Cast Iron and the Hardware Counter

Last winter on one of my first picking adventures, we sauntered into the more than 100 year old hardware store in Browerville, Minnesota.  Chris and Morgan had been there before, but it was my first opportunity to scrounge around the three large floors of the old building.  In the basement, I found a large counter made from fir floor boards that had been used as the stores glass cutting station for years.  It was oil soaked and dirty but I thought it had a high potential for use as a bar or table top.  I bought it and then left it there because we didn't have room in the truck.  We stopped by Browerville a couple of times after that day, but we didn't ever have space for the counter.

This summer I purchased a great cast iron base that will be perfect for a bar.  It took three of us to load it onto my trailer.  I knew that it was ready for a marriage in a junk heaven.  We made another trip to Browerville and loaded up the counter top.  I sanded it, stained it a deep red mahogany and covered it with three coats of poly.

The cast iron base was washed, scrubbed, welded and footed.  It too received a coat of poly.  The bar top is 6 1/2 ft by 4 ft and almost 2 inches thick.  There is a 14 inch over hang and at 42 inches tall, a perfect height for a full size bar stool.  I think that it is going to make a beautiful bar somewhere.

Mr. Flannery

Stanford Fenelle - WPA Minnesota Artist

I made an interesting find last week at an auction.  It is an original watercolor by noted and listed Minnesota artist Stanford Fenelle.  It was painted for the FAP (Federal Arts Project) which was part of the Depression Era work program called the WPA (Works Progress Administration).  The frame is chippy federal building yellow paint and the glass inside and out was filthy when I bought it.  I took the backing off to clean the glass. On the inside of the 2nd back board I found the original label, complete with yellow crunchy Scotch tape.

Fenelle was a painting supervisor for the WPA in Minnesota.  This painting, titled "Hulak's Farm" is a scene from the Steele or Waseca Counties area in South Eastern Minnesota.  A very similar painting "Road to Warsaw", that's Warsaw Minnesota, not Poland, is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.  After WPA ended in 1942 Fenelle spent the next thirty years at Brown & Bigalow which was a huge advertising calendar publisher, where he perfected scenes of hunting dogs.

WPA art is very collectible.  Fenelle is very collectible.  This painting is going to look great in a Thomas Hart Benton style collection.

Mr. Flannery

Olde Depot Junktion May 2013

I participated in my first real antiques and etc. indoor show over the Memorial Day weekend.  The show was in Brainerd, Minnesota at the old Northern Pacific RR shops.  The building was cavernous and the spaces were huge.  I brought a big load of junk on my open trailer and a full load of furniture in my enclosed trailer, plus three heaping loads in the box of my pick-up.  It took me 7 hours to set up my space.  It looked pretty good, but only about half the items were priced.  I spent the first couple of hours on Saturday morning quoting prices and slapping tags on my items.

The sale was very successful but unbelievably tiring.  My feet were sore and my back was even sorer.  The only saving grace was the Brainerd HS wrestling team.  Its members were there to haul and load furniture.  I hired four of them to load up my unsolds and get me out of town.  I was able to fit those unsolds into the enclosed trailer and the pick-up with the tonneau cover closed.

 My space was immediately to the left of the main entrance.

The cross planter was handmade by a blacksmith for his wife's grave.

 Baskets full of croquet pieces were on the corner of my space.

 This gigantic roll top desk with over cabinet sold on Sunday.

The work bench is one of my favorites.

 Three vintage grocery carts full of cast iron pieces and a large brass valve wheel.

 The large grocery store cabinet with the globes sold on Saturday.  The green ladder leaning on the cabinet was made by the same blacksmith who made the cross.

Large tool chest, vintage gym equipment and a small drafting table.

 This antique theater spotlight works with its 400 watt bulb.

 I think that these wooden wagon wheel hubs are very architectural.

 The freight elevator door worked well to hang many items (and it sold).

Plaster cast with bronze colored coat.  It didn't sell.

It was a lot of work, but I am ready to do this show again.  And my inventory list will be refined and updated base on our experience.

Mr. Flannery

A Day of Remembrance

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

Memorial Day is a rememberance holiday, not a celebration holiday like the 4th of July. It was originally designated to honor the dead of the Civil War and was expanded to honor all war dead as America got older.

I have adopted my dad's pre-WWII best friend, Kenny Miller, as my personal one to remember. I never met Kenny, he died years before I was born, but he has come to represent in a very personal way, all the young Americans who never came home.

Kenny died in the skies over Holland when his B-24 was shot down by the Germans. He was a young man who never got to realize his dreams and ambitions that he shared with his best buddy Bill.

Rest in Peace Kenny and thank-you and all your comrades in arms for your sacrifices for me and all the next generations of Americans.

Mr. Flannery

Junking at the Depot

Yesterday was a big day.  I loaded trailer no. 1 and hauled to Brainerd, MN for my first indoor, juried real antique and etc. show.  I assembled my normal load of fully heavy and unwieldy hogs and drove north to see the site.  The trailer was loaded in my normal unconventional style and ended up handling as if I was pulling a full sail behind the truck.  It was a struggle to go more than 62 miles per hour so I was placed in the very unfamiliar position of being passed by almost everyone as I drove on the 371 expressway.

  The show is Saturday and Sunday at the old Northern Pacific RR shops just east of downtown Brainerd.  It is called the Olde Depot Junktion, but I have taken to calling it the Junk Depot.  The building that we are in was the old blacksmith shops.  It is big enough to pull in a couple, three locomotives with 40 foot high ceilings at the peak.  The roof boards, that have not yet been replaced by crisp, clean new yellowy boards, are a wonderful black sooted color and the walls are an old brick with huge rounded top windows.  Our space, I am sharing with my picking partners Chris and Morgan, is huge and just inside the main entrance.  That location made unloading easy, ten feet from the back of my trailer to the start of our space.  The building just gobbled up even my largest piece, there will not be an overbearing looking piece of furniture at this show.

