Brettuns Village Trunks & Leather



Old Trunks, New Leather.  All from Maine.


July 16, 2000

Don’t go and have a hairy
cow – I know, I know – two newsletters from


Brettuns Village in less
than six months, it’s got to be a new record or


something.  Alert the
media.

I just remembered a couple
more things that I had wanted to mention last


time around.  That’s
all, no big deal – if our letters are too much for


you to digest then just
go ahead and hit that delete button up there;


we’ll never know you did
it.  The again, you’ll never know just what these


important items were that
I had forgotten last time around.

So now that I’ve got you
on the edge of your seat, take another look at


our For Sale page, we added
a couple more trunks in the last few days, and


we have two more that’ll
show up on the page on Tuesday.  If the camera


works, anyway.

Next – we get a lot of questions
from folks who’ve been beating their


trunk around the garage
in an effort to feel that they’re spending their


time in a useful and productive
way (trust me, we gave that fantasy up


years ago); they generally
ask the same sorts of questions, falling into 3


standard categories:

1)  The “Can I Retire
Yet?” Category

These questions go like this: 
“I went to a yard sale today and found this


really, really cool antique
trunk, it has drawers in it, and some old


hangers, and I’ve never
seen anything like this before in my life and I


think it must be very rare
and worth a lot.   How much is it worth (to the


penny)?”

2)  The “Have You Ever
Heard of Such a Thing? If you Have, I Want Some


Documentation to Prove it”
Category

“When Grandma kicked over
she left us 12 shares of AT&T, a Ford Tractor,


and an old trunk that has
leather handles on each end.  The outside of it


looks like it’s covered
with some sort of material, almost like canvas,


but I know that sounds crazy. 
Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Oh,


and if you have, how much
is it worth (to the penny)?  One more thing – do


you have any books about
these old trunks that I can buy or borrow?”

3)  “I’m Hard At it
on a Trunk Project, but I Need Some Help” Category

” Thanks for sending those
Brettuns Village trunk handles so fast


(shameless plug alert),
can you tell me how to get the old nails out and


where you got those nifty
tools you show on your website?  The handles are


the last thing left to do
in my project to redo the old trunk I found at a


flea market in the next
town over.  Remember?  I wrote you about it last


September – it was painted
red and had a lid that opened.  Remember?  Hey,


by the way, how much is
this trunk worth anyway (to the penny)?”

You get the basic idea. We
tell everybody the same thing about trunk value


– it’s worth a lot if you
plan to keep it, not so much if you plan to sell


it, but it’s priceless if
it belonged to one of your ancestors.

The third category involves
tools – and we found out that we could become


an Amazon Affiliate and
offer the proper tools right through the site.  So


we did.  We now have
a page where you can look at some trunk-working tools


and order your own. 
While you’re at it, you can also order from Amazon’s


exhaustive library on old
trunks and suitcases – that’s right, that one


book by Schiffer is on there. 
There’s also a set of woodworking plans for


those who want to build
their own trunk from scratch, and even an old


Sears catalog that has quite
a few pages showing old trunks and bags from


1910.  Just click your
way through from our site to Amazon’s ordering page


and buy like you would anyway. 
We get a cut on the deal, so we can get


these girls properly educated
at Bates College in the future.  If you


don’t order anything that’s
OK too, we’ll just homeschool the girls and


then have them spend their
days sanding the inside of trunks, just like


dear old Dad.  Their
hair will fall out, just like mine did, but don’t let


that keep you up at night.

Another thing – we now offer
trunk nails (soft steel) in two lengths –


longer ones are great for
attaching handles or other parts through thicker


boards, or where you just
need more holding power.  They’re over there on


our Parts page.  Holler
if you need a link.

On an interesting note –
we sold a pile of trunks to a custom woodworker


who is using them to build
a kiosk in some desert-themed shopping mall out


in Viva Las Vegas. 
You know what a kiosk is, one of those stores that


sits in the middle of the
mall just so you can squeeze by it while some


overweight gal with a tattoo
on her forehead can ram her baby carriage


into your knees.  This
particular kiosk will look like a pile of trunks


sitting at a desert train
station – and I must say I’m just wild about the


idea, and I hope they decide
to build these at the thousands of malls that


exist in all those places
where a whole lot of folks cram together in a


town, just to be close to
one another, apparently.  Anyway, if you get out


to Vegas, be sure to look
for our trunks when you get rammed by Madame


Tattoo.

So check the site in a day
or two, we’ve got a great old Civil War trunk


that’s a nice size and has
a perfectly flat top just right for a coffee


table, and another standard
box trunk that’s been completely redone just


in time for summer. 
Which is over now, by the way.

Thanks, sorry to bug you
so much here lately.  We’ll go back into


hibernation shortly, so
don’t worry.

Best Regards;

Churchill Barton

Brettuns Village