By Karrie Jacobs
Looking for salt and pepper shakers shaped like guinea pigs, embroidered fabrics handy for quilt-making or throw pillows, or an oil portrait of a very attractive cow? The odds are good that you will find these treasures and many others at the Andes Society for History and Culture Thrift Shop. (Wednesdays 10 am to 2 pm and Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm).
Housed in the vintage firehouse (1894) next door to the Andes Hotel in downtown Andes, the store is packed with goodies, most in plain sight. Other items have just recently emerged from boxes that sat unopened.
The shop had long been managed by Andes tax collector Margaret Moshier. When Margaret retired last year, Joanne Kosuda-Warner and a team of new and returning volunteers spent the Winter reorganizing the inventory.
Note that Joanne, President of the ASHC (which owns the Hunting Tavern, a historical museum and exhibition space, and the Pleasant Valley Meeting House) was formerly a curator at New York City’s Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Design Museum.
When she came across a box labeled “old books,” her curatorial instincts told her to open it. She was amazed to find, amid obsolete textbooks and other ephemera, a 1785 edition, published in London, of “An authentic narrative of a voyage performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke, In his Majesty’s ships Resolution and Discovery…”. (Cook, of course, was the first European to explore Polynesia and the islands we know as Hawaii were, for a time, the Cook Islands.) Says Joanne, “I just was blown away.”
In the same box, Joanne found an edition of 1678 allegorical novel, The Pilgrim’s Progress. This one was printed in Exeter New Hampshire in 1810 and has lovely hand-tinted illustrations.
After consulting a paper conservator she knows from her museum days, Joanne is keeping the rare books wrapped in protective paper until she can locate a buyer. The sale of the books, like all thrift shop merchandise, will benefit the Andes Society for History and Culture.
However, the rest of the treasures Joanne (assisted by Judy Morse, Vera Liddle, Lisa Sanders, Tina DeSanto, Deborah Mamaro, Sarah Lewis, Donna Kergiv, Jackie Evans, Linda Dunne and Julianna Egner) unpacked or reorganized during the past several months – including a dazzling array of glassware and rarities like a SpaceX sweatshirt – are available for your thrifting pleasure.~