Carousel Interlude: The Myrtle Beach Herschell-Spillman

This past week I have been in Myrtle Beach, SC with my parents.  Though I am not generally a fan of the beach, this trip was nice because I was able to see my older brother.  He has been living at this illustrious seaside resort for the past year.  Additionally, I was introduced to a pizza restaurant called the "Mellow Mushroom" for the first time.  It is a southern chain and they have great veggie pizzas.  However, without a doubt the best part of this trip was the 1912 Herschell-Spillman carousel located at this huge outdoor mall called "Broadway at the Beach."  Some relatives of ours were having car trouble and insisted that we go have fun somewhere while they waited for a tow truck at the gas station.  As we approached the mall, which was near the gas station, I was not anticipating that the day was about to get A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER.  I saw this carousel in the distance and said, "I bet that is a dumb plastic carousel.  Outdoor malls only have dumb plastic carousels."  I will never make that sulky assumption again!  This is a 1912 carousel with ALL KINDS of different animals carved out of wood (they are painted with some kind of thick glossy paint, likely for preservation purposes as well as color).  This carousel is huge and is one of fifteen Herschell-Spillmans still kicking around the universe.  I wrote in an earlier post about a little Allan Herschell carousel at the Millville Carnival.  Well, this one pre-dates that little one but is from the same family of carousels, having its roots in Tonawanda, NY.  Here is the historical plaque that was posted on the carousel, followed by some of the animals:

Here is the calliope.  Sadly, it was not playing on the afternoon of our serendipitous carousel encounter.  Below is the evidence that I rode this marvelous creation.  I actually only rode the ostrich, but I had my dad take my picture on that amazing dragon as well.  My dad and I were the only riders.  Once again a fun and exciting historical relic sits unnoticed while visitors to the coastal metropolis innocently patronize the Mellow Mushroom or fry in the sun, missing the best part of the whole city.  What if there had been no car trouble that day!



 

Well, having had an opportunity to sit on that dragon, I'd say that ultimately this trip was a success, even if the thrift stores of Myrtle Beach leave something to be desired.  

Victorian and Edwardian Trade Cards, Postcards, etc.



1914 Postcard

After finding a 1908 Valentine at a thrift store the other day, I wondered how hard it would be to find more of them.  Not too hard, as it turns out.  I went to an antique store, and the guy more or less told me, "Old greeting cards?  Good lord, I've got boxes of that stuff in that closet over there.  Have at it."  In the spirit of vintage fashion, here are two trade or advertising cards from the 1880s that I found in one of the boxes. 

So. Weird.  A little internet surfing has revealed that there are at least two more in this series, "The Dude at his Toilette," showing the Dude getting ready for a night on the town, and "The Dude Masher," the preliminary to the one in which he captures the girl.  With patience and perseverance, maybe someday I will acquire the complete set.  Here are some of the other specimens I decided to keep:

Calling Card



Organ Advertisement





1908 Valentine



Although it was sent in April, so probably not a Valentine

Back of the "To My Sweetheart" postcard above.  A postcard between sisters.

An Interesting Discovery in Muncy Valley

I have been having an unusual amount of luck with the antique store scene lately.  I found this blue and white striped cotton dress at a great cluttered antique store in Shamokin, PA.  Normally I don't find antique stores that have any clothes, but this one had a whole big rack of old dresses ranging from quite old and expensive 20s and 30s dresses to this affordable and festive seaside 60s or so dress.  I had never been to Shamokin before.  It is a town deep in the coal regions known for its somewhat run-down appearance.  Who knew there would be a fun and exciting antique store there!  I  may go back at some point and get some pictures of these old aluminum doll-houses that the lady had covering the entire upper shelf of one wall.  I see these doll-houses every now and then, but I've never seen like thirty of them at once.  Impressive! 

These pictures of the blue striped dress were taken in Eagles Mere, PA.  This is a little mountain resort town that is too ritzy as far as antique stores go, but it had a nice gazebo and flowers. 

