Category: Blog

Ten Things We Didn’t Buy From The Antique Warehouse (And A Few Things We Did)

  • July 7, 2026

On the way back home from Rochester this past weekend we stopped at what claims to be the biggest antique warehouse in the state. With over 1000 vendors I’m inclined to believe them, and even though we only had a ‘quick focused look’ through the vast complex we still were there over two hours.

Here’s ten items we didn’t buy:

I’d never heard of this intriguing nearly 50-year-old boardgame and I’ll admit I was tempted. But I found a few reviews online that say it has poorly written rules and gameplay is boring so I left it in the case. Had it been less expensive I probably would have got it for the art alone.

$60 for a 37-year-old yo-yo? There’s surely a Freddy Kreuger fan out there for which this item is a grail, but for me it’s just something fun to see.

This is a resin frieze of John and Robert Kennedy created in 1968 by an artist named Joseph Zutz. These were originally sold unpainted – a dull grey colour – but this one has obviously been coloured. There were a lot of JFK items in the warehouse; I knew he was a popular president but I thought idolatry of politicians was a recent phenomenon.

This reminds me a lot of a similar Darth Maul bust I own, the exception of course being that this Ferengi (from Star Trek) is absolutely hideous. I probably should have bought this one and flipped it to Bernard for a tidy profit.

A 56-year-old Mountain Dew bottle?!? This is my favourite drink, and of all the things I’m showing here this is the only one I regret not buying. If you look closely at this photo you can also see a vast selection of View-Master slides on the next shelf down.

This would be a cool find for the deep-pocketed Battlestar Galactica fan that has everything. There wouldn’t be too many copies of this over 40-year-old game still existing, and of those I imagine a minuscule amount have unpunched game pieces. Like many of these formulaic licensed games from the 1980s, I bet the gameplay is dull.

I don’t have much to say about this one, except that I love it still exists in such good condition, and that the basic design of it reminds me of a lunchbox I owned around the same time (1977). What was mine? I no longer remember…

From the same year we have this doll. In remarkable condition considering it’s a half-century old and virtually encourages you to destroy the box to free the ‘photo on back’! This item reminded me of a John Travolta postcard book I purchased – also at an antique shop – about a decade ago and have yet to use.

Bernard’s a big fan of both Elvis and M&M’s but I didn’t buy him these because he probably already has them in his collection. Possibly that was a poor choice since if he didn’t I could have flipped them to him for a king’s ransom.

These taxidermy dioramas are called ‘whimsies’. A whole case was full of these, with the animals all posed anthropomorphically or interacting with props. The toad is creepy with his fake eyes, but a stingray (!) was even creepier!

So if we left all these fine things in cases (and this is just a portion of the interesting items we spotted) then what did we buy? Here’s the list:

I pulled these comics from dollar boxes where almost every comic seemed to be a different series. I told the cashier there were 25 but she counted 23 so I got them for only $0.92 each. I’ll read all these and then pass them on to students.

This is about fifty postcards, most of which I’ll use for Postcrossing. They averaged about $0.50 each which is a good price for unused vintage cards, and I’ll never grow tired of buying such things. The pile includes ten identical copies of the same card, which I will send to Sue long after she’s forgotten about this blog post 🙂

Printed glasses from the 1980s are somewhat common in antique shops these days, but there was a remarkable abundance of them at this particular warehouse. This was the only video game related one I saw, and it’s a glass with an intriguing origin. From what I can determine, this was made by Bally in 1982 for sale in stores. However they also made very slightly different versions for game arcades, cinemas and even for the burger chain Arby’s. It seems this was a very common glass in its day!

And lastly how could I resist this set of kid’s party supplies from 1978? Obviously inspired by Star Wars, these paper plates, cups and napkins are unused, still sealed and even have original price tags ($0.25 and $0.50) on them.

Antique stores continue to get better and better as we age and the stuff from our youth is now ‘antique’. I’ve already located another big warehouse about an hours drive away that I’ll probably check out later this summer!

Fireworks 2026

  • July 6, 2026

Saturday was our annual BBQ and fireworks celebration. It was raining a bit while we were cooking, but not enough to cancel our grilling. I regret not getting a photo of me squatting under an umbrella eating a steak kebab!

That’s a photo of an intricate wooden model of a galleon Kristin assembled while I was gallivanting around the world…

And there it is burning on the fire. If you’re shocked by this, know that it’s perfectly fine to find enjoyment in making something without necessarily keeping it.

The rain cleared up before it got dark, which meant there was no obstacle to lighting fireworks. Not that it would have stopped me 🙂

That’s my ‘By the Power of Grayskull‘ moment, of course referring to the best film of 2026 my lifetime, Masters Of The Universe. I held this firework a bit too high and rained a few sparks directly down onto myself, which was exciting.

We had much fewer sparklers this year, but the ones we had seemed longer, louder and more voluminous. Most of our fireworks were the kind that shoots into the air and makes pretty explosions, which are difficult to photograph. They were loud and thrilling and I enjoyed every one.

