Tell me about your specialties and your passions. Have you got a museum quality collection of anique dresses? Or a tiny collection of vintage teacups that make you happy evey time you see them? What's your currect holy grail of vintageware? Marilyn's makeup case? Howard Hughes' fedora? Jean Harlow's glasses? A Faberge egg? What got you started down this trail? Do you have any special skills? Can you recreate a wartime Christmas meal under rationing? Maybe you spent hours watching that particular old movie so you could get that Black Bottom dance just right. Maybe you sound just like Judy Garland when you sing. Maybe you learned to fly a bomber or went on a ride on one.

Show off! I want to hear all about it.

My specialty is aromatherapy. I'm a registered therapist and one of my favourite possessions is my custom made wooden oils box. Just lifting the lid and inhaling the gorgeous aroma that comes from the two dozen bottles of essential oils inside is bliss!

I've been a big fan of Old Hollywood for as long as I can remember. I'm slowly building a dvd collection of vintage movies. At the moment, I have several Marilyn movies on order. I think its important to collect these while you can as they'll eventually not sell enough and will disappear.

I'm also slowly building a collection of vintage kitchen and housewares. The difference is I want pieces I can use. I'm not interested in making a museum out of our home. This is something I've only recently started, so my collection at the moment consists of one bone china cup and saucer, a baking dish thats subbing nicely as a fruit bowl and some vintage Christmas decorations. My aim is to have an entire tree's worth of decorations. Its slow going, but the hunt is no small part of the fun.

Where do you get your oils? I'm looking for a cold-pressed lemon oil. I bought a teeny bottle of it years ago and it cost $30. It's probably gone up to $50 by now, but I'm almost out. I can't remember where I got it.

I am also of the useful housewares type. I jus went shopping at a huge antiques mall in Phoenix, and I got a great set of vintage pyrex nesting bowls in yello and orange. Oh my gosh I love them! We use them every day. I saw a green vaseline glass citrus reamer that I wanted too, but it was $56!

I know what I want for Christmas next year!

I'm in England. I buy my oils here Phytobotanica .

Lemon essential oil is nothing like $30! My goodness. Was it essential oil or lemon carrier oil you bought? Though I can't say I've ever heard of lemon being used as a base, or carrier, oil.

The citrus oils generally very inexpensive; less than £3 (thats about $6 US) for 10 ml. Organic oils will cost a bit more. Most essential oils are produced using a method known as steam distillation. Sorry, I'm rambling. I can go on forever about aromatherapy.

Your in California so I'm sure there's several essential oil suppliers of good reputation you could contact. A good place to start might be to ask a massage therapist where she/he buys their oils.

Well, let's see...I've been thinning out lately (I've returned to the 'rents after an illness, so I don't have the space I did in my flat), but mostly I collect 1930s handpainted bone china teaware, specifically by Shelley and Royal Doulton (no Mrs. Bucket and her hand-painted RD blue periwinkles, please!) I also have a full dinner service in one of the deco Burleighware patterns. I have/had quite a good collection of vintage clothes from the 1920s-1950s, but a couple of years ago, I had some sort of fit, and gave away or sold nearly everything, except for most of my Anne Fogarty dresses (I love her!), and a real stunner of a VERY early Bill Blass grey wool dress (very severe and Lauren Bacall-ish), dating from before he was BILL BLASS, if you know what mean (he designed for Maurice Retner in the '50s/early 60s, then bought the house, eventually changing it to his own name.) I'm also keen on first editions (or as close to as I can get) of favorite books, especially the original 1930s Nancy Drews (the thick blue ones, before they were revamped and abridged -- the variety with the yellow spines), and Margery Allingham's Campion series.

And of course, knitting magazines and yarns, dating from the 1920s to early '60s -- but I'm very picky (most think to the point of utter madness). I limit myself to the all-but-forgotten Minerva patterns (which ran from about 1917 to sometime between 1950 and 1953), when they merged with the equally-forgotten Columbia, resulting in the more familiar Columbia-Minerva brand, the completely-forgotten Pauline Denham (who was only around from approximately the late '50s, to mid/late '60s), and, of course Vogue Knitting. The same with yarns, in order to be authentic -- my oldest dates from the 1930s, and latest early '60s, all top-quality, all Minerva or C-M -- in their early days, they kept the existing line of Minerva yarns -- and PD.) And of course, sewing patterns! (1920s-early '60s) As for Kitchenware and the like, I have a set of the '50s black Pyrex with the snowflakes, some Kensington ware, and some AH Vitrock in the fired-on green colorway.

Other prized possessions which aren't exactly collections:

- My Heywood-Wakefield bedroom set (the "Rio" line)

-John Held cocktail tray and highball glasses (there's a cocktail shaker as well, but it's pretty much the Holy Grail of JH items -- I've only seen it in a couple of books, and in museums...there are also other varieties of glasses, but I only saw them once, at a Held exhibition which was visiting the Norman Rockwell Museum.) There are also playing cards (which I have), and napkins, which I saw once on e-bay, and tried for, but lost.

