A Surprise Taxidermy Pick!

This weekend my boyfriend surprised me with a visit to pick his coworker's father's garage for vintage taxidermy pieces and parts. The man had been an avid deer hunter & antler collector. He had dozens of beautiful antler sheds, mounted antlers, and unfinished wooden mounting panels he'd made during his younger years. He had some rather deteriorated 1960s era whitetail and pronghorn neck mounts and we decided to adopt the whitetails. One has a crumbling apart nose, but the other is in decent shape and we were able to dust him off, polish his eyes and antlers, and display him in the living room.

The generous man who allowed us access to the items was very thankful to pass on his father's belonging to others who would clean them up and display them for the next generation. We spent a good portion of the afternoon touring the old house and listening to the histories of our 'new' treasures. If you've ever seen the TV show American Pickers and heard the property owners' nostalgic tales of the items for sale, it was exactly like that. We left feeling proud to help the man out and give a new purpose to his father's collection. I left with the hoard shown below, and with big ideas for how respectfully incorporate it into my artwork and theoretical craft fair booth.