Antique Buying Trips

I love my job. Most of the time. I love to go on buying trips: dig thru boxes, gaze at glassed-in displays of sparklies, talk to random dealers at flea markets, antique stores and shows and hear their stories. We talk about our "best finds", or the "one that got away." Sometimes we bemoan the current state of the economy and its affect on our businesses. But antiquing, whether for collection purposes, re-selling, or both (as is my case), should be fun and filled with unusual, fun objects. And creepy objects. With those adjectives in mind (beautiful, fun and creepy), I present my favorite photographs from some of our buying trips in 2011.

 Let's start with the photo to our immediate left. According to the tag, it is an 1800's Bleeder. "In Leather Box." DUDE. I totally understand that these items are a representation of just how far modern medicine has come, and would be highly collectible to some people, but I just can't see wanting a BLEEDER. Yeeeeech. But wait - it's in its leather box. THAT MAKES IT COOL. Yep.

The chicken pictured to the right will remain forever engraved upon my mind, my heart and my soul. Before anyone thinks I am waxing poetic ABOUT A CHICKEN, let me tell you why I am forever bonded with this chicken. We were "somewhere up Nawth" on one of our buying trips. I was admiring the scenery (cause truly, the countryside in New England is outstanding and always makes me want to move to a farm and raise pigs. Not really, but anyway.)From the road I see a chicken (and yes, I am from the South where stereotypically, you see A LOT of chickens in peoples yards, but this chicken was....DIFFFERENT.) I made Darby pull over so I could take a picture. At this point I have all ready made 2 mistakes: pulling up in someone's driveway in the country, and getting out of the car in my cute shoes to take a picture of a CHICKEN. I approach the chicken and am thrilled that he is letting me get this close. Unfortunately for me, this was apparently someone's GUARD CHICKEN, and right after I snapped this photo, he puffed up, opened his beak and hurtled straight towards me. I realized quickly that this Yankee Chicken DID NOT appreciate the Southern Belle amateur photographer snapping his photo without asking, so I let out a high-pitched screech and started running to the car with this pissed off chicken literally at my heels. My dear husband is laughing so hard he can't speak, so of course I start laughing as well while yelling; "Floor it - let's GO!" - because I had visions of this chicken taking off and attacking our car. As we backed up, a man opened the door of what I thought was an abandoned building, glares at me, sits down on his steps and CALLS THE CHICKEN. And then pets the chicken while looking at me all suspiciously - like I had harmed his guard chicken. I was mortified to have been busted, not just by the chicken, but by the chicken's owner. I have a new respect for pissed off chickens. AMEN.

After an intense morning of buying jewelry and tiny, fabulous treasures, I decided I needed a drink. Let me point out 2 things: 1) I do not drink much at all - maybe one drink every other month at best. I just don't like the way it tastes and I do not want the calories. 2) When I do have a drink, I really prefer a margarita, on the rocks, light on the tequila and extra extra salt, thankyouverymuch. I had not eaten breakfast that morning, and seeing as how I have NO tolerance for alcohol, my yummy little margarita inspired me to post a nice little status update on Facebook in which I proclaimed I was "drinkin' and 'tiquin." (Drinking and Antiquing). Which turned out to be a very popular status update, with lots of friends saying they wanted to go "drinkin' and 'tiquin" - and I thought - WOW - wouldn't that be GREAT for business? A bunch of tipsy adults buying their way thru antique malls. Cha-ching!

This little beauty to my left nearly gave me a heart attack and caused me to jump backwards, almost landing in a big, glass display case and purchasing thousands of dollars of unintended merchandise. I was innocently digging thru an old wardrobe stuffed to the gills with scarves, purses and the occasional piece of jewelry. Let it be known that we antique dealers all have a common disorder: we cannot pass by a stuffed box or wardrobe without HAVING to dig thru it. Cause seriously - we think we're gonna find a gold bar at the bottom. But me? Noooooo.....I get to find a creepy-eyed doll head without her body. And she's frowning at me. After realizing I had not, indeed, stepped into a scene from a scary movie (choose your favorite), I calmed down, took Creepy's photo, and got the heck outta there. Without a treasure.

HERE'S TO A FANTASTIC 2012

DIGGING FOR TREASURES!!