A Few Things Found and Saved

As everyone knows, at Dusty Old Thing we love to see antiques and vintage objects that have been saved from ruin or from the rubbish heap and those that have been found at auctions and sales and thrift shops and so appreciated. Here are three that have recently been shared with us by our readers Kay, Karen and Russ.

Those of us who value antiques for their natural beauty, for their place in the history of material culture and their ability to still be useful, even if just to inspire the imagination, are conservators. Rather than throw things out and buy new, we seek to preserve the best in what already exists. An old milk wagon can still be hitched to a pony, an old icebox can be used for all kinds of storage and old shoe forms can, at least, be doorstops or bookends or anything useful where weight is needed. In the meantime they can inspire stories and legends and serve as ways to pass on the stories of days gone by.

from: Kay Sanders: “Tuesday night auction find..a very nice old milk wagon..it would have been pulled by a pony, or small horse and came with a one horse harness. The former owner told me after I purchased that he painted it when he was a child and covered up the dairy logo and painted trim 🙁 He was probably mid-60’s so guess that was before things were preserved as found.”

from: Karen Wiley: “Found this nice old refrigerator at a thrift store, decorated with a few treasures. Can anyone out there remember these?”

from: Russ Morgan: “I found these in a scrap pile being thrown out. Victorian era cobbler’s forms”