Hello! So maybe that sounds humorous but if you’ve stopped by my blog a few times, you may be thinking there could be some truth in that title.
It started with another local road trip – to the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley. After visiting the Harrisonburg area in December, we made a note to head back to that amazing antiques mall that we found. This time my husband searched the surrounding area and found two promising shops in Lexington, VA. We were out the door at 5:45 a.m. and had a full day ahead of us.
Lexington, VA is known for its scenic byways and civil war history. It is also home of two well-known colleges- Washington and Lee University (Robert E. Lee is buried here) and VMI. We took a drive through both campuses, which are essentially side by side.
The two antique malls that we came to see were really fantastic. It is always so great when a place exceeds our expectation – both in size and quality of antiques. Our first stop was Duke’s – this place may just get its own post later, and deserves kudos for opening at 9:00 a.m.
But the stalker part of this post was brought about at a shop simply called The Antique Mall.
For my husband and I, spotting a pie safe earns you serious credit. We rush ahead of each other to find one first. We have a good-sized “I’ve got credit!” list…even the kids know what to look for (Scotties, dress forms, Victorian albums….pie safes).
The pie safe love started after we were married in 1995. We quickly began hitting the local antique shops around the Monterey Bay (CA) area, with a notebook in hand. Hard to believe I used to take notes the way I did, and maybe harder to believe I’ve kept them all these years. Here are a few pages of pie safe notes from the mid-90’s! I remember when $1,000 for a pie safe seemed high, and now they seem to average $2,000 and up – way up. Today our house is home to two pie safes as well as other Americana primitives – 2 dry sinks and a jelly cupboard.
The Antiques Mall in Lexington had the most incredible array of pie safes. The most I’ve ever seen in one place…I was in pie safe heaven. I know this must sound quite comical to most, but after all, this is true confessions. If you happen to like these old cupboards too, you’ll enjoy these pictures. Isn’t it interesting to learn how some of our ancestors stored their baked goods in the days before ice boxes? I love the little details: a mouse hole at the edge of a drawer, the way the punched tins not only provided ventilation, but decoration, and the fact that many pie safes contained key holes (they had to keep away hungry little hands). I’m saving my favorite pie safe for last.
After all of that goodness, we made a pit stop on the way home. 😉
Please share with us, are you on the hunt for anything out of the ordinary when out treasure hunting? I’d love to hear about what you’re stalking. I’m thinking of putting together some sort of show-us-your-collection blog hop in the near future – let me know if this sounds like a good idea!
Thank you for stopping by!
-Cindy
Love the pie safes! Is that aqua one really $3950!! I love it but it seems OTT price!
Do the ones with decorated tin fetch higher prices? Must look to see what they fetch here!(Aus)
Jenni
Kline’s ice cream!! I just took my boys there last week…flavor of the week: raspberry cheesecake! YUMMO! Those are some pretty cool pie safes you found, especially the aqua colored one.
Spectacular shots. I love that aqua pie safe. And, now I know what they are called! Learned something new. 🙂
Jenni, yes that really IS the price tag. 🙁 It is an OTT price…the high price could be the unique pattern on the tins or the beautiful colored paint.
Oh Miss Cindy…
Your pie safe quest is making me smile! Each & every one of them is beautiful…I LOVE all your notes on where you’d seen ones you liked & their price. You truly do have an addiction to pie safes & I LOVE that!!!! :)))
Hugs Friend,
Susie
I love it when you take us along on your adventures! I have a love of pie safes and dry sinks, and other primitives as well, although I don’t own any. My sister kept the one that was in my Mom’s house…I loved that cupboard. She restored it and added punched tin panels to the cabinets. My Aunt had a really decrepid one that I hope ended up with some one to love it!
I too am a pie safe stalker – well, actually a beat-up, chipped, rusty, dirty old cabinet stalker. Honestly, we don’t have an inch of wall space left in the house! Actually, I’m looking for just ONE more…for my workroom…any suggestions?
🙂
Love the photos of the pie safes. I can’t believe you found so many in one place, on one day!! I don’t troll the antiques shops and flea markets like I used to, but when I do go, I am always on the look out for:
anything Niagara Falls
Mules (figurines, bottle openers, etc)
Quilts
Victorian jewelry
small furniture (like salesman’s samples)
toast racks for my Mom
and small things to turn into jewelry, of course!!
