Vintage Thingy Thursday

I love vintage stuff and really as far as I'm concerned, the older, the better. I'm thrilled that Colorado Lady has this awesome meme, it's my favorite by far. For Mother's Day this year I got the most amazing present (from my most amazing husband!). This lovely item is a wood burning stove from right around the turn of the century. We found it at a wonderful junk shop in Willow Springs, Missouri on our way to Georgia. I was so excited when I saw it I almost piddled right then and there. Unfortunately, we were headed away from home and had the car, so we couldn't by it then (I did get a treasure while we were there, but that will be for another Thursday). The owners close up shop at 2 because they are also school bus drivers and on the way home we were too late to catch them. Being the awesome man he is, my husband took me back to buy the stove that Saturday. (Did I mention it's a 3 hour drive one way? Yep, he earned some major points for this one, folks.) Sadly, the store had been hit by a tornado the night before and a lot of their items were damaged. BUT, not this gorgeous piece of history. The owners were nice enough to let us go ahead and purchase the stove while we were there and let us know that all of the contents would be auctioned off later - they even sent us a flier for the auction and yes, we are going. Anyway, back to the stove. We tried doing research on it and found that it was probably made sometime between 1880 and 1911 and was sold by the Sears & Roebuck company. There is a water reservoir (which is currently home to about 250 million pine cones) which was optional and I believe the back with the storage compartments was as well. The oven door has broken over time and will need some repairs to be reattached, but at least it's there and displays the name Southern Queen. I couldn't be happier with it, but now I have find something really awesome for Father's Day. (c;