 Here I am arriving at the show site. And no, I didn't haul a smokestack as part of my load.

 Elevator door, 2 person kayak, harp case, cast iron fire hydrant and a ton (maybe 2 tons) of other junk.  All loaded by Mr. Flannery without any help from Babe or others.

 Even the back of the pick up was full.  Including 5-6 medical floor lamps and a real antique cherry tilt top occassional table.

And of course, Buck was my co-pilot.

I am finishing loading trailer no. 2 this morning, my enclosed trailer that I will leave on the site to restock.  I hope to get to Brainerd by early afternoon.  I then get to unload and set up for tomorrow's show.

Mr. Flannery

The Hog Pen is Full of Metal and Wood

Its sale time again at Second Hand Rose.  So I am going to give you a little tour of my space at the shop.  This month has been especially difficult because of the weather.  Snow cold and other tundra crap weather has limited my ability to work on pieces outside.  My selection is limited to shop ready pieces that I picked up at auctions, the LeSueur flea market and picking.

The "necks" are from the out of business jewelry store in Hibbing.

 The bird cage is from a farm house in northern Iowa.

 I like the 1880's oak double bed on the wall.  The pair of lamps on the metal bookcase are mid-century modern Italian ceramic flanking a religious niche.

 The harp case is from 1890 and has great stenciling.

The tables on the cabinet are aquarium stands from a 1940's school in Iowa,

 This is brand new, to me.  It is a five section modular file cabinet in 1940's olive drab metal.

The biggest surprise with the metal cabinet is that it has four chunky glass legs.

The sale starts on Thursday, May 2nd, and I believe that I have a fine selection of hogs to display amongst the roses at Second Hand Rose.

Mr. Flannery

Slogging Through a Snow Storm to Get Some Special Pieces.

Its been one hell of a week here on the tundra.  12 inches of snow last Thursday just added to the miserable April that we are enduring.  We were scheduled to sell at the State Fairgrounds Antiques Spectacular this weekend, but had decided that selling outdoors would be a muddy mess even before the last snow dump.  We just forfeited our rental fee because there was no way we could even get ready for selling, even if the field was dry.

I am getting ready for the May sales at Second Hand Rose and Gypsy Lea's but the logistics of working on pieces has been just too difficult.  I am also getting some special items ready for the big Depot Junktion show in Brainerd over Memorial Day weekend.  I bought two special pieces thru an online auction in Detroit Lakes.  Of course Thursday was the pick up day so I got to traverse the heart of the snow storm while pulling my trailer.  300 miles and $80 in gasoline later I have a snow encrusted trailer with my two huge finds.

I bought a 1930's wood two man kayak in a nice flaky green paint.  It is about 11 feet long.  I hope to hang this from the huge steel trusses over the space in Brainerd.  I have to do a little shoring up with the brad nailer and then will lightly sand and poly the boat.  I think that it is going to look spectacular.  The second piece I bought is an old slatted wood elevator door.  It is about 10 feet long.  The spaces in Brainerd do not have any hangable wall space.  I am envisioning placing the slats between two wood porch posts and using it to hang items such as frames and prints.

I really like this boat.

And the elevator door will be special.

I have lots of ideas and lots of projects for Brainerd.  Now the weather has to start cooperating.

Mr. Flannery

3 Phrases to Sum Up Life on the Tundra

I went picking today.  I left home at 5:00 AM to meet Chris in Brainerd by 7:00 AM.  As I was cruising up Highway 10 it dawned on me what was wrong with this entire scene.

1.  It is April 2nd.

2.  It is 7*.

3.  What the HELL?????!!!!!!

The entire state is in a funk caused by this dire state of affairs.  We tryed to pick, but no one is outside working.  We talked to a couple of people who were interested, but told us to come back when the weather was warmer.  We stopped, we yah-dahed, but we got nowhere.  So it was 3 PM and we had found nearly nothing.  We even stopped at the Wadena Auction house where a perusal of the junk revealed that the table filled with outdated bags of potato chips was the highlight.

Then we stopped a little antique shop.  It was interesting.  I found a couple of items, Chris found a couple items and then I bought a carrying case for a harp.  Its huge and antique and very cool.  It was shipping tags for places all over Europe.  It has a stenciled itinerary with lines like Antwerp 1893 and London 1904.  I am planning to make it into a coffee table.  It may be very cool.

Mr. Flannery

Buck is Waiting at Second Hand Rose

I spent most of the day at Second Hand Rose getting ready for the April sale.  I cleaned, even taking a few pieces to the self service car wash for a good pressure wash.  I have bucket, tubs, benches and other outside stuff in addition to the piles of good junk inside the shop.  I'll have to spend a couple hours at the shop tomorrow to finish up and get everything priced.

 

 I have an honest to God colorful vignette in my space this month.  Turquoise barn door to teal console table all coordinated with a very fancy wall sconce and a chippy blue paint stool.

 For the fifth sale in a row I have animal parts again this month.

 A great seed company advertising panel with irises.

 World Geography and box of old photos.

 My favorite piece, a metal 3 section barrister bookcase.

 The 1950's steel desk with 2 little drawers and a chippy paint top.

 A tramp art jewelry box in original silver paint.

 Silver plate and a red poultry shed hanging lamp.

 Huge and heavy silver plate on copper serving tray.

 Great Gilbert clock and a ceiling lamp.

Buck says see ya at Second Hand Rose.

 

Mr. Flannery