Why I Oughta...

I've been chronicling something I've been calling the "Vintage Christmas Motherlode" at the Great Lakes Antique Mall up in Coloma since back in 2013.   I posted about it as recently as this past June when we were getting ready to say 'see you later' to Coloma. But, now that we're spending time up in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, one of the first orders of business was to discover the local antique mall.  Either Nat's parents or her sister found one just a ten minutes away in Lake Geneva .  So on a trip up there earlier this year, we went.  A bit smaller than the one in Coloma but a lot more furniture.  Turns out the guy at the counter is a wingnut and was getting all excited about the prospect of the incoming President-Elect, so it has that going for it... But, in we went to wander around. And lo and behold...what did I discover:  a new vintage Christmas Motherlode!  Look at that case.  Some pretty great stuff.  Ornaments, lights, little figures, Pu

Came across this Schlitz stein recently and thought the graphics and slogan "World's Finest Draught Beer" were pretty cool.  It is pretty narrow, so doesn't hold a big volume.   This doesn't carry the tagline of "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous", so perhaps this was either before/after that in their brand campaign heritage? Alas, you can add this to the pile of Schlitz 'found' vintage items that I've passed on.   Here's a pitcher .   Here's a set of coozies . If I would have picked them all up, I'd have quite the Schlitz barware collection.    Now that we have a *plan* for our house situation, maybe I can start to dream about a vintage basement bar.  Thinking...a tiki theme, right?

One weekend this summer, we were up in Coloma and Saturday was a bit rainy, so as we usually do, we found ourselves milling around at the Great Lakes Antique Mall.  Going up and down the aisles is kind of therapeutic and I seem to wander and linger in certain booths more than others now that I've kinda gotten to know them with each passing visit. In one of the booths that we've scored a few items, I came across this Chicago White Sox rocks glass.  It was all by itself, but I have to think it was clearly part of (at least!) a pair at one time.  Alas...this is the only one that's survived.  The booth was having a 50% off sale and this was only listed for $2.50, so I figured I had to have it for the $1.25 - no haggling necessary.  It was going to be a perfect gift for my brother-in-law who is both a Sox Fan and the owner of a basement bar.  It'd be perfect. Then I fell in love with it.  And...stuck it in the cupboard at our house.  To stay.

As you can see, they were asking $12.50 for this beauty of a beer pitcher from Schlitz.  The slogan at the bottom reads - as you know - "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous".  We don't have a house, let alone a place to put big glass pitchers like this, but if it is still around when we go back, I think I might grab this to start our barware collection that could reside in a potential butler's pantry.

That above is a cabinet of little vintage Christmas items that is located in a booth in the Great Lakes Antique Mall in Coloma, Michigan.  I've documented this very cabinet for the past few years.  I don't appear to have taken a photo of the cabinet in January of this year, so this one is about six months later than normal. Here's a post showing what the cabinet looked like in January of 2015 . Here's the photo from our 2014 trip . And... here's a photo of the case from 2013 trip . I've looked back and forth between today's image and the one from January of 2015 and I see VERY little difference.  Wonder if the stuff isn't moving?  The shelf in the middle looks a bit more crowded, but I can't confirm that there are indeed, more or less.  Can you?