Monday, March 21, 2011

At the auction

Went to my first auction the other day. It was exciting, and surprisingly exhausting. Apparently, just sitting around for 5 hours (!) was far more draining than I ever imagined. Well, in truth, I had absolutely no idea we'd be there that long. But at least now I can say that I've been to an auction, whether it was "one of the good ones" or not, and stuck it out - from the moment where furniture was sold at 500 dollars apiece to the final moments where entire table loads of boxed junk were being begged away at 2 dollars a table.

Hubs and I walked away with a tab higher than I'm willing to admit to, and we brought home:

3 turquoise Pyrex fridgies
1 upper chamber and glass rod to complete a vintage glass Cory vacuum coffee maker
a handmade cat-themed quilt (I'm still laughing over that one)
and the Mr. got a vintage checkwriter/money-order writer for his growing collection

Also in the mix: a Fire King casserole dish (which I gave to my mom), a large Pyrex Square Flowers fridgie, and a turquoise Snowflake Pyrex oval casserole (in a neat, aftermarket carrier).

My 5 dollars of fun in a boxed lot was the Cory upper chamber & glass rod, a collection of cornhusk dolls (that I'm liking more now than I did originally), two boxes of taper candles, a painted cigar box containing arrowheads and wooden clothes pins, most of a fondu pot (sans lid), empty glass spice jars and a travel neck rest. SO random!

Dad bought a table of junk for a couple of bucks. I suspect it was purely because two boxes were records he wanted to give to his son (Altogether now: aaawwww, how sweet :-). He's still working through the contents, but two of my favorites are a record of Robert Frost reading his poetry (that was recorded in his house in 1956) and the Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack. I probably won't be wearing these guys out playing them, exactly, but I think they're both charming additions to his record collection.

Lazy me just took some pictures:
Woo-hoo! These guys are kind of a holy grail of Pyrex to me. They're priced way out of my league on ebay, and I've never seen them for sale anywhere else. I'm missing the largest one to complete the set, but still, I say again WOOO-HOOO.

They have some baked in stains I don't know how to/if I can remove. I don't dare use Bar Keeper's Friend, because in my experience, the older pieces don't handle it well. It removes all the shine. No matter, I still thoroughly enjoy them.
A complete Cory vacuum coffee maker! Well, sorta. Top and bottom are a mis-match in model numbers, and I'm missing the plastic (bakelite?) lid that would go on top, as well as the piece you set the upper chamber into once the coffee has brewed. But the fact that I now have the 3 central pieces, complete with nifty glass rod filter (and my feeble attempt at a close-up)makes me happy. For a number of reasons, I've decided this guy is for display purposes only. I have my workhorse Sunbeam Coffeemasters when I need a vacuum coffee fix!

All in all, a pretty sweet first auction to go to!

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