Name: Mum
Motto: “Be careful”
Strength: Her friends
Weakness: Painting dragons on walls
Name: Sue
Motto: “Be kind”
Strength: “I’m a worker bee!”
Weakness: Insecurity
Name: Adam
Motto: “If not now, then when?”
Strength: Endless curiosity
Weakness: Low HP
These two days I went to two large antique shops, each with many dealers. When I was a snipe I thought antique shops were exclusively the domain of the ancient, but these days I find them interesting and even occasionally fascinating. These two I visited were particular great, and I saw many astounding things.
It’s a shame I don’t have luggage space/weight since one of these candy dispensers would have made a fine Christmas gift for Bernard. They actually had five of them in the shop, with one of them weirdly playing drums. These were a very unusual find by the way, since M&Ms aren’t exactly a beloved Australian brand.
One dealer had a large collection of 70+ year old bottles of fizzy drink that still had the drink in them. Many of these (which were very expensive) has visible growths in the bottoms, which were frankly disturbing. This same guy had a bunch of old beer cans for sale and I noticed some of them were also sealed.
Souvenir spoons used to be a thing, but you don’t see them for sale much (at all?) these days. I reckon most collectors have… ‘moved on’, and now the spoons are mostly scrap metal. One store had this large box full of them for a mere $1 apiece. Should I have bought one?
The View Master stuff was all very expensive, but some of the sets were still sealed. Alas, no genre stuff in this lot.
Both stores were full of royal stuff. You could fill a kitchen cupboard with all the plates and glasses and mugs but this enormous stein (?) stood out. It’s a beautiful item as you can no doubt see, but it was also scaled for giants and disturbingly close to life-sized.
Is the above an antique? Is it worth $80? Isn’t this just a piece of electronic waste you’d toss away without consideration? All valid questions, but an original iPhone recently sold for $55,000 so maybe this old thing is valuable too? In the same stand that sold this they also had a 1990 Tandy catalogue full of ancient computer tech that I already regret not buying.
The above jigsaw is simultaneously the best and worst item ever made, and from what I can tell was available only at Australian McDonald’s stores in 1998. It’s another item that I clearly should have purchased (for Bernard of course).
One of the dealers in yesterdays shop dealt in buttons, clothing patterns, weird old dolls and lots and lots of ‘Golliwogs’. There was a little sign that these were original ones made in the UK, but no disclaimer of sorts to apologize or justify the display of what are now very offensive items.
Speaking of which…
Yesterdays store had a lot of Nazi items. From weapons, to uniforms, to clothing (like the Hitler youth stuff above) to original documents. They had ‘collectible’ cards of Nazi officers, dinnerware from Nazi trains, and even a Nazi recipe book. It was – to be honest – a confronting site. I’ve never seen anywhere near this amount of stuff in a museum.
It was accompanied with a few notices that it was of historical interest, and disclaimers that the trade of such items helped keep the horrors of the nazis in the public conscience (which is a spurious claim at best). But I believe profiting from the darkest era of human history is repugnant and think that sale of such items (if it must happen at all) should probably be relegated to a less public forum.
Indeed, as I was in the second shop today I overheard the owners talking about how the Nazi items we saw yesterday will (apparently) soon have to be removed due to new laws. If so, I believe that is appropriate.
I don’t want to end this on such a dark note, so here’s a 1930’s tea set:
I don’t know why, but everything was tiny! You’d have trouble even squeezing an egg into the cups. Was this for children? It’s a shame I couldn’t get this and the queen stein in the same picture to contrast how under/oversized each was.
Oh and yes I did buy some items, but almost exclusively stamps and postcards, which means you may end up receiving examples in the mail 🙂
As you know, Australia is a land of ancient mystery and dark secrets. Often on my trips to this Great Southern Land I try to uncover some of these, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found yesterday.
I speak of an entire range of officially licensed and absolutely not bootleg LEGO kits based on popular brands. I was slack-jawed as I stumbled upon these; why aren’t these in the LEGO store in my local mall?
I speak of such things as Deformation Armor:
And Dinosaur Crossing:
And New Hero:
And even Marvelous Aengans:
Note that a couple of them are from a company called ‘666’, which must be some sort of southern-hemispherean LEGO shell company managed by Satan.
