We were driving along a country road and there, on the passenger side of the car was a yard sale, with 'stuff' laid out in the yard. I saw a gun of some sort and yelled STOP"! (luckily my husband is use to this sort of thing!). We backed up and walked down to the yard, finding a Middleburg Flint musket (if memory serves, the date is 1809)....that had been converted to percussion (but was easily put back to it's original flint). It's probably worth $500+ now, not a bad return on a $20.00 purchase! So, believe me, I always look, when driving by yard sales!

Because I collect antique sewing machines, I'm always on the look-out for a new one. One day a friend of ours called and asked if I was looking for any machines. "Well, sure. Whaddya got?" Turns out he'd just bought 25 of them on an auction for $100! I kept a couple, used parts off many that weren't salvagable and sold a couple to other collectors.

Annie

THIS is the kind of stuff I love to read about!

I just got back from London last weekend and a corner shop there (two walls of glass) was shelved FULL top to bottom and side to side with vintage sewing machines! I think it was cleaning and alterations place. You might find a market to rent them out to window dresser!

Great stories! Keep them coming!

Baer--I just got SIX sewing machines for $50 from a former repair shop. I LOVE when that happens. I wonder if the shop you saw in London belongs to one of my many British collector friends. There are probably only a few thousand sewing machine collectors worldwide, so a lot of us know each other thru the 'net.

Annie

I'm always amazed at what people leave on the curb. These came from one house!

I found an antique, cast iron fire basket left in the alley behind my house. It didn't fit my fireplaces but it had many decorative uses over the years. Finally, someone renovated the house that it came from & I returned it to the new owner.

I will look again for the sewing machines the next time I'm in London and take notes (and pictures)! If there is anyone in London, it was probably in the West End/ Leicester Square area.

I love the garden furniture! It reminds me of my Auntie's house when I was little.
One year I found an entire set of cast (?) iron pool furniture with a pomegranate motif ... tables, chairs, lounges ... in the Boys and Girls Club Thrift shop in Scottsdale, AZ. I paid very little ... in fact I paid more to ship it to NYC (NEVER find stuff like that in NY). That same weekend I FedExed a 1940's Bergere chair in flawless condition also to NY. If I love anything more than a cool buy it is getting a smokin' deal ... thrill of the hunt my friends say!

Keep shopping and keep the cool stories coming!
;~)) B

I once went to a farm auction and bought a trunk - locked - just for something to sit on. When I got home my husband jimmied it open and in it was a stack of indigo and white hand pieced quilt squares....ca 1870s fabrics! I put them together with some reproduction fabrics and made my first quilt....the first of many! But those found squares started it all!

The chain of curbside fines continues in this morning's Dallas Morning News. Shows how a lady restored a chair she found on a neighbor's curb.

Some 35 years ago I retrived a Scotts fertilizer spreader from a neighbors curb. It was froze up with old fertilizer. Took it home, cleaned it up and I am still using it.

There are a couple of guys who tour neighborhoods in an old pickup looking for curbside finds.

One of my favorite finds was an old dry sink that was in the shed when we bought a house years ago. It had been used to store waste oil and the top board is completey permeated with oil now. My in-law's stripped it for me--with many mutterings about wasted time--and I stained it a warm pumpkin pine color and then varnished it and gave it a paste wax rub. A month later my FIL asked where I'd gotten the pretty cabinet. He didn't even recognize it! It sits at the end of my kitchen island where it's handy to our dining table. I have the toaster, coffee and tea fixin's, butter, etc on the top and we store our board games below.

Annie

I was meandering my way to work one day (it's only about 2 miles, but MANY routes") when I saw an old wooden work bench at the curb. I jumped out and pushed and proded it into my Explorer. Got it home to discover it was a maple carpenters bench, complete with vise at the end, shelf on the bottom and tool drawer on the front. It is now a sideboard in my dining room...vise closed during normal times and fitted with a 2x12 extension on holidays. A wooden magazine rack is turned upside down on the bottom shelf...the dowels making perfect slots for platters, and silver flatware stored in the drawer.

Jaybird: What a wonderful find! I love the idea of the upside down magazine rack for platter storage--now I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled for one for me.

Annie

Jaybird,
Such a COOL find! I've had my eye on a couple of old workbenches in a shop I love here, but they are SO expensive (not to mention that bringing one more large item home would be like asking for a divorce LOL!!!). I am a HUGE fan of "adaptive re-use", a skill honed as a student living on a budget at university.
Any pics by chance?
Tschüss!
B

You can see part of it at the far end of the table in the second picture. I'll take a better picture and get it on here one day...

Here is a link that might be useful: click here