Monday, January 12, 2009

Auction Time

Toy trucks

Every weekend I try to take a little road trip to take photos, enjoy the scenery, try a new restaurant or shop, that type of thing. Sometimes I travel with friends sometimes alone. Just get out and venture. Saturday was one of those days.

The weather here has been ideal - around 65 up to 70 degrees during the daytime. It is so warm I found dandelions at the cemetery I was taking photos at. That is warm. The weather just makes you want to get out and do something. After reading about all the bad weather across the Midwest this weekend I am thanking my lucky stars.

Anyway, I went to some new thrift stores - more about those finds later. Then decided to travel down an untraveled road and ended up in a small tobacco town. North Carolina is a big producer of tobacco - think Duke, Reynolds tobacco company...There are lots of small towns that were built on tobacco here, now we have pig, chicken, turkey farms. Think Smithfields, Perdue. I can's say we are all thrilled but it has taken over when the tobacco people left.

Off topic again, sorry, anyhoo, I saw a bunch of trucks and cars outside this big old building in town after I was finished shooting some pictures. I decided to mosey over and see what was going on and it was an auction. I haven't been to a really honest to good auction house in ages. I decided I was spending Saturday night there at the auction house. Found me a pretty comfy chair and sat down to watch the action.

I found a box load of pictures and paper ephemera that makes my knees weak. Also, took a ton of photos of all the antiques. Met a couple of dealers who are going to be on the "lookout" for "stuff" for me, and ate some of the best pie I have had since my grandmother passed away. So the pictures included in this post are a small sample of things that caught my eye. How was your Saturday night?

A beautiful dress worn during the civil war. It was in great shape for being so old. They even had documentation for the dress. It had a reserve and did not sell. Lovely to look at though.


A pretty little wicker baby carriage that a doll collector snapped up.



An incredibly in bad taste bear head. If you think this is bad I spared you the shot with the two paws on either side of his head. Yes we have bears in North Carolina. Yes, we have bears in this area. Yes, I have, seen one or two. But they are Black bears. I have no idea where this bear came from. All the dudes seem to be impressed, I heard one lady tell her man "not in my house, you can just put that out in the barn." Hope their cows don't stop making milk.


The last thing I am sharing is a bunch of military stuff. They sold old military coats, jackets, hats, whole dress uniforms, and a couple of powder guns. This was a whole table with this guys military career on it. He had these incredible hats. [I will share them in another post] They probably spent an hour on frantic bidding on all of this. It was a fun evening, very colorful...

1 comment:

Tricia said...

Oh my gosh! You have just described a dream day or date for me. I would love to do something like this. I loved your pics - and got quite a chuckle over your comments on the bear. Sounds like attending this auction was pretty spontaneous. Cool. I have never even been to an auction. Have to speak to my dh about doing something like this. Also loved your recipe for stroganoff - will try that soon. Your photos are just awesome.