Annual Pilgrimage to Hershey AACA Old Cars Show and Flea Market

I went with three friends to Hershey, Pennsylvania, last weekend for the American Antique Car Association Fall meet.  Saturday is the day to see the show cars on display, and there were a ton of nice ones again this year.

Sadly, a lot of the flea market vendors are now packing up and leaving by Saturday, so the shopping for parts and automobilia is a lot less fun.  I did score one cool item though -- this vintage Hot Wheels bedspread!  My one friend usually drives up the night before from Richmond and stays with us, so I promised him the next time he stays he'll get the hot wheels bed.

Here are a few shots of what we saw on the show field and in the Car Corral, where hundreds of collectible cars are offered for sale.  It was a cold morning with frost on a lot of the car corral vehicles.

The show field was full of cars, and big crowds too.

And here's a link to the rest of the album with more than 90 photos.  Enjoy!

Vintage 1961 Chevrolet Car Dealership Christmas Poster

Here's another of the items I picked up at Hershey back in October. It was in among a big bunch of old Chevrolet dealership advertising posters that someone had preserved for 50 years. It's big - but luckily I found a poster frame that would fit it. So while the finishing work in the basement is sucking up a lot of my free time, this is the one Christmas decoration we have up in the house.

I love the starburst ornaments, and the whole illustration just looks great. And isn't that headline cool? "So acceptable" is a phrase you would never see in an ad today, when absolutely everything is incredible, stupendous, amazing, or awesome.

Who do you think this ad was aimed at? In the early sixties, car dealerships almost exclusively targeted men as buyers. Do you think many men gave their sweethearts ice scrapers or mudflaps as gifts? Really?

A few recent finds; a road trip to Hershey, and more

Man am I behind with my blog posts!  Yes, the Uncle has been busy, but that's a lame excuse, so let me try to catch you up a little.

I enjoyed my work-related trip to LA last month, but I had no rental car and very little free time during the day.  I did manage to visit one cool architectural salvage store - Olde Good Things - within walking distance of the LA Convention Center.  Some great old big heavy stuff there, from sculptures to furniture to weird stuff, and sadly I didn't have my good camera with me.  All I bought were a consonant and a vowel which I used to finish spelling out my daughter's name on her bedroom wall.  But, I learned they have a 100,000 square foot salvage warehouse near Wilkes Barre, PA, so I may be road-tripping up there for a visit some day.

Our group did get out our last night there - I persuaded the guys to attend the Lebowski Fest at the Cal Bowl bowling center.  Lots of great people there in costumes relating to one of my favorite movies, the Big Lebowski.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and my iPhone battery charger, so all I got was this one crappy photo.  If you're interested in the Lebowski costumes, just search for Lebowski Fest and you'll find tons.

Uncle Atom is in the back wearing an atomic bowling shirt and holding a bowling pin mug full o' white russian.  Mmm, mmm!  We had a blast but had to cut things short after bowling just two games because we all had early flights home the next day.

In my last post on the two new metal lawn chairs I'm restoring, I mentioned I would be posting about a road trip to pick up an oven.  Sorry I still don't have the pics to do that post, so please be patient.

However, I did make my annual pilgrimage to Hershey, PA, for the annual Antique Automobile Club of America Fall swap meet and show.

 I shot - photos of lots of great cars for sale and some really beautiful cars in the Saturday-only show field.  A couple of my favorites were a pair of Chrysler-produced station wagons, including this sweet 1961 with a rear-facing third seat in the back and lots of goodies inside.  Here are a few shots of other car interiors - hang with me, these are cool!

It's a shame that car companies don't give us beautiful interiors any more, but thankfully there are some old beauties that have been preserved for us to ooooh and ahhhh at!

No one would ever use this infant's car seat/launch pad today, but isn't it cool that someone preserved this?  It even matches the interior!

 Here's a link to the rest of my Hershey pics.

I thought I should also do an update on some recent finds, so here we go:

Tiki mug - my collection is doing well, I'm up to 7 different tiki mugs now.

Pair of starburst juice glasses - these are etched, I wish I had found more than two!

A set of eight "old fashioned" glasses @ 50 cents each!

They fit perfectly in our rolling bar - now I need to find three matching shot glasses to fill in the open spaces in the bar.  Yup, I know I haven't shown you all that bar yet.  I'll make that a future post.

Finally, here's a sampling of some great LPs I've found recently - love the cover art on old LPs.  You can pick these up for a song - haha - and they look great hanging on the wall.

I"ve been looking for this Green Hornet / Al Hirt album cover forever, and I scored this cheap even though there were a handful of big LP buyers hovering all over the flea market that day.

Well, that's all for now, have a good week!