2013 Queensland State Bottle & Collectables Show (Part 2) - Johnnyfive Collectable's Perspective

Saturday the 21st of September saw The Queensland Historical Bottle & Collectables Cub host the Queensland State Show at the Morayfield Leisure Centre. This was the third year at this venue. The club was very fortunate to receive good local newspaper coverage, both before and after the show. Unfortunately, the numbers through the doors were still down on the previous year which means a change of venue is most likely for next year's show. Apparently, it is not unusual for the numbers to drop off after three years in the one place. I only hope that next year's venue isn't too far away as I have really enjoyed having the show so close to home.

Photo of me taken by "The Caboolture News" photographer to promote the show in our local newspaper.

For me personally, this year's show was as good as, if not better than, last years. Three of my four displays won first places and my swap and sell table did well. Last year almost half of my profits came from two baby feeders whose sale had been prearranged before the show, so I actually sold a lot more this year. I only bought three small items and would have come home with a healthy profit except for a last minute purchase by my wife, Karen. In her defence, Karen did buy a really nice item, an art deco travel clock with its original case. Overall, we just about broke even, managed to move some old stock and also picked up a few more nice pieces for our own collections.

Rob (my son) and Karen looking after my swap and sell table

 The following photos are of the four competitive displays I entered in the show. I seriously thought of only entering two or three displays due to the tight time frame to pack up at the end of the show. So glad I entered four as display numbers were down a little on previous years.

My Baby Feeder Display (1st Place in it's category). It is almost expected that I enter this category as I seem to have become known as one of those strange baby feeder collectors. I decided to put on as many feeders as I could as there was no limit to the number of bottles displayed this year.

I decided to enter the General Australiana category for the first time this year and was rewarded with another 1st Place. The Australian flag and a collection of gumnuts were used to compliment the display.

My Movie Memorabilia Display (1st Place). I have shown this display before (four years ago) at the first show that I ever exhibited at. I did, however change most of the foreground items this time.

My Depression Era Tool Box Display (2nd Place in the Single Collectable with a Written History category).
This tool box will be featured in more depth in a future post.

The following photos are of some of the other displays that interested me. You may have been able to sense a preference towards collectables rather than bottles in most of my posts. I believe this is because of my love of social history and of the everyday items that people used in their everyday lives. I have, however, included a number of bottle displays below as well.

Dairy Collectables display. Love the stool and the Australia rolling pin. Also love the cream separator as well.

Colourful display of Glass Fly Traps. I could easily find room for some of these in my collection. And just look at the huge one on the bottom.

Fantastic display of tinplate Money Boxes. Many unusual and colourful designs.

Some bottles! Display of Lamonts. I particularly liked the way these were displayed in their cute little timber and tin display stand. Very Australian.

Hard to beat a good display of inks. Here are two displays, side by side. The first of Inkwells and the second of Ink Bottles. Very nicely presented displays.

More bottles! Displays of Coloured Glass Bottles always look stunning.

Possibly one of my favourite items on display at the show. The large size "Mecca" Foot Warmer. I have the medium size in my collection of foot warmers but not with the great graphics that this one has. I had to admit to the owner that I was rather jealous of this fine foot warmer.

 And finally my three purchases of the day.

Another buggy spanner for my collection and a very nice twist handle Acme wrench. I bought these two tools from Phillip Hill who had the swap and sell table next to mine. I really enjoyed getting to know him and chatting with him throughout the day.

A diamond frog convict brick for my brick collection. This brick was bought at the end of the day which enabled me to negotiate a reasonable price.

I have often found that I don't spend much at a show if I am exhibiting and selling items myself. Not sure if it's a psychological thing of not wanting to eat into any profits or if I am just too busy. Either way it's probably a good thing. Let's see what happens at next year's show. And where it will be held for that matter.

My Garden Angel

Just like the birdhouses, this is not really a historical collectable but rather something that I have created to decorate my garden. Maybe one day someone might see it as being worthy to be included as part of a folk art collection. Wouldn't that be nice? This angel is only the first, of what I see as many, that I plan to make.  (Hmm, do I see a potential business opportunity developing here? Maybe you would like to order one from me).

I chose to add a rusty star garland to the head of the angel with three more rusty stars on her chest.

She also has a single rusty star hanging from her hands.

My angel is wearing a blue dress with cream wings and face  

My angel looked as though she was ready to soar into the heavens once she was attached to the fence. At least that's what I think.

