50s trophies [sold]

Trophies
made in Australia 1950s

I have seen vintage trophies repurposed as business card holders: and so decided to collect them.

Here we have, from left to right:

A silver plate cup, with no inscription; on a Marquis bakelite base.
A silver plate cup inscribed: “Presented to V. Kane, Fairest Player on and off field, 1956” on a Marquis bakelite base.
A hallmarked silver cup inscribed: “Selangor Golf Club Services Trophy 1958, Winners D.C. Hurst & L.M. Riedel” on a bakelite base.

Of course, once you’ve figured out that a trophy is great as a repurposed card holder, you can think of many great repurposing ideas. Drinking champagne comes to mind.

The trophies are for sale: $AUD75

Chrome kookaburras

Perfection Safe-Tee Way Dish
made in Australia, 1950s

My partner collects kookaburras and has wanted a Safe-Tee dish for a long time. She, like me, will not buy/collect anything to do with smoking….and we had both assumed this was a card or pin dish promoting some 50s company called ‘Safe-Tee’.

So it was a joyous moment when we found the said ‘pin dish’ – a little dint in the chrome, but otherwise in good condition. I figured the kookaburra’s open beaks would hold business cards…but a little research later and of course- they were designed to hold cigarettes. It’s an ashtray by a company called Safe-Tee. Oh the irony. Of course, one can repurpose, and so one will. It’s a business card holder now. And still much treasured.

1920s silver teaspoons

Elkington + Co Fleur-de-lis teaspoons, made in Birmingham, England c.1920s

A set of six silver hallmarked teaspoons with a cut-out pattern of Fleur-de-lis in the handle. The Fleur-de-lis is a stylised lily (in French, fleur = flower, and lis = lily) that was often used as a decorative design with religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, and symbolic meaning, especially in French heraldry.

So what is the Fleur-de-lis doing on English teaspoons from the 1920s? Surely an anomaly? And what are these teaspoons now doing in Australia in 2014? The answer is – of course- the global village. Even in the 20s the makers knew about the zeitgeist.

I found these teaspoons in an out-of-the-way antique market: I travel to such places due to my real job as a landscape architect. Two birds: one stone.

The set of six teaspoons is for sale: $AUD60

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