Once again it’s Garage Sale season in Markham. Today Mum and I hit the first sale of the year… the Grace Anglican Church Rummage Sale!
Grace Anglican has bar none the best sales of the year. In the sring they put on a rummage sale & in the fall they have an antiques and collectibles sale that is to die for… great picks, better prices & all funds going to fund church work. Who can argue with that?
Today I came away with a tidy little haul of early 20th C. sheet music, a french ivory dresser box, two cute aprons and 7 books.
I love early to mid 20th C. sheet music.I’m not a musician, but the cover art is always great and it shows well on display. The photo above shows a sampling of my sheet music collection – only the sheet on the right was new to me today. These sheets are for a Scottish Waltz and Two Fox Trots. “Billets Doux” c. 1921 (centre) was purchased in France and is stamped with distribution restrictions (could not be sold in Belgium, Switzerland, Holland or Luxembourg) and the suggested retail price (3 fr 50 – wholesale price was 1 fr 75). On the bottom of this sheet is a photo of the original chanteuse, Nina Myral, and see is wearing a tel beau chapeau!
As mentionned previously, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue Has Anybody Seen My Girl” was newly acquired today. I wish I could sight read because I can’t picture for the life of me what a Fox Trot with Ukulele Accompaniment would sound like. If you’re curious to flip thought it, I’ve scanned it as a PDF.
Here’s a pic of one of the little aprons I picked up. I simply can’t resist a vintage apron… especially one with rhinestones. I’m sort of wishing that I was back at the museum because they’ve got a building they call the Honey House and on event days I’ve spent more than just a little bit of time in there. Would have loved to wear this with my uniform!
The other apron is likely a old kit from Mary Maxim. The apron is made of muslin and is printed with an embroidery pattern of roses, daisies, lily of the valley and either foxglove or canterbury bells. The person who did the embroidery was either very young or a novice as the stitching isn’t particularly good, but the apron is still sweet nonetheless. I simply adore vintage aprons & it is my plan to have a rack of them in my kitchen one day (each with its own strand of pearls).
My next little find was this French ivory dresser box. For those who aren’t familiar with the term French ivory is actually a celluloid plastic. This particular box has two marks Imperial Brand and Ivory Pyraline. Having searched a few auction sites and found some vintage advertizing pieces my best guess would be that this piece is from the 1920s.
I have quite a bit of French ivory in my collection, but mostly just button hooks. I was really quite happy to come across this box and it was only marked $0.25. I have an antiques market coming up in a few weeks time and I’m tempted to try to flip this one for $8 – $10. If it doesn’t sell I’ll be glad to put it back in my cabinet.
Finally, the books that I picked up…. I found two collections of essays on women’s history and gender studies, the History of Scarborough, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and the Wake of the Great Sealers. I know that not everyone is on the same page re: the seal hunt, but this is really a phenomenal book which details the 1914 Sealing Disaster which had resulted in the loss of 78 men from crew of the S.S. Newfoundland. The illustrations by David Blackwood are beautifully executed and seem to move aas they evoke a sense of the inhospitable environment in a way that photographs fail to capture.
Finally the question I’ve been dying to answer since the top of this page… How much did all of this fun cost? All together $3.50!
