Jon's Hobby Collections

Here are some of my grandmother's collection of old opera song book from the 70s. All of these books were very well kept by her even thou it has passed 40 years old. Recalling back from mum's childhood memories, she remembered that these opera song books were normally given at the entrance of the opera theater. She also remember that the pages of the books were being used by the kids to be folded into paper planes or origami when they get bored during the opera show. These books contain the lyrics and the script of the opera songs. At the front and back page of the booklet, you can see the performer's name on it. For those older kids who were born before the 90s, do ever remember joining your parents for open air opera show and getting bored after awhile?  Too bad, I didn't have any experience joining my parents for opera show that were performed live on the open air stage. In fact, I do watch a bit of old Chinese Opera on YouTube just to get some add

I am so glad to find this huge and rare enamel basin which my great grandmother had kept for many donkey years. Although the condition of this basin isn't very good, I believe this can still fetch a high value in today's market due to it's unique large size. Larger enamel basins are much harder to find in antique shops as compared to smaller basins. In the past, only one household could have either one or two of these kind of large basin. This basin is mainly use for washing clothes and also a bath tube for baby and young children. The diameter of this basin is 67 cm and it stands at 25 cm height. Some of you guys maybe wandering how huge is this ?? Not to worry as I made things better by providing a clearer comparison in the picture below. The green enamel bowl is as big as your ordinary rice bowl. Probably, this is more than 50 years old already. I found this not long ago at my grandmother's old shop where it was left there behind the toilet for a very l

Here is an old but usable metal pail from my great grandmother's era. This pail has watched almost everyone grew up in my family as it is more than 50 years old. Overall this pail is still in a very good condition despite being well used over the years. There are still spots of rusty areas inside the pail and some on the exterior of it. The diameter of pail is 40 cm and the height of the pail is 62 cm tall . The weight about close to 2 kilograms and can hold up to 10 liters of water. One fact which I can get from this pail is that it is made in Singapore under Axe brand under the company, "Lian Pang.co".

Today's sharing is super short as I found this rare small gas cylinder stand. This stand is one of it's kind in today's world as it is no longer in production. Not many people had kept this because, the use of small gas cylinder have already vanish in the market. It took me a long time to find this stand to match it with my gas cylinder to make it a complete set. I found this lying in the shop's store room and it is fully covered with dust and spiderwebs.

Have you ever seen before a mini gas cylinder like this before ? Here is one of the rarest item that is passed down from my grandfather's time until today. My grandfather operates a gas supplier shop before it was taken over by my aunt in the 90s. This mini gas cylinder is used for ships as the sailors would use it to cook their food on board the boat. The cylinder can also be used for house and also for BBQ. Normally this kind of gas cylinder are very rare to come by as there were only a few of this units were only produced. Some countries have higher standard of regulations regarding about gas cylinder and some of this smaller baby cylinder didn't manage to get marketed in those stricter countries. The brand which I have is "lightning" brand which were made and fill in Malaysia. The cost of making these kind of small cylinders are more expensive as compared to making those larger ones. There are also labels with badge numbers, the weight of the cylin

Found this unused RC car which has been staying in my storage cabinet for many years already. To my surprised, everything is still intact and the condition of it still looks good despite it's long age. There was no battery leakage in the battery compartment and there is no cracks on the body. To my curiosity, I decided to give it a test. I place a 9 volt batteries into the remote control unit and place another 2 double AA batteries inside the RC car itself. At first, the car could move fast enough and I decided to place a little motor oil on the wheel shaft of the car. After that, I let the car spin upside down for awhile to ensure that the motor is able to pick up its speed before placing the car upright. With those actions taken, the car is able to drive fast. From the test drive, I found out that this car can only drive straight and reserved to the right. In the past, RC cars can only move in a few directions unlike now where RC cars can move in various direction lik

