Something different

Regular readers of this blog have probably noticed that over the last few years my interests have evolved from just baseball cards to other "old things" as well, particularly vestiges of older retail. I have had thoughts about starting a collection in this vein for a while, and recently put together a starter mini-collection via a purchase from a website called Don and Chris' Old Stuff. It seems to have the cheapest prices for a variety of old items. Most things on their site cost a couple of dollars; many are under a dollar. Though I didn't buy any cards in this purchase, they do have a trading card section. It's mostly non-sport (they have packs of 1991 Pro Set MusiCards at $0.25 each) but there are some sports oddballs like 1970s Pepsi cards. The shipping minimums make it impractical to buy say, one pack of cards, but overall their prices can't be beat as far as I can tell (if anyone knows of similar sites, do let me know!).

Here is what I got from them to start my collection - all of this came out to under $60 including shipping. This has nothing to do with baseball cards but if people find this interesting, I'd be happy to do more posts on specific items here. If you don't find this interesting, I'll stick to cards from now on!

For now I am using my kids' old changing table as my little "museum".

I love the old soda stuff, especially Pepsi, from my interest in vintage signs. The Pepsi cups are from the 1960s, except for the red one which is 1970s. The matchbook has the "Say Pepsi Please" logo from the 1960s. There is also a 1968 payroll check from a Pepsi bottling plant. Also seen in this picture are a 1930s Carlson's Ice Cream box (I just liked the art deco look of it), a 1964 New York World's Fair ticket, a 1950s bandage box manufactured in Valley Stream, NY, right near me; a 1927 Studebaker check, and a 1961 Hires Root Beer store display insert with Bob Hope.

A whole lot of milk bottle caps, most from the 1930s and 1940s. I picked these (most under $0.25) because they showed phone numbers - lots of variety in the number and layout of the digits.

A variety of presidential campaign pins, 1952-1972. I was glad I saved this green felt box from some previous card purchase, it works perfectly for displaying these. The Nixon's came as a set. Not taking political sides here - I'm interested in the pins for their representation of the history of the era. No safety pins back then, I got stuck a few times from the old-style pins.

I'm tempted to get another Johnson/Humphrey bumper sticker to put on my car. The envelope is from the Socony Mobil Oil Company (1950s) and the check is from 1887.

Lots of Coca-Cola stuff here. The cups date from the 1950s and 1960s. The straw is 1960s. A variety of other mid-20th century Coke ephemera, including menu paper for McCrory's.

Under the Coke items - a 1948 Sun Life ink blotter, a french fry bag with an early version of the Colonel, and a pack of Eastern Airlines playing cards.

It's funny how much Nixon memorabilia has "Committee to Re-Elect the President" on it. None of them actually abbreviate it to CREEP though. I thought it was cool to have these flyers that would have been put up around town. Behind the Ohio banner is a letterhead for a blade company with an old-style phone number.

For $5 I bought a mystery grab bag of 50 vintage labels. Lots of unfamiliar names but some cool stuff here; I could be persuaded to part with some of these but others are definitely keepers. Most are from the 1930s and 1940s.

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Part 2:

Finally, a couple of purchases that are not related to this collection but interested me anyway. One is this 1979 Supermag with Mork & Mindy. It's one of my all-time favorite shows. The kids magazine is not very good (and was missing a page, though not from the Mork & Mindy section), but it's fun to own it.

Finally, because I've acquired a lot of late-70s early-80s football cards recently, I picked up this 1980 Kessler Football guide, as my knowledge of football history is not nearly as good as baseball.

Bringing this post back to cards, here is the Giants section of the Kessler book with one of my recent card acquisition from a few months ago. The description of Phil Simms's rookie season sounds a lot like Daniel Jones, hopefully he can be as successful as Jones was. And to bring it back to trading, I have LOTS of 1979 and 1980 Topps football to trade if anyone is working on those sets.