Christmas Collectibles

Memories of Christmas past always fill our hearts and minds during Christmas present.

We all remember a favorite tree, perhaps covered in bubble lights and aluminum icicles.  Or we look forward to retrieving a box filled with ornaments marking the year we received that special gift—a bicycle, Transformer, or Cabbage Patch doll.

Christmas collectibles have grown in popularity over the past few years.  Ornaments of paper mache, blown glass, plastic, even metal top the list.  But Santa Claus figurines and post cards (dressed in unusual colors or in robes of fur or mohair), door and table decorations, games, Christmas dinnerware, figural lights, music, and even old trees of aluminum or feathers are finds for the Christmas sleuth.

It’s time to check out your local flea market, garage sale, or antique shop.

Decorating for the holiday season with the look of yesterday is the in-look for today.

My Etsy shop is currently offering a group of multicolored starburst ornaments from the 1950’s.  You can see them here.

Online Photos

Have you thought about selling off some of the items that you have around the house?  If the answer is yes, how do you go about getting the photos to the online selling site like eBay or Etsy?

You must have a digital camera.  There are many options on the market, like a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex camera that has interchangeable lenses) or even a point and shoot digital camera.

Any digital camera will give you the ability to upload photos to a selling site.

The site that you choose for selling your item will have instructions for listing and uploading your pictures.  If you are familiar with uploading pictures to a blog, it's always a very similar procedure.

Selling sites make all of this very easy.  Don't be afraid to try your hand at online selling.

My tip to you is this:  your computer has a limited amount of room to store your pictures, and the pictures can be pretty large (especially if they come from a DSLR camera).  If I were you, I would be sure to back up all of them.

A Truly Special Find

You don’t get any better than this in the collectible world:  thanks to shows like American Pickers, porcelain signs are quickly becoming one of the most sought-after antiques.

This one-sided Mobilgas gas pump sign, which I recently listed on TIAS, is a perfect way to get in on the craze.

Most of the porcelain signs I run into are so big, they literally need an 18-wheeler to transport, and a barn to hang on.  But at 12 ½ by 12 inches—that’s inches, not feet—this Mobilgas sign is the perfect way to begin collecting signs.  It would make a great addition to a garage, or over a bar, a little boy’s room, or in a man cave.

A pump featuring a similar Mobilgas sign recently sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction for $5700.

If you’re in the market for a Christmas present for the man or car enthusiast in your life, or know someone who is restoring an old gas pump, this sign is for you.  Head over to TIAS and get a good look.

As for the window for the coupon code that  I had ready to give to the person with the best answer for the Forbes silver item that I needed help with, it's now closed.  You can still help out with giving a guess on what it could possibly be!  Any help is gladly welcome.

HELP!

While walking through one of my favorite antique stores not too long ago, I came across something that I fell in love with.  But what the heck is it?

 

In all my years of rummaging through antique malls, flea markets, and even swap meets, I have never seen anything quite like this.  The top looks to me like it could possibly be part of a lamp or even a trophy, but take a look at the stem near the base of it.

As you can see, it’s not a toggle switch to turn something on or off.  What throws me off is that it unscrews from the main portion of the piece.

The other thing that really throws me for a loop is the bottom of the base itself.  To me, it looks like a spout that could dispense some kind of beverage.

So, I need some help identifying this absolutely fabulous, almost one-of-a-kind, wonderful… thing.  Any help will be greatly appreciated on figuring this one out.

If it’s any help, here are some pictures of the marks on the bottom of the piece.  The person with the best answer will get a coupon code to get 20% off an item in my TIAS store.

The store can be seen here.