New Storefront Finally Here!

If you have been wondering what happened to Rocket Century's Blogspot over the past few months, we have been in high gear since late June and early July moving from our warehouse location and up-fitting a new storefront location to add to our online store. Yes, Rocket Century has gone bricks and mortar!

A Peek Inside One Of Rocket Century's Storefront Windows

A Pair Of Overman Chairs & A Von Nessen Floor Lamp
Fill Out The Other Storefront Window

The new storefront is located at 3189 South Grand, St. Louis, MO 63118 in the wonderful South Grand Business District, just south of Tower Grove Park. It's is one of four busy storefronts in the Historic Grand Connecticut Building built in 1905 as part of the city expansion following the 1904 World's Fair. The storefront boasts wonderful 13 foot ceilings, large architectural columns, and the original mosaic tile floors of the era. Rocket Century's vintage furniture, artwork, accessories, and architectural finds blend well in this cool space. The area is bustling with people meeting for dinner at one of the many amazing restaurants on Grand and many of the neighborhood couples and families out for a stroll. 

After two years in a secluded old South City warehouse, the change of a storefront with natural light pouring in and customers to interact with is a welcome change. Our online customers will continue to be a priority as we make this transition, but the addition of live customers who have an opportunity to touch, feel, see, and experience our many vintage pieces is very exciting. Lets take a quick look inside!

Ceramic Lamp By Raymor With Volcanic Glaze & Cigarette  Box  Also By Raymor

Some New, But Vintage Fedoras In Boxes!
(All in larger sizes)

Some Vintage Worn Fedoras

Wow, even as I review this again, I already see that we have changes in the storefront even in the past week. New additions, and pieces sold are happening a lot quicker in the storefront, so check by frequently to see what's new. 

A Vintage Refurbished Olympia Report Electric C. 1970's

A 1950's Vintage Manual Smith Corona With Original Case

There are a lot of things that we are offering in the shop too, that will not be featured online. We have multiple vintage fedora's, some even new vintage with tags on them, vintage silk ties, typewriters, more bar glasses and dish sets, vintage handbags, and many more items, not yet listed on the web. The shop is a good place to come and see it first!

20Th Century Design Reference Gives
Our Customers Resources To Get Inspired
And Educated About Design & Architecture

The Shop also has a comfortable area to sit and check out various reference books on 20Th century modern design, artwork, and accessories of the era. They are wonderful books to gather inspiration and knowledge from.We hope to add more to the shop that will also be available for sale.  We often spend a lot of time doing research on the pieces we purchase before we list them on the web site or put them in the shop. Sharing this knowledge helps our customers know the value of what they are purchasing for themselves and appreciate their design. Uncovering the history of an item is sometimes the best part of what we do. Passing on that knowledge to our customers makes the experience even better.

We will keep you posted on happenings and our preparation for a grand opening in October. Thanks for stopping by!

Beating The Heat At The Meet

Last Saturday the heat was on, but so were the vintage modern treasure hunters! The sweltering forecast didn't seem to deter people who came by to check out various vendor's mid-century modern wares, and to peruse our warehouse, which is not normally open to the public. Multiple vendors shared our parking lot outside our warehouse space for our first Swank-A-Rama Swap Meet. There was everything from vintage toys and collectable pottery, to vintage luggage, cameras, typewriters, stereo equipment, furniture, and re-powder coated vintage cabinets.

The best part of the day was meeting not only so many other nice vendors, but the multitudes of new people we met interested in 20Th Century Modern and excited about what we had to offer at our event. The warehouse had the air conditioning cranked to keep everyone comfortable as the checked things out. It allowed people to come in, take a breather and shop our space and still have energy to hit the outside vendors again. 

Here's a little sweep of the Rocket Century Warehouse...

Martin Borenstein Sofa & lamp; Adrian Pearsall Coffee Table

Platner Lounge Chair With Ottoman Danish Recliner

Chrome Kitchen Table W/ 6 Matching Chairs 

Paul McCobb Dresser ; Sideboard With Bullet Planter

Groovy Pop With Overman Lounge & Ottoman; Italian Club Chairs

All Glass Table W/ Chrome Swivel Base Chairs

Newly Upholstered Flexsteel Chairs & Sofa

Milo Baughman Lounge & Pollock Leather Sling Chair 

Milo Baughman Tub Chairs With Tulip Base Table

Vintage Wurlitzer Juke Box Rockin' The House!

