After checking out Nathan Hall’s Antique Center we still didn’t have enough for the day and were far enough from home to want to slip yet one more little exploration in there, so we ended up not too far away at Another Man’s Treasure which was our second pick after the first turned out to be an obsolete store… Anyway, it’s in a little plaza, in the corner store at the back.
And I must say the displays in this place were really nice. They even somehow made a couple jars of pickled god-knows-what from god-knows-when look amazing! And they somehow managed to make a couple closets into displays as well. All and all though this was a rather small shop and didn’t have much in the way of the usual things I am drawn too. It was all a bit… sanitized… but hey, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into check it out if you find yourself in the area!
OK, so this post has been sitting in my draft folder since December… Whoops. Time to let it see the light of day!
Middleboro Antique Co-op was another delightfully large mall adorned with a life size Betty Boop! And since it was the holidays she was surrounded by three big Ho Ho Ho’s. I’m sure nothing was meant by this. (Seriously though, I fucking love Betty Boop in all her salaciousness. You go girl!)
ANYWAY. This place does not look that big from the outside and initially when you walk in it still appears pretty small with a bunch of little rooms off to the side. It was very spacious once you got around some of the corners and everything was laid out very professionally. Being that it was right before Christmas there was also a surprising amount of people. We walked through looking for our usual taboo items but this all seemed pretty tame except one really odd book called “Pepe was the Saddest Bird” that ended with an ad to buy war bonds. Weird. Will have to look into that later.
Another absolutely bizarre find was what I am GUESSING was an ad for baby food where two toddlers were bareknuckle boxing??? Obviously, the bigger fatter baby was black and wearing a potato sack. You know, got to get that racism in over the initial shock of forcing babies to fight to the death or whatever.
At some point my travel companion went to the bathroom and then disappeared. No idea where he was. I walked back to the front where the bathrooms were and nope… no one. Turns out this place has a basement and it’s sprawling! And also has a lot more of the odd and cheaper stuff down there where I am guessing vendors pay less for less than prime real estate. And that’s where there were booths full of terrifying dolls and I was loving every second of this. I think there may have even been one there with actual human teeth which is something I just learned some dolls have. Isn’t that a comforting thought!
Anyway, this place took a couple hours to go through and we could have spent more time there if we weren’t both getting a smidge hangry by this point. We left after marveling at a decrepit Gothic pram.
The second antique store we attempted to check out today was actually the first as well. We drove into the wrong side of the parking lot and ended up at some other place that was closed. We then left and after looking at a photo of the place decided that’s not where we were and returned. The other side of the parking lot indeed had a store that was open and it was… interesting.
This place was CRAMPED. Just furniture and random things everywhere. Really reminded me of the junk shops in Maine or just living with a hoarder! I can’t really blame the guy though. It appears the place is run by one older gentleman who takes in new merchandise almost on the daily all by himself.
As such this place could have had some gems. You just never know. This place had a lot of model cars and an unhealthy amount of likely haunted wall paintings and photos. All mixed among a whole herd of grandfather clocks. I found a really decent birdcage for $75 and a vaguely body sized travelling trunk for $30. And a series of boxes made in the style of Old Timey soap which I still can’t figure out if they were satire or not.
As claustrophobic as this place was I still think it was a good place to check out. I didn’t go home with anything but the guy working the shop said the inventory was always changing so who knows. Might be a fun place to re-check if we find ourselves back in the area.
Another day, another antique store! On this particular outing we were heading into Swansea MA to see what they had to offer.The Emporium had an impressive sounding name so we decided to start there. This was another one of those places that seemed to have estate sale kind of items. I was hoping maybe something weird for a good price.
When we walked in it was a pretty cramped place. A lot of the usual antiques were spread around – you know the granny dishes and whatnot. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly special until we were near the back of the shop. It’s at that point several items showed us how absolutely random a place like this could be. It started with a dish of soap bars set out like Halloween candy. And a bunch of metal signs someone clearly printed for people with quirky decorating styles. Then we found a Hilary Clinton nutcracker (because why not) and a set of mammie jars half off. I couldn’t guess as to why. I also found a weird clock with an actual face on it for $13. It seemed to be the only moderately reasonable priced thing so far.
