Tuesday Treasures - August 29, 2023

 My son and I had a quite a time at the Goodwill Bins recently.  The bins were filled with a wide assortment of things.   We both found plenty.  It's a long post, so feel free to skip it!  Or, scroll down and look at the photos.

Carved wooden folk art figure of a barefoot man holding a sack.   It looks like he held something thin in his right hand.  That's a dog at his feet. I think the woodcarver had a problem with the dog's head, it's oddly shaped, but not broken (it's smooth), perhaps the ears or top of the head broke off while carving.  I don't know if he represents anyone specific (I thought, then discarded the thought, that he was Johnny Appleseed with his bag of seeds), but there are many versions of a wooden barefoot man holding a sack online.  

I added items from two new countries to my Bins items collection!  The pig is clay from Chile.  He's a Chanchito, a good-luck pig with three legs.  They always have three legs. It's tradition in the village of Pomaire to give these Chanchitos to friends and family as a sign of good fortune.  They hang in shop windows, restaurants, and homes.  A cute little souvenir of someone's trip to Chile is now my good-luck pig!   The long donkey is from Nepal.  He's an felted organic wool pencil "topper," but really a pencil slides all the way in, so he's more of a pencil holder.  A percentage of sales goes to pay school tuition for the felt workers' children.  My third felted animal found in the Bins.  How odd. 

Kitchen things.  Whenever I use those two words together I can't help but think of A Jury of Her Peers, by Susan Glaspell.  "'Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things."  Haven't read it?  Link's above. 

Two mini tin trays, a vintage mold, two copper cookie cutters, colorful swizzle sticks, skewers, a vintage spreader, '70s nut cracker, and a newer copper (copper colored more likely) grape cluster mold.

Some real odds and ends! Tiny baskets, a tiny metal watering can (I actually have four or five of these), a brass finial I unscrewed off a lamp harp, and a vintage brick layers pointing tool.  Yeah, call me crazy... 

A purple Dramm hose nozzle.

Not Van Gogh, but "after" him.  Meaning a copy of his work, in this case Genevieve Simms' take on Van Gogh's Chair.  She used the French word, apres.  Painted in 1989, I haven't been able to track down the artist. There is an illustrator by that name, however she is too young to have painted this in the late '80s.

A 1930s - 1940s Kreamer copper with tin lining canister with bakelite handle, size 53.   I haven't cleaned it yet, I need to get some copper cleaner.  I do have vintage copper bottom sauce pans that were my mother's (Revere Ware), but I don't shine them.  She used to use Klean King copper cleaner, like a comet for copper, after each use, no fail.  This canister had daisy stickers all over it.  Wouldn't a set of these be pretty?  Cleaned up of course. 

This fascinating (to me) 20" x 16" photograph identifies in searches as a cannery.  Specifically one of the many, many canneries that were in British Columbia in the early part of the 1900s.  I'm still working on which one.  The red is caused by the sun's UV rays breaking down the chemical bonds in the dyes.   It's hard for me to grasp, having to do with chemistry and such.  Chromophores.

The details show better in mono.  The boat's name is Liberty.  I like how still the water is to show her reflection. 

It was in a fabulous frame, was being the operative word.

Besides that one photograph, I was happy to rescue 106 more (plus eight contact sheets, one shown below)!  They are 8 x 10 black and whites. I so wish people at the Bins, or any store for that matter, wouldn't open boxes and scatter the contents.  I'm sure there were more photos.  Some were still in boxes, others I gathered up a few at a time.  The copyright has not expired on these so I won't share them (the photographer owns the copyright, even if I own the physical copies) in detail.  They include fabulous close-ups of flowers, reflection photos of El Capitan (Yosemite), Mono Lake tufa, creepy cemetery shots, photos of the collapsed freeways in Oakland, CA after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, much more.  The earthquake dates the photos, and give me a hint as to the photographer.  Not a name, but a few of the freeway shots also have a police car a distance away.  Like the photographer was escorted to locations off limits to the public, so perhaps working for the press.  There are a few of Yellowstone, including some burnt trees, with fit in with the dates since the big Yellowstone fire was in 1988.  Again, press?  The photo paper was purchased in Oakland, and besides the shots of the area freeways, and buildings, there are some of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains.  And many beautiful others.

If that's not enough yet, I got Mickey four squeaky dog toys, three books (one a comb-bound cookbook), and two tiny decorative gourds I put in the tiny basket shown above.

I've been saving up my Halloween and Christmas items for special posts, and I have been getting more since that Christmas in July post!  

We had quite a time beyond what we found.  We had a shopping cart pretty full up when the employees announced they could only take cash.  The card readers were down nation-wide.  No checks either.  I keep a check in my purse for times card readers aren't working, but they weren't taking checks.  My son left me looking for more treasure and went for cash.  

We didn't need much.  It was so busy (a Monday, so that was strange already), with such long lines, and taking so long to do cash, our cashier had had enough.  She gave us great deals on it all!  Just keep the line moving I guess.  

As busy at it was, everyone was particularly polite.  Not that it's often riotous, and it's rare for anyone to be outright rude.  However, as we waiting for the new bins to be brought out (you have to wait behind the yellow line, and not touch until they are all out, and then employees give the go-ahead), we discussed what we were going for first as we saw what was there.  We traded spots to be nearest what we wanted and told others what we were interested in, and no one jumped ahead and grabbed those items.  My bins are not like the ones you may see on Instagram! I've yet to find a dead rat or a dirty diaper.  I wonder if those posts are just exaggerations?  Sure, some of the stuff is grubby, not usually actually dirty though, and the bins are disinfected, you can often smell it.  

Oh, I don't know all my son got, but he got a "new" desk chair for $1.

Next week is a short post, promise.