Why I Oughta...

Just last week, I posted the most recent Marshall Field's Walnut Room Christmas mug that I came across at an antique mall up in Wisconsin .  That made it five in the collection here on the blog. Here's the list of posts on the topic here on "Why I Oughta...": 1980 -  Tree with Bear tall glass . 1981 -  Contortionist Santas glass mug . 1983 -  Uncle Mistletoe tall glass . 1986 -  Greetings from Mistletoe Bear Red outline 2000 -  Mr. and Mrs. Santabear Marriage glass mug with multiple colors . But, you'll note that sometime between 1983 and 1986, Marshall Field's moved from using Uncle Mistletoe to someone called Mistletoe Bear.  And then by 2000, the bear had gotten married and his name changed to Santabear. That set me down on an eBay rabbit hole to see if I could piece together the full list of mugs.  Here's the fruits of that effort:  The Definitive Guide to Marshall Field's Christmas Mugs.  I have been able to document every year starti

I picked up this "Back the Beagle" glass at Goodwill in Elmhurst recently when I was dropping off a whole bunch of old Halloween decorations.  I figured...while I was there....why not take a quick stroll through the store to see if there were any treasures.  This one seemed like a natural addition to our vintage glass collection.  It is the exact same shape/style as the Chipettes one that I posted about last fall . The thing that jumped out at me was that we had a "Character X for President' glass in the collection with this "Pooh for President" glass from Sears . The front features Snoopy and the slogan "Back the Beagle".  The back, seen below, has a 1958 copyright, which isn't when this glass was produced.  Can't be. I went digging ebay and the web to find out more about the glass and it turns out, there was a series of four of these glasses - all around the "Vote Snoopy" campaign.  Here's a screenshot from a li

A few weeks back, I stopped at an Estate Sale in south Elmhurst and came across a house that was basically frozen in the 60's and 70's.  They had a lot of interesting furnishings and built-ins, but nothing seemed like a fit for us until I wandered into an upstairs bedroom and saw this lamp.  It is a tall, floorstanding lamp that has a wood (teak, maybe?) base that is made up of three 'prongs' with a bronze/gold rod running up the middle.  The shade, as you can see, has a butterfly scene on it, but it is totally replaceable and appeared to be a standard-size shade that you could easily buy today.  I really liked the base and how the legs give that Mid-Century/Danish/rocket-age look to it.  I also love how the teak blows through the top of the shade. This was a deal, I think based on this one listing I found that shows a pair of companion table lamps that were listed for $625 for the pair.  They'd be a great grouping put together, right? Here's a screensho

Over on eBay this weekend, I came across this beauty of a lamp .  It is listed at $85 and has no shade, so it isn't a steal, right? But it *is* awesome.  But right now, it isn't for me.  ( remember that whole Joe Rhode-thing about that says: " It is enough to enjoy the existence of things without possessing all of them" ???) Looking up the helmets in the Helmet Project site , it seems that this one with the blue facemask, the arched "Illini" that is outlined in blue is from a very specific few years:  1977 to 1979. As a child of the late 70's, I kinda love that.  We don't have a house yet, let alone a place for this lamp, but I bet it'd look pretty awesome in a rumpus room, right?  At $85, it might not go fast, right?  All it takes is one nutball like me to buy it, though!

Back in 2011, I posted here on the blog about how the University of Illinois Athletic Department was rolling out a limited number (just 77 of them.  Get it?  Grange was #77??) mini replica statues of the famous (and massive) Red Grange statue that sits on the west side of Memorial Stadium . But they were $4800.  Wowsa.  Obviously, I passed. Fast forward to this fall and the Athletic Department announced that for Homecoming they were going to give away smaller replica statues to the first 5000 fans who entered Memorial Stadium for the game against the Minnesota Gophers.   We weren't heading to Homecoming, so I figured I would have to hop on Ebay to find one of these to sit on my desk.  Welp, the first few weeks after the giveaway, there were a few statues popping up on Ebay, but the auctions were driving the prices pretty high (at least for me!) and I just stayed on the sidelines.   But, I kept 'watching' auctions and I finally found one that looked like