Tallone
Hero Member
Picked several interesting (and hopefully valuable) items last Saturday. I picked up the military stuff below at my second stop. Got the whole pile for $5.
The most interesting piece in the lot (and the piece that first caught my eye) is the item below:
I know something of WWII history and this clearly being a naval piece, I think this must be related in some way to the battleship Oklahoma. The Oklahoma was anchored in Pearl Harbor and heavily damaged during the Japanese attack. I don't know what this thing is or what I should call it. Would this be a banner? Or a pennant? Or something else? It is made of felt. The yellow shield with "USS" on it in the top left corner is open at the top like a pocket. And what about the red, white, and blue ribbon. That suggests it would be tied onto something. But what? Might this be some sort of ceremonial or decorative item? I can't find anything like it in searching around the internet.
Here are some closeups of the buttons and insignia. I would be very interested if anybody knows more about these as well.
At the same sale, I got the curious little one-cup coffee maker below. I have no idea if it has any value but I only I paid $0.50 for it. It was made in Italy of cast aluminum. Can't find anything like it out there.
When I first drove up to the sale where I got the stuff above, they weren't open yet. I saw a sign up the road about half a block that looked like it was announcing a yard sale so I drove on down there. Sure enough, this was a yard sale that was not on my list of sales for the day. But, having a little time to kill, I drove on into the neighborhood and found the sale. The guy was just unloading a trailer full of stuff into his driveway. I got to chatting with him as he unloaded stuff and he said most of the things came from an old guy who was a friend of his that recently passed away. Most of the stuff was uninteresting except for this:
There are, roughly, 1000 matchbooks in the bag. I paid the guy $20 for them (about $0.02 each). Many of these matchbooks are VERY old. A few have 2 digit or 4 digit phone numbers on them. I spent a couple of hours Sunday morning sorting them into subject matter groups (beer, tobacco, hotels, sodas, etc.). The detail picture above is of the beer group. There are some rare brands in there. I'm going to do some more research on matchbook collecting because I know nothing about this other than some people collect them. If anybody here has any experience with matchbooks, I would be very interested to see suggestions on the best way to market these.
Oops, I forgot one other item. On my way home I passed a yard sale near my house. It didn't look very interesting and I almost kept going but decided to stop anyway. Sure enough... nothing of interest. However, on the way back to my car, I noticed a deep box the owner had labeled "Free Stuff". I there I found this:
We have this exact same blender. This is a high quality Kitchen Aid with a very heavy and powerful motor. Obviously, the container part of the blender got broken or lost so the owner figured the remaining parts were worthless. I grabbed all the pieces and took it home. The motor and controls work perfectly. Just the base sells on ebay for $25 - $30. I might get another $10 - $20 out of the other parts.
The most interesting piece in the lot (and the piece that first caught my eye) is the item below:
I know something of WWII history and this clearly being a naval piece, I think this must be related in some way to the battleship Oklahoma. The Oklahoma was anchored in Pearl Harbor and heavily damaged during the Japanese attack. I don't know what this thing is or what I should call it. Would this be a banner? Or a pennant? Or something else? It is made of felt. The yellow shield with "USS" on it in the top left corner is open at the top like a pocket. And what about the red, white, and blue ribbon. That suggests it would be tied onto something. But what? Might this be some sort of ceremonial or decorative item? I can't find anything like it in searching around the internet.
Here are some closeups of the buttons and insignia. I would be very interested if anybody knows more about these as well.
At the same sale, I got the curious little one-cup coffee maker below. I have no idea if it has any value but I only I paid $0.50 for it. It was made in Italy of cast aluminum. Can't find anything like it out there.
When I first drove up to the sale where I got the stuff above, they weren't open yet. I saw a sign up the road about half a block that looked like it was announcing a yard sale so I drove on down there. Sure enough, this was a yard sale that was not on my list of sales for the day. But, having a little time to kill, I drove on into the neighborhood and found the sale. The guy was just unloading a trailer full of stuff into his driveway. I got to chatting with him as he unloaded stuff and he said most of the things came from an old guy who was a friend of his that recently passed away. Most of the stuff was uninteresting except for this:
There are, roughly, 1000 matchbooks in the bag. I paid the guy $20 for them (about $0.02 each). Many of these matchbooks are VERY old. A few have 2 digit or 4 digit phone numbers on them. I spent a couple of hours Sunday morning sorting them into subject matter groups (beer, tobacco, hotels, sodas, etc.). The detail picture above is of the beer group. There are some rare brands in there. I'm going to do some more research on matchbook collecting because I know nothing about this other than some people collect them. If anybody here has any experience with matchbooks, I would be very interested to see suggestions on the best way to market these.
Oops, I forgot one other item. On my way home I passed a yard sale near my house. It didn't look very interesting and I almost kept going but decided to stop anyway. Sure enough... nothing of interest. However, on the way back to my car, I noticed a deep box the owner had labeled "Free Stuff". I there I found this:
We have this exact same blender. This is a high quality Kitchen Aid with a very heavy and powerful motor. Obviously, the container part of the blender got broken or lost so the owner figured the remaining parts were worthless. I grabbed all the pieces and took it home. The motor and controls work perfectly. Just the base sells on ebay for $25 - $30. I might get another $10 - $20 out of the other parts.
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