What do you collect, besides vintage fashions?

Most people I know who love old clothes, love old things in general. So what do you collect besides vintage clothing?

I love old clothes, and I also love vintage patterns. I have quite a few, mainly from designers that I admire such as Givenchy, Anne Fogarty, Valentino, Mary Quant and others I love the Butterick young designers series from the 60s and 70s.

I also collect hat boxes, especially those with a fashion theme. I love ones that are decorated in a scene around the box. And they are great for storing other parts of my collections.

Another collection I've got going is stuff desorated with that cutest of all dogs - the Scottie. I especially love vintage clothing with Scotties, and I've got scarves, compacts, undies, handbags, hankies, and a circle skirt with bagpiper and Scottie. And I'm still lamenting the 50s cashmere sweater with Scotties I was outbid on 4 years ago.

Next...

 

Let's see...

I collect donkey figurines, vintage sewing patterns, vintage crochet & knitting patterns (even though I can't do either - just love to look at the styles), vintage sewing notions & buttons, Fiestaware dishes (both the new and the old), and generally anything vintage that catches my eye.

My house is an eclectic mix of furnishings dating from the mid 19th century through modern.

--Kari

 

Gosh, if you could see all my "stuff"......

Glass (Fenton, in particular-cranberry and more), pottery (Roseville & others), porcelain, dinnerware (Royal Albert/Doulton patterns mostly), ruby glass (old AH), vintage fabrics, sewing notions, patterns....

Just anything that strikes my fancy.

Mostly, I collect dust.

Brenda

 

Oooo! Collecting! Something we all love!

I am very eclectic like you Kari. Lots of different style and eras clashing to creat a perfect harmony of ME.

The few things I actually do collect are boxes - little cute kinds in all different shapes, sizes and materials - if it catches my eye I buy it. I also collect vintage cocktail inspired things, ashtrays and pink elephants - I'm a drinker and smoker and all around (*aging) party girl so I like to collect stuff that reflects my vices - hehehe!!

I love to learn what my fellow vinties like to collect and wear. Over the years I've received and given some great little gifts. I remember Julie (designergalathome) collected Vera napkins and linens - she said she loved to mix and match them for dinner parties. A couple of Christmases ago I came across three Vera napkins in perfect condition for next to nothing. Three napkins were useless for selling and so I sent them off to her as a small gift. She received them and it turned out it made a complete set of 12 in that pattern for her. She never had a complete set and she was thrilled to have them. It was just such a great feeling to be able to send them to someone who loved them so much.

 

I collect so many different things! When I was a kid, I collected campaign buttons and I've kept up that hobby for years. I have so many different book collections that it's hard to list: cookbooks, art books, of course anything related to fashion, any Kennedy book etc. etc. I also collect Mexican folk art, crucifixes, Madonnas, angels, silver jewelry, any sort of handmade crochet or needlework, boxes of all kinds, quilts (especially crazy quilts), and all kinds of retro fabrics. I'm a born packrat!!!!!
joey

 

Right now I am collecting books, dragonfly pins, and like Kari, donkeys.
My whole life I have collected something, from Barbies as a child, to CDs as a teen.
I'm sure I come by it genetically, since my mother and father never threw anything out willingly, and they both have impressive collections of books, records and DVDs.
Louise

 

Oh boy. In my case, I think it's more like "What DON"T you collect?"

LOL

I also collect Fiesta. I have the new to eat on, but only Gray, Chartreuse, Indigo, Turquoise & Terra Cotta. I had to put the lid on that obsession somewhere. ;)

I also love Boxes - the smaller & more ornate, the better.

And I have a good start on an American Pottery collection. That darn Martha Stewart ruined my chances of getting it for cheap anymore, tho.

I have about 5 McCoys, a Van Briggle, & a few other pieces. It's more important to me that I really love the piece than who made it.
But! I would absolutely L O V E to own a piece of Roseville in the Freesia pattern.

I also collect vintage jewelry - mostly rhinestone stuff - the more colorful the better. And I seem to have an affinity for brooches. I wear them with jeans & tees.

 

I have been liquidating a lot of my vintage accessory and clothing collection, but there are a few handbags i am going to hold on to...a few patent leathers that would not go for much on ebay, but i personally like and use, and I have this shockingly orange handbag i will have to play show and tell with sometime.

