At the recently-held collectibles show, sponsored by Sukanen Museum, I wandered the aisles checking out the offerings from the dozens of vendors who had patiently unpacked their wares and now looked with anticipation as shoppers meandered through the show.
At a show 10 years ago, I found my own personal treasure. I wrote a column then that is reprised this week, telling of my excitement:
“These kinds of shows are attended by three distinct guests:
“The serious shoppers, those individuals with definite ideas for what they seek, what they will buy and how much they will pay and who are not easily diverted from a pre-set course; the browsers, folks who aren’t really in the market for anything in particular but will know when they see an item that they must take it home; and the critical touchers, the ones who never want to pay the posted price, will argue about the age and value, and will inevitably find fault with an item in an attempt to have the price reduced.
“I might be described as a browser, that person who quickly scans a table of items and then moves on to the next table and the next, continually refusing to make eye contact with the vendors for fear they might try to talk me into a purchase of something I know I don’t need.
“Thus, on this opening day of the show, I was on a browsing expedition, checking out the competitors’ pricing schemes and eyeballing what appeared to be the most popular collectibles of this new season of sales.
“There was an assortment of just about anything one might want to buy, or even trade, if the vendor had a mind to negotiate. A set of Pyrex bowls caught my eye and I checked to see the price without raising the hopes of the seller. The tally was $50, but I thought to myself that I could likely get more for the identical set in the cupboard at home, mine being without chips on the rims. That detail was filed away for future reference in case I ever decided to sell my carefully maintained set.
“As I made my way through another section of tables, a bright yellow pail caught my eye, and I took a second look. “Oh my gosh,” I thought to myself. “This is my lucky day.”
“There on the table sat three pails, each a different size, each bearing the distinctive symbol of the Western Oil Company, a one-time Moose Jaw firm that supplied greases and lubricants to farmers and truckers and equipment operators.
“I reached out and touched one of the pails, and touched it again and stood there staring, surely with a stupefied look on my face.
“The vendor noticed me gawking and I quickly started a conversation, learning that he collected this kind of memorabilia on a large scale, and even had a Western Oil sign in his warehouse only a few miles away on the Trans-Canada Highway. I was in heaven to learn that someone else realized the nostalgic value of these items and had preserved them.
“I explained that my dad had had a Western Oil dealership in my home community and that I had been searching, to no avail, for some mementos of this company. It was a joyous occasion and I returned to our tables with a swing in my step that hadn’t been there at the beginning of the journey.
“I tried very hard to resist the allure of the grease pails, but the next day, money clutched in my hand, I made my purchase and even got a bit of a reduction, without even asking, probably because the kind vendor knew exactly how I felt about those pails.
“Of course I got curious looks as I proudly carried my purchase through the hall, and I heard some acquaintances wondering why I would buy a grease pail.
“What is junk to some is treasure to others, and my treasure of the weekend was a grease pail that still had some grease around the edges of the lid. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
I thought happily about that sale of 2013 and envisioned that grease pail that sits in my office, looking a bit out of place among papers and files and a photocopy machine. I haven't found a treasure since then that matches the satisfaction gleaned from the grease pail discovery a decade ago.
Indeed, my treasure is not junk.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
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