June | 2012 | The New Collector

It’s super hot around here so I’m taking it easy and photographing inside stuff this week. I figured it’s about time to introduce you to a minor obsession of mine – Pez dispensers. Remember those little plastic tubes with funny heads that shoot candy when you tip the head back? You probably got one as a kid and never really thought about again? I have boxes of those things. Numerous plastic boxes that form a small wall in our basement. I’ve been collecting Pez dispensers and Pez branded items for over two decades! I started young because it was something I could look for when my parents dragged me to auctions and antique shops. Pez is a great thing for kids to collect because they’re cheap, small, and easy to find both new and vintage. Although my buying and selling has slowed over the years, I still appreciate a good Pez buy. Pezhead for life, yo.

So let me tell you about my newest purchase! A few weeks ago I bought a plastic three-dimensional Peter Pez head from the top of a retail Pez display. Who is Peter Pez you ask? The PEZ wiki (yes, it exists) explains that “Peter Pez is the PEZ mascot. He is depicted on the sales displays, as well as numerous other forms of advertising. Often, Peter PEZ is depicted as a real clown, holding in his left hand a Peter PEZ dispenser.” True to the description here’s the display:

Originally, this Peter Pez head would have been mounted on the top of a circular rack that would be filled with hanging Pez dispensers. At the bottom of the rack were plastic clown shoes to match the head. They stopped using this display in stores sometime in the 1990s. There was a great discount department store called S&R in Kingston that had the full display with plastic head and feet. When S&R  was going out of business a few years ago I BEGGED them to sell it to me. I was willing to come all the way from Toronto to get my hands on it. After a few calls back and forth, they stopped communication and sadly the store closed. I know the employees had a lot of things on their minds and it was easy to forget about me, but I just hope that some other misguided soul was able to purchase the display and it’s not sitting in a dump somewhere.

If you can find the six-foot tall display intact including head and shoes it can set you back as much as $300 – $500 dollars from sellers. It’s quite the rare item and honestly it’s a pretty cool way to display your own Pez dispenser collection. The head alone is usually worth about $100. I found this one on kijiji from a man in Scarborough who was asking for $50. Coincidentally, I had just sold a used air conditioner on kijiji for $50 so it was cash in, cash out. My husband Anson drove me to pick up the head and asked me if I was attempting some type of opposite bartering system where I take an air conditioner and eventually trade it down to a toothpick. Funny guy.

Here are a few more photographs of Peter Pez in all his glory. In case you’re wondering, yes, the other side of the display is the same image. You cannot escape the clown.

How big is Peter Pez in relation to the average house cat? This big:

This display has real value to me as a part of my collection so I will want to show it off. The bottom has a hole in it from where it was connected to the rack so I’ll probably try to put something in there and mount it on my wall. Most terrifying idea would be to stick a light bulb in this thing and make it glow. You see so few clown themed night-lights these days.

So I guess in summary while I am not the biggest fan of clowns I am very happy with my Peter Pez display head 🙂 The cat, however, remains unconvinced.

Normally I’m pretty open to Facebook’s endless tinkering with their system. They give us a powerful and free service, so who am I to complain when my personal profile looks a little different? Sure, my home news feed is still a bit confusing to me (and it seems to change the day after I’ve finally figured out where everything goes), but for my casual banter and Gardens of Time addiction, Facebook serves my personal needs quite well.

Professionally, however, I have a gripe. I have a Facebook company page that serves as Collectivator’s official Facebook presence and it uses the new (now mandatory) Timeline format. As the site administrator it’s my responsibility to create content as well as encourage others to post their ideas, questions and opinions. In the old non-timeline days, people would sometimes post a photo of an antique just to show it off or ask a question about it. This post would be displayed with as much space and importance as anything I would post. I liked this. It was democratic and it gave more spontaneity and surprise to our Facebook page. It was also frankly easier for me because I had other people fueling the discussions.

My biggest problem with Timeline is that it forces all posts by others into one small box in the top right corner of the page. The comments are abbreviated so you need to expand the window just to read them, as well as see any pictures or other media. My theory is Facebook did this because they thought companies wanted to limit the impact of other people’s content on their brand page. If I was getting a bunch of “you suck!” messages, I guess I would want to limit that too. The fact is, however, that even negative feedback is important for companies to hear, and many companies like Collectivator actively seek opinions and comments from others. We are trying to create a community for our fans – not just an official Facebook wall for our press releases. More input is more entertaining and interesting for everyone! Where is the discussion? A good conversation is not just one person making all the announcements and everyone else nodding politely. It feels like on the new timeline I get the podium and everyone else is sitting on the floor.

