Papa's Old Stuff

Today is packing day for Roses & Rust. Looking forward to being in Shasta County. You’ll find me under the big bear flag.

Old Stuff of the Week
I love coffee and have always enjoyed the look and usefulness of old coffee cans. Names such as Hills Bros, Folgers, MJB, Manning, Caswell, and Schilling are recognizable, but there are hundreds of other brands out there and some are more collectible than others, such as two I found over the weekend. First is a brand that I associate with Peaches - Del Monte from the California Packing Company in San Francisco. Second is Golden West Coffee, from Portland. The Cowgirl can is one of the best ever and very collectible. To find one in nearly mint condition that has never been opened is pretty remarkable. Still has the key attached to the top. I'm willing to bet that the 60+ year old coffee inside is still drinkable.

Old Stuff of the Week.
I spent many amazing summers as a staff member at Glacial Trails Scout Ranch. Every summer a team of inspectors visited camp for the "National Inspection". Our staff spent a great deal of time preparing for that annual visit and we had a great deal of pride in always receiving an "A" rating. This past Sunday I came across these "A" rating flags at a local antique show. Not sure what camp they came from, but they brought back some great memories. The signatures on the flags are from staff members at the camp.

Old Stuff…

Last weekend I picked up a pair of original flush mount illuminated theater exit light signs. These remarkable and rare exit lights contain a thick solid brass metal wall plate with perforations cut for insertion of the individual solid glass letters. The letters are thick and extend out 1/4”. When illuminated the lettering will glow red as a red glass panel is inserted between the clear glass letters, a panel of milk glass and the light source. My estimate is this is from the 1920s.

The only comparable sign I was able to find was from the Alhambra Theater in Sacramento. That theater opened in the 1920s and was demolished in 1973. There were signs salvaged from the theater that are an exact match to the two I bought. This was found at an estate sale in a suburb of Sacramento so it could have possibly come from the Alhambra, I can hope that is so, but I have no was to substantiate it.

The signs measure 17” x 6”. The letters are 4” tall and approximately 1/2” thick and the sign weigh approximately 5 pounds. One is off to a new home back east and the others fate is yet to be determined. Not sure I need a lighted exit sign in the house.

Papa’s Old Stuff has opened up a showcase at the Antique Trove in Roseville. It may not be big, but it will always be packed with vintage tools toys, tins, glass wear, books and other fun and collectible stuff. The space can be found half-way down aisle A. I’ll be updating the space and adding new stuff on a weekly basis.

Congratulation Rajan!

Professor gets funding for Punjabi short film Rajan Gill is a professor of history at Yuba College who recently started dabbling in the art of film writing and production.

Old Stuff of the Week. Metal tins with full color graphics were used for pretty much everything 70+ years ago. Aspirin, nails, potato chips, coffee, bandaids and condoms. Yes, condoms, and here is the proof from a sale early this morning in Auburn. Romeos Rubber Prophylactics, New Old Stock. Made in Akron, Ohio. Three condoms still with their paper wrapper, inside a tin. Don’t think I’d recommend using them.

Eleven days away from The Great Junk Hunt at the fairgrounds in Roseville. Papa's Old Stuff booth will be packed with all sorts of old and older stuff. You can find us in the middle of the room. Look for the BIG California Flag. Tickets can be bought here: https://www.thegreatjunkhunt.com/markets/sacramento-ca-vintage-market

Old Stuff of the Week: where I grew up most people were Giants fans, and Candlestick Park was a temple of the game. A temple where you could get a sun burn, watch a Dodgers hat burn, and freeze your ass off all during one game. I love the Giants, and I loved Candlestick. Picked up this pennant at a sale earlier today. Dates back to early days of The Stick before the stadium was enclosed (pre 1970).

Old Stuff of the Week - Digging through a box at the Sacramento Antique Fair I found these two wonderful old sashes with red arrows on them. These are Brotherhood Sashes from the Order of the Arrow (OA) which is the National Honor Camping Society of the Boy Scouts of America. What makes these two special? They are felt with a flocked arrow and bars. They date back to somewhere between 1945 and 1955. The OA was founded in 1915 and is still an important part of today's scouting program. You have to be elected by your peers and there are three levels of membership, Ordeal which is represented by a sash with a red arrow, Brotherhood which is represented by a sash with red bars located above and below the arrow, and Vigil which has an added red triangle in the middle of the arrow. I was fortunate to be elected to the OA in the 1970's and even more fortunate to have been selected for Vigil membership in 1976. I still have all three of my sashes, and why they are special to me, these two are just a little bit cooler.

Old Stuff of the Week - A couple of weeks ago I spent the better part of the morning digging through a hoarder's garage. I ended up filling three good-sized boxes full of stuff ranging from old Christmas decorations, old flags, tools, books, maps and a few vintage magazines. I never pass up old magazines, pretty much anything from the mid 70's or earlier, especially if they have a holiday theme. These six Family Circle Magazines are all from the 1960's and are filled with all sorts of Christmas ideas. Two even have covers by Norman Rockwell. People use them for the ideas, as decoration, or to cut apart for ads and old images. I bundled these six together, put them on eBay and they sold in less than a day. So as you are cleaning out and old garage or house don't overlook what may appear as trash, especially is Santa is on the cover. Only thing better than old Christmas magazines are old Halloween magazines.

Old stuff of the week takes us back to the 1960's when Cub Scouts had Den Mothers and they wore high fashioned uniforms and hats such as these. With three sons, my mom wore a uniform like this for many years.

