What would you do with this old trunk?

[caseyjo]

I'm going to sand it down, but keep the old stickers on it, stain or paint it & most likely use it as a coffee table.....

If you found this old trunk sitting on the road, what would you do with it? Leave it,  take it & sell it to someone outright, or re-finish it? If you were to refinish it, what would you do to it & what would you use it for?

[TeeBubbaDee]

Sorry caseyjo, all it reminds me of is the Pentagon.

[caseyjo]

On closer examination it's a ships wheel & maybe a symbol for wheat....I may call the college & ask them......It does make me wonder if I might be able to figure out around what year the person who went to this college owned it and whether the trunk was made in the 20's or 30's...The web-site says they were made in both, but I wonder if I can pin point it.....This is fun.

[caseyjo]

Stickers are defined as being a piece of paper or other material of which one side has a substance meant to help it cling to a surface. Wow, that is a pretty confusing definition of a pretty simply concept. The sticker, may have been discovered by ancient Egyptians who were trying to advertise the daily market specials, or it may have been a Department of Defense contractor who was hired to find a way to label the dangerous from the not-so-dangerous. It is really hard to tell which, if either of these explanations, is correct. So let's consider the third option. Apparently, European advertising gurus came up with the idea to help consumers identify products by their colorful paper labels somewhere in the early 1880s. The colorful paper labels were affixed with a gum paste. The main products that utilized this concept (at least at first) was fruit. There was a huge amount of competition among orchards so the stickers (also known as lithography) were used by the owners to bring attention to their fruit. The labels would be stuck to the side of the cedar crates that were full of fruit and ready to sell. The concept was also used widely on vegetables cans and on cigar boxes.

Stickers evolved a bit to pre-apply the paste to the back of the stickers and let them dry. Then, by applying water or saliva to the sticker surface, the past would activate and the sticker could be placed on a surface. These types of stickers were very popular as travel and luggage stickers and are considered to be collectors items today.

From the pre-pasted, the concept of stickers evolved when R. Stanton Avery manufactured the first self-adhesive labels. The label/sticker that Avery designed had a paper surface with a coat of adhesive which was then stuck on a liner. The liner had a special silicone coating that enabled the label to be removed and stuck to other surfaces. Stickers today still use the basic premise of the self-adhesive label that Avery invented. For over 50 years stickers have became a huge marketing item for every sort of household product imaginable. In addition, bumper stickers have also become part of the popular culture fads and icons as they have been used for political and social commentary.

[Stir Young]

This is a great thread, Caseyjo.  I'm enjoying it very much.  You have a great knowledge and passion for salvaging and reusing stuff.  We need more of it done....less pitching out and buying new.  Thanks!

[caseyjo]

Thanks stir.....I absolutely love to do this....It is a true passion of mine, but not very often does a person come across a good antique in the trash anymore...So many people out there trashing these days..looking for metal & anything of interest..I was lucky on this one.

I called the Belhaven college library...They told me they have nothing in their archive books w/ insignias, but he would have some of the students who work in the library check back through the year books for the insignia of the ships wheel & wheat plant or whatever type plant that is......How cool is that?

[caseyjo]

So sorry about your parents LJ.   A big part of me agrees with you, but the spirit in me wants to explore.

I was at the flea mkt last week-end.I go about once a year when the pow wow comes to Mt. Dora..One of the sellers had a slave collar......Jeez, what thoughts rolled through my head..Those collars were made of thick leather & they were wide with heavy metal on them..How heavy & hot & cruel to use anything like this on a human being. A picture of one does not feel at all the same...To actually pick one up, you get the true feeling of what it was like to wear one...

When we think of slaves most of us think of the work they did.... not many of us think about the balls & chains & hot miserable collars they had to wear & the beatings they took & how many were tortured to death.....Not that I like to think about those things, but it is good when looking at life to look at it through history & reality of the human race......When I find a piece of junk I automatically look for its history & the things I learn are worth the effort because not only do I learn about the piece of junk I learn about so much more. I told my BF..It's not about the worth, it's about me having a toy to play with...a piece of art to admire.

The other half of me thinks I am  monkey who would like to chuck all the junk which holds me prisoner  & go swing from the trees.

I have yard sales about once a year now (started doing that about 2 years ago) so if something comes in (not very often anymore) something else goes to someone who really wants it...I find a happy medium & keep a non cluttered house. Good luck on finding homes for your parents belongings.....Did you find anything you could not part with?

[caseyjo]

The BF & I just went out & did a little rubbing on the chest next to where I sanded...Lots of dirt came off leaving it the same color in that spot as where I sanded... so... I'm releaved..I will be able to take gojo cleaner to the trunk & it will all look the same...all that thin sandpaper did was take dirt off.....Great..It's not ruined afterall 

Are you happier without your stuff or do you ever wish you had kept more of it? Someday I am sure I will get rid of a lot more stuff, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I really like some of this stuff.  I realize no matter how little I have or how much I have (I have dramatically seen both ends of the spectrum) my happiness level seems to remain pretty much the same. There is something to the freedom of having very little, less housework, easy to just get up & go which reminds me......This for another thread......:)

Go Alex so Kooner can sell the baseball...I bet that bear is adorable.

[caseyjo]

It's a beautiful thought LJ...Truely

[caseyjo]

Sounds like good order from chaos.....Not like so many artists who live in clutter 24/7 & don't see a thing....I also like to keep a handle on it, had a screwy childhood too....Good reason for order I suppose...cleaning up some of the mess left behind.

[caseyjo]

Ha ha...from chest to strange parenting to slavery & getting rid of everything one owns...Thats whats so cool about people...They think about loads of things in association with only one.

[Bob Stepp]

I've already thought about three things today, which is a lot for me.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

That is one of the nice things about living in an RV. There isn't a lot of room for junk. Most RVers try to use the 6 month rule. If you haven't used it in 6 months get rid of it. Come to think of it, Maybe my ex-wife was a closet RVer.