Chicago-Indiana-Michigan, episode 5. In which a Catholic school boy confesses.

Perhaps you've already surmised (or haven't given it any thought), but I'm a Catholic school boy.  I may not have always enjoyed the seemingly overbearing strictness at the time (my entire 1970s) but I have embraced and gradually come to appreciate my socio-theo-educational experiences at St. Teresa's in Sleepy Hollow (nee North Tarrytown), New York.  What I failed to embrace at the time was Catholic school boy fashion (navy blue slacks and navy tie).  Daily.  For eight years.  I don't think I wore a tie or navy blue anything for a long time after leaving St. Teresa's for public high school (go Headless Horsemen!) in 1980, but I did eventually make my way back to the blue and gold (go Irish!).  Despite my early and vehement dislike of constricting neckties (including the clip-on variety in the earlier grades) and light blue or white dress shirts, I somehow came around to a rather ironic early collection.

On one of my first visits to the Michiana Antique Mall I stumbled upon a basket of cuff links.  Each matched pair was held together by a stringed tag looped onto itself and each handwritten tag detailed the fact that these were "cuff links" and most of them were Swank cuff links.  Most were not swanky by my 80s standards, but had been manufactured under the Swank label in the 1950s for fashionable businessmen and the women who loved-hated buying gifts for them.  I had never in my life seen a pair of cuff links.  Under closer examination, the basket (a literal woven basket) of what my then untrained eyes had at first collector's glance expected to be vintage clip or screw-back earrings looked more like earrings for alien ears.  I was intrigued enough by the unusual nature of this item (and the fact that most of the tags read $1) that I took the basket to the long counter at the entrance and asked the Midwestern-friendly employee what these mystical metal fasteners were.  Armed with my firsthand shorthand oral history of men's fashion accessories a minute later, I quickly looked through the basket before anyone sneaking up behind me dared plunder my newly-discovered treasure.

I think I bought about a dozen pairs of cuff links that day, most from the dollar basket and a few others I discovered at various locations throughout the mall's booths where the blingy-before-blingy-was-cool accoutrements of former collectors, wearers, and purveyors of formerly fine Fifties fashion trappings had gathered under my amateur collector's gaze and were now dropped diligently by my helpful research assistant at the counter into transparent miniature pouches for safe transfer to a new decade and a new home across the state line.

This is an awful picture.  I will do my treasured cuff link collection better justice another day.  Maybe I should mention that this represents only about a third of the current collection?  (Maybe I shouldn't.  It's a bit embarrassing.)  I went a little crazy for cuff links when I first discovered them and when I first discovered them I discovered them in great abundance.  At the time, there were so many cuff links at MAM and at Picker's that 90% of them were priced at one or two dollars a pair. Eventually, I pared my copious collection down to fifty pair (some with matching tie pins) and symmetrically squeezed them into two shadow boxes that hang by my side of the bed.  Enough have probably been added since that early pruning for a third shadowbox, but I'm not quite ready to admit that yet, so let's keep that superfluous store stored in the nightstand for now.

If you're keeping track,

it's a rather large nightstand.

One day, I'll tell you more about some specific pairs I have found in the ensuing decades because many of them have a special story to share and you can't be a true collector without a special story (or two) (hundred) to share.

In addition to the origin of my cuff links collection, I wanted to share another early MAM treasure.  I think this may have been one of the first items I purchased there because, if you recall, I was looking to give my new college apartment some old character.  And just in case I haven't mentioned it yet, I collect old tins.

I collect old tins.

These were the first.  It's a set of four kitchen storage tins with a very cool retro graphic all around (and I apologize sincerely for not presenting these properly for you to appreciate the graphics, but I hope you get the idea and appreciate their awesomeness as much as I do).

When I first started collecting tins I used them for storage throughout the kitchen and to add character.  Years later when I continued collecting them just for display (in that large empty dust-collecting wasteland of character above the cabinets) I forced myself (with a little help from Mari--she's my clutter enforcer) to pare down the collection, making some itinerant collectors at a few of our "we're bursting at the seems" yard sales quite content with bargain-priced character.

These Farmer's Almanac tins I have kept for sentimental and aesthetic reasons.

When I asked Mari to extract one of her first MAM memories, she came at me with this beauty.  Like most women, Mari has always liked jewelry.  Mari, however, LOVES jewelry.  I like to think I had something to do with getting her started on her lifelong love affair with all that glitters.  After years of unearthing treasures belonging to kindred past spirits, Mari has developed an appreciation for and knowledge of all varieties of gemstones and all manner of luminous natural and man-made materials.

This early piece she says caught her eye because of the color and because of the length (it's doubled up in the photo) and stretches to about three feet in its delicately beaded circumference.  The large glass beads stationed regularly throughout appear to glow from within when the sunlight hits them (much like the mystical stones in Temple of Doom although Mari would be the first to call the authorities to have my poetic license revoked if I actually disengaged that claim from this parenthetical so herein it shall remain).

Mari and I both have favorite vendors at MAM and despite long delays between leisurely fleamarketing visits, they still remain favorites.  I must admit that Michiana Antique Mall is generally geared more towards the serious rather than casual collector.  I'm not saying a casual collector or browser will not find a great find nor am I saying that you must be a serious collector to shop here.  Serious collectors will be very happy to browse MAM and will likely be willing to pay the sometimes surprising price serious collectors are willing to pay.  That being said, there are many many beautiful and reasonably priced collectibles waiting to find a new home with casual browsers although I'm guessing that cuff links basket has long since been deprived of its closeout cache.

More on my favorite MAM vendor and another early collection next time.