Thrift Store Find

[Big Lee]

Went to a few thrift stores yesterday and came home with a horn.Will post pictures when I figure out whats going on with the camera.
The horn is 8" inside curve, The tip is threaded and has a horn plug which is also threaded. Has a measure atached to the strap. The butt plug is rough and unfinished, held in with furniture tacks. The strap Is attached with eye screws, one threw the horn into the plug, the other threw the main body of the horn thisone has pulled out.
The horn SCREAMED at me to help. The ugly tacks have to go,if I can remove the plug, it willbe replaced, fill the hole in the body, and remove the threads or just whitle a new stopper to fit the horn.

 

[bwhoffman]

The really BIG question thou.....

How much does something like that fetch at a thrift store?

 

[omarick1948]

WahOOOOOOOOOO!.....Don't start pulling out tacks or modifying your horn until you know what you diffinitely got there!.. :nono:

You didn't mention if you thought that it was original or reproduction?????

You might kick yourself right in the "Keester", if you should find out that you have a rare old SCREW TIP powder horn or ?... :hmm:

Rick

 

[Big Lee]

The horn is a repoduction and not of very good workmanship. I payed $3.00 for it. They had onother horn for $10.00 that i was getting and the clerk smashed it when she droped a couple of picture frames on it. The horn was thin and looked old, I would of had that one appraside.

 

[Birdman]

I saw a couple horns in a antique shop the other day myself, looked like the $15 crazy crow mass produced ones, Figured I tell the propriater that they were not woth the $75 dollar price tag she had on them and why. Ya may have thought I was speaking jibberish to her, she just kept telling me that they were very old and worth every penny if not more. I finally gave up n went home, several days later I stopped back in with an advertisment showing the exact horns for the cheaper price. Didn't phase her one iota, they were old n she was sticking to that story no matter what, didn't seem worth it to argue with her since she wasn't gonna hear me anyway. The horns were dirty ,Yes, but OLd ,NO!! ah well ya can't argue with someone who ignors the facts for the dollar bill.

 

[Don Robertson]

I saw a couple horns in a antique shop the other day myself, looked like the $15 crazy crow mass produced ones, Figured I tell the propriater that they were not woth the $75 dollar price tag she had on them and why. Ya may have thought I was speaking jibberish to her, she just kept telling me that they were very old and worth every penny if not more. I finally gave up n went home, several days later I stopped back in with an advertisment showing the exact horns for the cheaper price. Didn't phase her one iota, they were old n she was sticking to that story no matter what, didn't seem worth it to argue with her since she wasn't gonna hear me anyway. The horns were dirty ,Yes, but OLd ,NO!! ah well ya can't argue with someone who ignors the facts for the dollar bill.

*sigh* I've had a similar conversation with a local antique dealer over a set of "very old and rare" bagpipes, that were actualy a junk Pakistani made set. It didn't matter to the dealer, he was promised they were "very old". Just walk away.

 

[pichou]

All you need to be a antique dealer is a pile of junk and a rented space in a mall. :cursing:

Walking through a antique mall and reading the tags and prices is better than Saturday Night Live.

I almost got kicked out a few times though...

one was a nice reverse painting on glass of Christ, a nice Central American antique for sure, but the tag said "School of Titian." FYI he was a Venetian Renaissance painter. I laughed so hard!

The other thing that gets me in trouble is spotting fakes made in China. They are everywhere, but when you look in a glass case, and say out loud "That's a FAKE!" the store people don't appreciate it. :nono:

 

[Emet Huntsman]

You have it all wrong -- no wonder they get upset -- running around yelling FAKE!
No, instead with an air of superiority say, simply, "Faux."
If they question you, reply, "That's an antique, faux sure." :rotf:

 

[lakota]

I was at an antique store and this past weekend and they were selling a box of pennies. There were 48 rolls of them in the box. They wanted seventy five bucks for the box. Nothing special about them-seventy five bucks???

 

[44-henry]

I've gotten some good deals in antique stores, sometimes they are high and sometimes they are low, it's really just luck of the draw. One thing is for sure, nobody can be an expert in every possible area.

 

[ameling]

I was at an antique store and this past weekend and they were selling a box of pennies. There were 48 rolls of them in the box. They wanted seventy five bucks for the box. Nothing special about them-seventy five bucks???

They are selling those rolls of pennies for some coin collector to pick through - hoping to find enough collectible pennies in them to make it worth the investment. So it's hard to tell just how good of a deal it was/is. And they probably have some story about how those pennies were originally put up in the rolls back in the early 1900's.

Still a large ... gamble.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Bountyhunter]

It's amazing how the unbathen and unshaved find their way up the Santa Fe Trail. One such outfit has put in an antique store here. Her Antique mall is full of chinese and pakistani garbage which she is adamant is very very old. A ruthless hold out from Woodstock she is.

Once in a while you see something in an antique store that is a good buy, but my experience is that you have to get into the heartland where the antique stores are operated by residents of the town and not escapees from Kalifornia. I believe it has something to do with basic ethics, and perhaps having some actual knowledge about what it is that makes an antique.

 

[rebel727]

There's a big flea market above Meridian that I've found some good deals in but haven't been in a long time. I've turned away from stuff that I wasn't sure about only to check it out when I got home and had to kick my butt. Some of it's way, way overpriced tho. Just depends on the seller. Some of them have no clue what they have and will sell good stuff cheap. Others think just because something has a few years on it it's worth a small fortune.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Yes,exactly what I see at this local junk store. This old hippie came in here professing to be and expert. Wait a minit, she grew up in New Jersey, she didnt live with any antiques, she bonged at Woodstock, where is this expertise coming from?

Ok, so you go in her dirty little hole down there and it is chock full of that made in India and Pakistan junk. She had an "old" pie cupboard, the kind that sets on my mothers porch. It has cupboards up above where the baking goods and pans go, a bin that holds 50# of flour with a sifter on the bottom....some of you have seen them. They had a SMOOTHE to the point of SLICK tin counter surface for rolling out the pie crusts and making breads.

Well this thing caught my eye. It was painted some God-awful pale green, and the working counter was just beat to smithereens. I said, what is this? She said it is a primitive kitchen counter. I said why is it so beat up? She said it is DISTRESSED. I said inside the drawer it says made in Pakistan, she never batted an eye about that it was a PRIMITIVE original. HELLO???

She had no clue what it was, she bought it in a new age store in Albuquerque. I could see trying to make pastry on that beat up counter. I'm tellin ya, my mom or grandmother woulda took your scalp if you so much as scratched her pastry counter. Those were kept slick and clean and you sat nothing on them that would scratch them and make the dough stick. Well so much for that, most of the junk stores in this area are the same, run by old hippies out of Taos and surrounding hills. Another day another dollar.

 

[AaronT]

How dare you suggest she is not an expert! She has watched every episode of Antiques Roadshow!!! :grin:

I have encountered some of this in my area and I have concluded that at least some of these dealers know exactly what they are selling as "antiques". You see someone buy an item and a week later an identical one just happens to pop up somewhere else in the shop. :hmm:

 

[pichou]

:cursing: Dealers :cursing: know more about turning a fast buck than they do about antiques. Add to that the "Road Show" mania, that makes any old piece of junk worth thousands cause it looks kinda sorta like something on TV. :shake:

Another thing that gets me is the misuse of the term primitive. A rusty old piece of cr@p that was made in a factory is NOT primitive. A beautiful and like new hand made item, made on the farm IS primitive. Not all primitive is junk, and not all junk is primitive! :cursing: