For the Love of Theresa

Last Valentine's Day, I premiered Charlotte's scrapbook by way of her childhood Valentine's.  Coincidentally enough, I found another batch of vintage Valentine's at an estate sale this weekend.

These date from approximately the same era as Charlotte and are also from a home in Oakville, Missouri.  I had hoped for the ultimate coincidence of coming across Valentine's from Charlotte to this girl, Theresa Perowdosky. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.  I'm not even sure if Theresa went to a local school or simply moved to Oakville at a later date.  But at any rate, here they are for your enjoyment.  In the case where there is text on the interior, I've included it.  Some cards have art of the back and I've included that as well.  I've tried to keep all images together: front, interior and back.  Some are simply fronts.  At some point it appears all of these were tacked up and displayed.

Colorform Snoopy Come Home

I'm about to start into one of my old man rants, so prepare yourself.

When I was a kid, we didn't have video games and movies on demand to entertain yourself!  Okay, we did, but that was later on.  In my day, by which I mean prior to about 1980, if you wanted to recreate scenes featuring your favorite characters, you could draw them yourself or pull out the Colorforms.

Colorforms were invented in 1951 by a couple of married art students who discovered vinyl would stick to their tiled bathroom walls.  They left a roll of vinyl and a pair of scissors in their bathroom and invited guests to create their own artwork while they were otherwise preoccupied.  Though initially targeting other adult art students, Colorforms eventually found their niche in children's licensed characters.

I had a variety of sets when I was younger ranging from Batman and Robin to Mickey Mouse and Peanuts.  So when I came across these sets at a local (and quickly becoming my favorite) thrift store Value Village, the memories came flooding back.  Okay, I know what you're going to say.  Isn't this a garage saling blog?  Yes, but it's my blog and I can bend the rules when I see fit.  Besides, I paid garage sale prices, dropping little over $2 for both sets.  Both are in nearly pristine condition (with the exception of prices written on the box tops by the thrift store -- what are they thinking?!) and surprisingly missing very few pieces.

First up is the incorrectly named Come Home, Snoopy set.  Surely based on the feature length movie Snoopy Come Home, the misnaming may have occurred while the name was still in limbo, a la Revenge of the Jedi, or was simply a typo by the manufacturer.  Missing just one baseball, this set is practically complete with a solid box.

Would You Like Another Plate with That?

As told here, a few months back I came across a couple of McDonald's collectors plates.  At today's estate sale, I made an addition to the set.  Along with a duplicate of the Summer Day plate, I found this one for 50 cents:

"Ronald McDonald likes to have great fall fun...but wait till poor Grimace sees what he's done."

I'd like to see the follow up plate to this where Grimace goes medieval on Ronald with the leaf rake for messing up his leaf pile.

School's In

I went to an estate sale this morning.  I was about number 110 in line (I'm not kidding).  Fortunately (or unfortunately) they were letting a lot of people in the house.  I waited about 15 minutes before I got in.  I was there for a couple items I saw in the online ad.  This:

Curse Us and Crush Us, My Precious

I picked up this album at a sale over the past summer (maybe it was last summer) for a $1 along with a handful of other records.  I remember watching this special when it originally aired in 1977.  From Rankin-Bass, the makers of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, I give you The Hobbit:

Two of Every Kind

I bought these plastic animals at an estate sale about a month ago for $1.  I'm fairly certain they're from the old Noah's Ark restaurant and bar that used to stand in St. Charles, Missouri.  I say this because my parents and grandparents frequented there and would often bring one of these home.  The bonus was the little box they came in from Stix, Baer and Fuller, a defunct St. Louis department store.

With their long necks, the giraffes are clearly drink stirrers, but I can't imagine the others were actually placed in a drink as that would certainly pose a choking hazzard.  Perhaps some bar afficienado out there can help me identify how they were used.

I'm not sure the mermaids were from Noah's Ark.  I'm pretty sure Noah missed those along with the Unicorns when he chose his cargo.

There's an article over on Neatocoolville detailing Noah's Ark's demolition some years back.

Garage Saling for the Rich and Famous

The title of this post was almost "Corbin Bernsen is an eBay deadbeat!"

I bought a vintage snowdome (or snowglobe as some may know them) at an estate sale about a month ago. It was of the Empire State Building and appeared to date from the 30's or 40's. The water inside it was half gone and the snow had yellowed and decomposed to the point that made it actually quite unappealing. But I have a friend who collects snowdomes, and although he gravitates towards the kitschier plastic models (I think), I decided to pick it up with the thought that he might be interested in it. But then Christmas hit and the idea of selling off some things to finance it overcame me, so along with various other items I'd accumlulated over the past year, I put it out on eBay.  Sorry, Frank, to quote Daffy Duck, I'm a greedy slob!

The auction ended with a sole bid of $9.99 (so much for paying off those Christmas bills!). I invoiced the buyer and awaited payment. And waited. As the days passed, I thought I had a deadbeat on my hands, so I took a closer look at the buyer's history in order to get an idea of his payment habits. It was then I noticed his eBay id was corbinbernsen54. I recognized the name and to be honest, I was thinking of Barry Corbin, Maurice of Northern Exposure fame. So I googled the name and found that Corbin Bernsen appeared on LA Law and in the movie Major League. So I figured I was dealing with a fan of his. But then reading through his feedback I saw quotes like "A 'Major Leaque' bidder" and "I loved your appearance with George Wendt on Seinfeld." Then I noticed the bidder's mailing address was Studio City, California.

I did a little more internet mining and came across Corbin Bernsen's website where he is currently promoting an upcoming addition of his Museum of Snowdomes. His Wikipedia entry further confirmed his love of snowdomes, boasting a collection of 7,000 (I guess mine makes it 7,001!) which he claims to be the world's largest. If that weren't enough proof of his identity, I discovered the bidder's email address was directed to teamcherokeeproductions.com, Mr. Bernsen's production company.

Now it could very well be that one of his toadies flunkies assistants did the actual bidding, but knowing that the snowdome will end up in a high profile collection is kind of cool. Maybe one day I'll get to see it again, on his website.  Here's an interview with Corbin about the origins of his collection.

On New Year's Eve, he finally came through with payment and the snowdome is off to its new home.
***Update***

Earlier when I was looking at his online museum of snowdomes, the site wouldn't load any pictures.  It finally did, and what do I see, but the same snowdome I sold him.  It's at position C2, if we were playing Battleship.  That one appears to have been refilled though.  Wonder why he wanted another.  I guess when you have the world's largest collection of anything, it's all about volume and maintaining your title!