Purchases that make you happy.

[oggbashan]

This week I found two matching old Maori statuettes in a charity shop for one pound for the pair. They are hand carved and I think they are older than I am, certainly not the usual tourist souvenirs. They now have pride of place in my bookshop and I am delighted with them.

Tonight I bought 3 secondhand DVDs in perfect condition from my local video rental store:

Oklahoma!

Catballou, and

High Noon.

The price for each was the same as one and a half nights' rental. I will enjoy watching them several times.

They won't give me the same lifetime pleasure as the Maori statuettes but I am pleased to have the DVDs.

Have you bought anything recently that you will treasure for life?

Og

 

[oggbashan]

The statuettes are like this but cruder:



Og

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Last Saturday I found four very old Limoges tea cups and saucers at a tag sale for $1.00. Also, I found a very sturdy wood ironing board for 50 cents, they just don't make ironing boards like that anymore.

Og, I'm coming to your house to watch Cat Ballou, that's just one of the funniest movies ever.

 

[oggbashan]

I enjoy Lee Marvin's roles in Cat Ballou and I think I can feel the fun he had making that film.

Og

 

[fogbank]

Buying a big box with about 50 sq.ft. of wood veneer from about 25 different species. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it all yet, but all of that wood is really, really appealing.

 

[impressive]

I'm a fabric slut. If I find a nice weave at a good price, I'll buy the whole damned bolt -- without any idea whatsoever what I'll make with it. (I just keep buying more armoires in which to store it, too.)

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

Scrapbooking supplies. My town is very small and the only place that carries supplies is Wal-Mart... and they just have about half one side of an aisle that actually has papers and embellishments. I went away for the weekend recently and that town had a Hobby Lobby. I was in scrap book heaven. They had aisle upon aisle of scrapbooking stuff. I want a Hobby Lobby in my town!

 

[Guest]

I know it's sappy -

but I really love it when I can find something special for my kids.

Hubby and I can't buy them everything we wish, but it is so nice to be able to surprise them once in awhile with something special they've been wanting (but haven't whined about getting).

Smiles and squeals of delight.

Love that.

 

[fifty5]

In some unexplainable order:

The boat I sailed from Wales to Ireland (and back)

A headscarf from the 1936 Olympics (horrific, but awesome)

Hi-fi gear that gives me sound very like a live orchestra or band

Computer gear that lets me serve websites to the entire globe and mostly does what I (not Bill Gates) want it to

Two puppies, 10 weeks old yesterday, (no 'consideration' - read 'free' - so I don't know if they count as a purchase) that are so wonderful they tear my heart

 

[Guest]

I'm not into shopping much. I'd have to say the only purchases that come close to making me 'happy' (temporarily of course) are good restaurant meals, sex-aides, and airfare to Venice.

Books and music are another matter.

Perdita

 

[cjh]

OK, these are not possessions, BUT

I love it when I find a restaurant that looks like, hell, is, a dive, and get served something sublime. Dreamland Barbeque in Tuscaloosa, Alabama was like that until it became gentrified. Still great food, but not an unexpected find. (Either you understand how meat cooked slowly with smoke can be sublime, or you can't; that topic merits another thread.)

And I love paying a modest cover charge to hear a really great, and inevitably underappreciated, band.

I think what I like is stumbling across people who are geniuses at stroking the senses regardless of, or maybe despite, their station in life.

 

[McKenna]

It wasn't a recent purchase, but while I was on my honeymoon in Scotland, my husband bought me a necklace made from pressed heather. I had seen these types of necklaces in the souvenir shops, and admired them, but never bought one.

We happened to tour the factory one day, and learned about the process of making them. Heather is cut and dried and dyed, then pressed with I don't know how many pounds of pressure until it resembles a chuck of wood. Then it's cut up, and jewelry and stuff is made from it. My necklace is a red, tan and black medallion and it looks like a gem, not a piece of wood. It's surprisingly lightweight and in my opinion, very beautiful.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I bought a lot of Dick yesterday.

I was pretty happy with it though it kept me up all night.



Note: It was Phillip K. Dick, pervert.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

I always enjoy hitting the local pawn shop for DVDs. At 5 bucks a piece my collection has grown when they have good movies in.

 

[English Lady]

Hmm well last night we picked up a dora the explorer backpack and map for Beth for christmas. She'll love it. That makes her daddy and I happy.....as did the silly hars barney we picked up for her at a car boot for £1. That'll be her birthday present.


stuff I've gotten for myself? well my latest one was a pair of trousers and a top for £7 brand new in the sale from etam. That made me very happy indeed!

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I love to find old things, really old. I love history and holding something that has been around while so much happened is thrilling. Also wondering abu tthe private history of the object.

So any time I find something very old for very little money, it's great. I have an adze that was made by a blacksmith, probably in the early 1900's in Woodland Mississippi.

A quarter minted in 1898, A claymore, no idea on it's history unfortuneatly, A pair of real silk stockings from the 30's, a baseball from a brrokly dodgers game that I am giving to my dad for his B-day. Depression glass, a WW II pup tent, dinner tray and spoon from the early 1900's U.S. Naval base at great lakes.

These things have little value as far as money goes, but just looking at them, or holding them take me on flights of fancy money cannot buy.

-Colly

 

[matriarch]

I love to find old things, really old. I love history and holding something that has been around while so much happened is thrilling. Also wondering abu tthe private history of the object.

So any time I find something very old for very little money, it's great. I have an adze that was made by a blacksmith, probably in the early 1900's in Woodland Mississippi.