Old Stuff of the Week. Picked up a Budweiser Box at an estate sale on Saturday. These boxes were sold to celebrate their centennial in 1976 and they come in handy for storage and hauling around stuff. Usually when I find these they are empty, but this one was full with a case of unopened Budweiser longnecks from 1975. I gave one bottle a little shake and it still bubbles. Any thought on what to do with 48 year old beer?

Old Stuff of the Week. back in the 60s and 70s the Topps Company, in addition to sports cards, produced Wacky Pack filled with stickers that were parodies do everyday retail items. They remind me of MAD Magazine and as funny as they are, I’m sure a some of them would be considered somewhat controversial in today’s world. So fix a sandwich of BeDeviled Ham on Blunder Bread, enjoy a nice cold 6-URP, and play a game of Squabble while munching on some Jerkyfruits.

Old Stuff of the Week: Over the weekend I helped a friend clean out her in-laws home and get ready for an estate sale. My reward was the chance to buy what I wanted before they do the sale. It seems that every drawer in the house was filled with paper. Her in-laws kept everything. One of the items that I found, and probably had been sitting in a drawer for 50 years was this booklet The Moving Magic of Global. I estimated that this was produced in 1968 since it shows Pirates of the Caribbean (opened in 1967), but does not have the Haunted Mansion (opened in 1969) on the map. It is a coloring booklet that was a promotional piece for Global Van Line dealers to distribute. Global was the Official Movers of Disneyland. It was produced by the Walt Disney Company, features color images of Disneyland, and patterns to make the Disneyland Submarine, Sleeping Beauty's Castle and a Moving Van out of used packing boxes. While not a collectible that you would have bought in the park, promotional pieces such as this are rare and very much prized by Disney collectors.

Old Stuff of the Week: At a recent estate sale I picked up a box marked "Peanut's Comics" which provided me a trip down Memory Lane. Hundreds of daily black and white comic strips from 1957 - 1961, and dozens of full color Sunday comics from the same time period. The majority came from the San Francisco Chronicle. It was fun going through them and putting them in order, although it required a large magnifying glass to check dates. Every comic had a copyright date stamp that included the year, and then somewhere in the drawing by Charles Schultz was a date code, such as 2/14 or 11-1. I imagine at times he took some pleasure in hiding the code. As is sorted I looked for comics from specific dates, such as the comic on the day I was born which I will keep. The others are off to a collector in Vegas.

You never know what you will find at an estate sale. I found this little woodworking plane on the second day of a sale in Shingle Springs. Located in the middle of a overloaded workbench, it was dirty, there were no markings to be found, but my gut feeling told me it was a good one, so I bought it. After about 45 minutes of cleaning I found what I was looking for and learned that this was a Bailey No. 2, Type 2, made between 1869 and 1872. Bailey was a plane maker and patented several designs for hand planes in the mid 1800s. At some point he sold his patents to the Stanley Rule & Level company and ended up working for Stanley as a designer. the plane is now on its was to a very happy collector back in New York.

Old Stuff of the Week: After two months of being cancelled by bad weather, the Sacramento Antique Faire returned on a cold yet sunny morning. I am always on the lookout for old US and California Flags, and yesterday morning did not disappoint. I saw the stripes of the flag in a box so I took a look. 50 and 48 star flags are very easy to identify with just a glance at the stars. A 48 star has all of the stars in straight lines vertically and horizontally with six rows of eight. A 50 star has the stars offset with four rows of five and five rows of six. When I looked at this flag the stars didn't align, and a quick count found I was holding a 46 star flag.
The 46 star flag was the official flag of the US from July 4, 1908 until July 3, 1912. This 3’ x 5’ flag is made of cotton and is in terrific condition. It is not a printed flag and all of the colors are individual pieces of cloth that have been sewn together. There are 46 stars sewn back-to-back on each side of the flag. The flag was in a box with an article about the Daughters of the American Revolution displaying historic American flags, unfortunately there was not a photo of this flag in that article. That article was from the Vallejo Times-Herald in 1953. Wonderful piece of American History.

Another great weekend at Roses & Rust Vintage Market at the Shasta County Fairgrounds. It’s amazing how many people fit into a 10 x 20 booth. It is always nice to see familiar faces year after year that stop by to visit and end up spending 15-20 minutes finding old stuff to take home.

Day one of Roses & Rust in the books. always amazed how much old stuff I’m able to fit in the booth. Time to restock for day two.

Old Stuff of the Week: For many years businesses created special items for their customers to promote their businesses at Christmastime. Some were freebies, others had a small cost. Here are a few examples of Christmas promotions from years gone by.

Starting to get the old stuff packed up for next week’s Roses & Rust Vintage Market at the Shasta County Fairgrounds in Anderson on November 4 & 5. As always lots of vintage tools, Christmas, wood boxes, toys, and other cool old stuff.

7 days until Market! We are packed FULL of great vendors to shop from! Get your Christmas shopping done with unique, one of a kind gifts and handmade in the USA!

Roses & Rust Vintage Market
Nov. 4-5th at the Shasta District Fairgrounds
www.rosesandrustvintagemarket.com
Ticket Link👉🏼 https://rosesandrust.ticketleap.com/fall2022/

Spent lots of time camping and hiking in the forest around Shasta Lake as a kid with my dad and brothers. This little sign, found at a recent estate sale, reminded me of those days.