La Belle Brocante

Cabinet Cards

Cabinet cards were introduced in the 1860s, first for horizontal views, and later, for portraiture. A wealth of these cards still exists, and the cards themselves provide great creative fodder. Nubbly edges, embossed textures and borders, scrollwork and flourishy script advertising fine photographic studios.

With a little trimming in photoshop, cabinet cards become perfect frames for modern day photographs 

... for pages out of children's primers

... for delicious old engravings

... and even for quick digital collages.

 

Vintage Medical

Vintage irrigating syringes. 8"-9" in length. Tarnished metal.

Vintage throat and nasal atomizers. Glass bottles. Tarnished metal and plastic fittings. Rubber bulb.

Vintage lab rack, well worn and very crusty.

Temptation {squared}

Antique apothecary vials. Handwritten labels. Leather cases. Dubious contents.

A selection of the medical antiques we have collected for the June show at Pearkes.      

Miss Minerva

This beautiful Minerva #8 is 6½" tall and 5" across the shoulders. She has brown glass eyes and an open mouth showing five small teeth. 

Minerva pressed-metal doll head were manufactured in Germany between the mid-1890s and the mid-1920s. Sold through mail order catalogues and advertised as indestructible, they were a more affordable alternative to porcelain dolls. Four holes in the shoulder plate were used to secure the head onto a kid leather or cloth body.

Darling, What's Become Of You?

1880s silver Conn Elkhart cornet. Worcester, Mass.

Mother of pearl valve buttons. Etched scrollwork. 

Tarnish. Dents. Decay.

At some point, the love song came to an end.    

Temptation

We have gathered and gleaned and ferreted out. We have searched and foraged, unearthed and uprooted. Our brocante baskets are full. We have many treasures to offer: 

• Wooden Polychrome Saints' Heads and Hands
• Leather Baby Shoes
• Ledger Pages (French & American)
• Antique French Board Games
• Game Pieces and Tokens
• Porcelain Glove Forms
• Antique Medicine Bottles and Vials
• Vintage Glass Throat and Nasal Atomizers
• Vintage Metal Irrigating Syringes
• Enamel Watch Dials
• Vintage Doll Parts
• Enormous Wooden Folk Art Jack
• Blown Glass Eyeballs
• Handwritten French Pages
• Vintage Ephemera
• Rusty Bits
• 1920s Japanese Ledger
• Unique Collage Sheets & Materials
• Wooden Shoe Forms
• Industrial Spools
• Galvanized Drawers with Wood Fronts
• Vintage Brass Stencils
• China Paint in Glass Vials

Vancouver Island's Most Amazing Collectibles Show

Pearkes Arena, Victoria, BC

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Please contact us if there is anything you are interested in - we hope to see you in June!

Les Chats des Cévennes

 You catch glimpses of them everywhere.

Skinny waifs with scratchy dry fur. They raise litter after litter in the abandoned buildings, the ruins. 

Their offspring inherit the scratchy dry fur. The wide eyes holding generations of mistrust. 

Hunger is at the forefront, and they eat savagely, defending every crumb.

 

Catnaps are quick and furtive, with one eye slit open.

Occasionally, a sound sleep in the shade, as music plays from a nearby window. In the heat of the afternoon, barely anything moves.

There is a hierarchy amongst the cats of the Cévennes, and at the top of that precarious ladder is the Chat Grand.

The Chat Grand is old. Scarred. Lumpy. Misshapen. He has fathered many many of those straggly babies. His yowl is unmistakeable, and carries through the labyrinth of streets on the night air. He is a creature unto himself, and scoffs at offers of help. Turns up his nose at milk or tuna or goose fat laced with dewormer or antibiotics. He is a shadow.  

 

    

Geraniums

Quintessential South. Limestone facade. Multi-paned windows opening in. Flaking painted shutters opening out. Pots of géraniums rouges.

The wall is several feet thick here. The kitchen sink, carved from a single slab of stone, is set into the inner sill. 

This does not phase the feral cats, who scope out the house from the surrounding roofs and steps and walls. They leap and dive and claw for the window, slither through the gap when the door is not shut tight. They are bold, those cats. They live by the skin of their teeth. They survive on instinct and impulse. On wiles. On opportunity.

You are likely to find one in that pot of ribs you left on the stove, while enjoying a leisurely meal out in the garden. You might interrupt another covered in goose fat from the confit. Nothing is safe.

Pearl (Look Carefully)

 

You never know what you'll find. This little one is only 4 inches high, with painted grey eyes retreating back into her head. She's cracked and worn, with her molded curls and rosebud lips. The end of her nose is scuffed. She looks as if she must have a headache.

Inside her wee head, tucked up behind her eye mechanism, was a ball of crushed fabric and paper. A shopping bag. A length of old stained cloth. A grocery list.

And this.

Pearl L. telephoned out this P.M. & said Alva's dad had left the asylum week ago yesterday & had not heard from. Wanted to know if Alva had, & if he had, call them they would like to know.

Elsie