Music to My Ears

Here's another item that blurs the line of garage sale.  Okay, it's completely out of focus.  I didn't get it from a garage sale.  A co-worker gave it to me because he knows I like vintage electronics -- and more importantly, he knows I like "free".  This came from his father-in-law who recently moved to a residential care facility.  It's a Magnavox:

The needle was broken, but while cleaning it up, I found a spare, brand new, still in the packaging.

It works great.  I'm not quite sure of the era, although I would guess late 60's to early 70's.   I reminds me a lot of my mother's (which she still has), but hers was clearly a '70's piece with a lot of plastic faux wood and scarlet red speaker grills. 

I've been enjoying listening to Herb Alpert, Perry Como, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin.  I try to keep the records in the same era as the player.  Just wouldn't seem right listening to Huey Lewis on this. 

It's current residence is my basement as I already have a 1940's console radio in the living room.  I'm looking forward to playing some of my Christmas albums while setting up my aluminum Christmas tree next month.

Two Silver Spoons Together...

On my way to help move some furniture this afternoon, I saw a lone (and lonely) garage sale in Watertower Place subdivision on Telegraph Road.  An older woman appeared to be cleaning out her garage and had some things thrown out in boxes with no prices.  I saw a few loose silverware in one box.  We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, so I'm on the lookout for some serving spoons, etc.  After looking closer, what caught my interest was the writing on the spoons.  One said "1933 Century of Progress" which I recognized as a souvenir spoon from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.  The other said "Banner Buggies" and had a picture of a horse buggy in the bowl of the spoon.

She wanted $1 a piece, so I took them.  And before I left, she had me open a stubborn window for her in the garage.

Looking online (okay, eBay), these don't have a lot of value, but still interesting.  The World's Fair spoon features the Federal Building which housed the Navy exhibit featuring painted murals of the Navy's seafaring power throughout U. S. history.

I discovered the Banner Buggy spoon was an adverstisement for a St. Louis-based company that produced horse buggies from 1880 through 1910 and then began a foray into automobiles.  Initially proposing their own line of automobiles, they ended up producing car bodies for Cheverolet, then assembling whole vehicles before finally being acquired by them around 1917.   Russell Gardner, the owner of Banner Buggies before the buyout, went on to produce the Gardner Automobile in St. Louis which built automobiles through 1932.

When It Rains, It Storms...

You see what I mean?  I went out last Saturday and hit a few estate sales.  One was picked clean as it was in its second week and the items were down to one room.  But sitting in that room was yet another Kodak Carousel slide projector and 6 or 7 carousel wheels of slides.  Plus a screen.  The entire package was marked $5.  After quickly looking through the boxes, I determined they were indeed full of slides.  When I bought it, the man running the sale said the slides were commercial slides of places like Rome.  I was a little disappointed to hear that as I am always looking for vintage home life and travel shots.  He made a comment that he never understood how people could sell their family slides.  I nodded in agreement.

After taking them home and testing out the projector (it works), I put a tray in and watched.  I was happy to find they weren't commercial slides, but family slides from the early to late '60's.  Below is a sampling.  First up, Easter, 1963: