You’ve seen a lot of Sarah’s and my “fave finds”, but recently I visited my sister’s house and realized she had a whole treasure trove of amazing collectibles. Lindsay has been mentioned on this blog before, and if you don’t remember, she is the penguin keeper at the Detroit Zoo. Her vintage and antique collection is centered mainly on old Detroit Zoo memorabilia, and also general zoo related items. I hadn’t been to her house in awhile, and was super impressed by the way she displayed all of her finds.
This old library cabinet is the perfect way to display all of her zoology books and collectibles. Sarah and I see these cabinets all the time at sales and they are usually around $300-$400. Lindsay lucked out and got this for free when she found it thrown out in the trash. She painted it the white color I believe.
This shadow box has an old Detroit Zoo charm bracelet and vintage pins. It also has old “zoo keys.”
“Zoo keys,” I believe, are from the 1960s or 70s and were given to children to use around the zoo in “talking storybooks.” These “storybooks” were basically signs that played audio when a key was inserted. Very cool and very cute!
Old programs are fun to collect but often hard to display. They usually end up in stacks on a bookshelf or in a drawer. Timmy displays old baseball programs in a table with a glass top so you can see all of the program covers. Lindsay, as you can see, framed her programs.
So what is Lindsay’s ultimate fave find?
This old scrapbook was put out by the Detroit Free Press. It came empty, and each week children were encouraged to cut out different zoo photos from the Sunday paper to fill it. Lindsay was lucky to find a copy of this in which some diligent child filled the entire thing!
I love this scrapbook because it is so indicative of a bygone era. I imagine a little kid waiting for the paperboy to swing by so they could collect their next zoo photo. Adorable.
Again, if you have a “fave find,” we want to hear about it! Visit us on our Facebook page and post a photo!
-Erin