A quarter minted in 1898, A claymore, no idea on it's history unfortuneatly, A pair of real silk stockings from the 30's, a baseball from a brrokly dodgers game that I am giving to my dad for his B-day. Depression glass, a WW II pup tent, dinner tray and spoon from the early 1900's U.S. Naval base at great lakes.

These things have little value as far as money goes, but just looking at them, or holding them take me on flights of fancy money cannot buy.

-Colly

I couldn't agree more.

It's nice to be able to go out and buy new something that you need, but my ultimate pleasure is to browse around nick-nack shops, antique shops, and second hand bookshops. My most precious books are those small, original victorian and earlier ones, some with leather covers, some with suede, and all of them have personal inscriptions inside the covers, Christmas or Birthday greetings, school presentations, with dates.

Like you, my mind flies away, trying to imagine the owners, and the pleasure they gained from owning them.

This thread has reminded me, I think I'm long overdue a visit to the enormous number of second handbook shops where I live.

Mat



Oh, and like Dita. Music is something else altogether. That come into the 'need' category.

 

[oggbashan]

These things have little value as far as money goes, but just looking at them, or holding them take me on flights of fancy money cannot buy.

-Colly

I have something I acquired this year.

I picked up a flint hand-axe from the early Stone Age in a field above the White Cliffs of Dover. It is several thousand years old and shows that the owner made a mess of making it before throwing it away.

Cost nothing: value priceless. There was someone just as ham-fisted as I am all those years ago.

Og

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I have something I acquired this year.

I picked up a flint hand-axe from the early Stone Age in a field above the White Cliffs of Dover. It is several thousand years old and shows that the owner made a mess of making it before throwing it away.

Cost nothing: value priceless. There was someone just as ham-fisted as I am all those years ago.

Og

I have two woodland era arrowheads and some petrified sharks teeth. My arrow maker was pretty bad according tot he guys at the archeology department and my poor shark needed a dentist

-Colly

 

[cloudy]

I have two woodland era arrowheads and some petrified sharks teeth. My arrow maker was pretty bad according tot he guys at the archeology department and my poor shark needed a dentist

-Colly

I live about 100 yards off a branch of the Black Warrior river (Colly, you've probably heard of it), and apparently, the local native population used it as almost a highway of sorts. We're constantly finding arrowheads, etc., on the banks.

Our house was originally built in the late 1800's. It was a two-room farmhouse to start with, and then rooms were added on over the years. When we first moved here, there was an old canning shed close to the barn. We tore it down right after buying the place because it was leaning dangerously, and we figured the first good strong wind would blow it over.

We found probably 2 dozen old glass jugs in it before we tore it down. All of them different, the largest being an old Clorox bleach bottle, no label, just the raised glass instead of a label, and it has the ring at the neck for pouring.

It's often made me wonder if that was really a canning shed, or if at some point there had been a still there.

 

[TheEarl]

Chocolate, ice-cream and coke.

I'm such a girl.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

I'm such a girl.

Big grin. Wait til Pops sees this.

Pear

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I have a small colection of old bottles that I pick up during excavations in the city. Working in an old city (at least by US standards) you find all kinds of stuff when you open up the ground.

Sitting on top of my file cabnite right now are about a dozen bottle from the mid 1800s to the early 1900's. None are worth anything but I think there cool. My current favorite is the blue glass Milk of Magnesia bottle, maybe from the 20s or 30s.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I live about 100 yards off a branch of the Black Warrior river (Colly, you've probably heard of it), and apparently, the local native population used it as almost a highway of sorts. We're constantly finding arrowheads, etc., on the banks.

Our house was originally built in the late 1800's. It was a two-room farmhouse to start with, and then rooms were added on over the years. When we first moved here, there was an old canning shed close to the barn. We tore it down right after buying the place because it was leaning dangerously, and we figured the first good strong wind would blow it over.

We found probably 2 dozen old glass jugs in it before we tore it down. All of them different, the largest being an old Clorox bleach bottle, no label, just the raised glass instead of a label, and it has the ring at the neck for pouring.

It's often made me wonder if that was really a canning shed, or if at some point there had been a still there.

Been over the black warrior many a time

My grandmother's place is on land that was once covered by the sea and later was home to at least two woodland tribes. Always went out as a child with my mom & dad & found arrow heads, stone tools and sharks teeth, plus sea shells. Pretty neato to come back from a vacation at granny's with seashells and not have been near an ocean

 

[SeaCat]

I've hit the jackpot a couple of times in the past six months. Went to a yardsale at an old ShotGun Shack. Picked up a spyder in mint condition. (A Spyder is a cast iron frying pan with legs so it could be used over a campfire.) At another yard sale I picked up a box of knives for ten dollars. Most were junk, but one was worth it. An original WWI Trench Knife, with scabbard. At the third yard sale I bought a plaque with two fake handguns on it for $5.00.

When I got home my wife was pissed about the plaque until I cut the wires holding the handguns onto the wood, ejected the magazines, removed the slides and slid the shrouds off the barrels revealing a pair of Colt 1911A1 .45's with consequative serial numbers in mint condition.

My two favorites were an antique Japaese Puzzle box with an inlaid top. (Mount Fujiyama.) and an original English Translation of the Kama Sutra with the woodcuts. Both found in Yard Sales. (Too bad an ex-friend of mine stole the book.)

Speaking of the Kama Sutra, I have heard rumors of a recent remaking of it using photo's of real people in all of the original poses. Has anyone seen it, and if so do you know where I can find/order it?

Cat