The neighborhood echoed with loud booms since apparently Rochester is full of rogues who turn a blind eye to the illegality of certain backyard fireworks. When we drove to the hotel afterwards thick clouds of smoke filled the suburb. I had read that firework sales were high this year – probably because of the 250th anniversary – and the noise and smoke seemed to support this.

Happy July 4th 🙂

Fireworks Shopping

  • June 28, 2026

We went fireworks shopping yesterday, a now-annual tradition to secure supplies for next weekends pyromania.

As usual the selection at the store we go to – about two hours drive east to New Hampshire – was enticing, with the majority being large and expensive ‘cakes’ where a single fuse results in several spectacular minutes of explosions and sparks.

We don’t buy these of course, since they’re not permitted where we live. But I always daydream of setting them off!

The ‘Ghost Dragon’ is a large box big enough to hold a watermelon, fires only 9 shots over 30 seconds, and costs $140! Thats a lot of money for a single fuse, but at least people living miles away will know you’ve lit it 🙂

If you’d rather deafen only those living in your street, I imagine 8000 tiny firecrackers would do the job. This massive roll is heavy and expensive, but you’d feel it in your bones if you could light it and stand only a dozen feet away!

If we lived somewhere remote I’d invest in a mortal launcher and some artillery shells like this set. These are essentially commercial fireworks, just like you see out on by a town or city. I find it amazing that in many states here you can just buy these and launch them in your backyard! (Although we don’t buy these, many in our state do and we expect to see a few visible from KLS’s parents yard next weekend.)

The above is most of what we bought. In total it cost $250.71, and as a bonus they gave us three free fireworks and offered us some artillery shells (which we declined).

Since the purchase and use of fireworks is ancient history for the Antipodean readers, I’ll go through the above in a little more detail…

These little guys are what I light before it gets dark because I’m too impatient to wait! A few tiny crackers, some spinners, flashers etc. are a fun intro to the true show. These are inexpensive and fun.

Here’s the sparklers, which never get old. The two on the top are hand-held, and the others are the different types (including the crackling ones). We also bought some of the meter-long ones. Sparklers are the only ‘firework’ still sold where we live, although they’re still not easy to find in stores.

To get to NH we have to drive through Vermont, where fireworks aren’t legal for sale either. However ‘smoke fireworks’ are available there, although these two were bought at the same store we got everything else. These simply emit thick smoke, often coloured. I was tempted to buy one of the ‘five minute smoke’ ones but recalled that when we lit one years ago the amount of smoke was gargantuan and we almost went insane trying to put it out after a minute or so 🙂

Ground spinners are a favourite of ours. You light them, they spin around quickly, and then the better ones fly up into the air. These can go very high, and sometimes leave trails of sparks as they rise. The ‘Gyro Sonic’ is something we’d not got before, and the description is a little mysterious. I can’t wait to see what it does!

These are the only traditional ‘fountains’ we bought this year. Our shows used to be dominated by these back when fireworks were briefly sold here, since ‘launchers’ were not permitted. These are pretty devices that shoot out fountains of sparks, often accompanied by crackling noises and tiny little bursts. The ‘No. 8 Cone’ on the left cost $8 and only lasts 15 seconds but claims to shoot sparks 3 meters into the air!

This sword is a handheld fountain, shooting sparks out from the tip. A few years back these were sculptured as medieval blades, but now they’re always lightsabers. One of the ones at the shop even had a light up battery powered blade!

This year is the 250th anniversary celebration of the United States, so of course we couldn’t pass up this launcher that shoots 250 balls! I don’t think this will be noisy, just lots (and lots!) of roman-candle like projectiles shooting up over a half minute or so.

Here’s some more roman candles, and we got this pack since they all claim to be different. As a child we used to shoot these at each other using garbage can lids as shields, but we were immortal in those days and never cared about repercussions.

Incidentally it can be difficult to determine actually what a lot of these fireworks do. Something that says ‘emits showers of sparks‘ is just a fountain, but if something says ‘shoots flaming balls‘ then it fires a projectile upwards. If it includes the word ‘reports‘, then that means an explosion accompanied by a loud bang. We try to avoid the more powerful and noisy examples, but over the years one or two have snuck through our vetting process.

These guys all ‘shoot flaming balls with reports’, but they’re all small and short and I doubt the ‘report’ will be very loud compared to some of the examples shown at the top that we didn’t buy.

Here’s some more we got. Some of these are very heavy since they’re packed with clay to weigh them down. A few of these have QR codes on them so you can watch a YouTube video to get an idea what they do, which helps, but even then it’s not uncommon for the link to be dead or even direct to a different product!

We’ve got no idea what the above one does, but I’m sure it’s obvious why we purchased it. Based on the aisle in which it was sold I expect it’s a noisy one, but you can see it doesn’t even include the word ‘report’. I guess we’ll find out on Saturday 🙂

I expect all this will take a couple of hours to set off, and as usual I’ll try to take photos and capture some video. If you could light one of these in your backyard, which one would it be?

  • Posted in Blog
  • Robert