Second Life ~ Healing Broken Dreams

[Armorbeast]

As you know, we are trying to establish a collectibles project at DSA. The idea came to mind that while it's great to sell new or slightly used collectibles, there are items out there which most would not consider offering. What are these items? Broken statues, torn stuffies and other items which have been damaged or broken. Most people just get a little angry or sad... then throw the items away. However, many of these items could be repaired, cleaned or repurposed to grant them a Second Life. Since these items are broken, they will have very little or no real resell value. For this reason, any items you would like to donate should be sent as gifts to members of DSA who agree to take in the items to try repairing them.

In other cases, maybe you've found a broken arrowhead or just a pretty rock. Who knows, maybe someone at DSA would like to have it and make something out of it using arts and crafts skills.

While we don't really expect this to take off, we would like to at least offer the opportunity. Maybe you have a precious item that became soiled or maybe... ahem... stinks. For a small fee, maybe someone can fix it for you. For many such items, a donation will have a trickle down effect as a repaired toy or fantasy object might then be donated to someone else after it has been repaired or repurposed.

If you are interested, simply reply on this topic and share a few photo's of the object with a bit of backstory to see if anyone might be willing to help or accept your donated, but damaged, items.

[lornagracevibert]

I've just acquired a Sawyers Bakelite Viewmaster which came with a set of slides that I wanted (I already have another vintage bakelite viewmaster!) and this one has a broken lever. It should still work ok but I couldn't get the pics to move on properly; this might be cause I wasn't pushing the lever down hard enough as it is a bit SHARP. I guess if you use the right stuff (I think there's a sort of adhesive mouldable putty stuff you can buy now) you could repair the thing. Anyway, it's up for grabs folks!

[Armorbeast]

What year is this as the black ones are usually one of the earlier models and highly collectible. In the US, we've had the cheap red plastic ones since I was a kid.

It would be fun to see if we could turn out art into Viewmaster slides as the Viewmaster was always an extremely beautiful way to view photographs. Maybe they could do the same for artwork and people could sell their art as Viewmaster slides.

Here though, by the 70's when they were being made more cheaply, they became more a toy for kids and adults stopped taking them seriously. But it is a great experience.

And yes, the lever can develop difficulties with time so if this is an older one from the 50's and 60's but still works at all then it's got collectible value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master

[Armorbeast]

When I did a Google search, the cheap red ones came up until I added Bakelite and then the black ones come up with boxes that look 1950's style and a bit worn. When I did an Ebay search though, they aren't coming up with good prices which isn't unusual if there's a lot of them out there. But Ebay often does this as it's an auction site and you never know what you're getting so they might not work at all. I think the price goes up with the image reels.

But this did bring up a great idea for a product to sell your art. Wonder who makes the reels and if they'd be open to making some art reels for members.

[Avros]

These were usually available after 1940~1950's. I am not sure, but I think the newer reels may still fit them. The most sort after viewers are the twins. They contained two slides,dating back to 1930~1940's. Some were fitted onto a wooden slider.