Tag Archive | "promotional item"

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Friday, October 30, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Maud Newton, has ended. Original price: 59 cents. Final price: $24.50.] This astonishing “Cracker Barrel” artifact appears to be a souvenir of modern vintage, representing a down-home North American restaurant-and-country-store chain that upholds Christian values by refusing to hire gay people. In fact, the object dates to [...]

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Maine Statutes Dish

Monday, September 28, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Ben Katchor, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $42.] This beautiful, but slightly worn, example of early 20th century porcelain “bookware” was manufactured and distributed free-of-charge along with newly printed copies of the “Maine Revised Statutes Annotated” — a dreary compendium of state laws. This example, [...]

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Uncola Glass

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

11 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Jen Collins, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $20.50.] For my 9th birthday, I begged my mother to take me to the iron-on decal store at the Meadow Glen Mall. I had seen some older boy wearing a sweatshirt with a glittery rip-off of the Superman [...]

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Marines (Upside-Down) Logo Mug

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Tom Vanderbilt, has ended. Original price: 75 cents. Final price: $37. This story was part of a special collaboration with Design Observer, where it was co-published here.] If he had a personal philosophy, and if such things needed to be articulated, it might be called: the aerodynamics [...]

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Pabst Bottle Opener

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Sean Howe, has ended. Original price: 25 cents. Final price: $20.51.] It’s difficult work, wooing Donna. For one thing, the rhythms of my courtship are constantly interrupted by the lustful swarm of others, many of whom clumsily flirt with her. I’m impressed with the way she puts [...]

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“Hakuna Matata” figurine

Thursday, July 23, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Jennifer Michael Hecht, has ended. Original price: 99 cents. Final price: $10.50.] Kathy can remember how she left both of her ex-husbands but she can’t remember how she left Jeffrey. She can remember a phone call that seemed to finalize that she was leaving him with his [...]

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Halston Mug

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

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[The auction on this Significant Object, with story by Mimi Lipson, has ended. Original price: 39 cents. Final price: $31.] From AW: The Lost Diaries Wednesday, June 13, 1979 Halston was having a birthday party for the Dupont twins, so I glued myself together and cabbed to the Pierre to pick up Bianca ($5). She’s still mad at [...]

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Miniature Bottle

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

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[The auction for this Significant Object, with story Mark Frauenfelder, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $23.] Matt saw the tiny blue bottle on the third step of the main entrance to the Los Angeles Central Library. It was next to a sleeping man, obviously homeless. A $100 bill, rolled-up, was protruding from the [...]

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Sanka Ashtray

Monday, July 6, 2009

17 Comments

[Bidding on this Significant Object, with story by Luc Sante, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $17.79.] Only now do I feel free to tell my part in the theft of the famed Light of the East diamond from the home of Roscoe and Mindy Furgarden in Beverly Hills in the summer of 1979. The [...]

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