Peck of the Day
- This post originally appeared on Regretsy on May 11, 2011
As you know, the elves at Etsy handpick an assortment of lovely num-nums to feature on their front page, using a very specific selection method. And by specific selection method, I mean throwing corn on a keyboard, and going with whatever the chicken happens to peck out.
Here’s a recent featured item:
A brick.
For $25.
Plus $24 shipping.
Which is fair.
But you have to give the seller points for sitting it on its side and calling it a bookend. That takes balls of steel. Which will be on the front page tomorrow, in a Mason Jar.
I don’t have to tell you that putting a brick on the front page generated some discussion on Etsy. And I also don’t have to tell you that discussion on Etsy is frowned on, unless it’s this discussion:
“Your stuff is cute!”
“Thanks! I <3 your store!"
But God bless the sane ones. They just keep asking questions, hoping for a breakthrough.
Oh they’ll enlighten you, all right. They’ll have to, because clearly you are too coarse and unaware to appreciate how beautiful the brick is.
Seriously, what’s the confusion? It’s fashionable. It’s also gorgeous and cool and vintage. Did I say cool yet? Because it’s also cool. Super cool. Kind of amazing you missed that, but oh well. Maybe you should be buying your bricks from a big box store since you obviously don’t get it. DOWN WITH BIG MORTAR!
Okay, maybe it is a piece of rubble you could find in a vacant lot. But it’s cool rubble and they want it really, really bad. Which is why it’s been up there for a month and nobody’s bought the fucking thing.
And that’s when help arrives.
I realize you might not have meant anything by asking a question, and maybe you were just wondering why valuable front page real estate is being used to promote horse shit like this, when you’re up all night knitting until your fingers are bleeding. But asking questions is getting a little close to wanting an answer, so just to be on the safe side, shut the fuck up. Thanks! <3
First they called out the brick sellers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a brick seller.
Then they came for the copyright infringers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a copyright infringer.
Then they came for the people selling clothes from Hot Topic and calling them vintage,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t selling clothes from Hot Topic and calling them vintage.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me, because they had all been muted.
PEOPLE WHO LIKE CRUMBLING BRICK ALSO LIKE:
UPDATE: after 6 months of hearts and likes, this piece of crumbling rubble finally did sell. Whoever bought it, bless your heart.
April 28, 2012 at 10:33 am
I might start looting my local dry stone wall.
April 28, 2012 at 10:41 am
It’s such a shame I no longer live in the Southeast. We had Civil War era bricks just stacked up everywhere (I think the locals call them ‘walls’). To think how many industrial bookends I could have sold.
April 28, 2012 at 10:51 am
Antique Industrial Bookends. Anqtique beats vintage.
April 28, 2012 at 10:38 am
If you don’t understand why this is so cool, so vintage retro, so repurposefully masterful, then you must be thick as a brick, no wait I mean bookend, wait, actually I meant paperweight, no, sorry doorstop, oops, I really mean ballast for my steampunk zeppelin, oh, damn, wait, I really mean a pre-sculpture – you just have to take away the bits that aren’t an elephant.
There.
April 28, 2012 at 10:41 am
You can use it multipurpose, so it has to bee cool.
April 29, 2012 at 12:10 am
yes yes… use multi purpose.. for throwing at “helpful” admins.
or dropping, or shitting.
April 28, 2012 at 10:42 am
Maybe you have to have been repeatedly hit in the head with a brick to truly understand how cool, retro, and awesome a brick is.
April 28, 2012 at 7:22 pm
So THAT’S what’s wrong with the seller!
April 29, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Seriously, I don’t understand how you could miss the logic. It’s a vintage brick that is also a bookend if that’s on the front page for god knows why. How much clearer can it be???
April 29, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Wow…delete *if*
I failure
April 28, 2012 at 10:39 am
I get so happy when I see “TheOnlySanePersonInTheWorld.” She has the best face ever. I long to know more about her!
April 28, 2012 at 10:58 am
I love her, too. I especially like the “are you serious?” look on her face.
April 28, 2012 at 11:07 am
I was thinking more along the lines of “are you fucking shitting me?!?” but I may be wrong as I tend to see obscenities when they may not actually be there.
April 28, 2012 at 12:43 pm
She looks classier than that.
No insult intended.
April 28, 2012 at 10:39 am
When the fuck was ‘the early century’?
April 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
Ten years ago, if my math is correct.
April 28, 2012 at 10:51 am
What’s the early century?
That’s easy – it’s the before time, the long long ago, it’s where the dew drops cry and the cats meow – I will take you there, I will show you how.
April 28, 2012 at 11:51 am
Tis a magic place where the moon doth rise,
with a dragon’s face.
April 28, 2012 at 10:53 am
I believe the seller meant to suggest this is “late Steampunk” in period.
April 28, 2012 at 10:41 am
Yes I was wonder what the “early century” was also. Would this be from 2001?
April 28, 2012 at 10:41 am
It’s before the “later century.” What’s the confusion?
April 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
Thanks for clarifying this for me.
April 28, 2012 at 10:57 am
Don’t you mean the latter century cause didn’t we just get done with the former?
Wait. I keep forgetting which came first: the former or the latter?