In my quest to find any way to give posts by others more prominence, I did find a work-around (of sorts) on Alaina Wiens blog. The only option is for the site admin to change each individual post (one at a time) to be “highlighted” on the page. This puts the post across both columns of the page and right at the top. However, even if I take the time to do that to every post other people make, this elite status will still not show up in the default view of the page. The only way for posts by others to show up with any prominence is for each person who views the page to change their own viewing preference from “Highlights” to “Posts by Others”. So the options are really either see all me or all everyone else, but not both together. Default is always going to be the most popular view and I’m going to guess fewer than half of all Facebook users even know how to change their viewing preferences! This slight concession by Facebook to give us flexibility is really a weak solution.

So that’s my gripe. If you have any experience or thoughts to share about Timeline I’d love to hear your comments. Facebook is still a great tool but I think until they give equal space and importance to everyone’s posts their new Timeline has made pages less interesting, less vibrant, and ultimately less social.

Wow. Over three weeks have gone by since my last post! One of the reasons I haven’t posted about antiques in the garden is because I’ve been too busy spending time planting in my garden. That’s ironic or something. Check out my first peony of the season. This was taken a week ago and the whole plant is flowering now:

Between the garden, working, spring cleaning and a super fun cracked molar incident, I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as I should. I’ll try to turn that around with this installment of Antiques in the Garden. If you haven’t already, you might want to check out Part 1 for more ideas on how to use antiques & vintage items in your outdoor space.

First upon our return to my parents’ garden is this lovely large stone bowl. This is actually a crucible used for melting glass. It was the years of use that gave the inside of this object its complex blend of colour. It’s hard to see here but the bottom of the crucible has layers of dark green and brown glass. My mom usually keeps some water in the crucible and uses it to house a few floating plants and flowers:

Near the crucible are these two giant iron wrenches (you can see how tall they are compared to the normal shovel leaning next to them). These are a bit of a mystery, but the most popular idea is that they were used on steam locomotives. I guess the wheels on those giant trains required some pretty serious torque!

The next object is near and dear to my heart because it reminds me of trips to Biarritz France, near where my mother grew up. It is a segment of antique concrete fence in the form of branches. This object was actually made by the same artisan who crafted some of the similar fence work still found on the beachfront in Biarritz. It was made by a process called sand casting. The process began by first creating the shapes by pressing real branches into sand. Then the wood was removed, wires were added for stability, and concrete was poured into the sand molds. Texture details were added before the concrete hardened. Sand casting is often used in foundries for metal but it also has a long history with concrete. Here is the fence in my parents’ garden:

And just to compare here’s a photo I took of the fence in Biarritz. This particular section of fence is probably quite recent, as they replace segments as needed, but many parts are still vintage to at least the 1950s:

What an elegant and whimsical way to add texture to your garden, don’t you think? Here are a few more nice antique and vintage pieces I found around the grounds:

Now, for the big exciting finale, I’m going to show you the famous President Taft doors:

I love the little duck silhouettes!

Please don’t crowd – there’s room for everyone. Okay, so the story is these green shuttered beauties were once part of a cabin nestled into the scenic countryside of rural Quebec. The cabin was a summer-house for none other than 27th President of the United States William Howard Taft. In the 1990s the cabin was renovated or torn down, and my parents were able to buy these doors on one of their many picking trips to Quebec. They now mark the entry to the compost pile which is admittedly not the most noble of places but makes them very useful nonetheless.

Almost too much excitement for one garden tour right? Oh but there’s more. Not only did my parents get the doors, they also bought an entire small shed from the Taft property. EDIT: Turns out I was wrong! My dad left a comment to explain the origins of the shed. Here is his quote: “I have to clarify that the small Taft “shed” you  illustrate is actually something I made from four Taft shutters (presumable from the same guest house as same color and construction) and a tin shingled top of some birdhouse or something,  Bought on a different trip to Quebec.  I noticed one day that the shutters where the same width as the top sides, and I had a screw gun in my hands so I put it together.  People have had many interesting theories about its use. Ventilated out house, smoke house, threshold to another dimension. It’s good to have theories.” Thanks dad! That’s actually a much more interesting origin story for this unusual piece:

How about them apples? How bout them somewhat historically interesting apples? And yes, while there is no official certification to prove the President Taft story, my dad says it’s true so that’s good enough for me. Even if it wasn’t true and those Quebec dealers used the pure unadulterated excitement of President Taft to sell these things, they would still be worth the purchase. They are lovely antique objects that are durable, decorative, and still very useful in the garden.

You may now return from the edge of your seats. The garden tour is over! Thanks for coming along and I hope you enjoyed it!