It May Curl Your Hair

I have been spending some of Christmas Day exploring pinterest.com. I have assembled a number of ideas for industrial and lighting projects. One of the most interesting is a guy Rags and Bone Man making lights out of airplane engine parts in London. So I approached my online auction fix with a variety of industrial and lighting possibilities swirling in my mind.

The online auction just ended and I think that I am going to have fun making some very special industrial lights. I will probably gut most of the existing guts and rewire the pieces with new UL approved lamp parts.

This 1930's hair curling machine has a great look and wonderful switches and dials. The curling wires are detachable so I will just disable their sockets and keep them with the soon to be lamp. I hope to use the existing switch and gauge to power the new lamp that I plan to install under the bonnet.

It should make a great prop with a new use for a beauty salon.

I intend to do the same process for this second curler.

This is a heavy duty 1930's hair dryer. It appears to have a bracket on it so it can be mounted and swiveled. I will gut the dryer pieces and install new lamp parts. I have a couple of different bases that I can mount it on, so I'll do a little experimenting to find the best look.

The online auction has granted me a little bit of a reprieve from the auction withdrawal shakes. I have a couple of more items from this auction and two other online auctions currently in process. So I should be stable through New Years Day.

Mr. Flannery

Auction Fix

Its Christmas time and we all know what that means. Ya Good Cheer, family and friends, great food, presents etc. etc. But it really means that there are no auctions for me to attend.

I have been scouring the Internet for auction listings. I have been printing out and reading line-by-line, with yellow highlighter in hand, auction bills that I would normally speed read on the monitor. I have been looking at every on-line auction that I can find. I have bids in on two on-lines that end at exactly the same time tonight. I just have to admit it, I have a problem and Christmas has interfered with getting my fix.

Mr. Flannery

Music Can Raise Long Hidden Emotions

Last Sunday I worked at Second Hand Rose. The obligatory Christmas music was playing through-out the shop. The 4th or 5th time through the playlist made me cringe but then I heard a woman singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas". It made me tear up slightly. I flashed back to a Christmas in maybe 68 or 69. It was the Bob Hope Christmas USO Tour entertaining the troops in Vietnam. A woman was singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas". The camera panned the soldiers and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Even now,I hear that song, I see those soldiers and I still tear-up. Some things are so clear and so poignant even after 40 years.

Mr. Flannery

One More Day at Second Hand Rose

The December sale at Second Hand Rose has been very good and very festive. It was fun working on Friday and greeting and meeting all of the Christmas shoppers. My favorite is answering the phone. Our callers are 99% women and they are expecting a woman to answer the phone. So I answer in a deep bass voice "Second Hand Rose". Invariably this is received with a pause while the caller contemplates if she reached the right number.

I had to completely reset my space after the lockers and all the signs sold. These are photos of the reset. I especially like the large Minnesota wall map.

I am going to work on Sunday. We are open from 10 AM to 5 PM. If you have a chance stop in and give us a "Merry Christmas".

Mr. Flannery

It was Very Strange at the Auction

I attended another auction on Tuesday evening. Because of the locker trip to Minneapolis and the subsequent mandatory resetting at Second Hand Rose I did not get to the auction until 3 hours after it started. There wasn't too much left to sell, but for some reason the auctioneer had left the furniture for the end of the auction. The selection of furniture was marginal, but there were a few interesting pieces.

The leather love seat and chair sold for more than I can resell them for at the shops, so no bids there. The iron and glass tables were OK but just too heavy and too fragile, at the same time, for my interest, after all the locker dancing. There was a decent 2 drawer library table/small desk. It was not an antique, but it was solid, clean and resellable. So I bid on it. Most of the attendees had left the auction by then, so there was little competition for this piece. I got it for $35. Then one of the strangest occurrences happened.

The auctioneer moved on to the next couple of pieces. A guy, who had been at the auction since the start, came up to me and asked if I had bought the library table. I said yes. He asked me "how much"? I told him and he contemplated my response. Then it happened. He said "I'll give ya $50 for it".

I said "I just bought it, why didn't you bid"? He responded with a story about a trip to the bathroom. Oh well. Now what do I do? I sold it to him. I had the clerk change the number of the sale and he gave me $15.

So in the course of 5 minutes I made 40% on my potential investment. I never actually handed over any money. I never even touched the desk. No lifting, cleaning, dancing or resetting of the desk. Now that was a strange auction event.

Mr. Flannery