Sunday, May 1, 2011

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.

3 comments:

  1. Whahahahat!!! How can I be the only one to comment on this post! Thank you SO MUCH for taking pics of these amazing games! They have some seriously rare items in there! The old games were very mechanical and were played a lot. Many of them just didn't survive. I am glad to see most of them lit up and I presume playable! What a great spot to drop off a few nickels & dimes. I LOVE the Skee Ball Machines. Spoiler alert...I've been meaning to do an upadate on my Tiki Barcade...I HAVE a Skee Ball Machine! Oh Lawd! Wait till you see it! If I can ever steel some free time I'm have so many big ticket items to share. Again, thanks a mil for these great pics. The sleds, the games and of course the cars are my fave!

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  2. I was starting to think no one cared :-D Thanks for the feedback Amber, I had you in mind when I was shooting these. You have a Skee Ball too? Unbelievable!!!

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  3. I just discovered your blog. And I was entranced by the photos. Especially the tv's. Wonderful!!!!!!

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