Jun 14, 2014

Weekend Finds

We finally had some appropriate seasonal weather last weekend. My parents came up to visit and we went into Salem to walk around and do some shopping. First stop, as always, was the Witch City Consignment & Thrift. You may have seen me live tweet previous visits to this store because there's rarely a lack of interesting and unusual things to be found there.

Since we were there, I decided to poke around and see if I could add anything to the collection of keys I started over a year ago. After digging through a shoe box lid of $1 keys, here's what I came away with.

Locker & Windmill keys

The one of the left was a no brainer. I'm a sucker for anything that looks like it goes to a locker or a safety deposit box. It automatically has an air of mystery about it as you start to wonder who the key belonged to and what they had locked up. The one of the right I picked out because of the windmill. It's probably nothing more than the logo of the key company but it's something different. I mean, how often do people really look at their keys?

The last one I grabbed is pretty neat.

Dealership key

The flip side of the little card has some person's info on it (see below). But the first thing I noticed about it is that there's no area code with the phone number which means it has to be a couple decades old at least. Something else interesting is that the tag is for a car place but the key is clearly not one that goes to a car. When I went to photograph this one, I noticed the plastic tag actually had a few more cards inside it. Of course I had to open it!

Dealership key opened

Inside were two more Zarren Motors cards and two blank info cards. A quick Google search turned up an 80 year old David Wright who still lives in Melrose and formerly lived at the listed address. If I were more of of adventurous person, maybe I'd contact him to see if he recalls the key.

The shop had gotten in a large number of Hot Wheels since the last time I was there so I spent about 5 minutes going through them to see if there was anything to add to the Halloween Garage. If you've ever browsed pegs of Hot Wheels, you know it's a quick affair so spending 5 minutes should tell you just how many cars they had!

Hot Wheels Demonition: Evil Twin

What I found was a 2004 version of Evil Twin from a series called Demonition. It's got some very cool demonic artwork on it! The sides show three impish creatures doing the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil poses. The roof has what I'm presuming is the same trio doing the exact opposite!

They all have removed their hands from their eyes, ears or mouth. Only now they look a lot more demonic with long horns sprouting form their heads.


Hot Wheels Demonition: Evil Twin roof

After the thrift store, we walked down the pedestrian mall. We passed by the only remaining local book store in town which appeared to be closed because its windows were papered over. But I noticed a table set up outside the door with some books. Despite the growing number of books on my 'to read" shelf, I can rarely pass by a table of them!, especially when they're $1 paperback and $4 hardcovers.

When I got to the table I saw a sign on the store that said they were closed for renovations, so that was some good news! I didn't find anything noteworthy in the "adult" books so I checked the 50% off kids book stacks and found something that, I'm not gonna lie, made me kinda giddy.

Space: Above & Beyond book

A junior novelization of an episode of the gone too soon Fox series Space: Above & Beyond. I absolutely loved this show when it was on. Even though I taped it every week, it was something I wanted to watch live. This was '95-'96 so there was no fear of internet spoilers but I enjoyed the show that much that I had to see new episodes ASAP.

After finding this one, I immediately tore through the rest of the stacks hoping to find #1 (or #3 and #4 as promised inside the cover) but no luck. When I got home, I hit up Paperback Book Swap and found not only #1 but two regular novels based on the show were available from other members. Ordered and on their way to me! I'm very happy to have found this kids book because it will get me to reconnect with the S:A&B universe again.

12 comments:

  1. The windmill key is a filing cabinet key. I have one identical to it to the filing cabinet we have here at home.

    I don't remember now... how do you store your keys?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As of right now, on a desk :) My plan is to find the right jar and toss them all in there.

      Delete
    2. I phrased that weirdly... I thought for some reason you had mentioned your key collection before here on your blog and I was imagining a giant prison-warden-from-the-30's-style hoop-ring with tons of keys on it. Don't know why I was thinking that though.

      Delete
    3. I did mention it last year, when I started the collection. This is only the second key post. The warden key ring would be cool but I think for that to work you need bigger old-timey keys.

      Delete
    4. I'm actually looking for a key to my filing cabinet that takes a windmill key. I have one that looks just like yours, and fits into the lock, but won't turn the lock. The back of my key says "s24w" and my lock says "s23w", so I have the correct brand of key, just not the correct number. Yours wouldn't happen to be an s23w, would it?

      Delete
    5. My windmill key is also S24w

      Delete
  2. space above and beyond was an amazing show...I was just talking about it at work today!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And if there was ever a least favorite series finale in history, there it is. I can only presume Morgan & Wong were pissed the show was cancelled so they killed off most of the characters.

      Delete
  3. How cool that you looked into the history of that car key! Isn't it something how you could find the man who owned that by searching online? He might get a kick out of hearing from you, depending on his personality. It would probably be surreal for him to think that something from his distant past turned up at a thrift store. I wonder if he even realized where it went. A key with personal info on it seems such a weird thing for a person to give away. Maybe he just sold or donated tons of stuff and the key was in with it.

    I love that little demon car!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See I associate the plastic tag/info with a car key that he would have left with the place so they would know who the key belongs to. But that's definitely a house key (or at least not a car key) which makes it even curiouser.

      Delete