Tuesday Treasures - September 22, 2026

 My son and I took a trip to one of the Goodwill stores that hasn't been remodeled, or moved to a brand new store.  For all their newness, they aren't very good.  I found this oil painting.

"Jerusalem," by Barbara Dirlam (a Rhode Island art history professor who died in 2001) for $7.19.  Besides her work in academia, she is known for local history and civic preservation.  I find no mention of her own artwork. 
 It fits really well into the color scheme on my bedroom wall.  An accidental color scheme, I didn't plan it, it just seemed to be where I hung similarly colored paintings!  It was framed and it's pretty big.

She tried out a different subject on the reverse, but abandoned it.     

I wrote that the new stores aren't very good, but I gave one a third try a few days after visiting the one with the art above.  I found one item of a sort I'd never heard of before.  

This is a saccharin holder/server from the 1950s-1960s, made in Japan.  It's a souvenir of a visit to Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. I don't care for dams, but when I saw this on the shelf I thought it was a piano keyboard!  I could overlook the dam since it's so unusual.  These would have held powered saccharin as a powdered sugar substitute.  The knob is situated for the host to lift the lid to offer some to guests, not for them to serve themselves.  Saccharin fell out of favor in the late 1960s. 

Part of the reason this new Goodwill store doesn't have the "good stuff," is that the employees aren't getting to pick their own merchandise like they used to.  It's just being sent to them from other stores (and it looks like the other store's rejects pre-outlet store) and what they are getting, as an employee told me, is not very good.   This find gave me enough hope to keep going back to look for more treasures, but not as regularly as I did when they were near the grocery store.

Have you ever seen, or heard of, a saccharin holder?