It seems fitting that my last two posts were about buying likenesses of houses. Because a year ago this month, Tyler and I bought an actual house in beautiful South Jersey. It's definitely an ant...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2019/10/an-actual-house.html
Strolling through Philadelphia's hip Fishtown after delving into a sweet Halloween ice cream treat at Weckerly's Ice Cream last Saturday, we wandered into Jinxed , an antique shop with three oth...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2017/10/even-more-houses.html
Shuffling back to our car last April in Old City Philadelphia after visiting the supposed (I should just believe the sign) last remaining steps to the Delaware River waterfront "commissioned by W...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2016/12/we-bought-house.html
As Tyler and I were leaving our favorite antique mall in Lewes, DE, last summer, I plucked a photograph jauntily resting on a table with other photos. I noticed two children and what I presumed t...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/12/painted-scenes-on-painted-screens.html
Browsing the aisles of a favorite antique mall in Lewes, DE, a few weeks ago, I came across a 1958 "how-to-get-there" street guide for New York City. I was going to leave it. It fits in the...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/10/material-culture-minute-map-memories.html
I cannot resist desiccated ephemera. Nicole Belolan's Collection And so that's why I came home from the Allentown Paper Show on April 25 with spices and other relics from the Bible Lands. ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/05/desiccated-toys-and-play.html
Meet Uncle Bill Moody. Meet Uncle Bill Moody and his friends. Nicole Belolan's Collection I bought this gem, labeled "Uncle Bill Moody" on the underside, in what looked like an unpr...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/04/death-on-porch-uncle-bill-moodys.html
Walking toward the exit of the enchanting Pennsylvania Farm Show a few weekends ago, Tyler asked me for a final time whether I wanted to have my photo taken with a Brahman bull. "No!" I exclai...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/02/ferdinand-bull.html
Scanning my Twitter feed back in December, I got excited when I spotted what looked like an early twentieth century photograph of a man wearing some dramatic makeup. I immediately thought of...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/01/more-on-makeup-box.html
I love this photograph. I can't quite make out who and what are pictured in the dozens of photographs arrayed on the wall. But that's besides the point. I love it because I can't help but t...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-mess.html
Last year, I mentioned an article from the 1970s that profiled a woman named Jenny Bell Whyte who made modern clothing out of historic coverlets. She established Museum Fabrics to Wear in 1971, ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/01/material-culture-minute-museum-fabrics.html
Flipping through the finalists of a frenzied photo shopping spree one day last fall, Tyler and I debated which CDV's, tintypes, snapshots, and cabinet cards to let go and which ones to add to ou...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-specter-at-right.html
Fancy antiques shows like the Winter Antiques Show (benefits East Side House Settlement ) in New York City have their critics, but I relish the opportunity to attend such shows. They bring you ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/11/look-touch-but-you-dont-have-to-buy-on.html
While plowing through a new stock of photos at one of our favorite antique malls, Tyler and I came across this stunning tintype portrait of a girl and her kitten. Tintype of girl and kitten, ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/10/material-culture-minute-kittens.html
Combing the aisles of an antique mall in Chadd's Ford, PA, a few weeks ago, I was looking for something special. A friend, who was out and about on a pre-Labor Day 'tique hunt, had just emailed a...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/09/material-culture-minute-are-you-doctor.html
I find it hard to resist antiques I know probably should have been discarded years ago. The best example I have of that is this late nineteenth-century makeup box, which I acquired back in 2010. ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/08/it-still-smells-like-crayon-on.html
In this snapshot (a recent acquisition-isn't it a great interior?), it looks like our friend has an announcement to make! Don't worry, Picking for Pleasure isn't going anywhere. But I do ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-new-blog.html
There is often a fine line between what antique dealers sell and what they collect. In some cases, dealers display their personal collections inside their shops. And why not? They give patrons so...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/05/material-culture-minute-we-go-from-one.html
It's a real pleasure to receive an invitation to lecture on my M.A. thesis topic--Berlin work--five years after I finished that degree and three years after publishing an article based on that re...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/04/stocking-up.html
Norman Rockwell's Good Friends (1925) & #UDFlat_SPencer I was practically born in a flea market . Thus it should come as no surprise that I could spend the rest of my life wandering th...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/03/stuck-between-decoy-and-some-berlin-work.html
Perusing a small Shriners' Hall antiques show in New Castle, Delaware, today, I could not help but stand aghast at and bemused by the sight of a giant papier-mâché boar perched at one dealer's ...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/02/material-culture-minute-where-did-you.html
Some time in 1935, Virginia Brussard (possibly the Altha "Ginny" Virginia Compher mentioned here ) bought a blank scrapbook. She assembled, affixed, and labeled paper and other ephem...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2014/02/property-of-nicole-belolan-ephemeral.html
I had the pleasure of writing a blog post about my collection of disability history photographs, crutches, ceramics, and ephemera--and how collecting these things informs my research on early A...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2013/11/material-culture-minute-collecting.html
Under Tyler's tutelage, I have been sewing a hunting shirt for myself. Hunting shirts, as former Colonial Williamsburg journeyman tailor Neal Hurst has written in his thesis and as several blo...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2013/11/stitch-by-stitch.html
Over a year ago, while digging through one of my favorite booths in one of my favorite antique malls in Newark, Delaware, I spied some ephemera peeking through plastic behind a framed item on t...
http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2013/07/material-culture-minute-bookmarking-rob.html