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Adventures in Antiquing- Oronoco Gold Rush Days

8/25/2017

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If you haven’t figured out by now, I LOVE ANTIQUES!!! And I never pass up a good antique show. For many years, I planned my life around attending my favorite shows. Several years ago, I started working for an antique dealer and I got an education on the antique world. I worked at the shop while he did antique shows and bought and sold all over the country.

One of the very first antique shows I ever attended was in Oronoco, MN better known as Gold Rush Days. Oronoco is a town of around 1,400 people just north of Rochester, MN. The whole town comes together to put together three days of antiques, food and fun. People rent out their yards for dealers to set up their booths and for $5 you can get a great parking spot in someone’s backyard. The whole town smells like food with food trucks and the fire departments annual pancake breakfast.

When my husband Matt and I first started dating, I asked him if he ever goes to antique shows and he said that he did but he had never been to Oronoco, he had never even heard of it!!! I made a mental note that we needed to make the trip and go together. Flash forward five years, three moves, two babies and lot of auctions later we still had never made it to a Gold Rush Days.

This year, because he has been working so hard at building our auction business, sometimes working 7 days a week. (Ok, not sometimes, a lot.) I wanted to make Father’s Day and his birthday extra special. Months in advance I wrote in BIG letters to not schedule an auction the weekend of August 18th-20th on the calendar. A couple weeks later, he agreed to do an auction for another auctioneer that Saturday. So, technically he didn’t schedule an auction but this would throw a wrench into my plan. Luckily, I have fantastic friends that understood and were willing to change their plans to watch the kids. I wasn’t quite sure when to mention it to him, so the night of his birthday after presents and cake I asked him if he wanted to go on a date with me and finally go to Gold Rush Days.

The week of the show rolled around and I was getting excited- the food, the antiques and getting to hopefully see a lot of friends that I hadn’t seen in years. One important thing any antiquer must do prior to an outdoor show is check the weather. And the weather for that Friday when we planned to go didn’t look good, but we were determined to forge on. I got out my rubber chore boots that have gotten me through the mud at a few other antique shows, got ‘em cleaned up and put in the car. I packed some other essentials, an umbrella, comfortable shoes and a purse that is big enough to carry what you need but not big enough to knock something over you can’t afford or too big that your shoulder hurts by noon. 

The next morning, we got the kids out of bed and put them in the car in their pajamas and headed north. After dropping the kids off, we forged on to Oronoco on US Highway 52. The drive to Oronoco is really pretty. I love driving through all the little towns along the way especially Harmony,  Lanesboro and Preston.

When attending an antique show the earlier you arrive the better. We arrived just before 9:00 a.m. and the streets were packed with people. We found a place to park just a short walk to the show. It wasn’t raining but we took our umbrellas just in case. Gold Rush Days has a great mix of vendors and dealers. There really is something for everyone from high end antiques, new merchandise, crafts, direct sales representatives, and rusty junk. 

It is really temping to rush as fast as you can to see everything, but at an antique show this size you won’t, so don’t even try. One of the things I love the most about antique shows, and Gold Rush Days is the perfect opportunity, is to experience the show and getting to meet new people. Take your time, walk around and visit every booth. Even if it doesn’t look like it has “your type” of antiques, take a look, you never know what you might find and don’t be afraid to talk to people. Strike up a conversation with the dealers, ask about what they are selling or if they have a shop back home. Believe me you will meet some really cool people. I know because many of them have become friends. And don’t be afraid to ask someone you don’t know if you can take a picture of his really cool top hat.
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At any antique show, there is one guarantee- you will always see something that you have never seen before and may never see again. Once an antique is gone, it is lost forever and it can never be replaced. Find out what you like, collect what you love and enjoy the hunt. The people you will meet and the relationships and memories you make along the way will be just as special as what you buy. And there will always be something that gets away from you or you will fall in love with something that just doesn’t fit in your budget. For me at Oronoco this year it was a big, beautiful seed counter….I tried to convince Matt that we need to buy a new house to accommodate it, which he quickly replied, “No.” So I took a picture instead.
A few of my favorite things at this year’s show was-
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Primitive bathtub with original wooden rim. I couldn’t understand why Matt wouldn’t let me buy this one, maybe because we already have a bathtub in our barn just in case we ever remodel….

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​Pie Lady Sign, everyone loves pie, right????
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​A sign of a dapper gentleman selling real estate. He is soooo cute!!!
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​Salesman sample suit.
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​Signs, signs and more signs. Can you tell that I love signs???
​And of course, crocks!!! No collection is complete without some really cool crocks. 
​And I kinda have a fascination with weird, medically kinds of stuff. Like a skeleton in a box.
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​A head in a glass bubble. 
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​Or this awesome primitive, metal dental cabinet. 
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​Not to be outdone by an 1860 ledger from a Wisconsin State Prison. 
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And a couple of old favorites-
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Like COWS!!!

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​And fretwork and tin ceiling tiles. Just look at that chippy paint!
​My husband’s favorite part of the day….. the Barbeque! 
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​For more information on Oronoco Gold Rush Days and to start planning your trip next year. Go to http://goldrushmn.com/ or Like their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/OronocoGoldRush/
Until next time Happy Antiquing!!!

