Why I Oughta...

I've posted about a bunch of the [ vintage glasses ] that I've picked up at garage sales and such over the years here on the blog.  I've bought many of them because they were the same glasses that I had when I was kid and they reminded me of a time in my life.  Others, like this Chippette's one are something from Nat's childhood .  At the Twin Lakes Estate Sale that I've posted about a bunch recently, I came across this set of vintage glasses that includes a couple of the Carebear ones from Pizza Hut, a Pac-Man one, a Looney Toons one and in the back the "I hate music" ones are from the Smurfs.  You can see the price tags that they were asking $3 a piece for these on Friday.  I went back on Saturday and they were gone.  I've bought a couple of these Carebear ones, but I don't seem to have posted about them here on the blog.  One of them, the Babe dropped and broke.  But, I know I have one of them in the cupboards somewhere.  I'll

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

Unlike the 1986 Marshall Field's Christmas Mug and the vintage Disneyland tray , this Big Mac McDonald's glass from the 1980's ended up coming home with us.  After a quick run through the dishwasher, this Big Mac glass took it's rightful place next to the other vintage glasses in my everyday use collection including these Muppets McDonald's glasses , this Snoopy one , this Chipettes one , and this White Sox 'Winning Ugly' glass .   They're all things that I remember in from my childhood and are all bought for less than a buck a piece.  If you're about my age, you totally remember these, right?  This Big Mac one is from a set of five featuring : Mayor McCheese, Hamburgler, Ronald, Big Mac himself, Captain Crook (who's he??) and Grimace.   Of course, I'll be trying to complete the set.  

Last week, I posted about our trip to the MAGA Antique Mall up in Lake Geneva and how we came across those vintage "Made in Japan" Poinsettia candle holders that we passed on .  Before we were asked to leave by the MAGA guy who runs the place (because...gasp! the boy was playing with some vintage toys!), I spotted this Schlitz glass mug.  They were asking $6 and this thing was H - E - A - V - Y! I've posted a lot over the years about vintage Schlitz stuff , but this mug is a dead ringer for the big Schlitz pitcher that we bought at a flea market last summer .  Seriously... click here for just a second.  And look at the bottom of that pitcher and the bottom of this glass.  Then look at the logo with the thin maroon line around the box.  And the white "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous" font/mark.   This was totally released at the same time as that pitcher, right?  Had to be part of a set?  Like a tavern would place that pitcher on your table and four of

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

I scored another vintage Marshall Field's Christmas mug at a Garage Sale a week or so ago - this time from 1983.   If you recall, I posted a few years ago about the two Walnut Room/Marshall Field's Christmas mugs that I picked up at the Elmhurst Goodwill .  They were 1980 and 1981 years.  There were four total mugs (two from each year) and my sister Vic has a Marshall Field's collection of sorts, so a pair of them were destined for her collection. If you go back and look at the other post showing the 1980 and 1981 mugs , you'll see that the 1980 version is one of these 'hot toddy' mugs while the 1981 one is a normal mug shape.  The '83 version went back to the taller, 'hot toddy' version.  But, the character is just as interesting. 1980:  A teddy bear, Christmas tree and presents under the tree. 1981:  Contortionist Santa. But, in 1983, they used Uncle Mistletoe.   Don't know who he is?  C heck out this piece about Field's from the

Last week, I posted about our experience at the Elkhart Antique and Flea Market up in Wisconsin and how we scored a few items including a chandelier for our #newoldfarmhouse .  One of the other items I picked up was this beauty of a glass pitcher from Schlitz.  It has "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous" written in a cute script and was a steal at just $5.00.  We were walking out and I was carrying - gingerly - the light fixture that Nat had scored in a box and it was awkward.  So, about every 100 yards or so, I had to put it down and re-adjust my hands on it. One of those stops happened to be in front of a booth where the guy was packing up.  He had this pitcher on the table.  I picked it up, turned it around and looked at the price.  $15.  I set it back down and said.... "nice pitcher".  But it was too much for me.  The guy practically begged me to buy it.  He said it was a rough day for him and that he'd take anything for it.  I hemmed and hawed and fin