[box] As part of our Treasures section, we will make a monthly visit to Tony and Luke at Ozone Bazaar in Koroit St, Warrnambool (who are great supporters of Bluestone Magazine) to see what intriguing items they have picked up locally.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #E6E600;”] W [/dropcap]ell before the Thermo-mix, Bamix and Kitchen-Aid, there was the Sunbeam mixmaster.

Just about every kitchen across south-west Victoria had one of these tucked in the kitchen cupboard from the 1940s to 70s, but to find one today in buttercup yellow, with matching bowls and even the instruction booklet is rare indeed.

Even more miraculous is the fact this 1950s model is still in working order: it is hard to imagine any modern kitchen device lasting for 50 years!

Did your mother have one of these?

Ours did…and in my case (Carol), it was white, with the big dial on the end that you could turn to match the recipe – cakes, cream, mashed potato etc. The mixer would roar into life, puffing a cloud of slightly oily smoke into the room, which served as a reminder that Mum needed to put a drop of Singer sewing machine oil into its mechanism.

The best bit, of course, was at the end when Mum would undock the beaters, hopefully covered in cream, and hand them to us kids to lick. Some simple pleasures don’t change.

You can read our earlier story on Luke and Tony at the Ozone Bazaar, or find them on Facebook here.

[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”] Do you enjoy Bluestone? Please subscribe here to help Bluestone thrive.[/button]

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[box] As part of our Treasures section, we will make a monthly visit to Tony and Luke at Ozone Bazaar in Warrnambool (who are great supporters of Bluestone Magazine) to see what intriguing items they have picked up locally.[/box]

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] T [/dropcap]hese somewhat ghoulish little heads caught our eye, especially as there was a whole basket of them staring out into space.

Ozone Bazaar co-owner Tony Turnley picked these up from a secondhand dealer in Edenhope and believes they date from around the 1950s. The cardboard heads were attached to a bag of sweets and, after the sweets were all eaten, the heads could be saved and used as puppets.

Hmmmm….

Not sure if these faces would bring fun or fear to a child, but they are certainly now very collectable and sell for between $5 and $10 a pop.

If you know any more about these creatures, or perhaps you even owned one, please let us know!

You can read our earlier story on Luke and Tony at the Ozone Bazaar, or find them on the web here and Facebook here.

[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”] Did you enjoy this story? Please subscribe here to help Bluestone thrive.[/button]

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Former second-hand dealer TONY DRYLIE is a natural collector of unique and interesting objects, but when it comes to choosing a particularly special collection, he couldn’t go past his set of small drawers:

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] T [/dropcap]hey say necessity is the mother of all invention and a collection of small drawers and cabinets demonstrates how “storage needs” were dealt with well before Bunnings or Mitre 10.

Former Warrnambool second-hand dealer Tony Drylie has been collecting unique miniature drawers and cabinets for about 30 years and has more than a dozen, one-off pieces that span more than a century.

“The first one I bought was a birthday present for my wife, Claire, and it went from there,” he said, pointing to the beautiful kauri pine miniature wardrobe that remains one of the most striking pieces in his collection.

The wardrobe is not a functional piece, but perhaps a practice item for an apprentice. Others in the collection, however, were built purely for utilitarian purposes.

A series of steel sardine cans (remember them?) have been recycled into a series of small drawers for nails and screws, another was built as a rustic first aid kit and medicine cabinet, while another, much more refined-looking cabinet was designed to contain smoking pipes and tobacco: it even comes with a lock and key.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] T [/dropcap]ony believes the oldest pieces date back to the late 1800s, while others reflect the Great Depression, when everything was re-used and recycled, including old industrial crates and boxes that were turned into furniture.

“I really like the fact that someone has sat down and gone to the effort of making it, usually out of second-hand timber, or whatever they had lying around, like the old steel sardine cans,” Tony said.

The collection unites Tony’s interest in the skill of fine woodcraft and his love of history.

“It would be really great to know the story behind each one: to know who built it and why,” he said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] O [/dropcap]ne of his most precious pieces, however, is from his own family and is a wooden money box with moving parts that his grandfather made for Tony’s late father, Bill. While it is showing signs of age, Tony intends to make only minor repairs, as he does with all of the pieces.

“Most of them are in original condition, which is how I like to keep them, rather than lose their authenticity,” he said.

While Tony is no longer officially in the second-hand business, he hasn’t given up scouring clearing sales, auctions and garage sales for the occasional treasure.

When asked if his collection of miniature drawers was complete, he gave the reply that any true collector will give: “Oh no! Not by a long shot!”

