this old thing

Recent yard/estate sale acquisitions of the clothing variety:

Top: Vintage Patagonia Gore-Tex raincoat, with a Patagonia decal where the front patch usually is.

David Hicks wallet, of the softest kid glove leather ever, with a tiny leather address book. Never used, from Japan in the 70's.

Vintage New York Times t-shirt- almost as soft as the wallet- promoting their classifieds section.

1940's Hermes silk scarf featuring a pack of antsy hunting hounds chomping at the bits.

The ubiquitous L.L.Bean hunting boots, this time with leather kilties- that fringed tongue, and a 1976 Maine Road Atlas which has little dots showing every farm in the state. Kind of fun if you're out in the country and you want to show the kids some cows and goats. Also good if you go out and forget the GPS.


related: Mainer and founder of Patagonia Yvon Chouinard on finding his own way and building a successful and responsible business here, from a talk he gave at University of California Santa Barbara in 2005. It's an hour long, and well worth watching.

Fear and L.L.oathing

Vintage 70's L.L. Bean crazy-patchwork "Rainbow Lake" jacket, of the Hunter S. Thompson school of Gonzo jacketry, made up of every scrap of corduroy and twill in Freeport. I believe Raoul Duke's (as played by Johnny Depp, above) was actually an Abercrombie & Fitch, but the Bean version was a little crazier, and came with a belt/gonzo headband. From a yard sale last spring, it didn't fit either one of us but it was obviously too cool to pass up. But after languishing in a closet (with other "things-that-hopefully-might-fit-when-I'm-a-wizened-95-year-old") it was time to think we'll probably find another one by then and let this one go-along with my future William Holden looks, below.

So we put them all on ebay last month for some crazy bidding as the patchwork jacket went for $610 and the old Abercrombie and Bean safari jackets went for 200 each.

Rainbow Lake old friend: I will see your amazing technicolor dreampatches another time, another place, and in a bigger size. 'Til we meet again!

Everything's Gone Green

Recent green things from yard sales, a couple landscapes, and a car.

From top:

24"x36" framed silkscreen by Tony Johnson, signed on the back "To Mom, thanks for everything. Tony"

The Who flyer at a garage sale

L.L. Bean Swiss Army knife

Frog pond and old hippie houses in front of Linda's parents' house, Long Island, Maine

Greenpeace New England cap from 1982

Vintage Vera towels

Prehistoric vegetation looking like a museum diorama behind Linda's parents' house

1970 Porsche 911S, from Fantasy Junction

Another Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrella, $3!, in British Racing Green.

(related)

The weekend's bags

Unneeded, as usual, but...

From 3 different yard sales: above, an Invicta-striped Regent Belt Co. bag, an old Swiss leather and canvas creel, and yet another old L.L. Bean duffle, this time with the old cursive label and a nice patina to the webbing (that was how I tried to explain the purchase to Linda). Top, a vintage Jansport internal frame pack with its lower outside rack sawn off. This makes it a Kanken-like super sturdy backpack. Below that is a pair of vintage Bean hunting boots in children's size, which they don't make anymore, and never too soon to shop for back-to-school 2016.

Total for everything was 7 dollars, which is hard to resist.

Flea & Easy

Miscellaneous things we found at yard sales, mostly last summer. 

Nothing was over a couple dollars.

Navy Bean

Speaking of Mainers in World War II, this is a US Navy Officer's Briefcase, made by L.L. Bean for officers who were being trained as navigators to hold their maps, charts, instructions, cotton twine, hemp, etc... Designed by Warnie Bean, L.L.'s son. From his original shop drawings, the sides were "to be printed by the Freeport Press, 1/4" cuts to be made by S. Barker, and notches & marks (lining piece) by us". Zipper by Talon. May 26, 1943.

The things they carried

Never able to pass up an interesting bag at a yard sale, we've accumulated kind of a lot, especially of the canvas/tote variety. Most are kept in the car (ostensibly) to make grocery shopping more fun, and to convince Linda that they're actually useful and we should probably keep buying them, unlike the giant leather gladstone bags she's put the kibosh on.

1. An old heavy canvas workhorse, stencilled "Dennet's Wood-Yard", used for hauling coal way back when, with convenient handles on the bottom for dumping everything out. Soon to be filled with wooden blocks.

2. L.L. Bean zippered duffles. At one time we had about 14 of these, my reasoning being that at some conceivable point years from now, it would be fun to send our conceivable son off on a hypothetical Boy Scout trip and outfit the whole Troop with old Bean duffles, but realistically when that day comes I'm sure he'd rather have a Transformers backpack, or whatever's popular, or at least a normal hands-free backpack (which we also have...), or, ideally, take one of these and and sew Lego: The Movie patches all over it.

3. An old Liddesdale (Scotland) Creel. This was at a stoop sale, and the woman who had it said "Oh I used to use that all the time back when everybody had those!" I didn't ask, but I assumed it was the late 70's Stephanie Powers/William Holden-early Banana Republic-Safari time.

4. Museum of Modern Art bag. Probably from the same time period as above. The leather band goes all the way around, and the stitching has come loose, so it acts interestingly like a canvas totebag in a leather sling.

5. The big bag is an old LL Bean boat-and-tote, watertight for filling with ice or bailing out your sinking ship. This one is from the 60's and stiffened in this shape from years of salt water interaction. In front of it is a neat compartmentalized tote, specifically for going out in risky weather. Like our unpictured collection of "Le Bag"s and old Channel 13 (Herb Lubalin) totes, we're fans of type on bags, and "raincoat" in Hot Dog font was too funny. Lastly a well-worn denim and leather bag made in 1960's Massachusetts.

6. Tracey Emin's "This Way Mice" (there's a cat on the other side) tote bag from the 2007 Venice Biennial, thoughtfully brought back by our friend Friederike.

Finally, a nice article by Zachary Sachs about Dmitri Siegel's enlightening article on Design Observer about the proliferation of canvas tote bags. Here.