On the way home I stopped at an antique store in Muncy Valley, PA.  I got a nice hat there, but by far the coolest thing in the store was this:

Elephant costume!  Complete with American flag...clearly this is a relic of some political rally in early or mid twentieth century America (probably more toward the early end).  I'll tell you what, this thing was creepy.  And the guy had it hanging behind a cabinet so I only got the barest glimpse of it at first.  When I peeked over the cabinet I was spooked, and then amazed.  I've never seen something like this before.  It wasn't even really that expensive.  Twenty nine dollars seems perfectly reasonable for an antique elephant costume.  Imagine what this elephant has seen through those disturbing eye cut-outs!  But I guess one has to draw the line somewhere when it comes to antiquing.  So it is still available, in Muncy Valley, PA!

Lewisburg Library Book Sale

As a brief hiatus from antique store hopping I decided to hit the annual Lewisburg Library book sale.  The sale opens at 9:00AM, but the other book crazies and I lined up at about 8:30 because this book sale gets insane very quickly (the line also stretched back behind me for quite a ways).  Truth be told this is not my favorite book sale in the world.  It's big enough to draw annoying book dealers with their even more annoying book dealing scanner machines that they use to check the market value of the books before scooping them up by the dozens and shoving them into their greedy book dealing bags.  The literature section was already completely razed by the time I made it there, and I was lined up early like a book groupie!  I came away with some good things in the end, though, and I laugh in the face of the book dealer that failed to spot these interesting finds:

This "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" is a facsimile reproduction of a 1906 diary discovered in England in the 1970s.  It is not a very racy or exciting diary--it is all about nature, but there are tons of illustrations by the artist-diarist as well as excerpts from poems that clearly resonated with her experience of nature.  She keeps short records of her daily life and discoveries in nature.  "Tonight a toad was discovered jumping about in the hall; it must have come in through the garden door which has been standing open all day.  Another day of bright sunshine."  That's it?!  What happened to the toad?  The illustrations of flowers and things are colorful and vibrant and Audubon-like, without requiring the stuffing of birds beforehand. And then, ten feet away, I found what is clearly the companion biography to this diary.  These books were probably donated from the same personal library, destined to be separated forever until I came along!  These two books alone were well worth the trip to the frenzied book sale. 



Antique Lawn Dress

I have been hoping to stumble on something like this for a while now.  Usually I only see these very early twentieth century dresses hanging on the walls of antique stores with out-of-control price tags on them, so I was thrilled to find this one on a rack shoved in among a ton of ugly sixties and seventies dresses at an antique store in Benton, PA.  No attempt was made to set this one apart from the rest, even though it must be from the 1920s or thereabouts.  It was also not set apart price-wise.  Imagine my amazement!  For its age, this dress is in amazing condition.  It is made of a transparent, very fine material (made especially fine by the near century that has elapsed since its construction) that is called "lawn."  I thought it was called lawn because these were worn at garden parties, on lawns, etc., but I looked it up and it's named after a town in France known for manufacturing the material.  Unfortunately these pictures don't do the dress justice, and I definitely don't have the appropriate shoes or accoutrements (or an underdress, for that matter.  I'm still not too clear on what they would have worn under this sheer material.  I am wearing a cotton slip.) for this kind of thing, but I really wanted to get the dress on and documented without losing any time, such was my excitement.  I was sort of surprised that it fit considering that these old dresses tend to have tiny waists and proportions due to the petiteness of humankind before our own age of good health and material abundance.  Overall, a very lucky dress-encounter all around. 

The detail pictures below are of the beautiful and intricate work on the back and front of the collar.  These are the only embellishments on the dress.  The cuffs, skirt, waist, and bodice are just simple white lawn.  The dress closes with small snaps up part of the left side, across the waist, and then up the middle to the throat--no zippers, buttons, or other fastenings (only snaps on the cuffs as well).  The material is slightly gathered at the waist on the front and back to great effect.  Amazing!  If anyone knows anymore about dating dresses like this just by looking at them, let me know when you think this dress hails from.  By the style, material, and condition I was guessing it was 1920s or so, but I am no expert on these things.

