I tried to find some souvenir tea towels in Scandinavia last year (e.g. Oslo and Stockholm), but I only ever saw one or two tea towels for sale and they didn’t really have a souvenir vibe to them; they were just relatively expensive tea towels rather than cheap kitschy souvenirs.
Nice. That’s quite the adorned collection!
A friend of mine collects squished pennies. I see the machines pretty often in DC. Her husband has an extensive collection of snowdomes (or, as Cecil says they are called, shake-em-ups).
??
According to Anthony Sammarco’s History of Howard Johnsons and also the Wikipedia page, the first Howard Johnsons was in Quincy, Massachusetts. In fact, all the early Howard Johnson restaurants were in Massachusetts.
“Blazing Saddles” reference. Pretty much everyone in the town of Rock Ridge had the last name Johnson, including Howard (played by John Hillerman), who owned an ice cream parlor.
As I strive toward minimum clutter, I appreciate “condensed collections”: souvenirs that are tiny and unobtrusive. Our dozens of smooshed pennies live in a small (3x4x4") box. Try that with forty snow globes!
I have friends who bought something because they had a couple already, and soon they’ve got an out-of-control collection of… racist coffeepots (think “ceramic Aunt Jemimas”), or fresnel lenses (no kidding, that guy never foresaw that more then a few fifty-pound lenses might be problematic? Oh, and he’s had felt-lined walnut cases made for many of his “best” ones).
This thread is killing me! I’m haunted by Poor Souvenir Choices as A Child.
From my earliest memories… Went to a Zoo, bought a small Knight in Armour for my brother
Went to Lincolnland, or whatever it was called. Always came home with the little crappy tin trains. Had half a dozen I reckon.
Toured The Queen Mary. Decided an Airfix 1:100 scale Russian Yak fighter was an appropriate keepsake.
Now I just settle on Pins or stickers. I’ve got wooden plaques with my AMA pins and I can keep adding to them.
But, when I was in Branson, I couldn’t resist… Oh, nevermind.
Not Germany, but Austria. My husband got one in a Salzburg souvenir shop about 5 or 6 years ago. The base said Salzburg on it and inside was a little winter scene. The ‘snow’ was glitter. Unfortunately, the glue holding it together deteriorated and the liquid inside drained out.
Don’t forget the plates!
My grandmother used to have some of these.
So many dining rooms had “Souvenir Hutches” full of those plates (and some grandmothers had worked their way up to all forty-eight)(that’s how old they were).
Even as a kid, I thought those hutches were tacky, and a waste of space.
Adventureland, outside Des Moines, did something similar. This was shortly after they opened in the 1970s.
My dad was always anti-souvenir. Unless the item had some use, like a t-shirt or a hat, it was a waste of money. “But what about having a reminder of the vacation, dad?” “That’s what the camera is for.” It was amazing that he let me buy a comic book or two.
I was born in '78 and growing up everyone had vacation ash trays and ironic snow globes from some tropical location in their house.
“ironic” or “iconic”?
Or both?
Both I guess, but ironic because the melted snow man on a Honolulu Beach is soooo hilarious.
My younger daughter collects them, and they sell books where you can insert them. We just bought her one at the Boeing Factory Tour. I’m pretty sure we got one for her in Germany.