The Strangest Artifacts I’ve Ever Saved
Some thoughts on the pleasures of vintage price tags. Plus a new Inconspicuous News Roundup, and more.
Like a lot of people, I have some possessions that I’ve saved for sentimental reasons, including some books from my childhood, ticket stubs from events I attended, my father’s college ring, and so on. But today I want to talk about something I saved because — well, I’m not really sure, and that’s why I want to talk about it here.
Let’s start with this: As you may recall, I’ve periodically written about some of the items on my living room mantel (including the wooden bird, the parking meter, and the gumball machine).
But I’ve never said anything about those two metal peacocks situated above the mantel. Here’s a closer look:
I got the peacocks two summers ago at a vintage shop in New Jersey. I think it was five bucks for the pair. I wasn’t sure where I’d put them, but it didn’t take long to figure out that they’d fit perfectly into that rectangle above the mantel.
But here’s the thing: The peacocks came with a little bonus. Each one had a price tag, presumably from the store where they were originally sold. I removed the tags before mounting the peacocks on the wall, obviously, but the tags somehow felt too important to throw away, so I stowed them in a drawer. I’ve been periodically seeing them in that drawer for more than a year and half now. Each time I see them, I wonder why I kept them and what I’m going to do with them. Here they are:
As you can see, the peacocks were being sold — for just $1 apiece! — by Ohrbach’s, a New York-based department store chain that went out of business in 1987. (I remember seeing their TV commercials when I was growing up.) Judging from the tags’ punch card format and the version of the Ohrbach’s logo, I’d say they’re probably from the 1960s or early ’70s.