But the real fun was in the back room which was currently being guarded by a doll in a little baby bouncer which just looked… well, a bit like a dead baby. Probably shouldn’t put hyper realistic looking dolls in baby furniture. It’s unsettling. Doll was $40. I then found an awesome camping cat carrier – $50. Fun extra finds were a cat bed in the shape of a duck (pelican?) with an open mouth, several shelves worth of hand sanitizer, an old Easter Bunny head ($25) and a bag of Depends (which I guess you might need if you saw that Easter bunny coming at you.)
Honestly don’t know if this store was overpriced or just in a town that has high price values on things but either way I went home not terribly impressed. If you happen to be in the area doing other things by all means give it a good poke – you never know what you’ll find in a place like this – but I wouldn’t make it a destination.
Of course, I couldn’t go a week without checking out a different antique mall. This one was a two-hour drive and worth it because it was an unending Byzantine labyrinth of all sorts of oddness. That was 16,500 square feet and 200 dealers worth of strange. Loved every second!
As with any of these adventures the shop soon came out with the theme of the day: animals that should be featured on a meme reading, “You know what a *something* looks like, right?” Whether they were old folk art paintings, weird stylized sculptures, figurines, or random artifacts there was all sorts of bizarrely created animals – each and every one of them looking at least a little bit off. One of which neither one of us could identify read cryptically, “cat.” Sure. That’s what that was.
There was the usual assortment of dolls, clowns, and Old Timey racism but also a number of art pieces and various paintings and wall hangings that could satisfy any decor. There was even one of two babies “sleeping” with a doll that probably didn’t kill them. We spent a few hours picking through the isles, booths, and glass cabinets. It was a really decent spread! All sorts of things! Even a figurine of a black gentlemen dressed in the Victorian era’s finest to offset the other racist garbage. I love to see someone celebrating minorities that did succeed (and just because history has largely made sure that didn’t last and forgotten them doesn’t mean they didn’t exist at all.)
So that’s where I’ll end this blog entry. If you happen to be in the Stratford CT area or are looking for a big place to go picking this seems to be a good bet!
After extracting ourselves from Candy’s Curiosities we decided we still had some umph to go explore yet another shop. That’s when my travel companion decided on something I probably wouldn’t have – Mike’s Estate Services. I mean what does that even mean? In the country we have barn sales… you know people who go to estates, buy lots of things from dead people’s homes, and try to resell them in their barn… was Mike’s some sort of city equivalent of this? YES. Yes, it was.
But I’m not knocking it! Because this place was HUGE and it had EVERYTHING. So much luscious furniture in every conceivable style, all old so made to last. And each tag read a whole story about coming in, being priced, and then going down in price every consecutive month they were there. This resulted in some really nice furniture being sold at some damn decent prices! Most that I saw seemed to hover between $600-1,200 but these were ornate antique pieces probably worth a lot more. Should I ever be lucky enough to find myself a homeowner I am coming back here!!
And upstairs there was a bunch of wall art for every decor as well as kitchen supplies, dishes, a healthy dose of probably haunted dolls, brand new looking cloth luggage cases, a few books here and there, lots of orphaned but still very handsome chairs, and even some grandfather clocks and rocking chairs. There was something for everyone here. And if you happen to need something to furnish your new home I HIGHLY suggest this place!
We ended our day of antiquing at the Quaboag Valley Antique Center which is in town… and yes I had to badly parallel park in traffic to be anywhere near it which is always added fun! (Pleeeease stop asking me to do this. I am but a simple country bumpkin with no real use of parallel parking skills.)
This place lacked the great size of the Yankee Flea Market but that’s OK. Everything here was fine, cultured, and well displayed. And for the most part it was the usual things you’d find in a shop like this – pretty baubles, fine china, and of course a basement full of furniture. That’s not to say we didn’t find anything interesting because we did… I found a black ventriloquist dummy which, how fucking weird is that?! I always see haunted dolls as being a white person hobby but OK! Happy to bring others onboard! Actually, Twitter told me the dummy was half of the comedy team Willie Tyler and Lester. Lester was the doll and apparently they showed up on Laugh In at one point. Soooo want to see that…
I also found a canary cage, the kind miners would bring canaries into mines with which was almost as morbid as the decrepit doll pram on the other side of the shop. Whhhy do those always call to me?! Oh! And a little metal stove that was silver! I’ve seen dozens of these things before but they’re always cast iron, never silver colored?! Very cool.