I plan to make some more angels of different sizes and designs for my garden in the near future. Don't want her to be lonely, do we?

My Birdhouses

Thought I would feature my collection of birdhouses in this post. This collection is quite different to any other that has been featured as these birdhouses have all (well almost all) been made by myself. They don't have a very long history either. Maybe, as they get older, they will become more collectable to future generations. So far I have nine birdhouses and one bird feeder.

My most recent birdhouse is a Red Barn Birdhouse which I made a couple of months ago. I have always wanted a big red barn and it looks as though this may be as close as I'll ever get to fulfilling that dream. I was inspired to build this birdhouse after seeing one that was somewhat similar on Facebook. Below are some photos of this birdhouse.

As you can see, I like to use very weathered pieces of wood where ever I can. I think this adds a lot of character.

Another rough piece of wood on this side too.

The Red Barn birdhouse in position on the fence. I gave it a branch perch and added three rusty barn stars as decoration. Who knows, someday I may even add a couple of other things to this birdhouse such as a little barrel and a little ladder.

Thought I'd try a rusty tin roof on this cream birdhouse. The tin actually came from our old rusty downpipes from when we had them replaced late last year. I try not to waste anything.

As you can see, the tin is very rusty. More character.

Pink this time with a heart shaped hole and an old door knob. I try to do something different with each one.

Small orange hardwood birdhouse

The little orange birdhouse was actually cut out, but never assembled, 7 or 8 years ago while we lived in Melbourne. It sat in pieces in my workshop for many years until one day I felt I just had to achieve something and so finally put it together. It then sat around unpainted for a few years. Finally, it received its colour scheme of orange and green after seeing these colours used together on something on the internet. It's made out of some old hardwood garden edging from our Melbourne house.

The only bird feeder that I have made. The idea for this feeder came from a plan off the internet, found by my lovely daughter, Ashley. She wanted one for herself so we decided to make one each while we were at it. Don't think she has assembled hers yet.

The bird feeder is made from western red cedar that I've had for many years. I was going to make some more fly screens for the house with the thinner pieces. The wide pieces have a more interesting history. They are actually cut from a long board that was bought to replace a damaged piece on our house. About twenty years ago, someone very kindly blew up our letter box one night and part of it went flying down our verandah damaging the board. The damage to the board wasn't too significant and I just never got around to replacing it. It was just what I needed for the bird feeder.

The bird feeder has been well received by the local bird population and is visited by them everyday. The rainbow lorikeets actually wait in the trees nearby for me to put some seed out for them each morning. Haven't seen the rosella pictured above for sometime now. I think the lorikeets have taken over.

This little birdhouse was made by me in Melbourne. It's almost identical to my little orange one and was cut out at the same time. It has hung next to the front doors of both our Victorian and Queensland homes. I used part of an old wardrobe door handle as a hanger.

This is probably one of my favourite birdhouses and I think possibly the first I ever made. I call it the Gothic Cross birdhouse and just absolutely love the colour.

I designed the Gothic Cross Birdhouse on the computer and built it while living in Melbourne. It's actually made out of some old drawers that were found in a wall of a friend's house at Mordialloc. We were helping them do some renovations to their sunroom and had to remove some old wall sheeting on an unusually thick piece of wall. We discovered that a previous owner had used a series of old drawers to pack out and build out the wall, hence its unusual thickness. Why they would do this will probably remain a mystery but thankfully I quickly saw the potential in the timber and colour of the drawers. Our friends were only too happy for me to have them and so was born my Gothic Cross birdhouse. I still have some of the drawer timbers left over and one day I'll use them for another creation. 

Detail of the Gothic Cross and distressed paint finish.

OK. I didn't build this one but I did do the crackle paint finish. Sometime I will add a little more decoration to this birdhouse.

Detail of the crackled paint finish. I used Crackle Medium by Folk Art to achieve this.

One of my natural finish birdhouses. Rusty tin roof again.

Another simple natural finish birdhouse. Made another one of these with my grandson, Max over the Christmas holidays.

Max loves the drill press.

Max trying to get those pesky nails to go in straight. Not easy for a little guy. Note that I am trying to keep my fingers well away from Max's flying hammer.

Max proudly posing with his birdhouse. Well done Max!

