A week ago Saturday morning, my sister Sarah texted me to say that she was about to hop in her car to drive two hours north to an estate sale near Athens, GA, my old undergrad stomping grounds. We had been aware of the sale---which was by then on its third day---since earlier that week, but my sister had been stuck with work obligations and hadn't been able to get time off to go. The estate photos revealed some potentially interesting horse-shaped objects in the sale, including a Hagen-Renaker cutting horse and steer. Luckily, the sale was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and the horses were still available when my sister arrived. She was delighted to see that while both the horse and steer had some breaks, they weren't missing any pieces, and they would be easy to repair. She was also pleasantly surprised to see that the pieces were from the San Marcos factory rather than the Monrovia factory as we'd originally thought. While neither of us have gone out of our way to collect San Marcos pieces, it's hard to resist a nice glossy!
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| Sarah's obligatory car loot photo |
When I got the "Victory!" text and photo above from my sister, my SO and I were I just rolling out for the day on our own antiquing adventure. The weather is finally pleasant here in Chicago, and we decided to get out and about and have a little fun.
Part of the day's shenanigans involved stopping in an antique store we hadn't been in before. I never really expect to find anything when I'm
out model horse hunting, but it's always fun to look, and even spotting
an overpriced Family Arabian is better than nothing. There's something reassuring about seeing things I collect in the wild---it gives me the
sense that somewhere out there, something special is lurking, just
waiting to be found.
And it turns out that I found that
somewhere and that something last Saturday. You can imagine my absolute astonishment when I
turned a corner into a new aisle in the antique shop and spotted this
very rare Breyer sewing kit Poodle in a glass case about 15 feet ahead of me. I
pretty much teleported to it, grabbed it, and texted my sister a photo with a bunch of exclamation marks. We were suddenly both having really amazing days!
This Poodle was made as a
special run for the 1957 Sears Christmas catalog. They came in black
like this with a red cape or in white with a blue cape. My mom, sister,
and I have managed to acquire a couple of examples of both colors via
eBay, but we've never found one with the original accessories. Until
now.
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| I'm still on cloud nine about this! |
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| 1957 Sears catalog ad |
As you can see in the photo and the ad close-up below, my new dog has the original thread spools as well as the needle, stick pin, and safety pin with a little button attached just like in the ad photo. It appears that this set was never used, and I suspect it has been in a box or a curio cabinet ever since it shipped from Sears in 1957. (I do have the thimble as well but forgot to include it in my photo. Doh!) The dog is absolutely new-out-of-the-box mint, and the red cape is bright and unfaded.
And here's one of our white Poodles with the blue cape and replacement sewing notions.
I would have been blown away to find the Poodle with just the cape, but to find the original accessories still with the piece after almost 70 years is such a thrill. Even though we're more than 800 miles apart, my sister and I may have to coordinate our future model horse hunting escapades. We seem to have brought each other good luck!
