This nifty head hunter stationary set was getting tossed by a friend. I was helping her move out of her apartment last year, and I found the set at the bottom of a mound of magazines and papers destined for a burn pile. She gave me some nifty old science books too, but headhunter stationary is way cooler.
I was waist deep in a semi truck bed size dumpster when I came across this nifty cookie jar. Every year around Labor Day, the Goodwill gets one of these HUGE dumpsters and does some serious house cleaning. I come away with at least a couple things every year, but this guy is one of my favorite finds. He is currently being used to store punk rock band patches.
I was also snooping around behind Goodwill when I found this little friend. He's pretty important to me for a couple reasons. I found him the first time I ever dumpster dived, back before Goodwill started locking their dumpsters(not counting the semi truck), and before dumpster diving and thrift store shopping became a big hit with the local youth, thus making it a lot harder for me to score goodies. He's also important because he was the first in my growing collection of vintage rubber face stuffed animals. He's not my only rubber faced monkey, but he is by far my favorite.
The city of Coldwater does this thing every October, where you can throw (almost) anything to the curb in front of your house, and the city will haul it to the dump for free. They do the east side one week, and the west the next, and lucky for me, I'm right in between zones, so I can easily explore on foot both weeks. These glorious 2 weeks used to be like Christmas to me, but since the recession hit, the streets have been packed with crazy toothless armed hicks looking for scrap metal and stuff to re-sell. For the first time since they started doing this, I brought home NOTHING this year. I remember year 3, I FILLED my father's minivan with treasures, TWICE! Bummer.
I found this large(20x30") painting, along with a couple other not as cool paintings, night 2 of curb searching 5 years ago. My camera made it look brighter than it really is, and in person it's A LOT creepier. All the paintings were done in the 1930's(All but this one are dated 1936, and I assume this one is from the same era) by Lawrence Eavich of 109 S. Sherman St. Lagrange, Indiana, so it says on the back. I looked it up on google and saw his roof. The internet is a fun waste of time!
This very Danish 50's Elgin clock was also found during trash pickup week(s), about a block from my house, in 2007. It doesn't work, but it's in aesthetically good shape, and I love it. My friend/guitarist Matt also has a pretty neat Elgin clock that will likely wind up in a future post.
My dad actually rescued this cool late 50's/early 60's painting when they remodeled the offices at his old job. He was like "hey, you like art and stuff, here." Very unlike my dad, but I appreciated it a lot. There used to be a matching one, but it got ruined as I stored it in my garage when I was in high school. bummer. the artists name is Mark Coomer...I looked him up once, but found nothing. It reminds me a lot of the show Mad Men...which is VERY high on my list of favorites.
This 18x32" silk screened red velvet masterpiece is the very first thing I picked up, year one of city wide October trash pick up. When I found it, it still had a plastic covering on it from when it was new in probably the late 60's/early 70's, and when I removed it, it was like new. I bet someone didn't care for their x-mas gift and threw it in the garage for 35 years. My apologies for the sub-par camera skills I have shown here.
I found These three(I only took pictures of 2 the other one is also white-ish) Herman Miller Eames arm shell chairs on the side of the road WAY out in middle of nowhere on a tip from a friend. They apparently sat under a tree for a number of years, evidenced by the leaf stains and bird poo...I believe of the berry blast variety. I guess technically these may not have been dump bound, they had a 'free' sign on 'em, but judging my the rotting hillbilly hut of a house* they were sitting in front of, the shape they were in, and the backwoods, low traffic area they where in, I find it quite unlikely that they'd have found a loving home if I hadn't grabbed 'em. They shall be restored when it gets warm out enough to undertake such a task.
*this house had a big yard, with no grass, a half buried engine block, and their living room curtain was a Dale Jr flag. There were 7 shirtless koolaid and dirt stained kids, one about 5 in a diaper and drinking Mountain Dew, yelling at me and my buddy Dean as we loaded the chairs that we couldn't have them(even though they were labeled free) and that they would call the cops if we didn't get off their property, and that their dad would kick our asses. Like I've always said, Michigan is just north of Mississippi.
I found this sweet Silvertone console record player along with a matching speaker console, wait for it...at the city wide curb side October trash pick up fun fest. This came from a late 50's ranch house on the north side of town, along with a pretty cool vintage chair, and some glittery orange curtains, all of which I think had been in the house since it was built. Matt rigged the speaker console up with a guitar amp and it sounds pretty killer in a blown out Link Wray kind of way. More on this find in a future post.
Stay tuned for Christmas madness!
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