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June 30, 2008
Fantastic Finds
My first purchase on eBay was a vintage Fisher Price toy. I was taken with the idea of my son Max playing with these charming toys that my four (yes four!) brothers loved as children. They included a barn with a separate silo, a schoolhouse, and a parking garage with an elevator that went up and deposited cars on an upper level. There's still a part of my brother’s barn in dad’s country house, and the old garage is on the front porch of his house in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Never mind that my sister told me years later that these toys had been taken off the market, because the wee narrow characters were dubbed choking hazards.
Then the other night I was invited to an eBay event. Shawn Henderson, eBay’s very charming design director, wanted to introduce himself to some new folks and show us some of the amazing finds he’s bought on eBay. So off I went to learn more. The event was held in Shawn’s design studio (his main job is interior designer), a nice-sized room a few blocks from our mid-town office. He showed me the table of curated items he’d put together, and I was surprised. Who knew you could find such amazing stuff outside of a very expensive mid-century modern antiques store?
Vintage vases, welded metal decorated mirrors and a Herman Miller clock are among the treasures Shawn won on eBay. |
I was blown away by this mirror festooned with welded metal disks from the seventies attributed to a well-known Californian metal artisan, Curtis Jere. And a cool Scandinavian lamp Shawn found for $350 and a Hermann Miller clock. Although I’ve had to step away from the mouse and force myself to stop bidding on eBay in the past, I am reminded by this visit what an amazing resource eBay is to pull off a design look of modern, eclectic items that I am passionate about.
More of Shawn's cool finds—a driftwood lamp, pewter candleholders and brass decorative accents. |
My own living room has a fifties sideboard that hides all our DVDs and bedding, which I bought from my director friend Tamra Davis (a big eBayer), for a steal ($450) when she was moving, a two-year-old Design Within Reach couch, a 70s lamp my husband had in his youth, and several pieces of our collection of outsider art. So if you find yourself trying to buy a funky 70s vase and you can’t seem to shake some other bidder, it might be me. I think I just got bit by the eBay bug again.
Shawn Henderson shows me fabuous items he found on eBay. |
Posted by Monica at 5:19 p.m.
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