The Thrifting Anthropologist

  Balanced Rock Porcelain Slipper   I have decided the world of vintage is more like a Universe of Vintage with untold galaxies of things people love. There is so much to be curious about Out There, I feel like an explorer of the cosmos every time I pick something up and wonder about why and how it came to be. I am always to drawn to strange juxtapositions in old things, like a porcelain shoe with a picture of Balanced Rock printed on it or a tiny fragile tea cup that has a scene of Niagara falls on it—and ladies carrying parasols.  Why porcelain? Who collected these things and when? Niagara Falls Tea Cup Well…souvenir pottery has a long and storied history it turns out.  Before place-specific souvenir ware became the next hot thing, Josiah  Wedgwood  was producing dishes with views on them; places people would never most likely visit but that suited the romantic nature of the times. Dashing horses and carriages, soporific m...

I am a self-confessed aficionado of vintage kitchen implements. I have found in case after case that newer and snazzier is not always better. The best example I know of to demonstrate this point is kitchen graters. The kind we use to grate cheese, cabbage, carrots for carrot salad and occasionally knuckles.   Early American Knuckle Grater I have, in my more than 50 years in a kitchen, tried every type of grater I can get my scraped knuckles on. I started young standing on a chair to stir a pot at the stove and never looked back. I have used box graters, round graters, flat graters and grater blades that fit on my Cuisinart.   I have sexy Microplanes with attachments. A Microplane just for garlic My own classic English box grater I’ve thrown out tons of graters with barrels and cranks because they were more annoying than useful. I have found graters for garlic and porcelain graters for ginger; I have tiny graters for nutmeg and citrus zest. You name i...

Eames Chair, Classic Design   By now everyone has heard the phrase, mid-century modern applied to furniture, accessories, clothes, houses, and almost every trinket you can think of but what exactly is it?   The design aesthetic of the middle of the 20 th century, which has been dubbed Mid Century Modern, or MCM, is generally thought to have begun in America with Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs and work in what he called “organic architecture”.  Organic architecture seemed to grow naturally out of the Arts and Crafts movement which stripped down the ponderous and over-decorated Victorian work that preceded it and simply took it to the next level of design.     If you ever get to visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house or even get a good look at some of the wonderful books on his work, you will begin to understand his deep belief that all elements of a building from the windows and floors and walls to the individual pieces of furniture intended ...

  The Ultimate Mid-century Pottery, a Bitossi Cat from Italy   By now everyone has heard the phrase, mid-century modern applied to furniture, accessories, clothes, houses, and almost every trinket you can think of but what exactly is it?   The design aesthetic of the middle of the 20 th century, which has been dubbed Mid Century Modern, or MCM, is generally thought to have begun in America with Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs and work in what he called “organic architecture”.    Organic architecture seemed to grow naturally out of the Arts and Crafts movement which stripped down the ponderous and over-decorated Victorian work that preceded it and simply took it to the next level of design.         Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House   If you ever get to visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house or even get a good look at some of the wonderful books on his work, you will begin to understand his deep belief that all...