The collar is definitely my favorite part.  Here is a glimpse of my little room in my parents' house, which has remained eerily unchanged since my childhood.  It is the perfect home for an antique lawn dress, if I do say so myself, though it may finally be time to paper the walls. 

Not Sure What to Think: Pink Dress Edition

 

This might be the most outrageous dress I've found yet.  It's certainly the pinkest.  The sun in these pictures is actually washing out the in-your-faceness of the pink of this dress.  Barbie had nothing on this thing.  It is also made of a very heavy and thick polyester material, which almost made me bypass it at the thrift store.  But it was fifty percent off day so it was only two dollars!  After getting the thing on, I think it was worth it as it has a nice shape and collar, and the buttons are great!  I'm determined to find an appropriate occasion for this dress, though it might not be easy.  I don't know why, but I think the stiff polyester combined with the extradordinary color makes me imagine that this is what flight attendants will be wearing in the year 2800 or something.  It seems very futuristic and bizarrely uniform like to me.  But in spite of its weirdness this dress is definitely growing on me.  

The Street of Shops, Lewisbug, PA

I lived less than 20 miles from Lewisburg, PA from the age of ten to eighteen, but I never visited the "Street of Shops" until winter vacation of 2009, at the ripe old age of 23.  This is not just any old antique store.  Antique stores, in my experience, are more ritzy, organized, and expensive, while the Street of Shops is more of a mix of a chaotic, unorganized flea market and a comfortably indoor antique store.  Also, it's really big.  Obviously I will have to make several trips to the Street of Shops over the course of the summer, but I stopped in on Friday to see if things had changed since last year.

Just a few of the many wonderful things to be seen at the Street of Shops:

I loved the collection of cookie jars.  Although I don't know if I really want to run into this guy when it comes time for a midnight snack.  Whatever you do, don't look into his eyes!







Teacups.  Any day that involves teacup hutches is a day that is better than you think it is.  

Poor rendering of a photo I found in a basket of old pictures.  I was really into the sleeves on this lady's dress.

Recent Thrift Store Acquisitons

This has been a great week for thrift store finds.  Although there is a lot of work I am supposed to be getting done this summer, being at my parents' house for a few months leads to a lot of thrift shopping in and around central PA.  Here are two amazing vintage finds that I came upon at two different Salvation Army stores this week. 

This dress is from the sixties I believe, and although it is made of some kind of poly blend material, it is beautiful!  It sort of reminds me of the older sister to one of the two dresses I bought from Anthropologie back during a period of profligate spending, the "Dandelion Wish" dress.  This dress also has a dandelion pattern to it.  Even though this dress is rather large (and was mistakenly placed in the nightgown section at the Sal Val!), the tie at the waist makes it fit well.  I was so excited to find it, especially since I had pretty much resigned myself to a failed thrift excursion by the time I made it to the nightgowns.

My second find of the week was this purse.  I am fairly new to this whole vintage scavenging game, but I saw this out of the corner of my eye at the thrift store and immediately said to myself, "that looks like lucite!"  And it is, in fact, lucite.  These wicker purses (brand name "Princess Charming by Atlas") were touristy accessories made in Florida in the fifties and sixties.  Most of them have a clear plastic overlay on one side of the purse with either shells or flowers behind it as tropical, beachy decorations, but the former owner of this purse purposely removed this embellishment.  You can even see the little holes around the perimeter of one of the sides where the screen was removed if you look closely.  In other respects, though, this purse is in perfect condition and the lucite is beautiful.  I think I kind of prefer it without the screen anyway.  I was poking around ebay looking at some of these purses, and while the shells and things were neat as an old fashion trend, I think I like the simplicty of the wicker purse without the tropical embellishments.

All in all, I'd say this was not a bad ensemble to have put together for a grand total of eight dollars. The moral of the story is, always take a quick look at the nightgown section of your local thrift store. What looks like a nightgown to some people, may not look like a nightgown to others!