Anyway, if you happen to be in town, are in need of good sturdy furniture, or are checking out other antique places in the area this shop might be worth a looksey.
We’ve been to the Clinton Antique Center before but it was such a large place that it was worth another visit a few months later. And this time didn’t disappoint!
If you read about my previous visit you may remember this place as the antique center where I found a booth FULL of Nazi shit. Like real Nazi things used by actual Nazis probably during World War II. You may be happy to note that although it looks like the same dealer may be selling in his usual booth all the Nazi shit was gone. Hopefully because of public backlash because that level of bad mojo shouldn’t just be hanging out in public spaces. There was however still a whole booth dedicated to racist black memorabilia just around the corner which had one of the most heinous prints I’ve ever seen of a little black boy screaming as a goose clamps down on his most tender of bits which apparently were through a glory hole?! Now this says nothing about black people but the needless sexualization of a SMALL BOY as well as the flagrant racism says much more about the artist! WHAT A CREEPY ASS OLD MAN HE MUST HAVE BEEN. Good riddance.
But really this shop had a lot less offensive material than in previous visits. Most of it this time seemed to be directed at indigenous Americans. You know Indian rubber pull dolls and cigar statues and whatnot. There was also a lot of fun stuff like – a fox who seemed delighted to be taxidermied, a boar head that looked like it was used for testing cosmetics before being put on someone’s wall, a CAST IRON BICYCLE which must have been so fun to ride, many many creepy clowns, a lot of dolls giving an obscene amount of side-eye, and of course a whole bookshelf of books that had titles which aged very badly. Every one of them was a modern innuendo and I was in stitches going through them starting with Scouts in Bondage, Wooden Willie, and Memorable Balls. Seriously, if I lived in a place large enough for a bookshelf or a coffee table I would have been on these like shivers on a Chihuahua. Just hilarious.
It was well worth the revisit! And I am very happy they pulled the Nazi bullshit off the shelves. If that is to be sold at all it should be under great suspicion behind the scenes.
We were on our way back home when I decided on a whim to take the exit to Fairfield and check out what was advertised to be the largest antique mall in Maine. When I drove in I immediately recognized the place but it took until we got inside for my companion to do so as well. In a previous trip up to these parts we had managed to stop by a mere half an hour before closing so only got to scratch the surface of this delightful iceberg. But today we had a few hours to spare!
And so we walked into what was indeed a huge antique mall filled with vendors of every kind. It was so big in fact that we quickly lost track of each other as I lagged behind mucking about with some wax cylinders. There was a whole swarm of them and I was intrigued. But he was ahead of me and ventured into the basement before I knew where he was headed and I ended up going upstairs. We’d eventually meet up again but it was amusing to see what different things we saw and what caught both of our attention.
Before we separated we found an “apple doll” which is I guess a doll whose head is a whole dried apple? Only thing was this apple was from 1960 and had LONG since gone off. The little rotted core was all that was left and the doll’s dress I am sure wasn’t covered in blood stains but boy did it look like it was! We both declared this terrifying item cursed and refused to touch it. And that wasn’t the only terrifying doll. This place was loaded! In fact I found a basket labelled, “Basket of creepy dolls $30” in the basement and almost fell for it. I took a photo of the most cracked little baby face and wandered off to think about whether or not I wanted to take it, the torched corpse of another baby doll, and the various other parts in that basket home. What stopped me? Probably the fact the basket MOVED in the 15 minutes I wandered off. Was in a totally different spot in the booth! Uhmmmm…. OK, so I love creepy dolls but I draw a line with the ones that move on their own.
