Patsy Cline’s Salt and Peppers

Patsy Cline collected salt and pepper shakers. She picked them up in her travels and had quite the collection. Who would’ve thought?

I always find it interesting to know what people collect when they travel. I have a friend who brings home rocks and gems and another who buys a charm for her bracelet. For me, it’s Christmas ornaments for the travel tree.

I wonder why Patsy chose salt and peppers. Although, they are cute and packable so it does make sense. In fact, I have more than a few sets of my own including some vintage pieces that I noticed Patsy also owned!

If you’re interested, you can see the salt and peppers pictured above at her childhood home in Winchester, Virginia. The Patsy Cline Museum in Nashville also has an extensive collection on display with her dining room furniture.

The Nashville Museum has a somewhat small but extraordinary collection that is worth every penny of admission. Winchester is one of my favorite destinations of all time for its celebration of Patsy, Civil War history and small town charm. The tour of her home, was one of the most informative and best home museum tours I have been on.

If you’re interested in any of this, just hit the search bar and look for Winchester, Nashville or Patsy Cline to see what else I did while visiting these towns.

There Was A Time

There was a time you could pick up a cool old coffee can for under $10. I have a few in my collection of random stuff – two hold flowers on the back porch and there are two or three in my kitchen too. All are missing the lids so they came for the bargain basement price of about five bucks.

I’ve seen many coffee cans lately but they’re going for upwards $20 and sometimes $30-$40 regardless of condition. These were over $50.

The market drives the prices but it’s shocking how quickly the tide turns and the prices rise.

Another item that has become almost too expensive to collect is records. In one of these bins, I found a Nat King Cole album that I purchase a couple of years ago for $2. Here it was $18.

The average album price in this antique mall was about $13 but many reissues of albums go for about $16. Since all the cool kids are going vintage I’m guessing prices will only continue to increase.

What do you collect that has seen a rise in prices?

Spinning Out Of Control

My record buying has officially spun out of control.

I’ve collected off and on over the years, buying and listening to them in spurts. I might go a year without buying a single record. Right now, I can’t seem to make it a week without dragging home at least one or two. Ok. That’s a lie. More like a dozen a week. Sigh.

There’s a great little record store called Apollo over in Chillicothe and a host of nice antique malls in the area that have records. My hope to buckle down on spending this month failed miserably, mainly because of records.

My music tastes are all over the place so that hasn’t really helped to keep a handle on things either. This week’s haul included everything from classic Conway Twitty to the Flying Burrito Brothers to Paul Revere and the Raiders to eighties Ronnie Milsap.

The best part of collecting records is that you can find them in some of the oddest places for a dollar and up. The bad news is that it’s easy for them to pile up really quickly.

My goal this week is to not spend any money on records. Think I can do it?

Yeah…. I don’t either.

 

Bottle Cap Art

I have a number of weird collections. Some are on purpose, others just happen. One that just happened is my jar full of bottle caps. Mind you, I don’t drink much pop but when I do it’s almost always some kind of craft drink from a bottle. My favorite stop in Cincinnati’s Jungle Jim’s store is the craft pop aisle to mix and match a few bottles with interesting names, flavors or labels. I used to date a guy who gave me interesting beer caps too. It’s not a big collection but I sure do like the attention to detail that companies put into their product packaging. Miniature works of art to cap off my drink!

Incidentally, I like the bottles and their labels too – i just don’t save those!