Jon's Hobby Collections

Ever wonder how does an old vintage cupboard looks like ?? Well I found one perfect example to share with you guys. Here is a rare vintage dressing cupboard from the late 40s or maybe during the early 50s era. This cupboard is specially belongs to my late great grandmother who have owned it for the longest period of time. Made from solid teak wood, this piece here is really a big white elephant in the house. I remember it takes about 3 people to carry this cupboard from upstairs the old shop house into my grandma's home. Another feature about this cupboard is that it has these unique antique made locks installed on it. These locks are commonly found on antique furniture during the early 50s era or before that. Therefore, this piece here makes a good display item for vintage lovers. The drawers for this cupboard are hard to pull out, as the drawer wood is sitting on top of the wood frame of the cupboard. Therefore, there is a lot of friction force when you pull open the drawers. ...

This desk is given by an owner of a gold smith shop to my grandfather back in the 70s. This desk which last place at my grandmother's shop was used to be a working desk for heavy tools. The bottom compartment is used to keep heavy tools like hammers, spanners and many more. The surface of the desk is made in a way to withstand the pressure and stress of the hammering work as it is made with a thick layer of teakwood underneath the cardboard to give it a strong surface. This desk is impressive steady and strong despite its age.

These chairs belong to my grandfather back then and it was place at my grandmother's old shop back then. I will not forget this chair because I use to climb up this chair and rock my way while sitting on this chair pretending that I am on a rocking chair. My mum without fail will scold me when she saw what I did. She is more worried because this is a foldable chair and she don't want my tiny fingers to be caught when the chair collapse. Overall, this chair here is a very good piece made from normal wood (Not ply wood) coated with a layer of wood painted to give the dark brownish effect. It is one of its kind today and it is really solid and stable. Even the foldable Ikea chair cannot even beat this wonderful vintage foldable chair.

My grandma used to have a lot of these small and short stools as she will use it to sit down while washing clothes or plucking the vegetables. These stools are indeed very hardy and heavy. It is made from real solid teak wood tailored by my granduncle in Singapore where he owns a wood factory. Most of the stools in my grandmother's old shop are specially made by him and some older ones are made by my great grandfather. This kind of vintage stool isn't cheap and one stool can easily cost about 30 Singapore dollars. Therefore, if you have them, it is worth keeping them.

Old school stools like this kind are real collectibles and bonus comes in when the stools are in great condition.  It was my mum's favorite stool back then when she was a little girl. She can recall many clear memories of her climbing up the stool and falling down from it. She can recall that this stool acts like a fortress or a small house to her back then.  I was laughing out loud when she shared her happy and funny moments that she had with this stool. More about this stool, it is made from real hardwood solid stool made in the 50s era. On top of the surface of the stool, there is a green formica wood that my grandfather decided to add on top of it for beauty looks or not it would be a plain wooden dark brown stool. This stool is very solid and heavy in weight. This piece is very beautiful and it is worth keeping and using it.

Anglo Chinese School has been founded on 1st March 1886 in a shophouse located in Singapore. Soon, Anglo Chinese School (ACS) started to expand larger and have campus across Singapore island. Today ACS, have primary, secondary, junior college (A-levels) and international baccalaureate options for students to go for. Yes you know it !!! The date recorded was in the year 1974 by ACS military band back then. These are the songs that they have been practicing hard over the months. I bet they did it extremely well until the principal decided to compress their performance into a vinyl piece which is a rare hard effort. Back then, there were only a few companies in Southeast Asia which produces vinyl and did pressing for them. It is challenging to develop vinyl records if you are only doing in low quantities like in hundreds. Using my smart guess, I bet that the school decided to go for the minimum order quantity and sold those vinyls in school and those who participated in the ba...

Old shophouses in the past used to have these retro wooden window doors back then. You can see them commonly in old towns like Ipoh, Taiping, Penang and many more places across Malaysia. Some of the doors you seen in older shophouses are originally made in the 1940s or older. These doors are made from extremely hard teakwood where they can't be eaten or infested with termites easily. These woods are very strong and heavy too, that's why they are good building materials in the past. These doors belong to my grandma's old shophouse located in Johor, Malaysia which are one of the original ones where only a few of these doors remain there in the neighboring hood. It was specially handcrafted and built by my great grandfather back in the early 1950s. In the past, it is vert common for household males to self-make their own furniture like cupboard, door, table and chair for the whole family. They do it to safe cost and also to sell them for extra income My great grand...

I have always admire the beauty of this dressing table ever since I was a kid until today. I can recall a few moments where I attempt to climb up the dressing table when I was a small adventurous kid. This dressing table belongs to my grandmother who have well kept it and brought it from her house into her home nearly 20 years ago. I am sure that many will agree with me that the oval shaped mirror is very eye catching. This mirror will be a perfect match for mirror selfie taking. This dressing table also comes with a large transparent glass panel placed on top of the wood surface for photo slotting. You can see there are many family photos being slotted under the glass. Dressing table in the past also comes with many small and cute compartments. An example to this, there is a hidden compartment at the small rectangular mirror located just below the oval shaped mirror. What sets vintage dressing table apart from other dressing table is mainly the type of wood used and soli...

The term "Kopitam" is a mixture of Malay and Teochew words as the word "kopi" means coffee in Malay and the word "tam" means shop in Teochew dialect. This kopitam marble surface table have been the oldest furniture that my grandmother has kept. According to my mother, it was bought during the late 40s when my great grandparents decided to start their first business which is selling charcoal back then. The table is still in great and beautiful condition. I really admire the beautiful crafted wooden legs of this table. The table was brought back from the shop back in the early 2000s. Now it is being placed at the display corner of the living room. You can still see this kind of marble surface table in older coffeeshops and some in retro cafes. One place, surely you can still see this piece alive is at Kopitam hawker centre at Tiong Bahru shopping mall. There are many replicas of these kopitam marble tables out there, Many are beautiful cr...

Here is one awesome old school food storage cupboard which my grandparents used in the past 30 years. According to my mum, there was another one of these food storage cupboard but it is a much older than this. She recall that my grandpa threw it away before she bought this cupboard. That older cupboard was in bad condition and maybe some termites could have ate some parts of the wood. Food cupboard like this are built to keep files or other insects from landing or infesting on the food. These wire mesh place on the cupboard doors enable exchange of air in the cupboard and also prevent other insects from coming in. Normally these wire mesh is also covered with another thin cloth which act as a secondary protection and that cloth also helps to prevent dust from entering the cabinet. Another method of protecting the food is the rattan tray that cloth covered. Unfortunately, I don't have the picture of it, because my grandma didn't keep one of them. These rattan food co...

This is my mum's study desk which she used in the 60s. This desk is made from 100% solid teak wood and also this piece comes with locks too. The measurements of this desk is 82 cm in length and 103 cm in height and this piece weighs about 16 kilograms. The condition of this desk is still in excellent good condition. But sadly, I am running out of space at home to keep this piece in my house. This piece is still currently position at my aunt's shop in the town on Johor Bahru. As the shop will be closing down soon,  I have to help my aunt to let go this piece fast. Currently, I am letting it go at Ringgit Malaysia 300 (100 Singapore dollars), but you have to bring your own transportation to my aunt's shop. If you need any further inquiries, feel free to drop me an email. My email address can be found in the profile section. Thanks for viewing, I wish you all a great day.