Road Trip Report from Sled Fest at the Old Sled Works, Duncannon, Pa.

Okay, hearken back with me to, let's see, yesterday, and the Sled Fest.

I already posted about some of my vintage finds at the Old Sled Works Antique and Crafts Mall, so here are some photos from the Sled Fest and from the inside of the mall, which has a great collection of arcade games and a vintage soda fountain.  It also has a small exhibit of artifacts from the building's original purpose, manufacturing Lightning Guider sleds.

First, the sleds.

It's great that they retained some of the old signs, including this awesome one.

And check out the wall clock.

This diorama depicts the starting point for wood used in building the sleds.  The diorama itself looks vintage.

Sleds had names, and they were printed on the wood during the construction process.  Here's the huge old printing press.

And they have some examples of sleds from different decades on display, natch.

This rare one really caught my eye.  Wouldn't you want your kid to barrel down a slippery slope of snow on the Master Bomber?  Made in 1936 at the height of the Depression.

I love looking at these old sleds, but like pedal cars, I resist the urge to start collecting them.  You need a lot of display room to do them justice.

So, once you've enjoyed looking at the Master Bomber, just work your way through the crafts portion of the mall and keep going until you find...an awesome arcade, where you can practice your aptitude for growing up to be an...

I have never seen one of these anywhere else, but then, I don't know of any other vintage arcade collections other than in private hands, or in Amber's garage!

Here are some more shots from the arcade:

Skee Ball

This is one of the coolest looking games, check out those spindle legs!  It's a basketball game.

They even had one of those newfangled high-tech Pong games

Beyond the arcade games you'll find the soda fountain with some old diner booths and more eye candy, like this jukebox, and not one, but a bunch of original Predicta Television sets!  Oh, and inside the front entrance, more mid century TV sets, and they're usually running old Three Stooges shows.  Unbelievable.

  

They had the soda fountain closed when I was there for a professional photo shoot with a pinup girl.

There were quite a few ladies in pinup or vintage attire,  I didn't get pics of them, sorry, but I did get a few car photos.

That pretty much wraps up my photos inside and out during Sled Fest.  One of the highlights for me was meeting Mod Betty and Retroroadhusband.  She is planning to do a blog post on the Old Sled Works, so if you're interested, keep an eye on Retroroadmap.com for Mod Betty's coverage.

Bar stools? Yea, we've got bar stools

I'm off work today and Friday.  Today I was a good boy - I built a small footbridge out back to go over the small dry stream that more often than not this spring has been a wet stream. (Yes, that's a yard full of clover instead of grass.  I still have to mow it.  As I've said before, the big backyard is a long term work in progress. At least now we have this fine footbridge!)

I still need to dig down and level it on top of the cement blocks in the photo, and then stain the treated wood. I used some pretty weathered 2x4s for the top so they need some stain.

Anyway, I was planning to make my annual pilgrimage to the Spring Carlisle (Pa.) old car flea market and car corral.  I usually go with one or more of my car club friends, but this year the weather and various family obligations made it impossible for any of us to get there on the same day.  My plan was to go Friday by myself, but here's what happened:

First, I filled up the car with gas - $65 !  When you add up the round trip miles, and consider the entrance fee ($10) and the fact that I would not be hanging with my buds, I started to have second thoughts.

Next I went to the ATM to get cash for the trip.  No problem there, and it's right next door to a Thrift Shop I sometimes go to but almost never find anything. So I dropped in.

And found this stuff!

Turquoise iron - $6. Sold.  Now SWMBO will be able to iron while we're camping.

Not something I would ever do, but she would. And that's OK.  Really.

Our Shasta, a 1962 model, was originally equipped with this pull out accessory in the kitchen, which can double as a light cutting board and a small ironing board.

Next item - another small electric fan.

Did I need another fan?  No.  This is number five or six in the collection.  But it was only $5, and it runs very quietly - how could I pass it up?

And lastly my best score.  These three bar stools - $36 for the set!

I really like the red, white, and black vinyl combination.  No nicks, cuts, or significant wear.  They swivel, and they have backs.  The red, black, and white scheme goes pretty well with the bar, don't you think?  Now I'm thinking I may come up with some kind of playing card theme for the bar area.  I may end up relocating the lunchbox shelf.  I'll have to think about that.

So scoring this stuff for about $50 made me decide to skip Carlisle on Friday.  I'm not looking for any car parts for the cars I have.

However, there is this big shindig at one of my favorite antique malls in Pennsylvania on Saturday.  The Old Sled Works is celebrating their 20th anniversary in business as an antique mall.  For year it was a factory making the old metal runner wooden sleds, and there is still some memorabilia on display, but there's a lot more too, including a great collection of pinball machines and old arcade games, and an old fashioned soda fountain.

So I thinking I'll  use that tank of gas to drive up to Duncannon, Pa.  At least I won't have to pay a $10 entry fee.  And I usually score at least a couple of good deals at the Sled Factory.  We'll see what happens.  Stay tuned.