Pre-Owned Presents are the Best!

 I had a birthday last week, and all my presents were pre-owned, either thrifted or from eBay, which often doesn't offer the bargains you'll find thrifting, but still secondhand.

You may remember this from a post on my lost blog.  One of my sons bought this for me in July from Goodwill.  It's matted and framed, I usually omit including those in post photos.

Untitled rainy cityscape on newsprint by California artist Mary Pedri (1912-1908)  According to the label on the back of the frame it won an award at a festival in 1963.

A friend gave me these early 1950s salt and pepper shakers.  They are Bonzo the Dog, a very popular cartoon character in the 1920s, one of the world's first cartoons, and inspiration for mass marketed merchandise.  His artist retired him in the 1930s, but had a second wave of popularity, especially in Japan, in the 1950s.  Without the Internet and image searches they would remain just strange little dogs!  I was surprised when my son knew of the cartoon, as well as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and that Death Cab For Cutie took their name from a Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band song!  

She also gave me this Japanese poodle quartet.  Considered "spaghetti poodles," their "fur" is short, so are sugar-coated, or sugar-glazed texture.  These types of dogs are referred to as Dresser Dogs, as they would have been displayed on a lady's dresser along with her powder puff and hair brush.

Another one of my children got me postcards!  Not just any postcards, eleven 1950s postcards of Children's Fairyland in Oakland, CA.  I grew up visiting Fairyland, and my children grew up visiting Fairyland.  Walt Disney visited prior to the opening of Disneyland, liked it so well he not only incorporated some of its ideas into his own park, but hired away their first executive director and one of the puppeteers! 

Children's Fairyland has dozens of child-sized storybook scenes, many with a box activated with a key (I have one around somewhere) to turn on storytelling or a song.  Included are scenes for such stories as The Crooked Man and his Crooked House, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and Hickory Dickory Dock.

While there are no longer live animals in the scenes, there is a petting zoo.  In former times (at least into the late 1990s) there would have been piglets in a pen near the Three Little Pigs and their straw, stick, and brick houses.  Here are geese at the Goosey, Goosey Gander scene.  Or, ducks playing the parts of geese...

Mary Had a Little Lamb had sheep. I'm pretty sure the gate was kept closed when we were there!

Near Hickory Dickory Dock was one of my favorites, a window through which you could watch live white mice nibble tunnels through a large bread loaf!  

Willie the Whale has a drinking fountain at the bottom of his throat!  It's quite a steep climb in and out.

There are still puppet shows several times a day.

A family favorite was always the Alice in Wonderland tunnel, ending in a playing card maze.  Since Fairyland was built so long ago, and while remodeled and refurbished over time, it's still quaint, and sometimes a bit creepy.  Plus, those box recordings often glitch and sound spooky!  

I was also gifted a purple 6 pfennig German stamp from 1941.  

Pre-owned gifts are the way to go!