Heritage Square Antique Mall

If you’re ever in Columbus, Ohio and looking for buried treasure, stop by Heritage Square Antique Mall. It’s 53,000 square feet of goodies where you could spend an entire day.

I have never left this place empty handed and often see unusual items you won’t find anywhere. The large black cat pictured below is delightful but vintage Halloween decor is highly collectible and costly. This was almost $300.

Another booth had a number of creepy items like these crazy doll parts.

Plus there’s a ton of furniture and home decor items that aren’t actually old. I found the message on this modern sign ironic. Can you read it?

It says “Collect moments, not things.” Haha. Great advice unless you’re in an antique mall where the point of the exercise is to buy stuff.

Heritage Square Antique Mall is less than fifteen minutes from Franklin Park Conservatory which I told you about the other day. Click here for that story. Visit them at 1865 Channingway Center Dr., Columbus and check them out online at their website.

Care Bears And When Your Toys Are Vintage

It’s a little discouraging when your childhood toys start popping up in vendor malls and labeled as vintage. I believe it was Kenner that made these jointed Care Bears figures when I was a kid in the early eighties. I still have a few. Kenner made some of the best toys of my childhood.

There were ten original bears including Funshine Bear, Good Luck Bear, Bedtime Bear and Grumpy Bear. They live together in Care-a-lot.

Care Bears we’re actually the creation of a Cleveland born illustrator named Elana Kucharik. She drew them to be used for a line of greeting cards for American Greetings. Within a couple of years they were plush toys and eventually went on to take over the toy market with all manner of merchandise. I still remember drooling over all that stuff in the sale bills and Sears Wish Book.

They also developed a line of Care Bear Cousins who were other little animals including a cat, raccoon and elephant. There was a popular Saturday morning cartoon, records and a series of movies. My poor dad even took me to the old Louvee Theater in Wellston to see the first one. It was the best day. For me at least.

As for Ms. Kucharik, she was under the employ of American Greetings when she created these iconic characters so I imagine she didn’t get rich. She’s 79 and still taking orders for custom paintings and sketches.

The Care Bears have made a resurgence in recent years and I was excited to see a collection of the small plush bears in stores at Christmas. Meanwhile, the originals are still floating around in closets and basements and, for Pete’s sake, antique malls too!

Old Cat, Young Cat

This picture comes from an antique mall up around Canton. It was on my phone because I liked the chairs and just snapped a quick picture. Not until last night did I notice the yellow sign hanging above the chairs.

It reads:

Old cat

Young cat

Several stupid cats

Please drive slowly

I laughed hard when I saw it and am sad that I missed out on this awesome sign. Although, experience has taught me that cats are incredibly smart. They’re also often set in their ways, understanding how to get their way by simply wearing you down. That seems pretty smart to me!