I collect wooden dovetailed boxes. I pick em up whenever i go to an estate sale...many times for less than 5 bucks, and my most expensive splurge has been $20. recipe boxes, trinket boxes, cardfile and storage boxes...whatever....my favorite is one that was actually a mahogany deed box from my grandfather's office (he was a judge, he died way before i was born, but i really tresure it). Ditto on the helps me store things sentiment. I think my love of wood comes from my other grandfather who is a retired finish carpenter. I also collect antique and midcentury furniture occassional tables (my favorite is a 1955 robsjohn-gibbings), but the collection can only be so big because of practical places to put them in the house - so one more and the inn is full).

And like many here, I collect fiesta. I don't have the biggest collection, but have pieces i really love, and rescue pieces whenever i see them reasonably priced. I use it in my decor...i have a few really really scratched way beyond any value saucers that i use under plants on the window sill. I have a shelf full that I just display and enjoy, and to use everyday, I have a set of periwinkle mugs and saucers i got as seconds.

My fiance and i have a small group or collection of dachshund stuff - esp our two favorites - our REAL dachshunds. Our other favorite we have is a big slinky dog. I also have a mini-collection of frogs (not the floral frogs, but the amphibian frogs) as my family buys them for me as i was almost a herpetologist instead of going into theater design.

As a child and teen i collected stamps, old cameras, books, and anything horse - horse pictures, models, shirts with horses, etc etc. Now I just still have a few prints of race horses, my Derby glasses, and a few favorite porcelain pieces and older horses. I also have a mini tooled leather saddle that my aunt brought back from mexico when she was on a trip. It is just so adorable. I found the stamps when i was at my parent's helping them clean up their house, but the cameras were damaged.

so it sounds like a collect a lot, but i really don't : ) a lot are former collections LOL

chris

 

How fun! Some of you may already know this, but PIGGIES! Love me some piggies!





A few of these are even from my friends here at the VFG! Thanks again!

 

I love depression glass and have a few pieces left to me by my grandmother. I hope to collect more, a friend of mine has a whole cabinet full.

Deb

 

aside from vintage purses (I LOVE vintage purses!!) I have a thing for kitchy items. Just found me a clear cut plastic (resembles cut glass or crystal) 50's wastebasket & tissue holder with a big ol' starburst pattern.

But as for things I'd LIKE to collect... 50's Heywood-Wakefield furniture. I dream of the day I can afford it! I'm not greedy.. I just want a blonde dining table, 6 chairs, and a coffee & end table ;-)

ahhhhhh... oh to not be POOR!

kristine

 

Interesting topic Lizzie! And it is fun to read (and see) what others
collect.

Along with vintage clothing, I collect vintage and antique linens and lace,
antique primitive cloth dolls (love black ones), vintage catalogues.....and
like Brenda, dust!

Sue

 

I have an erratic span of collections

~Black bears - started when we moved to Tennessee - think it has to do with my neverending quest to actually see a bear when we are taking that Sunday drive! ;)

~Grateful Dead Beanie Bears

~Funky, wild vintage jewelry

~Rock books/biographies

 

Lately ?

~ dust bunnies

~ dirty dishes

~dirty laundry

~ other peoples teenaged kids

:D

Mary

 

LOL, when I have spare cash and there aren't any antique corsets around to buy I like to collect:

1) sidesaddle memorabilia. Horse crazy, 'nuff said.

2) Queen's Hotel (Montreal) stuff. The Queen's Hotel was a grand old hotel built around the turn of the century in Montreal and fell into gradual decline in the 60's. It still remained open in the early 80's and then was finally boarded up and left to rot until it was partially knocked down in the early 90's. They finally demolished it at the end of 90's and built the hockey stadium over it. I had always been fascinated by this hotel ever since I was a little girl and always vowed that I would go in there to have lunch (they had a resteraunt in there) when I was "grown up". Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to go out on my own, it had been partially demolished.

Here is one of my postcards:
http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/example/queen4.jpg

3) Villa Maria memorabilia. This was the private girl's school I went to in Montreal and was built in the late 1790's and is the only surviving example of Palladian style archetecture in North America. The house was home to the govenor generals of Canada including Lord Elgin until it fianlly became a girl's school in the 1850's. I have pleasant memories of it and the school is choc full of history including tons of antiques, a tapestry made and given to the school by Queen Victoria and it's even haunted! It was my high school reunion there last September but I couldn't go as I'm 3000 miles away and have no money!
This was my school, it still looks like this today:
http://www.villamaria.qc.ca/about.html#Anchor-history

Lei

 

Metlox figural pottery from the 1930s and 40s, but it has to be white.