Pollock Executive Chair With Vintage Hon Typing Table

Rosenthal Suomi-Lanka Porcelain China With Platinum Trim

Murano Ash Tray With George Briard Cigarette Box

Art Deco Bedroom Set, Jules Cheret Framed Stone Lithogragh

Broad View of The Warehouse Set Up

The big hit with the kiddos was the vintage Rocket Ride! We acquired this fun vintage gem on a road trip through Indiana on our way to Michigan. There was this cool architectural salvage place on the rougher side of Indianapolis that we decided to check out called Doc's Architectural Salvage. We spotted this wonderful ride in a dark corner of the salvage warehouse and about screamed with excitement that it looked so close to our  own rocket logo. We certainly were not in the market for a rocket ride, but when we discovered it was in working condition, we knew we had to buy it. After tracking down Doc himself and negotiating a cash deal, it became one of our first big purchases as a business! It needs some TLC on the paint and fiberglass, but the kids don't seem to mind. Although those of us from the older set remember these gems outside many of the local grocery stores, you don't see them as much any more. 

I know I said kids, but some people are just big kids like our friend, and blogger, Mr. Modtomic, who couldn't resist a chance to sit in the rocket ride either!

Mr. Modtomic On The Rocket Ride!

  

   

Swank-A-Rama Swap Meet

Hello Friends! It's almost time for our first Swank-A-Rama Swap Meet! We had so much fun 

with our Yard Sale Event in the Spring, that we decided it would be even more fun to invite other vintage modern vendors to a do a larger event of 20Th century modern items exclusively.

We are looking forward to sharing our warehouse lot with other vendors and opening our warehouse to showcase some of our own items. We will also have some special sale prices on many of our items!

Come by and visit us for the fun! And for all of the foodies, there will also be a Food Truck Event right around the corner from us that you can walk to and enjoy some of the best St. Louis Food Truck Fare. Great Vintage Modern and Great Food:  What more do you need? 

Spring Cleaning Modern Style!

Heavenly Days Set

Sputnik Needing TLC

It's the time of year after months of cooler weather that has kept us inside more, that mid-westerners look around their crowded spaces and say, "This s#@! has got to go!" For those of you who love to see the inspiration in a project, only to get too overwhelmed by the multitude of projects you have taken on, you will take joy in knowing that although we want you to think we are a perfect company that has perfect organization, we too often take on too much.

So what do people do in the mid-west when it's time to clean out and get inspired? Have a Yard Sale! (Or in our case, have a Parking Lot sale!) Yes, our warehouse space was busting at the seams with well intended projects to do, and just not enough time or space to do all of them. So we rolled up our sleeves this week, uncovered the project piles, and picked our best ones to keep, and then priced and organized the rest for a HUGE Saturday Sale in our warehouse parking lot.

Great Pole Lamp Needing New Plug

Needless to say, we were amazed at how many things we had that we were ready to let someone else take on and call their own projects! From Sputnik and pole lamps, to Lane side tables, dish sets, and even a sectional sofa, we had a little bit of everything in the modern vintage category to give our customers a fun shopping experience. 

We were determined to keep it all as simple as possible, and to not get too caught up in perfection. This of course is the beauty of a yard sale. No one really is paying attention to your inept merchandising. In fact, I was barked at by my business partner as we were setting up at 0-dark hours in the morning on Saturday to stop my neurotic "fluffing" of items and to just get it all out before the eager yard sale early birds were upon us!

Milo Baumann Style Chair

And they came! At 6:30am as the birds chirped and the sun rose over the South City skyline, they came ready to be first at the sale, and to get the best of our cast off treasures. Like the island of mis-fit toys, our mis-fit modern treasures were scooped up by eager buyers from all over the STL area hunting for great deals and projects they could call their own. The Yard Sale Weather Gods shined upon us with great spring weather and sunshine, making the day seem all the more promising. 

As we watched the eager faces of our customers as they found things which inspired them, and were able to share some of our nicer treasures in our finished warehouse space, we had more and more fun. Meeting other people who get as geeked as we do about the hunt for cool vintage modern finds, and hearing their stories of conquests for their vintage modern treasure hunts so fat that day, made all of the work seem more like a party of friends. We met some of our neighbors who always wondered what we did at our warehouse, as well as countless other people who love searching for their own perfect vintage modern finds too. From re-sellers to bloggers to everyday bargain hunters, we had them all. Everyone seemed to be in a buzz of fun. If it were happy hour time, the only thing missing would be cocktails and appetizers! (Hummm…now that would be a fun sale!)

Pr Of DM Lamps Needing TLC

All in all, it was a great day and we were able to say goodbye to many things that others can now enjoy for themselves, as we start with a freshened attitude and cleaner, more uncluttered space to take on the projects we decided to keep.

So next time your work space seems a bit too much to think straight and you want to make a few extra dollars getting organized again, have a Yard Sale!

Old School Lawn Chairs!

Thank you to all of our customers who were patient with us as we calculated their sales and tried to function on little sleep that day. You were all great fun!

Special Thanks also Chris from Mr. Modtomic and Nick from Mid-Century Midwest

for talking us up and your purchases. You can visit their blogs by clicking on their linked names.

To visit our complete web site store visit us at http://www.rocketcentuy.com