Tag: antiquing

The Emporium Consignment and Antiques- Swansea MA

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.

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Stratford Antique Center – Stratford CT

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!

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Mike’s Estate Services – West Warwick RI

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!

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Quaboag Valley Antique Center – Palmer MA

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.

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Yankee Flea Market – Palmer MA

The Yankee Flea market was another fun stop because it is enormous with over 200 vendors. As such you never know what you’re going to find! We spent quite a while here picking through the various booths and finding everything under the sun. The great thing about a place with this many vendors is that you’ll find not just a large variety of items but also price ranges. There’s something for everyone! And I came home with a jar of marbles since I have stopped taking marble photos at every location. I guess at the time I didn’t feel particularly encouraged to do so but it was a cute little signature of mine.

We picked through creepy clowns, dolls with vaguely threatening auras, cow creamers in the midst of an existential crisis, bad taxidermy, cast iron everything, hilarious Disney knock offs that looked just the slightest bit off, a model of a human spine, a marshmallow man with a changing face, and even an Old Timey Bottle reading “Cathartic Compound” which I am sure was something that throw you on your ass. Oh, and random “Pin the Pistol on the Cowboy” game and a mug with a naked woman and a wobbly butt. Very weird but hilarious. There were even a couple booths that appeared to be maintained by artists selling their works which is always lovely to see. You get out there!

All and all this was definitely one of the larger venues I’d go back to in a few months or years when everything has rolled over again. Fun fun!

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Clinton Antique Center – Clinton CT

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.

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Elmer’s Barn Antiques – Cooper’s Mills Maine

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.

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Route 18 Antiques Mall – Lakeville MA

This antique store was a little different than our usual fair. It was super easy to find in a little plaza right off the highway. It was of moderate size and seemed to have more a thrift store feel to it. Like it wanted to be an antique store, and it did have some old stuff, but at least 40% of that was just outdated somewhat recent technology and entertainment. You know, the place to get your CDs and VHSs.

And initially it was kind of sweet and grandmotherly but then we started coming across the most racist shit we’ve found to date. First, I found an old Raggedy Anne and Andy children’s book with a mamie doll blatantly taking up the whole cover. Obviously, I had to paw over that and make my own judgements. The book was $15 and falling apart with every breath but I am glad I flipped through it because in the middle there was an absolutely terrifying illustration that sure looked like a lot like that same mamie doll drowning a clown in the sink. Now I’m not saying that’s what’s actually going on but damn, that’s what it looks like to me! I admit I almost bought it just so I could frame that one page and hang it up as a conversation starter. The only thing that stopped me was the fact it was super racist in addition to being morbidly hilarious.

But that was nothing. At some point we rounded a corner and in a glass display case was the most racist thing I have ever seen. Keep in mind in previous adventures we have seen hundreds of mamie dolls, dozens of super racist ad posters, Chinamen saltshakers, troubling depictions of American Indians, gypsy fortune tellers, but this… this took the cake. It was anti-Japanese. A magazine from World War II with a pinch-eyed and jaundiced chimpanzee wearing a swastika on the cover. Even worse it was placed rather carelessly next to a symbol clashing monkey. We both gasped. And then took photos to prove we’d actually seen such a thing.

Hilariously we accidentally ended up back at this store two or three weeks later and we had to go check in on that insane magazine. SOMEONE BOUGHT IT. I kid you not, it was gone!! The dilapidated mamie doll book was still there though — case you still need a good dose of racism.

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Taunton Antique Center – Taunton MA

The Taunton Antique Center was another one of those crazy surprising stores that just kept going and going and going. Initially we thought it was just a modestly sized furniture based antique store off a main street because when you enter that’s all you see and it looks like that’s all there is. But once you start moving further in you realize the beautiful furniture is just one room and there’s a back room full of little things behind glass and then another room off to the side that leads into an absolute labyrinth. There were hallways and nooks, a whole section dedicated to thrift store type things and a basement that just didn’t quit. Really something for everyone!!

It was like the character of the store itself kept warping and moving as we travelled deeper into it. This place was very charismatic and absolutely INFESTED with terrifying antique horses of all shapes, sizes, and fur lengths! Some were small, some were chubby, some were big enough for a small child to ride, some had red eyes, some had soulless black holes were the eyes were supposed to go. All of them looked not quite right. And beside many there were more creepy Victorian paintings and prints – always a joy to see.

There was also a lot of chickens which made me doubly happy and even some paintings that looked medieval or at least older than the US. It was A LOT to take in. This was another one of those antique stores that could easily take up a whole afternoon and not need anything else.

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New Bedford Antiques at the Cove – New Bedford MA

So, I may have been a little burned out towards the end of 2022 and I may have decided to take the month of December off as far as writing blog entries. This however does not mean I didn’t go to a bunch of antique stores and now I am left with figuring out which I went to, what was in them, and which photos go where… In case you find yourself in a similar dilemma DON’T DO THIS. And if you do make sure to at least take a photo of each’s store’s sign so you can remember. Otherwise… well… good luck.

I do however remember the New Bedford Antiques Cove. New Bedford is the former whaling capitol of the US so this huge antique store in a sprawling old mill building is chock FULL of scrimshaw. None of which I took photos of! I really don’t know why. In addition to scrimshaw there was also plenty of whale art and harpoons aplenty! In addition to this they also had a vast array of completely unrelated and probably haunted dolls and creepy paintings. Just a big old cache. This was also the first time we had come across an old wax cylinder recorder. Very neat! Probably should have been in a museum.

All and all this was another all-day adventure because of the enormity of the place. Definitely worth a little road trip to see such an assortment of different venders. Something for everyone! And if you’re into the whole whaling aspect there is a Whaling Museum in New Bedford as well.

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