Discovered that there are only 2 of this original black colour MK brand bakelite sockets remaining at my grandma's shop. These switches have been in the shop for the longest period of the time and it has not been replaced by any modern white plastic switches at all. These sockets must be attached by screw to a wooden block of wood before it is screwed on the walls. Normally these switches and sockets are use for old wooden houses and sometimes for brick houses too. These bakelite sockets are often found in houses which were built before the 60s Not many people like these kind of bakelite sockets because it is normally black in colour and those white bakelite sockets often turn yellowish over time. These bakelite sockets often breaks easily if you dont handle with care. The screw trade of these bakelite sockets do break easily if you keep on screwing and unscrewing the screw. Speaking of screw, these screws which are used in these sockets are known as inches screw where

Back in the past, there were fewer electronic devices or electronic games that teach children about pronunciation, reading and also keep children entertain. The way in the past is manual teaching or by reading out loud. This cassette story book teaches children in the past about pronunciation and also reading. Children can first try to play the cassette tape and at the same time listen to the pronunciation. The words spoke during the playing of the cassette is the same as the words printed on the physical book. This is really a good innovation in the 1990s that can help to train and entertain children. I remember using this when I was about 4 to 5 years of age as I recall that I was bad at pronunciation HAHAHA. There were actually a lot more of this cassette book which I have kept in the past. I guess most of them have been given away already and now it is leaving this piece.  This set is from the year 1994 and was given to me by my cousin. I plan to keep this item as a

I will be letting go some rattan baskets which has been located in my house for a long time. These 2 baskets here are in fact brand new and they are well kept in the storage cupboard for years. There were no broken edges or any observation of peeling off rattan can be seen. Which means these rattan were high quality ones.  The reason why I wanted to let go these baskets here is to clear space for more of my other vintage collectible items which were all over the place. These baskets are measured at 18 cm in diameter and 5 cm in height. You can turn these baskets here into a good display items.  The selling price for these 2 baskets here is 12 Singapore dollars and shipping fee is also applied for those who are buying it from overseas. Please contact me using my email address if you are interested in these baskets. My email address for inquiries can be found clearly in my blog profile or you can message me on my carousell page at this link . 

These basins have a long history with my family as it has been there for more than 4 decades. I can recall that before plastic basin were commonly used now, these enamel basin were very popular in the past. The plain coloured basin were the older the ones whereas the beautiful design basin were the slightly newer ones which were mostly found in the 70s and the 80s. I remember these basin were used to soak cloth in hot water for cleaning the tables, wash vegetables and storing water. These basin were also used to bath small babies back in the past too. The enamel basin are very rigid and strong as compared to the aluminum basin. I do have some vintage aluminum basin in my vintage collection and I will blog and share them on my future blog post. But one thing bad about these enamel basin is that the paint will peel off easily when you accidentally drop the basin on the floor or you accidentally hit it hard with another colliding object. The enamelware have a higher tenden

Kept for more than 25 years or maybe longer than that, this piece serve as a good collector item and also a home appliances which can still function normally. This is a Toshiba brand rice cooker and it is originally made in Japan at that time. It is definitely lovely to see those Japanese branded vintage items that were originally made in Japan. Nowadays it is hard to find Japanese electronic brands which were made in their own home country. I was very attracted to the old fashion vintage cotton covered wires which is already extinct from today's electronic industry. Today, every electrical wires are using rubber coated wires which are more safe as compared to cotton covered wires which were used in the past. I will be sharing more about cotton covered wires in my next post in the future. Back in a few months ago, my mum tested this vintage rice cooker and everything works very well. She tested it by boiling some rice and all the rice inside the pot were well cooked.

