Category: Buildings

Roofed and walled structure

Buildings, Monuments, People, Upcoming event

Top Ten List of NOTABUILDING

Bookend Collector

With David Letterman announcing his retirement, perhaps it’s time for a republication of Bob Kneisel’s “TOP TEN LIST OF NOTABUILDINGS” FROM 1997.

 

What’s a Notabuilding, you ask? It’s one of those objects that you initially see and think is a building, but turns out not to be. You’ve all seen ‘em, been disappointed by ‘em, and wanted to call them something printable. Now you can. In true David Letterman style, here are the Top Ten Notabuildings, gathered from the letdowns of fellow collectors.

10. Cheese Graters (Look like skyscrapers from afar)

9. Fire Hose Nozzles. Are they towers? Steeples? Or All Wet?

8. Cone-topped Beer Cans. These castaways of our youth are now collectible, (which is OK), except they look like buildings, which they aren’t, (which isn’t).

7. Book Banks. They’re rectangular. They’re tall. They’re upright. But save your money, and wait for a real bank.

6. Those tall, brass cigarette lighters that look like skyscrapers. You’ve seen ‘em. The Johnson Wax Tower they’re not.

5. Transistor Radios. Who’d have thought to hold onto these things? In bad light, from a distance, they can seem to be an office building with rows of windows. Resist the transistor!

4. Those obnoxious little replicas of typewriters, weather vanes, sewing machines, etc. Pot metal they are. Buildings they’re not.

3. Flashlights, when stood up on end. They are definitely notabuildings.

2. Bookends, which have the pattern and detail of a building, but turn out to be replicas of library shelves, bookcases, or anything butabuilding.

CableCarNotabuilding

1. San Francisco Cable Cars. They’re oblong! They have regularly repeating rectilinear features! They’re copper-plated pot metal! They’re souvenirs! I have some! They’re NOTABUILDINGS!

Buildings, Monuments, News, People, Upcoming event

Patricia Scherf-Smith (1930 – 2014) Early Member and SBCS Contributor

Bookend Collector
Photo of Pat Smith and miniature buildings 1996
Pat Smith with her collection of houses and buildings. Souvenir Building Collector, Journal Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring-Summer 1996.

Patricia Scherf-Smith, avid collector and documenter of miniature buildings, was an early member of the Souvenir Building Collectors Society and a frequent contributor to the Souvenir Building Collector Journal. She wrote about hunting souvenir buildings in the Middle East, at Estate Sales, on the Internet, and in catalogs. Click here to read about her 2001 adventures collecting souvenir buildings in the Middle East. A frequent attendee at the SBCS Annual Conventions, she shared her enthusiasm and interests with all. Tributes to Pat can be found at Mason City Glove Gazette and The Building Collector.

Buildings, Monuments, RECENT FINDS

European Acquisitions December 2013

Bookend Collector

Hello, folks.  I thought you might like to see some of the current souvenir buildings offered at Central European tourist destinations, and some older ones we found in antique shops and flea markets.  We spent a month in Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.   We visited Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, as well as Salzburg.  On a cruise up the Danube we visited Melk, Linz, Passau, Regensburg and Nuremburg.  We also visited Rothenburg and Newschweinstien.

A photo of the souvenir buildings we collected is attached.  Some are produced in metal, but resin predominates. Here’s the list of what we found.  Harry M.

Collection of SB from European Trip
Collection of Souvenir Buildings acquired in Europe in December 2013

Row 5 (back, L – R) Rothenburg Cathedral, Rothenburg Cathedral, Newschwanstein Castle, Statue in a Budapest Park, Sphinx

Row 4 (L – R) Vienna Opera House, Regensburg “Sausage Kitchen”, Prague City Hall, St Stevens Cathedral

Row 3 (L – R) Munich Town Hall, Passau Cathedral, St Stevens Cathedral, Salzburg Cathedral, Nuremburg “Beautiful Fountain”

·Row 2 (L – R) Munich City Hal, St Vitus Cathedral, Hungarian Parliament, Melk Abbey, Schonbrun Palace

Row 1 (front) Rothenburg Cityscape, Newschwanstein Castle

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Buildings, Monuments, RECENT FINDS, Upcoming event

A 2012 European Collection

Bookend Collector

European Souvenir Bldgs 2012

On the front row, the Egyptian ashtray I found at the Escheri Flea Market(thanks to Bob Curtiss rec) in Budapest along with the 3 Russian buildings on the back row (large silver metal and 2 glass ones). The St Stephen’s Basilica from Budapest is sandstone. The next 3 are St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna – the first plastic sold in the bookstore of the cathedral and the other 2 metal found at street vendors. Then the resin Schonbrunn Palace from Vienna. On the back row, the first 5 are all metal – the first 2 are the Petrine Hill obs tower (Prague’s Eiffel Tower), the next one is the Astronomical Clock from Prague, and then 2 versions of Budapest’s Liberty Statue (only saw these at one high end gift shop right across from St Stephen’s). Next are the 3 Russian pieces and then one we got for our son in Amsterdam on our layover flying home.

Hope everyone is doing well! Looking forward to seeing everyone in Nashville in October!

Heading to Helsinki, Tallinn, and Riga in June. Welcoming any tips on these cities. Steven C.

Buildings, Events, Monuments, People, Upcoming event

WELCOME TO SBCS

Bookend Collector

The Souvenir Building Collectors Society

A souvenir building is a three-dimensional, miniature version of an actual building, monument, statue, bridge, dam etc.   Souvenir buildings trigger a memory of a building or a structure, a time, a place, or perhaps a person.

SBCS is a Meeting Place for Souvenir Building Collectors, where you get to connect to a huge & diversified group of Souvenir Building Collectors and learn about thousands of Souvenir Buildings & even grow your collection.

Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/47920772123

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