I'll take mine plain.

     I like to go to antique stores with my friend, Cathy.  We poke around, reminisce about the things we grew up with that are now 'vintage', and look for bird cages.  With me being a  Hendryx Hoarder, my eyes can usually find a cage from 20 ft.  If I miss it, Cathy calls it out.  There are usually only one or two in the store at a time and mostly they are the brass beehive style.
     I recently went North to Grants Pass, OR with Cathy.  We hit a few shops and spent most of the time in our favorite one.  I'd thought about renting a space here for my cages but it was too expensive as well as 30 miles away from home.  Anyway, we wandered and looked and chatted.  We had a great time.
     I saw something that I don't understand.  I nearly backed into a h-u-g-e Hendryx globe cage. It was probably 15" at least in diameter.  I kid you not. It was on a stand which made it about eye level, maybe a little lower.  I didn't recognize it, at first, as a Hendryx, as it had been painted.  Not only painted, but painted and wiped off.  I don't understand it at all.  Why take a perfectly good brass treasure, paint it with creme puffy paint, and then wipe some of it off until the brass shows through?  Is that shabby chic?  I don't get it.  I stood there, jaw dropped, and stared.  I couldn't believe what had been done to it.  Without the paint, the cage and stand would have been in my car in a flying second.  I have two globe cages, but this one was different.  Maybe it was the height, or the stand, or the tray around it...I'm not sure.  
     It's disconcerting when cages scream at me in the store.  I'm sure that I'm the only one that hears the voices, and certainly I'm the only one who talks back to the cages.  "No, I've got 10 beehives.  I don't need another one, even though you are in remarkable condition."  Things like that.  Cathy just shrugs and goes on.  I examine, I look, I handle, I talk...then I go on my way, ignoring the pleas I hear.  This cage didn't talk very much.  It just sat there.  It was like it whispered "save me" or some such thing.  My logic was quiet.  Everything was quiet around us.  I heard the buzz of others in the store, but I stood and just stared at this masterpiece with it's dreadful 'do'.
     I know me.  I have the best intentions.  I will get this cage.  I will remove the paint.  I will...  I will... It would never happen.  I don't have the space or the inclination to get elbow deep in paint remover.  And what would paint remover do to the old brass underneath?  Important question that one.  Very important.
     "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton), is widely credited for coining the phrase in 1878 according to the internet.  It literally means "the perception of beauty is subjective".  Whoever 'improved' on this Hendryx cage must have thought it would look neat.  Cool.  Great.  Chippy.  Whatever.  But why is it here now?  Did it not work out as expected and was left here to find a good home?  I saw no beauty in it except what I knew was underneath the puffy paint and streaks.
     In my early days of trolling ebay for Hendryx cages, I didn't have enough knowledge to ask appropriate questions of the buyers.  Needless to say, I received some real shockers.  There were two that really stick out in my mind and on my shelves.  One is a mission style Arts and Crafts cage.  I bought it cuz it looked in good condition, clean brass, intact wires, etc.  What I got was a cage that had been spray-painted gold.  The paint was bumpy.  Maybe with texture?  Or maybe a terribly horrible job of painting.  The seller hadn't offered that it had been painted.  I hadn't asked.  Stuck.  Close to the same time I saw a drop-dead gorgeous Victorian cage with crimped wires that had the most wonderful shape.  I bought it.  Did I ask appropriate questions?  No.  Did I get another cage that had been spray-painted gold?  Yes.  It even had globs of paint in the seed guard.  Definitely didn't want to stay on my shelf.  Ugh!
     I don't understand.  I know I'm a purist.  I want my cages to be Hendryx.  I want my feeders to be Hendryx.  I want my stands to be Hendryx.  I'm pretty rigid on those points.  But I don't want to look under gold spray paint or creme puff paint and streaks to see my cage.
     You may think that I only collect brass Hendryx.  That is not so.  I have painted Japanned cages.  But the paint is intended and original.  No added touches.  I have painted stands.  But the chipped paint is the original paint.  No added touches.  And I have painted feeders.  Once again, the original Deco finish.  Intended.  No added touches.
     If anyone reading this can help me understand the idea of 'added touches', I'd really appreciate a comment.  I did just sell a red and a blue painted cages on ebay.  They were mid-century metal cages that had been well painted and designed by a previous owner.  They sold quickly.  But that didn't seem, to me, to be the travesty that this cage was.  Or my other aforementioned cages.  Maybe because they were metal and not brass?  Or Chrome.  I don't know.  I don't like the painted late Deco Chrome ones either.
     Maybe it does all just come down to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford and the saying that allows for individuality and expression of such.  "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."  I'll take mine plain, please.
     

Switch 'n' Run

Hi, I'm back.  It's hard to believe that it's been almost 6 months since I wrote something on this blog.  It's not because I'm not 'into' Hendryx, it's because I've been trying to feel my way along with this obsession.  I didn't feel that my stumbles and falls would be of interest to you so didn't write.