The rest of the shop had all kinds of fun finds – chickens galore! And rusty signs, and odd artifacts, probably haunted paintings and prints, weird books, clowns on parade, and old food cannisters from god knows when. Oh, and possibly the most offensive minstrel poster we’ve ever found. I think that one won the category for Most Racist Shit We’ve Ever Found [black] To Date. On my own I also found The Most Racist Shit We’ve Ever Found [Indigenous American.] It was a painting of a Native American, clad only in loin cloth, warming himself next to a fire, a pompously dressed Englishman behind him looking down like “this poor dumb savage” with the caption “Doh Wah Jack Heap Warm.” Shame I don’t get any prizes for this HORRIBLE game we play. I am happy to note the amount of racist bullshit here was actually pretty light, it was just what was here was pretty intense.
The rest of the shop had something for everyone. There were a few victrolas, some retro tourist things, lots of chickens, some rusty signs, a great deal of well-done taxidermy, a taxidermied bobcat that looked… not like a bobcat. That’s not to mention the pottery, weird books, beautiful glass, and Victrola and vinyl records everywhere! I would have brought home a sealed Badfinger album but I didn’t have $40 on me. I guess it would have been worth flipping… maybe next time! My companion did come home with a fidget. He says it’s a zippo but it’s grainy in texture and impossible not to play with sooo…. one man’s zippo is another man’s fidget.
Anyway, this was a lot of fun, took us quite a while to work through, and I would definitely go again.
In desperate need of a change of scenery we loaded up our bags and the cat and set off for the great state of Maine to watch a blizzard and go antique shopping afterwards. It was a break everyone needed in their souls and the antique stores didn’t disappoint!
The first one we ended up at was Elmer’s Barn in Cooper’s Mills Maine. We ended up there after stopping briefly into a favorite haunt Hussy’s General Store which was less than ten minutes away. Sadly, they did not have any Bigfoot pillows so we left to meander our way to the antique store to satiate our desire for strange things.
I’d never been to Elmer’s Barn but it boasted of four floors of the unique and unusual and the parking lot seemed to agree with this stance. There were random weird large artifacts scattered around and a cluster of hens with their gorgeous rooster just chilling at the entrance, pecking around, doing chicken things. Their eggs were on sale inside. Now that – I could really support. Love me some random free-range chickens!
Inside the first thing I noticed was in various nooks and corners there were terrifying taxidermy in little hats. Why? Because why not. A penguin, a gopher, an ermine, a caribou, and even a bear. That was a good start!
Obviously, it was a great place to continue playing my two favorite antique store games trying to find the creepiest dolls and the most racist bullshit we could muster. This place was unique because in addition to a very light smattering of minstrel-y black memorabilia there was also a suuuuper antisemitic print hanging on the wall. This would be a first for me. Antisemitism is definitely a thing but weirdly in the US it’s not really immediately apparent in any media like the mammie dolls and such are. This form of bigotry seems more reliant on coded language and conspiracy theories than visual representations. You know… “lizard people” running the government and Jewish space lasers…. truly batshit things.
Funny enough the other racist artifacts were mostly hidden and there weren’t many of them although I did find the most unique mammie to date. Her head lifted to reveal she functioned as a creamer! When I was done poking at that I moved on to the dolls… there was a nice variety of creepy dolls. And better still everything I picked up seemed very decently priced. I ended up bringing home two metal car banks from the 1970’s for $10 and $15 and two big hardcover volumes of National Geographic spanning several months in 1918 and 1920. I don’t know anything about them but they sure were interesting! And humbling… to see a whole volume dedicated to how the only World War was finally over… followed by a long article about how to racially profile various European ethnic groups… I’m sure that didn’t cause any problems later on. *COUGH COUGH* Meanwhile my companion took a fancy to $10.50 worth of Disney merchandise. He grew up in the middle classes which seem to really dig that stuff. I grew up poor in the woods with a bunny ear TV, three channels, and a mother who’d tell us to go play outside if we were bored. As such I have shockingly little references to anything Disney but I enjoy his passion nonetheless and was in full support of this purchase.
After this we had to wade through a GREAT DEAL of mud to get back to the car and I may have completely caked my new kicks and bellbottoms. SIGH. All and all it was a wonderful excursion and I have added it to my list of placed to check out again.
