Wednesday, April 12, 2006

 

Ten Things...

I still wish I had bought, but didn't:

  1. Frankoma "cat mark" vase, antique mall in Noble, Oklahoma, 1991. Didn't buy it because it was $22 that I thought would be better spent on groceries. Would probably be worth a lot more than that now on eBay, but I'm not sure I'd sell it if I had it. The "cat mark" (a pacing puma, incised on the bottom of the vase) was used in the mid-30s and is pretty difficult to find. And very, very neat-looking.

  2. Silver "Saturn" alto saxophone with a Bobby Dukoff mouthpiece, in a short-lived antique mall that might have actually been a market for fences, Norman, Oklahoma, 1993, $150. I've never seen another Saturn sax, although I think there's a "Jupiter" tenor, so maybe it's made by the same company. I don't know why I still wish I had bought this; I had about $72 in my checking account and another $180 in savings at the time, so I would say that not buying it was probably a really good idea. I haven't played ANY saxophone since college, and then I played bari. So I'm not quite sure why this one has been stuck in my brain for so long.

  3. MacTV, Best Buy, 1992, about $2000. It was black. With a TV tuner and a video capture card. And here's the reason I didn't buy it: I thought CDs were too expensive as storage media to ever catch on. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Silly Vintage Reader! So instead of the RAREST MACINTOSH EVER MADE I have a fully operational, but common as dirt, Performa in the attic.

  4. Brick 1930s cottage, Shepherd neighborhood, Oklahoma City, 1995, $54K. Actually, this one needed so much work that I'm not all that sorry we didn't buy it, but the living room had rounded corners. With custom light fixtures in them. And hand-painted tiles all around the fireplace. I would love to have lived there.

  5. 1930s English bar with lighted back and lots of inlaid wood, Elektra Deco, Oklahoma City, circa 1995, $165. And yes, that was a good price for it even in 1995. It was in perfect condition. You opened it up and the lights came on and were reflected in the beveled mirrors that were on every surface. The perfect showplace for all of my antique barware--which I was collecting before it was cool, btw.

  6. AMC Marlin, car dealership on 39th St. (AKA Route 66) in Oklahoma City, 1996, $6000. I had $6000 to spend on a car, and I went down to 39th Street, where the used dealers that sold cars with more than 10 years or 100K miles on them peddled (or in some cases, pedaled) their wares. I bought a '91 Honda Accord with 130K miles on it instead of the Marlin, which was a beautiful blue-green and still had most of its original badging. Didn't buy it because I was too afraid of asking stupid questions about the care of classic cars--although come on, how many people, let alone how many women under 30, would have recognized the Marlin from the street and pulled in to look at it? How stupid could I have possibly looked?

  7. Absolutely immaculate white Rambler American, same car dealership in OKC, a few rows behind the Marlin, $5000. It even had the Flash-o-Matic pushbutton transmission!! I still can't believe I let both of these cars get away. For some reason I was convinced that a stupid ACCORD was a better buy. Note that the C-column is still straight up and down, instead of angled like in the later Ramblers; the reason I think this is cool is that the angled C-column is what made the AMC Gremlin and Pacer so instantly recognizable, and that particular design feature came all the way up from Nash and Rambler. Pretty cool, huh?

  8. Singer 301 sewing machine with cabinet and attachments, black, with perfect paint and decals, garage sale, Kenmore, New York, 2000, $50. The 301 is very popular with quilters because it's portable and uses the same attachments as a Featherweight. I've got a 301 that I bought at a thrift store (the same day I found the cat mark vase, as a matter of fact) and it's a work horse, let me tell you. The 301 is possibly the finest sewing machine Singer ever made, and I didn't buy that one because I didn't think it would fit in my Volkswagen and I didn't want to spend the $50. So instead, I've spent the last six years kicking myself and searching for a slant-needle zigzag attachment (which I finally scored a few weeks ago on eBay).

  9. Brick 1940s Cape Cod house, Amherst, New York, 2000, $114K. Huge 1940s kitchen. Basement rec room. In-law suite TO DIE FOR. Walking distance to work for Mr. VR and to bus line for me. Didn't buy it because the first person we asked told us, without even running the numbers, that he didn't think we'd qualify for the mortgage. Six months later, we bought a house for $10K more, without even bringing my salary into the equation.

  10. Brick 1940s Cape Cod house, Kenmore, New York, 2000, $110K. No kidding: had not been TOUCHED since the 1950s, but had been kept in great condition. There was a beauty salon AND a rec room in the basement. They were open to the possibility of selling us all the 1950s furniture with the house. Yes, including the Danish twin bedroom set in the turquoise-and-green attic bedroom and the vinyl-and-Formica dinette set. We didn't buy it because it was on a fairly busy street and we feared for our outdoor cats. Which I suppose is not a bad reason.


permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 9:32 PM
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