My personal, mini- version of American Pickers.

Anyone, besides me, ever watch "American Pickers" on the History Channel? Okay, well if you aren't a dork like I am, let me enlighten you. 2 guys, going across America, working their way through people's barns, sheds, and other places of antique build up, looking to find some old piece of something that they will then buy off the home owner and resell to collectors.
I find it intriguing. I wish I could roll up to someones house and go through their old stuff.

I got SORT OF close on Saturday morning.

Long story short, my dad knows a guy (know to us as G.N.D, Guy Next Door, because he was next to my dad's old office building) who buys/resells just about anything and he was having a tag sale. My dad and this guy go way back and they have always done business in a bartering like way. When we showed up (at a building he was emptying) we were allowed to 'pillage' for free.
Most of the stuff was 90's type junk, cassette players and the like, but buried deep beneath all of it I found something rather cool.

10 points for anyone who knows what this is.

No guesses? Well, let me tell you.

It is a label/price tag printer--like a little mini typeset printing press-- from the 1950's. Vintage, baby!

When we found it, we had no real clue as to what it did. We could tell it was a printing device and that it was very heavy, but that was all. I mostly wanted it to put in my room and smile at. And it matches my cucumber green couch.

Got home, searched on the Internet and found out just what it was (thank you eBay!), unfortunately it is only worth (or at least according to eBay) about $17 (though mine is in better shape than the one on there, so I could probably get a whopping $20 for my 14 pound green monster.)

Basically you stuck this itty bitty label in the top of it, set up the words/numbers with the teeny tiny typeset pieces and you cranked it around to print the label. My machine has been cranked 749 times (that gray piece has a counter on the top).

Almost all the little typeset pieces are there. And man, are they tiny. The little draw slides in and out of the machine, I guess for convenient storing.

I will never actually be using this thing, but it looks cool on my dresser next to my clock and vintage camera. And I have one and you don't. I love stuff like this. Going to tag sales, thrift shops, flea markets and finding unique, old things.

*this is where my mom is reading and think, "wow, is she my daughter or what?"

*no mom, not quite, I don't take things off the road side...yet...

Pickin' runs in my blood. And I'm only just getting started.