Category: Uncategorized

Here are some fun snapshots of my booth last weekend at the Brooklyn
Flea in Ft Greene. I had lots in some of my favorite categories: tins,
apothecary bottles, maps and scales. I am loaded up with new old stuff for fall flea season.

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I will be bringing a large assemblage of glass insulators to the flea tomorrow.They will be priced at an affordable $5 each. I love the color and shape variations of these early 20th C beauties.

Glass insulators were first produced in the 1840s to insulate telegraph lines from lightning strikes. To contain electricity you need an insulator. As technology and industry advanced, they were needed to protect telephone and power lines as well.

When
insulator companies were making glass pieces they used
whatever glass was available
to them at the time. Many companies also made alot of other glass
products such as bottles, fruit
jars, and oil
lamps. They would use whatever glass was left over from the
other lines and mix it all together. In
doing so, they would come up with
different colors and textures. This miscellaneous glass was called cullet
and sometimes objects would
end up getting mixed in by
accident such as furnace brick pieces, coins, nuts, nails, paper clips, etc
and become embedded into
the glass.

Production of insulators ended around the 1960s. Most lines are buried these days and the exposed lines tend to use brown ceramic insulators. Many people collect rare and unusual insulators. Others just like to put them in a bright window and appreciate their colors and forms.

You can read more about insulators here

I have Mexico City on my mind again and I wanted to post some more photos of interesting things that I found in the flea markets there. In general, I was surprised by the high prices. It was more expensive than here in NYC. At first I found this odd, but it starts to make sense when you realize that most people have fewer posessions in Mexico. It seems that they place more value on nice things. Flea markets are very popular there- especially among the native hipsters (not unlike Brooklyn.)

I bought a bunch of nifty things from high (1919 pale green vaseline glass soda siphon/ seltzer bottle,) to low (vintage lucha libre posters.)

Some more photos from around town- including some great marketing…

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I have been so impressed recently with the awesome vintage styling in kids' catalogs (which I get in abundance- thanks to having kids.) My hands-down favorite is the Land of Nod. They also have a wonderful blog cutely named Honest to Nod

There are some terrific decorating ideas within & not just for kids.

Many of the items that I always carry (i.e. vintage school charts, wooden crates, vintage tins, old signs and wire baskets) are deployed to great effect in the photos below. They add so much character to a room.

A friend sent me a link to this House Beautiful article on a California beach cottage. The flat screen TV is cleverly concealed behind a vintage map. I have had several requests for similar-sized retractable maps from folks who want to try this at home.