I've never dove into a Dumpster to find treasure. I'd have to know for certain that there was something really really valuable in there before doing such a thing. But items at the curb are fair game. One need not necessarily shower after partaking in such harmless hunting.
Was driving past a house in our neighborhood and found this, propped unceremoniously against a trash can, waiting to be unceremoniously discarded by a begloved sanitation engineer. The frame caught my eye, as I'm always looking for an interesting way to display photos. It was heavy, and I noticed the photo inside the frame right away.
But it wasn't until after I'd gotten the frame home that I studied the photo. It is apparently genuinely old, and the people look rather eery because some of the details have been painted in (a common practice in early photo portraiture). That includes highlights on the people's heads and also the black lace gloves the wife/mother is wearing.
I haven't disassembled the frame (carefully, of course) to see if there are any clues that I'd be able to decipher on time period or about the family. I'll do that eventually, but that search might not yield anything useful. At the least, it's a really neat frame.
I've got no way of knowing, but let's assume this frame and photo were picked up at an antique store and the previous owners had grown tired of it. Couldn't have been a family heirloom. Who would throw that away? Photos, even of long-gone family, are among the greatest individual treasures we can preserve. Yes, even the one with my grandmother wearing an Easter hat made of colorful plastic eggs. Doesn't every family have photos like that?
One person's trash is another's treasure. I've got a strange affection for old wooden chairs that people are throwing away. My backyard shed has a growing collection of ones in varying stages of sit-ability. For the record, I inherited that affection, as I have in my house an old leather-topped oak barstool my dad found on somebody's trash years and years ago. I'm trying to, uh, curb the habit, and thankfully I haven't spotted anything salvageable in a long time.
But I guess the frame is a worthwhile find that snaps the dry spell. Just who are those people in it? And where did the photo come from?
Before you touch it...think about Antiques Roadshow...you never know.
I've bought quite a few pictures through the years from yard sales just for the frames. You can certainly get good bargains.
That one you just picked up looks like quite a find. And the price was perfect.
Curb shopping is awesome. We found a great desk that way, that didn't even need to be refinished. We live around a lot of college students, and you can often find treasures every Dec and May when the students graduate and move out.
Good luck on finding out more about the pic - but either way you found yourself a super frame!
i think it is kind of sad that the photo is supposed to eternalize them and yet, being thrown away, they have been forgotten. even as they are found by you, their history and story are gone.
you should give them a new one in your next post.
Wow, that fram is fantastic.
I started growing sad while studying the pic. I don't know why. Hormones? Keep us posted on your findings. I would love to learn any new info. I never grow too old for treasure.
why must I always leave at least one type-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?
*frame
Hub and I refer to your "curb shopping" as "Trash Monkeying" . . . not sure when the term was born, but it has endured!
My friends M and N routinely buy old photos at thrift shops, put them on the mantel with their "real" photos, and make up stories to go along with them . . . amazing that anyone would donate family photos to Goodwill, but there it is.
Great find! Much better than the 6x6 (that's feet, not inches) poster of the Arc de Triumph--represented in deep blues and purples--our landlord found in the trash and hung in our front hall. Ugh.
I am definitely pissed.
You find great stuff; I drag home 3-legged chairs...
Awesome frame, dude. Antique shops have 'em for around $200 or more.
That's so weird that the owners threw it away...a little sad, really.
Maybe it's haunted, and they were trying to get rid of it!! Now I feel like this is the plot of a Stephen King novel...
This will sound contrived, but I drove a bicycle into a dumpster once after a downhill run on concrete. Must have been going 35 MPH. Flew right over the steel. Lucky to blog about it.