[box] Do you have a treasure? It might be sentimental, it might be valuable, it might be part of a collection, or it might be something you just can’t live without. If you have a treasure that we can feature here, let us know! Email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au[/box]

[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”] Did you enjoy this story? Please subscribe here to help Bluestone thrive.[/button]

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Lawyer ROY REEKIE, who recently returned to live in his home town of Warrnambool, tells us about an item that is dear to his heart in this week’s Treasures:

[quote]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0A0A0A;”] I [/dropcap] treasure this t-shirt because it incites memories of the (in)famous, dear-departed Criterion Hotel in Kepler Street, Warrnambool.

The Cri was one of three pubs that my high school friends and I would visit, despite being under-age…

Pat Farrell holding court in the front bar with the Wooden Eye joke is one vivid memory – most likely burned in by repetition.

Cri gigs by Psycho Sloth, the Bondi Cigars and Rollerball all figured highly in the development of my musical appreciation, with loud, raucous, guitar-driven rock a common thread.

My 21^st birthday downstairs in Bungs also comes to mind: teacher and singer/guitarist Don Cowling played all night – a happy troubadour until he smashed his back windshield packing his amps away.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0A0A0A;”] T [/dropcap]he guys on this t-shirt – the Cri Pigs – hold a special place in my memories. They were ex-clients; brothers who dabbled in minor, sometimes violent, but always thoughtless crime. They could play pool like demons and held those two Cri tables with an iron grip.

I went in there one night, with my sister Kathy, for a few celebratory beers for some reason.  The two brothers held both tables, having played and intimidated everyone else out of challenging them.

Given that I knew them, I bowled up, chatted a while, shouted them some beers and got shouted back, before putting it to them – the best of 3 games; doubles; my sister and I against them. They scoffed but didn’t factor in Kathy’s consummate pools skills and my misspent youth and determination.

Three-nil later, Kathy and I held the tables, and kept them all night with the Cri Pgs doing their snarling utmost to win them back.

A t-shirt of memories – and well-earned, I’d say.”

[box] Do you have a treasure? It might be sentimental, it might be valuable, it might be part of a collection, or it might be something you just can’t live without. If you have a treasure that we can feature here, let us know! Email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au [/box]

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[box] Welcome to Treasures: this is a new section where we invite you to tell us about an object or item that you treasure. It might be sentimental, it might be valuable, it might be part of a collection, or it might be something you just can’t live without. If you have a treasure that we can feature here, let us know! Email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au and tell us about it.[/box]

This week, well-known South-West Victorian DI CLANCHY – a former librarian, former Moyne Shire councillor, founder of the ex-Libris book festival in Port Fairy and now a travel consultant – tells us about a treasured item from her travels to China…

[quote]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap] treasure from China you ask? That would definitely be a coat made of richly embroidered blue silk, elegant, feminine, and stylish. I bought it at a Friendship Store in Guangzhou in 1990, happily handing over several Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) as payment.

The coat is a deep turquoise blue-green in colour, and hangs just below the knee. Panels of ivory-white circle the neck, define the front, and continue around the hem. Wider panels of the same colour trim the sleeves. Black silk piping separates white from blue.

But all over the entire coat is embroidery!  Pinks, greens, oranges, reds, blues, yellows, so many colours and shades. Large peonies are surrounded by circlets of narcissus, violets, daisies, roses, irises. Chrysanthemums decorate the wide sleeves.

The coat is wearable art.

I was in Guangzhou in February, 1990 with a group of women, just friends travelling together, nothing organised formally. We stayed at hostels and cheap hotels, travelled by train to Xi’an and back ( 3 nights each way), rode local buses with packs on our backs, ate out in local restaurants, used the local currency as well as FECs and wore out our shoes and our Lonely Planet guides as we walked the streets  of Guangzhou and Xi’an. It was so special to have my 13-year-old daughter, Alice, sharing the adventure with me.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]hat was 1990. No Foreign Exchange Certificates in China now, just one currency and the concept of Friendship Stores for foreigners and the elite has also gone.

Cars have mostly replaced bikes on the roads, and you can find your way now more easily with “Pinyin” (our alphabet) signage, and English is spoken more widely. Instead of the severe Mao suits we saw on our early trip, Chinese women of 2014 wear elegant contemporary clothes.

Speaking of fashion: I have this treasured 23 year old coat which I hope will never go out of style. I have worn it to special events, operas and dinners. It graced my wall for a time, until I worried that the colour would fade.

Treasured for its beauty- and the many memories it holds, I hope that the coat will continue to be worn, appreciated, and loved, into the future. It’s a treasure that is up there with my daughter’s letter to the tooth fairy, my grandmother’s christening mug, a lock of my son’s hair, and lots and lots of photos.”

– Di Clanchy

[box type=”bio”] Di Clanchy specialises in affordable women’s travel to China and Vietnam through her business, China Birds. You can visit her website here (and maybe find a treasured coat of your own!)[/box]

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signed, Fletcher Jones