My first birthday gift this year came from my dear friends who love hunting for mid-century treasure even more than Jason and I. While at an antique mall in Kentucky, they found me this vintage horse race game called Gee Wiz. I did a little research and it was manufactured in the 1920’s. That means it’s almost 90 years old. That’s nuts! It’s a cool collectible and a very unique birthday gift that I’ll treasure.
Thanks Renata and Sean!
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I wish I could say this Curtis Jeré owl is now sitting on my bookshelf at home but alas … it’s price tag kept it anchored to the shelf at Wonders on Woodland. If you have an extra $225 lying around this beautiful piece of metal sculpture could be yours or … mine if you buy it and then give it to me. That would be fine. Have I mentioned my birthday is on Saturday?
For now, I’ll just enjoy this photo taken with J’s phone.
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As I mentioned last week, over Memorial Day weekend I visited my wonderful friends in Cincinnati. We spent most of our days hopping around from one antique store to another looking for mid-century modern goodies. We were not disappointed!
I fell in love with this Sessions A-frame wood clock the instant I saw it. It has a key to wind it up. How cool is that? It ticks really loudly.
Got this 1970’s Yamaha classical guitar for Jason. He’s still grieving the Manuel Rodriguez classical he sold after college. Maybe this will help a little. It is a cedar top – his favorite.
Corning Ware skillet with blue and yellow flowers
Pyrex blue and white Amish casserole
Anchor Hocking candlestick pattern casserole
And last but certainly not least, this original gouache painting signed by Dick West. The vendor believed it’s an interior designer’s rendering for a client. As a graphic designer who loves mid-century home design, I think this piece is really special.
3 Comments | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design | Tagged: anchor hocking, antique store, Cincinnati, clock, corning ware, dick west, painting, pyrex | Permalink
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One of the shops in Cincinnati we checked out while hunting for mid-century modern treasures.
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We picked up a couple of little treasures on a recent trip around the Nashville thrift stores.
A retro green silverware tray – not too exciting but I love the color and it has more slots than our old one. And it was 75¢!
Jason’s never going to let me forget that he spotted this lamp FROM THE STREET! Meaning: we were driving past one thrift store on the way to drop off our garage sale junk at the Goodwill and he saw this lamp out of the corner of his eye through the window of the thrift store. That man has eagle vision!
We still need a shade. It had an ugly one paired with it that we left at the store. No thanks. Price: $6.99.
Jason also spotted this neat round plastic carafe. The brand is Alfi and it’s made in Germany.
Sadly, in it’s beautiful roundness it rolled off the counter top and the top broke. It’s no longer a functional piece but it still looks pretty on our display shelf.
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(ya know, like pirate booty)
On Saturday we got up at the butt crack of dawn and headed out to the TN 52 Yard Sale extravaganza with Leila and Jeremy and Jason’s mom. It’s 95 miles of yard sales; I think we probably hit 10-20 miles of it.
We found all kinds of different mid-century modern and vintage treasures and managed to spend the rest of the profit from our own yard sale the weekend before. I’ll let the pictures do the talking but I’ll just say I’m most excited about the chair I spotted from the street as we were driving past one of the last sales and the owls – just because I think they’re adorable. Oh, and the tea and coffee canisters, too. It’s so hard to choose a favorite!
It seems like everywhere we go we find Homer Laughlin Co. Gold Cortez (or Sheffield Granada Green) pieces. (above)
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Jason and I found this pair of metal planters at a particularly bizarre estate sale. Bizarre because it seemed like the homeowner was a gym teacher, music teacher AND an art teacher based on the huge amounts of parts, equipment, pieces and art prints.
These plants are copper-looking but probably brass. They’re a bit dented and rusted but overall pretty nice shape. Especially for $10 for the pair. We’re so cheap. We talked them down from $20.
Jason planted some of our quickly spreading blue fescue and in a few months they’ll be domes of silvery blue-green grass. Simple but I think they make a nice entrance to our patio.
4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: mcm thrift store find | Tagged: blue fescue, estate sale, metal planter, patio | Permalink
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Could this be an original Curtis Jeré wall sculpture? I have no idea. Perhaps unlikely, but definitely possible. Whatever it is – I love it. It’s a mid-century modern sculpture of a tree. That’s enough to make it welcome in our home!
Jason snagged this at an estate sale a few weeks ago for $25. The vendors didn’t know anything about it. It’s unmarked and missing a few leaves. It’s also big—bigger than I thought when I first saw the photos online—about 25″ tall and sticks out about 6″ from the wall. We haven’t yet figured out where to hang it.
What do you think?
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When we moved into our house 3 years ago I immediately started keeping my eye out for a great deal on a mid-century starburst clock for our dining room. Problems: the cool ones are super expensive, usually electric and many are brass with traditional roman numerals … we prefer something more modern.
Here’s a beautiful example of Westclok brand Sputnik-style atomic wall clock that’s available through Etsy. LOVE the teak and the spokes. It’s $110 and if you have that much money sitting around you should definitely buy this.
Anyhow, last summer at a yard sale Jason and I found a retro modern starburst clock. We haggled with the stingy seller and finally walked away with this plastic time keeper. It was silver-plastic faced with navy blue spokes so we decided to paint it black and white. I’m very happy with the result. We used appliance spray paint on the spokes (because we had some sitting around) giving them a really glossy finish. (I’ve blogged about it before.)
Also, we changed out the hands to some simple chrome pieces from a free clock I got from work.
Recently, I saw a blog post somewhere about this clock available from MoMA. I can’t believe it! I think our plastic garage sale find must be a replica of George Nelson’s 1949 Starburst Clock. The aluminum and wood version from MoMA is also a replica. And those clock hands? Yeah, that’s what ours looked like, only navy.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I like ours the best! Sorry George. And now that I know it’s a George Nelson replica, what was intended to be a temporary place holder for a vintage atomic clock will be sticking around.
One of the owners of Wonders on Woodland – our neighborhood MCM antique store – gave Jason and I a valuable piece of advice last year. If a piece fits with your decor and looks vintage who cares if it’s just a replication or modern interpretation of mid-century. It’s your home – fill it with things you love!
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Jason and I have been collecting various patterns of mid-century modern dishware from around town. We keep finding pieces from this collection in olive green and gold. They’re glazed ceramic with scallop, half-circle patterns around the edges. It took a lot of research but we finally found the names (they’re unmarked.) Gold Cortez by Homer Laughlin Co. and Sheffield Granada Green. Homer Laughlin is best known for Fiesta Ware.
So far we’ve collected in green: a dinner plate, 5 tea cups, 3 saucers, a coffee carafe and a pitcher that I use for tea. In gold we’ve found: 4 bowls, a coffee carafe (gave away) and most recently: 3 dessert plates and 6 saucers. The most interesting thing is that we’ve found them all over Nashville: an estate sale, a yard sale, a vintage store and 2 different thrift stores.
I wrote this post when we found the bowls. The the olive green coffee carafe makes a great vase:
1 Comment | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design | Tagged: dishes, fiesta ware, gold cortez, homer laughlin, mcm thrift store find, sheffield granada green | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
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Graphic designer, MCM interior design enthusiast, wife to amazing guitarist and hard working realtor, mama—by way of foster care, adoption and biology—and follower of Jesus Christ.
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