This is really a vintage medical box from the 60s or maybe the 70s. This piece here is used to store most of my grandmother's shop medical supplies. I have not open this medical box in my whole entire life until recently I open it. In this discovery, there were a lot of vintage and old medicine bottles and also medicine boxes which were kept for a very long time. In today's modern world, medical boxes are made easy to carry and lighter in weight. This box is made from solid wood and it has not be taken down from it's original place since it was hanged there. The size of this kit is also much larger as it can allow lots of medicine to be safely stored inside. The paint of this kit here is original and also in good condition. Certainly, this unit here surely collects a lot of dust on the surface top and also the surroundings of it. I was quite happy to find a lot of vintage stuffs inside this medical box when I first took my glimpse inside it. Here is a handful of

This piece is an extremely rare piece to get these days especially in this set of condition and also if you ever overcome with such a huge drying tray like this. Not many people or collectors are willing to keep these kind of rattan things especially bulky and huge ones. Rattan is known to break easily when you don't store them well or used it for many times. With measurements of 64.8 cm in diameter, this piece here is really a huge piece which is normally used for drying of spices in a larger and bigger scale. Although the light brown colour of the rattan have turned darker in colour, the condition of this rattan still remains high quality. Long exposure in the sun, will cause the rattan to change it's colour from light brown to dark brown. The quality of rattan used for this piece here is also excellent. According to my dad who always help my grandmother to dry herbs in the past said that to make a strong rattan, the rattan is needed to be soaked in a syrup solution for

Wall fans are less popular in most parts of the world because the air circulation speed is much lesser as compared to ceiling fans. Here is one Sanyo wall fan. This is an early 1980s piece which was built 100% in Japan. The beautiful pink colour of this fan blade had been worn out due to long exposure to the sun. In fact, this was the original fan blade and it has not changed once it was bought. There is also a spare fan blade for this which my grandfather kept it. This wall fan is facing the evening west sun and this there are a lot of colour wearing out and also small broken parts. As you can see clearly, there is a broken part on the plastic front cage. This fan is also missing its other pull switch rope which function to trigger the fan to oscillate from right to left. The numbering on the fan speed scale have also been worned out too. It is quite a bit costly to repair these kind of fans these days because there is no more spare parts already. Especially the fan blade

I enjoy collecting vintage electrical appliances and I started this hobby not long ago. My hot collection items are old fans, turntable, amplifier and bakelite switches. I have other vintage electrical appliances which are also brand new and some are being currently used daily. On my future blog post, I will share more regarding my vintage electrical appliances that I have owned and some of them are owned by my relatives. Not to forget, these vintage stuff have a unique feature which makes me want to tell you guys more of it.

This is a much smaller version of a display cupboard which is now left hanging on the wall of my grandma's old shop. Originally used for keeping old collectible items like coin boxes and now it is empty. The wood of this piece here is still in a good shape, but the colorful wood coated layer is slowly peeling off a bit. As the ages goes by, the layer of the wood itself and the thin coated surface layer will wear out and peel off over time. If you want to make sure everything still stays intact, one must super glue lightly on the edge of the wood. The shelves of this cupboard is made from 100% real glass and it is very fragile. Over time, this glass wears thin as it is being exposed to the glass cleaner from time to time. The sliding glass door of this cupboard is also very hard to be taken down and until today, I am not so sure how to take down the sliding glass without breaking it. Besides the glass which are hard to take down, the wood which is supporting the cupboard is

This item is one of the cutest vintage hardware item ever I collected so far. Ordered by my grandfather from China in the 1970s and resell them in my family gas store. My aunt recall that he use this mini stove to boil water or tea while working on his job. He use to boil water using this in front of the shop, where they use to stack up the gas cylinder. She remembered this because my grandfather didn't know that this act is very dangerous as there were many gas cylinder surrounding him. Lucky nothing bad happen during the time. All of these items here are all brand new and have not been used at all Currently, there are not many more of these vintage stove set left as all this are the remaining old stock. The remaining of this set, I plan to sell the entire set on Carousell with a price tag of 90 Singapore dollars and click here for the link. This set comes in 3 parts which is the burner, glass covering the burner and the small pot. With this 3 items standing, the h