Metlox California Mobile dinnerware from the 1950s.

Funny plastic kitchen jolly chef stuff from the 1950s.

Vladimir Kagan 1950s furnishings.

Greta Grossman 1950s furnishings.

1950s decor items that go with the above furnishings. One might say I have a bit of an Eames era/Mid-Century Modern fetish.

Vintage plastic Mr. Peanut promotional items (banks, cups, salt and pepper shakers etc.)

 

<i>Vintage plastic Mr. Peanut promotional items<i>

Dangit! I saw a Mr. Peanut peanutbutter maker at a yard sale. It was the typical plastic stand up Mr. Peanut that I thought was just a larger figurine or a plastic bank which I have seen a dime a dozen, so I didn't pick it up right away as i was focusing on something else, but the guy next to me did, and figured out what it was.

chris

 

I think the whole reason I sell now is because I have a collecting disease... Luckily, I go thru cycles with my collecting.
I used to collect old & vintage round mirrors. Wall mirrors and vanity/hand/shaving mirrors. They had to have either no frame to speak of, or in the case of my shaving mirrors, an unusual wire frame that helped it stand up. I sold pretty much all of them a couple years ago.. but at one point I had them all up on my wall and a nearby shelf. I think it spooked people.
Then I went through a phase where I collected unloved thrift store art. It didn't matter howbad it was.. if I could feel the soul of the person who made it, I bought it. My roomate didn't want to look at it, so it covered (and i mean covered!) my well ventilated bathroom! It was rather cheery, I thought!
I think I've mentioned before that I've begun a vintage umbrella/parasol collection... and also a vintage game collection. We're trying to also start a collection of old movie cameras (pre-70's.. when they still had character!), and one of old weird electronics first piece in this collection is a 1940's Pathoclast. It's one of those devices that quacks used to find and fix what ails you. I suspect it's worth quite a lot of money... but Rob is in love with it, so we'll build a collection around it.
Like all of my collections, I expect I'll eventually tire of them and move them on in favor of space for whatever NEW item I become fascinated with.

Kristine

 

Ms eclectic here too

My home is a mix of Victorian/hippie/gypsy, rich burgundy velvets and tapestries, I found an incredible velvet tapestry while visiting one of our members Pauline fashiontales/alonesolo last fall, it has a group of gypsies sitting around smoking a hookah lol!! I love anything Moroccan; lamps, textiles, clothing

I've collected Marilyn Monroe items since I was 13 years old.
Buffalo or Syracuse China in burgundy red & white.
Vintage compacts with glitter Lucite tops.
Vintage vanity crystal perfume bottles, cobalt blue medicine bottles.
Vintage lobster (Japan) salt peppers & ashtrays they look great in my turquoise kitchen. All sorts of glass vintage ashtrays from old hotels, countries, I found one last week for .10 it is the cutest turquoise blue with "Bill & Effie's, the word 'TRUCK' printed on a truck, 'STOP' on a stop sign, Hiway 40 Verdy, Nevada"

Like Roo I love Rock music biographies, also love fashion books, old cookbooks, hippie craft & cook books, devour true crime stories and anything by Bukowski.

Glass beads.

Antique icons, love the Greek ones, actually had a small altar set up at one time with every religious icon imaginable. I also love crafty or touristy artwork made with bright colors and quirky sayings from Latin countries.

I love old Venetian mirrors and have a small collection of Happy Bunny Stickers

 

Oh my gosh, what a cool thread! Thanks, Lizzie!

...and now I'm seeing Liz all Stevie-Nicks-ed (Please be gentle if ya gotta get me on that Liz--*smile*), feeling an empathetic chill about Lei's Queens Hotel, wanting to shop depression glass with Deb, and thinking (as always) of Timber when I see cute pigs )), Plus, I think Justine's Vera story rocks!

I've sold off so much that I, for a time, collected, that I have no collections, but they'll be back and they include... ...deco silverplate, marigold (yes--the most common--but I just love that iridescent gold) 'carnival' glass, red and white 50s melmac, and 50s rhinestone demi-parures.

Steph