I am a collector, and would love to show off my collections. I even bought a special (primitive) glass front cabinet to house my Niagara Falls collection. You can not imagine how many different types of objects were made to be sold as souvenirs!!
I am telling you you are serious about “Piesafes”^:)
I would love to have my grandmothers pie safe but it is long gone many years ago. She also had a real tall 24 inch X about 7 feet closet I just loved. She had to move off and leave them when she broke up house. I collect eggs, aqua blue glass and ofcourse cobalt glass.
Be blessed to be a blessing
Your post title made me giggle!
I’m not a treasure hunter, exactly, so I don’t have a list of must-finds when I do go out. The few times I’ve gone antique mall browsing around here I’ve been disappointed. I don’t know if antique shopping is as big here as it is by you, or if I just don’t know of good places to go (both could be true). But I do like looking and seeing antiques. I’m particularly smitten with old letterpress letters, hankies, and old papers.
Cindy, what great pictures! I don’t think I have ever seen so many different designs on pie safes, nor have I EVER seen so many pie safes. Must be an East Coast thing! Frank and I always look for Waterford crystal (not exactly antique) and my sister, Helen, got us tuned into crystal toothpick holders. We use them for dainty little vases and they are wonderful and interesting. It’s been a while since we’ve done much antiquing, since we are essentially becoming antiques ourselves, but we still enjoy looking. Thanks for sharing your adventures! I’m going to Baltimore/Bethany Feb. 2-8 to celebrate Carrie’s 21st birthday. Doesn’t seem possible that she is already that old! I don’t feel old until I think about how old other people are. Happy 2012!
Cindy,
I love that you and your husband share a love for old pie safes and antiquing. Those are some neat ones. I enjoy traveling to historical locations and going exploring.
I collect rabbits every where I go I try to find an unique rabbit to bring home. I also collect candy dishes I’m a glass junkie LOL! Unfortunately all of my rabbits and candy dishes are packed away in storage until I can get my own place again.
Therese
I really like that yellow one it seems to have a lot of history and the one just above it with the tulip print. I really enjoy you sharing your searches. I really like old bird cages.
Thanks for sharing,
Theresa
I LOVE to shop for antiques! I used to own quite a few nice pieces of furniture – I had the most beautiful, solid oak kitchen table and chairs but I sold it years ago, as it was just too small for the new house! I miss it! They just don’t make new furniture that lasts, it seems. As for collections, I absolutely cannot fit one more piece of silver or crystal in any cabinets! I even have some boxed away, as there is just not enough room to display it properly! Thanks for taking us on your journey – I love that you and your husband seem to share so many interests TOGETHER! It is refreshing to read this in your posts! Take care!
Cindy – I love enjoy travels that you and your husband go on to search for antiques. I wish my husband would be interested in doing something like that! I find it so interesting that these pie safes are so valuable. There is a great story behind them and I especially love the concept of the lock on the cabinet to keep the little fingers out! I love colorful old painted wood in any kind of cabinet so the last one is my favorite too!
Cindy I love to hear your antiquing stories and the hunt for any and all pie safes. But, what I enjoyed most about this post is all the detail in the metal/tin doors on the pie safes. I forget how I use to do similar designs on pie plates when I was younger. My creative wheels are turning…
I never would have guessed that so many pie safes are available! Must be your area! Your notes are impressive, a worthy idea! I like the first and the third one, in addition to the aqua one! Also spotted that blue and white quilt. I would be on a quilt quest while you discovered pie safes! But we could meet for ice cream!
I had no idea there were antique malls in the Monterey Bay area!!! I HAVE to go visit now!
Your pie-safe remind me of my grandma’s home…a small village in India. Am wondering if I can go treasure-hunting at grandma’s!
I’m stalking paint by number paintings! I’m CA-RA-ZEE about them, they’re so cool and dorky at the same time. And, if I’m being really honest, my favorites are the ones of birds and nature. I just bought one yesterday at a flea market of two blue jays and I literally let out a little yelp when I saw it. Cool pie safes!!
I guess there are worse things than being a pie safe stalker! These are lovely! I have on that is very plain, but I still love it.
It sounds like you had another amazing getaway!
Hi Cindy,
Glad to read another interesting posts. As you know my mom and dad were much into antiques, as I child I didnt understand why they would pay money for old/used things. As I grew older I too started looking at the tarnished, chipped paint, broken leg items were what I too liked.
