I just spent 5 days and 800 miles in the car with both my wife and my parents… and we survived. Along the way we hit every antique store we could find and came up miserably thin in great finds. The future of antique stores is grim, I am afraid. It seems that the internet has finally put a wooden stake in the antiques market, with anything great either super highly priced or not in stores at all. They all seemed to have nothing but the leftovers and LOTS of glass and dishware. Even great furniture was rare to find. I did come away with these 3 gems:

An Amazing Portland Raceway Motorcycle Races Poster from the 1950’s. I paid alot, but I was so happy that the guy dragged it out of the basement, and his personal collection, and then was willing to part with it after owning it for more than 30 years.

A fantastic 1940’s Pontiac Service back-patch for a servicemen’s jacket. It is 13 inches in diameter and all loop-stitched. I will have to find the perfect vintage jacket for this one.

An 18″ Heineken Bar Back in chalkware.

Finding these gems broke the depressing cloud we had hanging over our heads from striking out so many times. There were still some inspiring objects out there, it just seems I am going to have to find a way to make bucketloads of money to afford the good stuff. And to think that I can’t sell great items in Casarama at half the price…