian in origin.  I figured maybe they were possibly Japanese. So, I went with that....and typed in the following as my search parameters::

Japanese Bronze Doorknob

Oh, and I should mention that I tend to set Google to do Image searches when I am doing research involving vintage objects, rather than text ("Web") searches.

So, I learned something new. However, it is something I really did not need to know.

And, it is pretty close to being something I would rather have not known. 

The images did not quite rank up there with the sorts of images you wish you could un-see.....things like a particular scene in John Water's cult film "Pink Flamingos". For those of you who are not familiar with Mr Water's earlier works I will try to be gentle in my description.  This scene; almost seemingly randomly inserted in the film; involved a "performer" doing bizarre things/movements with a muscle that is not one usually even given daylight exposure in public ....or even in most private circumstances; in the average person's presence, anyway. But John Waters is who he is...and cast this, um, "unusually talented" fellow is his film.

The scene is burnt into my mind like a recurring nightmare....I wish I could blot it out....... the horror...oh the horror....

So, the images Google brought up were not that sort of image.

However, I think that if I ever travel to Japan, I will carry a box of latex gloves around with me, just for those times I need to twist a doorknob.

That is it.  Do your own search, ok?

 I am trying my utmost to forget...!

********

An additional word of warning: "bronze door knob" is not a useful set of search terms when looking for antique hardware, either....!!!