Junk Love Monday: Typewriter Ribbon Tins

In the Blackbird house, there are tins on almost every surface. We've got tea tins, tin recipe boxes, candy tins, tiny tins of assorted types, and, of course, typewriter ribbon tins. The other Blackbird girl has been collecting those forever.

This is another collection with a definite price limit--she never pays more than $5 for a tin, and usually holds out for the $3 deal. If I'm buying tins for gifts, the price bracket can be a little higher, but even then, no typewriter ribbon tin priced more than $9 has crossed our threshold.

We both love them, which means that I can live vicariously through her collection (we do this a lot for each other). She has a special love for tins from the 1930s, and I have a soft spot for anything with a really graphic color combination, like the orange and black Herald Square tin.

Before Christmas, I happened to look online for typewriter ribbon tins (I do this periodically, but with very little luck finding tins that fit into the price bracket). I really didn't expect anything to catch my eye, but I ended up hitting the mother lode. It's kind of like our hat experience from a couple of weeks ago--I found 4 tins, and then  2 more, and then another one. Over a period of 4 days, I got 8 typewriter ribbon tins...for a grand total of $15 (including shipping). That made for quite a junk buzz, plus I got to relive it all when we opened Christmas presents.
 

Right now, the collection is corralled in a vintage optic glass punchbowl, with an additional reservoir in a coordinating optic glass vase. They periodically get stirred around a bit to rotate different tins to the top.  There are a few repeats, but you must have figured out by now that the Blackbird girls love multiples. We're fairly positive that nobody else can love it as much as we can, so we might as well keep them all....

 
And it's not technically for typewriters, but we love this Kee Lox adding machine ribbon tin. 

Junk Love Monday: Recipe for Love

I suppose that a generalist would say that the Blackbird girls collect lithographed tin, but we have long had to subdivide and specialize that into sub-collections--globes, candy tins, tea tins, recipe boxes, typewriter ribbon tins, tiny tins.... They are on the verge of getting out of hand (remember the globe post from last fall?), but we just can't stop. One of my favorite collections is the recipe boxes, despite the fact that I have too many to see all at once. Right now, they are in my hutch, in stacks of three, three rows deep. I occasionally rotate them so they can all see the light of day.

 I have a few that have "recipe rests" that flip up from the lids. I also have a box with a matching recipe/cookbook holder. We use that to hold recipes also.

I try to keep a $5 limit on recipe box purchases, but occasionally I find a really stellar example. I also get them for Christmas, or my birthday. They are extra special if the handwritten recipes are still inside. This one would fall into the "stellar" category.

My precious....

I have one double-size box, complete with recipes. A couple of years ago, we had a (misguided) notion to cook our way through the box, and blog about the results. What happened was The Great Caraway Incident, the first, last, and only time that we cooked something from that box. I swear, the house smelled like caraway seeds for weeks....

Even though I tend to stick with tin litho boxes, I do have some plastic ones. There is even a tiny box, just over three inches, that originally came with alphabet dividers. I guess it's technically an address keeper, but I could absolutely put tiny recipes in it. I also have a couple of boxes for Christmas lists, but I classify them in the recipe box collection anyway.

A friend gave me an oak recipe box for my birthday. I also have a large tin litho daisy box that has been assimilated into the collection (technically, it belonged to the other Blackbird).

Are you ready for this? Here is the rest of the collection (thus far).

And, there are some that I never find, but often lust after, like this 1950s Budget Balancer:

sold on Etsy :(

Junk Love Monday: Collection of the Week

They're round, and blue (usually), and sometimes bumpy. They come in all sizes, from 1/2 an inch to 18 inches in diameter. Sometimes, they are metal. Others are paper over cardboard. They have rust, and dents, and smudges. But I love every single one of them, so today I take the opportunity to wax poetic about the Great Globe Collection.

 I have over forty globes, all vintage. Some are school-used globes. Around half of the collection consists of tin litho globe banks in various sizes. I have a tiny vintage dollhouse globe (it spins!), and a 1950s globe pencil sharpener.

One is a German game component (the axis is a spinner).

The all-tin globes have different bases, including a zodiac theme, the planets, and various modes of transportation. I have a West German tin litho spinning globe (not a bank) with a beautiful cream base and axis.

I have a giant globe with no axis, rescued from a Goodwill on one of our buying trips. And one of them, the one that is not quite like the others, is not of the Earth, but of the Moon (another Goodwill gem).

Why do I love globes? I have no idea. I suppose it gives me a glimpse of human nature, or human history, and the link between the two. The study of geography reveals an interesting dichotomy. Its dynamic nature shows shifting borders, renamed cities, expanding and shrinking empires--basically, man vs. man. But the static aspect of geography is far more comforting, and perhaps a perfect illustration that forces beyond man's control will always win. Regardless of the current war, the Rockies will always be in the same place (unless you delve into the particulars of tectonics, which I think is an unnecessary and rude interruption to our current conversation). The Mediterranean does not care who owns the beaches. The shape of Africa does not reflect the size of some bloody dictator's ego.

But I guess, in the end, it really comes down to this: I like the look of them. I like their roundness, and the colors of the oceans, and the uneven mountains, and the little ocean currents. I love to find a tiny little cruise liner out in the Pacific, or a plane on its way to Paris. I love the bases and the Art Deco or Mid-Century axes that show me degrees of latitude. I like to spin them, and nestle them together in my house. I have, out of necessity, become more selective when purchasing globes. But I am always mentally devising Plan B (or C , or D), so that the next time I fall in love, I WILL find a place to put it.

P.S. That lovely green fellow gazing longingly up at the sky is a masterpiece from our favorite potter, Leanne Pizio. His name is Max.