I go to many shows, so to make things interesting I decided to look for the weird and unusual. A set of wedding cake topper dolls, about 4 inches high, were in their original box with an unexpected third doll, the minister. Even stranger was a toaster from the 1950s. It didn’t toast bread. Plug it in and beams of light shoot at the ceiling. Price: $50. It hadn’t sold by the end of the day. 

 

I was tempted by a 6-inch Staffordshire figurine marked “Red Riding Hood” because she was wearing a white hood. The $125 price was discouraging. A wooden mixing bowl with an oil-painted scene on the inside was priced $160; the matching scoop was $120. A rug dealer had a pile of bone-shaped oriental rugs made by cutting old damaged rugs. Priced $150 to $185, they were meant to be doggie beds. The dealer said she sold three that morning.

 

A collection of wooden stocking stretchers is mounted on the wall of our laundry room and there’s room for more “legs.” At this show I found, but didn’t buy, a wooden artificial leg—or maybe it was a boot stretcher—and a heavy 5-foot-long brass stocking mold priced at a heavy $400. It was one of about eight the dealer said came from a factory.

 

An elaborate gold “Egyptian” necklace with tassels and a sphinx was in a booth with no other jewelry. It was marked $2,800. Impressive and a good price—but it’s not something I need. Yet I still think about it now and remember the Kovel motto: “You only regret what you don’t buy.”

 

Altogether, it was an interesting show and dealers reported sales were good.