Antique Show Finds

It's official....I need a larger house to accomodate everything I want to buy when I go to the antique show. Ah well. Can't afford a larger house so I guess I just have to browse and not buy...much, anyway.

Got this for our friends Donnie & Mike, who bought their first house in SF together last year. Donnie used to live in Haight Ashbury and we went to the most amazing garden parties behind his building. I'll blog about that someday; his garden was really something to behold. One of the first things I started collecting, besides marbles, was postcards. I'm extremely picky, so although there is a glut of old postcards on the market, I don't buy more than 4-6 at a time because they have to really catch my eye and be unusual.

It's surprising that in all my travels that this is the first time I ever found postcards of what SF looked like after the 1906 quake and 3-day conflagration that followed.

The tiny print on the bottom says:

"The silent sentinal among the ruins. Marie Antoinette apartments on Van Ness Ave., after the fire of April 18, 19, 20 - '06. San Francisco". The postmark is July 10, 1909 and addressed to a woman in Independence, Oregon. I can't decipher the rest of the writing on the front.

This one is postmarked 1916 and addressed to someone in Grass Valley, CA. There is writing on the card, but it doesn't appear to be English. It's possibly an Eastern European language.

"A view of the ruins of the Nob Hill district, looking up California Street, San Francisco, California after the disaster of April 18-20, 1906. Fairmont Hotel at the crest of the hill".

What amazes me is how fast SF rebuilt because there was no red tape like nowadays. 1/3 of the city was utterly destroyed, yet it was back to normal in less than 10 years. After the '89 quake, it took till 1991 before they finally got around to tearing down the raised Embarcadero double deck viaduct that had been closed since 1989.

I think these buildings were on 5th and Market. "Chronicle Mutual Savings and Call Buildings, after the fire, San Francisco, Cal."

It's so hard to get a frame of reference to where I worked at 3rd x Market because of the catastrophic damage. This card has a grocery list written in pencil on the back. Here's the list:

"Meat 25

Cream 2 cans 20

pkg noodles 10

can pepper 10

can corn 15

stamps 1.15

postal"

What is missing from this picture? I'll give you a hint: It's graceful, elegant and painted International Orange.....

"Sunset at the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, California"

I bought this card because I love the dreamy, ethereal quality. It's not of anything specific, it's just a pretty postcard. I was thinking about using it in a craft project, but then I read the message on the back and I think it needs to be preserved as is. Usually the sentiments on the back don't mean that much to me b/c it's usually very formal, short and of no particular interest. I'll transcribe an interesting message and put it alongside the card in my scrapbook.
This one, however, surprised me and I found it very sad. I'm transcribing it as it is written, spelling and grammar mistakes intact:

"Dear sister & all. Cant see any change in Papa only another weak. Bill seen that Dr in Grand Island & he said he could not do any thing for him. That this time was short. The rest are all well hope you are the same. good by from Maggie"

It's addressed to Mrs. Ervy Reid, Fullerton Nebraska and is postmarked "Sep. 24 1915 6 am" from a town in Nebraska too, but that part didn't stamp completely and I can't read it. It could be Acadia, or something that begins and ends in "A". (Tess? Any ideas?)

Anyways, this is the first time I've found a card with a message like that. I guess Maggie was summoned home to see her and Mrs. Reid's father who was dying. I'm guessing that, in 1915, telephones hadn't reached all the rural parts of Nebraska just yet. It's even possible that by the time Mrs. Reid received this card, her father had passed.

This is actually a tiny little license plate, about 4" x 2". It was really cheap and I wanted it for my license plate collection. It doesn't matter to me if this is really from the 50's or not, but I did ask the dealer if it was, and he said that one of the breakfast cereals put these little plates in the boxes as premiums in the 1950's and that's what this was. I was curious about the plate, however, because Alaska wasn't even a state until 1959. However, I did a little bit of online research and found other Alaska cereal premium license plates from 1953, so apparently this is the real deal.

I am a sucker for anything velvet, with beads and peacocks. I've been coveting this scarf for the past few antique shows, but never had enough $$ left over to buy it. It's not an antique, but I don't care. I don't even know what I'm going to do with it, but I had to have it.

I think the pictures will get bigger if you click on them so that you can see the gorgeous details.

I was told that this tie dyed velvet table runner dates from the 1920's. I find it hard to believe that something so 60's looking could have been done in the 20's, but again, I don't care about it's true vintage, I had to have it.

I wish this had come out better. It's a vintage beaded reticule purse from the 1920's, in midnight blue. The cobalt and turquoise glass "jewels" are contemporary. Thought they were purty.