When I did go antique shopping my interests were pictures( love pictures of unknown family members), bottles( medicine, perfume, didnt matter as long as it was bottle) and toys (baby dolls, trucks, ones that spin, ones that roll, any toy does my heart good as I sit and wonder who that child was that treasured the little item that I now want to treasure….I still have a small gun my dad carved me out of a piece of wood(almost an antique LOL but one day someone will wonder what child loved this wooden gun, you think that they will guess a little girl that slept with it under her pillow, would tuck it into the top of her panties under her dress?
At the beginning I too was fasinated with furniture in which included pie safes. I never bought one but did enjoy looking, I did read about them a bit many years ago and it might answer alot of folks question “Are they only in the south or the east coast?” Well, yes kinda….they originated by the Pennsylvania german/ dutch many years ago before iceboxes. These people began to travel and move down the east coast southernly. So waaa laaaa reason for alot of them on the east coast. Take this as true to fiction as it is just what I remember reading many years ago about them.
Hope the family are doing good and happy shopping. Give hugs and kisses and all my love. Cindy
Thanks for sharing what YOU love to collect – from Niagra Falls souvenirs (my parents went there in the late 60’s for their honeymoon) to hankies and tooth pick holders. Isn’t it fascinating how we are all drawn to such different things?
Cindy – I am always on the lookout for metal souvenir buildings. Usually, they are the usual Effiel Towers and Empire State buildings. But I have found a fairly rare one this year, the Sun Tower from an Exposition in San Francisco. My unicorns now are the Chrysler building and Chartres Cathedral. The hunt is the fun part, isn’t it?
Arghhh…you were so close to me (we’re about 1 1/2 hrs from Shenandoah area) glad to see you had an awesome day! We spend a lot of time in that area during warm weather!
Oh yes…that last aqua pie safe is gorgeous!
Dear Cindy:
I love all of this! And, I have a beloved late-Victorian pie safe: oak with walnut stain that I am needing to sell. Any ideas?
Cheers & here’s to pie safes, Kim Schiffbauer, Santa Fe NM
I have a pie safe that has a large star with circles around it and dated 1865 in the tins…all tins are complete and it has 2 drawers in the top. it is very heavy and does show some wear, but is still in great shape. Wo do you recomend me to send a picture to for appraisal?
(it is put together with square nails and dove tail)
Right now I have it in my little shop and have had offers, I want to make sure what I should charge??
Thank you,
Julie
How can you tell if a pie safe you are looking at is authentic? What do I need to look for?
We have a pie safe that we may be interested in selling but we would like to get more info on. The only info we have is a tag on it that says belknap mfg & hdr. We dont have a dte or a clue what it would be worth. If u would be interested in helping us u can email us back and i can send u some pics. Thanks
I just visited the mall and you won’t believe that the green pie safe’s price had INCREASED from $3950 to $5750 in this 14 months since you have last visited, and it was not the most expensive. What is the reason for such increase in this economy? I wonder…It is not my favorite but I was mentally prepared for the old price, not for such a price. Love the place though. Thank you for posting them and sorry to be stalking your blog about pie safes. Love them too! The last couple of days your page didn’t load and I was worry you had removed it.
I have bought all of my five pie safes in Virginia. The tins vary. How do I know what tin designs are exclusive to Virginia?
Thanks! I love your pie safes!
Hello, I’m trying to find out more information about pie safes. I got a pie safe for Christmas and want to learn more about how to tell where it might have come from or a round about date. I has the original keys that go to it, in which one is broke. My husband said it was old judging by the back of it. I would just like to learn more about them.
thanks!
Missy
Are tin punched pie safes older than ones with screen
Hi, I bought a pie safe several years ago at an antique store and I have never really cared what it was worth or even if I overpaid because I love it so much. I am now looking to inventory items for insurance purposes and maybe even sell a few pieces. There is no one around here to get even a rough estimate of what it is worth. It sounds like you could probably help me with your love of pie safes. I would like to know about what it is worth and how to tell where it may have came from. Please help!
Thank you,
Brenda
Oh I wish I was an expert and could help you, but I am not. There are dealers here in VA and in PA that could help you though!
I just bought a pie safe yesterday for 20 bucks. I was going to paint it and make a little storage thing. but then i decided better look into the history of these cabinets.
mine is in pretty nice shape. any ideas of anyplace local that I could sell it to someone who really appreciates this bit of history?
or tell me what not to do to it to keep value?
like i’m sure I should not paint it. right? email would be great, i’d love some information, thanks laura, from baldwin, long island, New York