Anyway I was trying to decide which one to buy when I found this hidden at the back of the shelf:
Holy Moses it’s Ultraman! I purchased it faster than you can down a small frozen coke and scurried out of the store. This, I knew, was a find of the century!
Obviously this is an officially licensed and not at all bootleg LEGO Ultraman kit, and specifically one of four available:
But what’s the subtitle under the ultra logo?
Ah yes, it’s obviously based on the obviously nonexistent ‘Star Body Sucking’ series. This may explain why the included minifigure is a weird hybrid with the head and chestplate of Ultraman Taro, the body design of no existing ultra, and who wields the Sparklence from Ultraman Tiga!
But this is a trifling distraction since I absolutely love this little bugger! Surely he’s now risen to the very top of my collection of officially licensed and absolutely not bootleg LEGO minifigures 🙂
Oh and there was a ‘spaceship’ in the kit as well but it was absolute trash so I binned it immediately.
I walked the full Fernleigh Track today. I’d wanted to do this for years, since I’d only done it once before (in 2012), but the logistics of getting home were always an obstacle. Thankfully, Sue came to the rescue!
She picked me up on her way to work and dropped me off at the Belmont end of the track. My plan was to walk the entire track home with a break at Charlestown for some lunch.
I started the track at 7:21 am. The first mile or so is heavily shaded by trees, which kept the temperature low. I was wearing shorts and it was quite chilly (8C/48F) but thankfully my rugged Australian constitution kept me going.
For the first third of the walk the birdsong was raucous and nonstop. There were no other walkers and a few cyclists so perhaps they were squawking at me? I loved it, especially the bellbirds, and occasionally found a sunny spot to pause and enjoy the sounds.
I was curious as to how long the walk would take so kept careful track of time (and steps) as I walked. The Belmont to Whitebridge leg is about two thirds of the track, and took me almost exactly two hours (and ~13000 steps). I wasn’t even tired yet, and it was time to divert and head to Charlestown Square for lunch.
This was no small side-trip either, since the walk to the mall from Whitebridge (and back) added 2.5 hours (and ~14000 steps) to the expedition! I ate some maccas, bought some magic cards and then had a nostalgic walk past old places we’d lived before rejoining the track in the early afternoon.
By this time the sun was high in the sky and I was in shirtsleeves, and maybe even getting a little sunburned? I’d done the Whitebridge-Adamstown leg many times and freshly refueled with frozen coke I knocked it out today in only one hour (and ~7000 steps). Once again I completed the entire track in one go, and I’m probably good for another decade or so! In total the track (alone) had taken me almost exactly three hours and a tad over 20,000 steps.
Of course I still had to walk back to mums, and it was this final leg of the trip – only a half hour or so after many hours of walking – where I started to feel the burn. But (of course) I made it, and when I finally reached mums I had been walking for 7.5 hours and 40,010 steps. My legs were spaghetti, but it had been a good day.
But I bet I’ll be feeling it tomorrow!
Today I visited the Australian Reptile Park with Sue, Yvette (a friend from childhood), Fang (Sue’s coworker), Marina and Tan (two Japanese exchange students, one of which is staying with Yvette).
We saw many things, including snake milking, funnel web spiders, lots of lizards, a dark-furred dog dingo, koalas, a platypus, frogs, birds, bats and even a Komodo dragon!
The highlight of the park is of course their massive saltwater crocodile ‘Elvis’, who is currently 4.75 m long and has a jaw pressure of 5000 psi! He was a truly massive beast, and the guy that fed him must have nerves of steel:
For me the highlight was – as always – the kangaroos! I read that wild kangaroo attacks increased during Covid but the beasts they had at the park were having none of that and happily let me pat their fuzzy heads. As I knew they would, they saw in me a kindred spirit.
The two Japanese girls had a great time. They’re in Australia learning English and I quizzed them a lot about both Japan and their experience here (short version: they both love Australia). The park was a great place to take them since it’s all about Australian animals nearly all of which they’d never seen in-person.
It was a fun day, but also tiring since I’m still a little jet-lagged. But I got to pat some kangaroos and that memory will last me a good long while 🙂
I’m in Newcastle with mum now by the way. I’ve already eaten way too much candy as well. It’s time to start walking it off…