     I'm pretty much an 'all or nothing' kind of person.  I make a decision, paint it in black and white (no gray allowed) then run full force in the direction I have chosen.  When I acknowledged my obsession with The Andrew B. Hendryx Co. and admitted that I was taken by it, I jumped full force into collecting.

     My goal, initially and unrealistically, was to own one of everything that Hendryx made.  I started driving up and down the I-5 corridor in WA and OR, stopping at every antique store I could find.  Most of the time, when I asked if the store had any Hendryx cages, I was met with a blank face.  How could anyone NOT know Hendryx?  I was living and breathing it at the time.  I was consumed.  What cages I found, I snatched up and toted home.  I set them in my living room and looked and looked at them.  Then I started planning the next place to buy them.

     I discovered ebay last Fall.  The cages were out and available, and I was in hog heaven.  I didn't know enough, at that time, to choose and shop wisely so I ended up with some real train wrecks of cages.  I quickly realized that all sellers don't spill their guts with everything about a cage.  Some of them describe a little and leave the rest for questions from the unknown audience.  I didn't know enough to ask "Has it been repaired?"  "Has it been painted?"  "Are all the clips present and functional?" "Are the perches original?".  I certainly didn't know enough (or have the guts) to ask for more pictures.  There were cages advertised as Hendryx that weren't Hendryx.  They were Hendryx style or type.  Not Hendryx.  I had a steep learning curve.

     So...60 cages and a storage shed later, I decided that enough was enough.  By early Spring I realized I was in over my head and needed to start selling, not just collecting.  I had some repeats that I decided I could part with.  But with my headlong pace into this collecting path, I hadn't come up with a 'plan B'.  How do I sell?

     I did a 'switch 'n' run' onto another path.  I decided I would have a booth at antique shows.  I started creating ideas, page after page of design and plans.  "Tweet Things" was my name.  As you read on previous notes, this didn't work out.  I PLANNED for it to work.  I EXPECTED it to work.  I WORKED for it to work.  I bought bird cage feeders, bird baths, bird statues and other accoutrements that would round out my booth.  No go.  It just didn't work.  I realized that just because I had a passion for something didn't mean others did.  Oh, I got the raves, the oohs and aahs, and the "I remember when"s  at my booths, and there were plenty of lookers.  But the money didn't come in.  It just went out and out and out.

     So, there I am.  No plan C.  I floundered.  I was paying storage fees for things I couldn't move.  I had cages in several booths that weren't moving.  I floundered some more.

     I am not a flounder-er.  I don't do it well.  As a NICU nurse, I was queen of my castle.  I was in control of what happened to my baby during my hours.  If the unexpected happened, as it often does with neonates, there was backup available.  I was in control.  I worked 30 years of nursing in control.  My personal life was predictable and controlled.  Not a lot of surprises.

     Now, there's no control.  No backup.  It was me and me on this journey.  It was time for another switch 'n' run but I fought against Plan C.  My only option that I could see was to return to ebay.  I was amazed at the packaging creativity that I saw as I unpacked cage after cage in my buying spree.  There was a LOT of work to selling cages and stands.  I wasn't sure if my arthritic hands would be up to the task.  I'd sold my boxes of bubble wrap, recycled the stryofoam worms, and recycled all the boxes I'd received from my ebay sellers.  How would I start?

     I didn't switch 'n' run...I kinda turned in a direction and took a few steps.  I posted my best, my most unique, and some of my most prized items.  I wondered if 'someone' out there cared enough about Andrew B. to buy something with the Hendryx name and history attached to it.

     I've been amazed.  There are quite a few 'someones' out there who appreciate Andrew B and the creative inventors who worked for him.  There's a doc in Texas, an architect in Florida, a computer guy in New Jersey, and a woman in Alaska who all appreciate Hendryx.  They, and others, have their stories, their collections, their 'looking for's.  I've been selling on ebay for a month.  That's all, but I'm at a full run again.  I post new items and for the most part, people buy them.  Economically, I'm making a quarter for every dollar I spent last year.  The prices have dropped that much!!  What I was in a bidding war for last year doesn't even sell this year.

     There is side conversation that I appreciate on ebay.  Buyers share their stories.  I like to share mine.  That's why I started this blog, to share stories, but I haven't been consistent enough to make others want to be a part of it.  So I get the stories on ebay.

     I know, for example, while I am wrapping a box, that this is the 4th cage this person has purchased.  I know the feeders I've sold to him, and I know what he's looking for.  I have a name.  And I have an imagination big enough to envision others' homes and what it will be like to have my items there.  It's good.

     I don't have a need for another switch 'n' run at this time.  I'm here for a while.  If you want to check out my items, search on ebay for 'Hendryx vintage', or 'Hendryx antique', or 'bird cage feeders vintage'.  I'm bkv5353.  

I'm looking through my items to see what I have that you might want.  Who knows...you may just push the "BID" button.  And we can share our stories and the fascination we have with the Andrew B. Hendryx Co. of New Haven, Conn.

I will return.  Sooner than the last time.  Maybe in just a few days or a week.  I'm interested in visiting with you.