I have a love for all things vintage, retro and antique. I spend my weekends trawling through car boot sales, table top sales and junk shops. I have a passion for old books, maps and anything musical.

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Polaroid Land Camera 1000 and Polatronic 1 flash

A great auction find - a box of polaroid cameras!

This is a true retro icon and goes on my wall of best buys. The clever - if at first confusing - bit is the battery. As it uses the SX-70 film cartridges, it gets it's power from them, thus no need to buy batteries!

Wednesday 20 April 2011

LNER Uniform buttons

LNER Uniform Buttons

These brass buttons turned up in an old button jar I found... A nice example of "railwayana".


Monday 4 April 2011

KAN-U-GO

 Vintage KAN-U-GO The Crossword Card Game by Jarvis Porter Ltd.

"For two to seven players"

"Also KAN-U-GO-ALONE (crossword patience)"

This is a really nice condition edition of this popular vintage card game. This is a great little charity shop find. I now have two of these sets... Does this make it a collection? 

Thursday 17 March 2011

Philips "Photoflux"

Just quite like them... they are rather aesthetically pleasing I have to say!


Wednesday 16 March 2011

Anti Gas Eye-shield

This is an original anti gas eye-shield. The design is primitive but in the times of WW2 cost was everything and this was the cheapest and most cost effective protection. This eye-shield was given to me by a family friend just a couple of weeks ago. There's some quite interesting instructions on the back of what to do in case of emergency. During the war the Medical Research Council stated;

"no special visor in any material was required other
than the present anti-gas eye-shield."

The opposing opinion was that a pair of goggles, invented by Sir Richard Cruise, was a more suitable option. However this was never adopted by the war office claiming that they were more likely to damage the eyes in the off chance that the goggles shattered.

Anyway here is the pictures;




Tuesday 15 March 2011

Field Service Post Card

This is  bit of a cheat... I never bought this but I did find it hidden in a family post card album. This is a great of example of secrecy in the first world war. Nothing could be written on the card apart from selecting what is written for you. This dates back to times when contact was difficult... could you go to war and not be able to write home? I know I couldn't!


Monday 14 March 2011

Smith Premier Chum Portable Typewriter...

Typewriters... I just can't resist them! I now have three typewriters, this been one of my favourites. For those of you who don't know anything about typewriters, here's a little lesson...

The Smith Premier Typewriter Company was founded in 1896 by the Smith brothers. The important thing to know about Smith Premier is that they were the first typewriter to have uppercase and lowercase. They can be found in plenty however the 'chum' portable is a bit rarer! The chum portable was a British variation of the Remington Portable no. 3 made between 1929 and 1932.
I suppose I bought it because it has a slightly different name!

Thanks for reading! I will be posting my other typewriters in the coming weeks...