These cardboard signs were given to customers of ice companies to facilitate order & delivery. The numbers around the edges referred to the pounds of ice needed. Customers simply hung the sign in their window with their requested delivery weight at the top. Based on the direction of the sign in this photo, the delivery man would leave 20 pounds of ice. (Based on the four digit phone number, this sign is probably from the 1920s.)
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History Lesson: Revolutionary War Arms
How did France help us win the American Revolution? By providing the colonists with weapons! Angry with Great Britain after the loss of territory during the French & Indian War, the French Ambassador met with Benjamin Franklin in 1778 to sign The Treaty of Alliance. France provided colonial soldiers with more than 100,000 guns (like the Charleville Musket pictured here). These front-loading muskets took in excess of 2 minutes to load resulting in multiple lines of rotating shooters.
Helpful Hints from Colleen: Repairing Damaged Garden Antiques
Until you find a broken concrete statue or urn, you might not realize that cement statuary & planters are actual very breakable. Over time, weather can affect the stability of your cement garden antiques making them more susceptible to damage. Prevention is the best approach. If your garden pieces are too big to store for the winter, tip your urns upside down so water & snow can’t accumulate inside and cover your statuary with shrub covers or tarps. But if it’s too late for prevention and you find yourself with broken cement, take heart and head to the hardware store!
Pre-mixed concrete patch comes in ready-to-use tubes. This convenient patch mix can be used as a crack filler or as an adhesive to reattached broken pieces. Over the years, I’ve used this simple mix to fix all kinds of cement garden antiques. As a glue, apply it to both surfaces and brace the area until it dries. As a filler, I use my fingers to blend it–if the color isn’t an exact match, I add dirt or moss and feather the patch out into the rest of the piece.
Helpful Hints from Colleen: Scratched Furniture
One of my favorite fixes for furniture scratches is Old English Scratch Oil. As you can see by the photo, I use mine all the time! Essentially, it’s furniture oil with a little bit of stain in it. It comes in several different shades and you just rub it on the surface. If you’re doing a table top, rub it over the entire surface–the oil with color the scratches while cleaning and polishing the entire surface. A great quick fix!
Welcome & Thank You!
With gratitude to Tim Sullivan & The Secret Agency of Rollinsford NH, we are happy to welcome you to our new web site! This has been on our “to do” list for a number of years but between construction projects, renovations, the constant flow of new inventory, and our commitment to being open 7 days a week/365 days a year, the web site project has always take a back seat. But no longer! Tim was able to take my “chicken scratch” and turn it into a working web site that represents our esthetic & our vision. And beyond that, he is teaching me how to do it myself! So welcome to the virtual version of RS Butlers! And thank you, Tim!
Inventory changing daily!
Cool things at every price point!