- My 1930s English Dressing Table Set

- My English 1930s guilloche travel vanity set.

- My alligator trimmed 1950s Hartmann luggage.

- My 1941 301A Singer in the streamlined deco cabinet w/ matching stool.

- My Underwood portable typewriter, circa 1920, unusual because it's dark marbled green, and only has three rows. (It has a double shift key in order to have all the numbers and punctuation keys)

Everyone thinks I'm crazy because I actually use all this stuff in day-to-day life, and don't preserve everything like museum pieces, and just sit around looking at them on display. (And most seem to thing sticking to vintage yarns for vintage knitting patterns in downright weird. But, honestly, stuff just doesn't turn out right -- most of the time -- using contemporary yarns)

What was I saying about thinning out?...maybe I should work on that a bit more...

Oh, and I forgot about my extensive collection of vintage etiquette books, ranging from the 1880s-1960s...nearly all of those were gifts though. (I wrote a couple of silly etiquette books several years ago.)

Well, not to duplicate stuff too much, but I got lotsa vintage mags and books. If you need research or a certain year of a decade, pm me or whatever and I can send you scans or certain articles. My goal this year is to somehow get my mess on bookshelves and cataloged.....sigh....I'm keepin' my fingers crossed on that last one!!!!!

Any year in particular? I'm partial to 1943 and 1961, myself.

I have liked old movies for as long as I can remember. I statred watching them exclusivley when I was about 18. Everything else (clothes, music etc...) just sort of branched out from there.

I collect way to many things. Initally my collection was movies based but it branched out. In my movie collection I have an Original Merton of The movies poster, Many arcade, cigarette and post cards, Lobby cards, Celebrity paper dolls, film stills, Glamour photos and movie magazines. About half of the paper dolls and photos are original. The other half are repros. I also have a modest Autograph collection. My favorite autographs are my Katharine Hepburn and my Olivia DeHavilland/Joan Fontaine magazine photo of them both together.

I have a few vintage dresses, skirts and sweaters from the late 30s-late 50's. I am learning to sew because I don't have much luck finding vintage in my size.

I have just started collecting compacts. I have 4 (Elgin American, Zell, Dorset and Stratton). I really want a Guilloche compact and an Art Deco dance purse/compact.

I also collect Paperdolls of non celebrities.

I sew a little, I draw and am hoping to get a book of paperdolls published soon. I sing but don't sound like anyone famous. Well maybe a less talented Deanna Durbin.

Hi all!

Ok, if this is illegal, please boot this out. We all get enough spam and that's not my intent.
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Newsletter Announcement (free, no ads, no spam, no junk)

We’ve been toiling away down in the retro workshops to bring you the first ever newsletter, the Retro Review. Now, being a total amateur at this, but with the shining courage of those who have gone before, I should have the newsletter to press here very shortly.

Atomic it ain't, mostly just a simple newsletter about retro stuff. It's one of my New Year's resolutions to give this thing a fling. If you would be interested in receiving this via postal mail or email (pdf only), please drop a line to me, and I’ll ensure you get your own copy. Please indicate the format you would like this and as soon as it’s ready, I’ll send it zinging your way.

Topics for this month’s newsletter will include a recipe or two, couple of jokes and some book reviews and an actual serious article. I’ve never done anything like this before, so go easy on me, but I think it will be fun for all who would want to give this a shot with me.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Hey, T--

This board has a feature whereby we can do newsletters and broadcast them to the members...I'll fix ya up so you can blast it out, if you want!

That sounds pretty neat....lemme know if you get a chance!

thanks,

I guess a lot of you know me pretty well by now, but for the new folks, I have been into vintage everything for about 20 years. Like a lot of you I try to live as vintage as I can, and use as much of my stuff as possible. With a few exceptions, everything I use around the house is vintage, especially in my kitchen. I have been fortunate to inherit a couple entire estates worth of furniture and gadgets, linens and knicknacks, etc. Some of my prized possessions are my 1930s deco bedroom suite, 1959 Seeburg jukebox, numerous old radios and 1940s/50s kitchen appliances.

As for my personal life, I'm married with a three-year old son and a daughter due in April. I got my bachelor's degree in music and play and teach trumpet. Since I love old stuff so much, I went and got a master's degree in museum science and now curate an aviation museum in PA. I get to talk to pilots all day and play with airplanes- for someone like me, that job can't be beat!

You got a Seeburg? Wow!!! Are you able to find tubes for it still? I've got a Zenith stereo and I only turn it on once or twice a year as I'm afraid I'll blow the tubes out and not be able to find another one...........