eisman
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2009
- Messages
- 6,999
I've spent a large portion of this past year in and around my fathers birthplace; the small town of Rogers, OH. The town is mostly known for it's large Flea Market, which I have never attended. Still, I have been looking thru various other venues for decent knives, with no success until recently. Usually what I hear is that they had a bunch, the guy pulling out of the parking lot just bought them all. (I'm sure many of you have had this same experience, and if you're that guy I want to have a word with you.)
The last trip I made back was a couple weeks ago, when the area was a little cooler than normal. Due in part to this most of my meetings were fairly short and to the point, and I had some time to wander around. Now most of the towns back there are fairly small, rural, and dying from aging populations, high taxes, and lack of job growth. The old stores downtown are a mix of stuff that's been there forever and has no place to go and antique/junk shops. I like the now hard to find hardware stores, and some of the other places are good if you know what you want, but for someone from outside the area there's a limit in what will draw you in, so the antique shops are the most popular attempt to grab a tourist dollar, not that they see many tourists.
Downtown Columbiana has a half a dozen such places, a newstand,a couple places to eat, and not much else. The higher than average percentage of antique places seem to survive mainly due to their proximity to Shaker Woods, a place that holds "handicraft" festivals several times a year.
I had to kill about an hour there and went into one place that usually has a clockmaker working. It's not the most upscale place, but they often have interesting stuff, and I was interested in seeing if they had some old machinest patterns still sitting where they had been 3 months earlier. They did, but the two I was interested in were gone. Still, one case had a small box with some knives in it and I asked to take a look. I sorted thru them and found one I wanted, but only one of the items in the tray had a tag on it. So the lady watching the till called the vendor, and to my suprise came back and said the price on the tag was for the whole lot. I really didn't want the bunch, but I did have a couple others I was going to ask about based on what the price was to have been. Once I heard it was an all-ornothing deal I did the math and walked out with this selection.
Now this picture is after a couple have been partially cleaned, and most have been oiled. I had to delay doing anything to them but I did start carrying the one I was most interested in.
So, I'll add some more to this thread as I get them clean and the real camera (not the phone) charged up. First to come is the UMC Remington.
The last trip I made back was a couple weeks ago, when the area was a little cooler than normal. Due in part to this most of my meetings were fairly short and to the point, and I had some time to wander around. Now most of the towns back there are fairly small, rural, and dying from aging populations, high taxes, and lack of job growth. The old stores downtown are a mix of stuff that's been there forever and has no place to go and antique/junk shops. I like the now hard to find hardware stores, and some of the other places are good if you know what you want, but for someone from outside the area there's a limit in what will draw you in, so the antique shops are the most popular attempt to grab a tourist dollar, not that they see many tourists.
Downtown Columbiana has a half a dozen such places, a newstand,a couple places to eat, and not much else. The higher than average percentage of antique places seem to survive mainly due to their proximity to Shaker Woods, a place that holds "handicraft" festivals several times a year.
I had to kill about an hour there and went into one place that usually has a clockmaker working. It's not the most upscale place, but they often have interesting stuff, and I was interested in seeing if they had some old machinest patterns still sitting where they had been 3 months earlier. They did, but the two I was interested in were gone. Still, one case had a small box with some knives in it and I asked to take a look. I sorted thru them and found one I wanted, but only one of the items in the tray had a tag on it. So the lady watching the till called the vendor, and to my suprise came back and said the price on the tag was for the whole lot. I really didn't want the bunch, but I did have a couple others I was going to ask about based on what the price was to have been. Once I heard it was an all-ornothing deal I did the math and walked out with this selection.
Now this picture is after a couple have been partially cleaned, and most have been oiled. I had to delay doing anything to them but I did start carrying the one I was most interested in.
So, I'll add some more to this thread as I get them clean and the real camera (not the phone) charged up. First to come is the UMC Remington.
Look forward to seeing more of your haul :thumbup:
)