Because I like the birdhouses to have a rustic weathered look, it's easy for me to knock one together, paint it and mount it on the fence all in one weekend. I gives me a real sense of achievement to start and complete a project in such a short time. I'm sure there will be many more birdhouses to come.

Oh, and by the way. I am always looking out for some more old timber to use in my creations. So please let me know if you have any old fence palings or other timber that you want to get rid of.

Collectomania - Showcasing A Collector's Passion

If you are a collector, or if you have ever known a collector, you will understand how passionate they can become over collecting what can sometimes be thought of as very obscure objects. I personally know this myself as a collector of Baby Feeders. Not every one shares my passion and in fact many would ask 'why on earth do you collect baby bottles?' To me it is the fascination of the social history and the development of these everyday items. I like to collect things that have been used by the average person in their everyday life and have become a piece of social history.

Karen and I, with our close friends Cliff and Judy, went along to see the Collectomania display at the Queensland Museum a few weeks ago. We are all passionate collectors and were curious to see what sort of collections would be featured in the display. It had been indicated that some of the collections might be considered quite weird by some people. We wanted to see what other people were actually collecting. The following photos probably show a bit of a biased view as they are mostly of the collections that appealed to me.

 

The first thing that you see at the exhibition, just before you enter, is a cool red tractor in front of a wall of number plates.

I was immediately drawn to the number plate collection as I have a small collection myself fixed to the front of my shed.  Some rather unusual ones here. Makes me want to look out for some more for my shed.

The first thing that hits you when you get inside is this huge Ceiling Medallion from the old Regent Theatre.  This theatre was built in QueenStreet, Brisbane in the 1920s. It has been the centre of an ongoing battle to save it. Most of this historic building has now been lost except for its heritage listed foyer.

Regent Theatre Ceiling Medallion information.

Other Regent Theatre items included a row of seats, some heavy curtains, a chandelier and spot light.

I just had to take a photo of this Fire Fighting Collection seeing that my eldest son Laurie is a firefighter. We gave him a fire hose nozzle like the one featured here when he graduated as a fire fighter. See my Fire Fighting Collectables post.

Fantastic collection of Padlocks and this is only about half of what was on display.

Someone even collected old Washing Machines. Nice to see some old washing powder boxes in original condition. How many of these would have been saved?

There was an incredible collection of Beaters. I was amazed to see how many different types and mechanisms there were. Again, this is only half of what was on display. Well worth seeing, especially if you collect Kitchenalia like I do.

Another amazing collection. This time it's a collection of Salesman's Samples of Sanitary Ware (bathroom fittings). I wonder who would collect things like these??? These samples are not easy to find.

This collection is an example of the entire possessions that an immigrant coming to Australia in the 1950s was allowed to bring with them. They were only allowed to bring one suitcase. In that suitcase would be the sum total of their earthly goods. So much must have been left behind. Great sacrifices were made to begin a new life in Australia. Fascinating insight into our immigration policies after World War 2.

Here we have an interesting collection of all sorts of things that were just found around a country property. I think these came from somewhere like Blackall. A collection that really wouldn't have cost anything to put together but is clearly preserving our countries farming history. I suppose that is why I like this collection so much as I really collect things for their history. Interesting to see they found a Chinese soy pot on the farm (top shelf). These are often found on the goldfields.

Not all collectables on display were old. This was a fantastic display of World War 2 German Soldiers. Apparently the owner chose to collect German soldiers because of their colourful uniforms. Other countries mustn't have been as flamboyant as the Germans.

Detailed diorama of a German garage during wartime.

There's also a very detailed model of Bilbo Baggin's Hobbit Hole from Lord of the Rings. This model was made by Maddie Chambers in England in 2010. You can read all about it and see lots more photos in her blog.

You can stand on a stool and look down into each of the rooms. The amount of detail is incredible. The longer you look, the more you find. Has to be seen to be believed.

Detail of the front door of Bilbo's Home.

There were many more collections on display but the ones above were what I consider to be some of the most interesting. Some of the other collections included snow globes, stickers, spoons and even finger nail clippings. Although I would never collect some of these things, the exhibition did show how varied people's collections could be. It also showed that you don't have to spend a fortune to compile an interesting collection. After all, I am sure the collection of fingernail clippings didn't cost much if anything at all!

Why not go along and check it out for yourself and make your own mind up about the different collections on display. It's on at the Queensland Museum, Brisbane until the end of the year and entry is free.