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Jars, Jars & More Jars

8/10/2017

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Mason jars have been all the rage on Pinterest and are must have for any bride’s rustic country wedding decor for a while now. Long before Pinterest was invented, I had been decorating with Mason jars. When my Grandma had to move out of her house and into assisted living, she had shelves and shelves full of clean, glistening canning jars of every size in her basement. The auctioneer that we had hired to do her auction told us that they weren’t worth anything and to keep them or get rid of them. No one else wanted them so I packed them up and took them home-three storage tubs full. I was a poor, non-traditional college student at the time and was living with my Dad. He just shook his head when I brought them inside and carried them upstairs to the storage room.

A couple years later, I had moved out and gotten an apartment and I was on a mission to decorate. One of my friends at school had a booth at an antique mall and her Dad made beautiful shelves out of barn boards, old wood, square nails and old hardware parts. I found a shelf in a magazine that I wanted but could never afford and I asked him if he could make me one. He said that he could. I hung the shelf in my horribly dated apartment kitchen- yellow linoleum flooring, yellow Formica counter tops and matching avocado green appliances. Not exactly the look I was going for with my country chic décor, but it was all that I had to work with at the time.
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I went over to my Dad’s and carried those three storage totes of Mason jars downstairs and into my car. A family friend of ours, lives in a beautiful old house. Her house is so beautiful it is like walking into an issue of Country Living magazine. She has a beautiful old country store counter with glass front drawers as her kitchen island. Inside each drawer front is filled with items that would have been for sale in an old general store. I loved it and this was my inspiration for my Mason jar display, now it was time to find stuff to fill my Mason jars. I made a list and when it was time to go grocery shopping, I headed to the local Wal-Mart. I found the dried bean section and marveled at all the different kinds of beans-perfect for my Mason jars! But as I looked at the prices and quickly learned that I would need 3-4 bags of beans to fill just one of my Grandma’s Mason jars, it just wasn’t in my meager college student budget. So, it was back to the drawing board.

My oldest brother is a dairy farmer and each fall after he picked corn, we would go in the corn field behind my Dad’s house and pick up the ears of corn that had fallen to the ground. I knew my Dad always kept a bag of corn in his garage to feed the squires each winter. I knew if I asked, he would let me have a few ears of corn for my Mason jars. I asked my Dad if I could have a couple. He said I could and when I told him what I was going to do them, I foolishly thought that he would offer to shell them for me. Besides he was retired and had nothing better to do than help his daughter to decorate, right? Wrong, he handed them to me and walked away. One night while I watched television, I sat down on the floor and shelled corn into my Mason jar. One jar filled!

One day when I was at my brother’s farm there was a delivery truck delivering some cotton seed. I don’t think I had ever seen cotton seed before and I asked him what he used that for. He told me that he feed it to his cows as part of their ration. A few days later, it struck me. Cotton seed in a Mason jar would look really cool and very unique! My friend didn’t have cotton seed in her general store counter. I asked my Dad if I could have some and he said, “What for?”

“My Mason jars,” I told him.

“Well, you would have to ask your brother. You know, he has to pay for that right?” He said.

A couple days later I found the perfect Mason fruit jar and headed to my brother’s farm. I asked him if I could have some cotton seed. He was even more perplexed then my Dad as to why I would want some cotton seed. When I explained to him what I was doing, he just shook his head and said, “take what you want.”
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I filled a couple more Mason jars with some of my Grandma’s old buttons and some cheap coffee beans that I found at the dollar store. My friend with the beautiful general store counter dried some orange slices for me and my Mason jars were complete. I have moved several times since that dated yellow and avocado green apartment kitchen but my Mason jars are still on display on that barn board shelf. 
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A couple of months ago, we got a phone call from a gentleman that had a Mason jar collection that he was interested is selling at one of our auctions. He explained that he had hundreds of them in all shapes, sizes and colors. I was instantly excited. A couple of weeks later, we got a phone call that they were all packed up and were on their way to drop off the jar collection. There were boxes and boxes and boxes of Mason jars. I will never forget when I first walked into the auction building to see tables and tables of beautiful old Mason jars, some which I had only seen in books. 
When I came time to set up for the auction, Matt asked if I would help because I knew more about Mason jars then he did. I thought to myself, “I don’t really know that much about Mason jars.”

The day came to set up the auction and a couple of guys that help us just stood there and shook their heads. One asked me, “Have you ever seen so many Mason jars?” We started sorting like jars together- Mason, Mason Perfect, Ball Mason, Kerr, Atlas, Stanford, Drey, etc. A couple I was scared to touch because I had only seen them in antique reference books. Before we knew it, we had a trailer full of jars. As we sorted we joked about dreaming about Mason jars. I didn’t dream about Mason jars that night but I did learn what a pickle pusher is that day.

I still have three totes of Mason jars from my Grandma’s house in my attic. Today those Mason jars are merely decorative, but they remind me of my Grandma and all the hardworking women in my family that canned, froze and worked hard for everything they had in life. I wonder what they would think about the Mason jar decorating craze???
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Here are a few of my favorite jars from our July 29th Auction. 

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    Lisa Lahr, Author

    Auction Wife! MOMMY to 2 Super Cute Kiddos! Antique Lover! Old House Obsessed!

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