April 28, 2012 at 11:21 am
M asked a legitimate question and we’re not here to make our esteemed members feel inadequate or insecure in any way. Please keep everyone’s delicate feelings in mind before posting a contrary, heartless, message of disagreement. I’d like to wrap this thread up now. In fact, I think we’ll need to purge the forums of all references to bricks, centuries, math, confusion, and early. Thanks so much for your understanding. We love hearing your input (*)(*)
April 28, 2012 at 11:24 am
The sign-off symbol is for the cupcake mod known as Perky Tits.
April 28, 2012 at 10:42 am
Awesome. There’s an abandoned plant near my house. Maybe I can go scrounge for rusted pieces of bullshit and sell it on Etsy. What? It’s abandoned, which clearly means everything left inside is vintage.
April 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
Everyone knows that the rust makes the bullshit worth more.
April 28, 2012 at 11:13 am
What took you so long?? Go get them, upcycle and repurpose, NOW!
April 28, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I’m gonna take this even further and start selling pieces of broken bricks!
April 28, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Everybody knows broken bricks are the most vintagest.
April 28, 2012 at 10:42 am
Never mind. After seeing who the seller is, it all makes perfect sense.
April 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
If I a brick and weather it, can I call it vintage and charge for it?
April 28, 2012 at 10:44 am
Just make sure you rub it in bullshit.
April 28, 2012 at 11:09 am
And for additional you can ship it right through customer’s window. Yummy and original.
April 28, 2012 at 11:45 am
Plus the shards of glass can be used, in conjunction with cat hair, to make a sparkly fascinator!
April 29, 2012 at 6:37 am
Dammit, I missed the perfect opportunity this morning. My cat knocked a glass off the counter and broke it. Glass was at least 10 years old. I had shards of broken vintage glass, complete with cat hair, ready for sale on etsy, AND I SWEPT THEM UP AND THREW THEM IN THE TRASH!!!!
They’re mixed in with coffee grounds and last night’s spaghetti; if I dig them out now, do you think that might add value?
April 28, 2012 at 11:11 am
*additional $15
I need a drink.
April 28, 2012 at 11:22 am
You’d get EVEN MORE if you can find 4 assistants and make a cool chair out of it.
April 29, 2012 at 2:14 pm
But you no a brick…sorry.
April 28, 2012 at 10:44 am
Those rusty metal pieces will make a lovely steampunk mobile for the baby’s room! Early exposure to tetanus and lingering industrial chemicals is an excellent immune-booster.
April 28, 2012 at 10:49 am
I am an 8th grade English teacher. The fact that you could take Niemoller and turn it into such fabulously smart snark…well, I just love you forever!
Hilarious! A++++++
April 28, 2012 at 10:49 am
the first post i made on the etsy forums was: There is a set of car keys on the front page right now.
I got a convo from robwhite saying such talk was a no no.
So I replied to rob that THEY ARE CAR KEYS ON THE FRONT PAGE RIGHT NOW, GO LOOK
looked like a set I lost in 1994
April 28, 2012 at 11:46 am
Wait.. I have a ton of old car keys. How can I make money off these? Oh, that’s right.. Etsy!
April 29, 2012 at 12:15 am
NEVER QUESTION ETSY NEVERRR no especually when their featured seller is just another reseller.. oh no.. ESPECIALL NEVERRR EVERR POINT OUT BULLSHIT OMG THATS JUST BAD. (revoke my caps lock privileges)
never also ask how it’s possible for evidence to be considered arbitrarily.
April 29, 2012 at 12:11 pm
So..they were vintage : / late 20th century. If one can (and I have) sell the (crappy/cheap) furniture that I grew up with as “Mid-Century Modern” to get the big bucks for it, then why not the keys to that fabulous vintage automobile?
April 28, 2012 at 10:55 am
In St. Louis, craftheads burn down derelict buildings to loot the bricks. This is obvs a lot of work to “downcycle” these bricks from a house into a bookend. And by craftheads, I mean crackheads.
April 28, 2012 at 10:58 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
April 28, 2012 at 6:20 pm
I knew it was fake jeez comedy is clearly not my forte
April 28, 2012 at 11:00 am
Well, pinch my tits and call me Phyllis!! Good one!
April 28, 2012 at 4:03 pm
As long as you slap my ass and call me Susan.
April 28, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Myrtle, or it’s no deal.
April 28, 2012 at 11:02 am
antique brick
antique brick
ANTIQUE BRICK
April 28, 2012 at 11:04 am
What, no collage on that brick? No furoshiki packaging?
April 28, 2012 at 11:28 am
No, that would involve some sort of effort on the seller’s part.
April 28, 2012 at 11:05 am
There’s this really old collection of rusted crap and broken dishes and old bottles where people dumped their garbage about 75 to 100 years ago wayyy out on the other side of my property. I’ve often thought that the fragments of blue and white dishes would be fun to gather up and put them in mason jars. Now I have been inspired. Not only that but all the rusted stuff and broken bottles could be used for something.
Anyone interested in this stuff? I can pack up boxes of stuff from a real life garbage dump from the early 1900s! I don’t care if you resell it.
April 28, 2012 at 11:36 am
Blue and white dish fragments? If you sand the sharp bits off and wire wrap them, they can make cool pendants.
April 28, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Or mosaics in grout, concrete — Help! My brain is conjuring up stepping stones and birdbaths!
April 28, 2012 at 3:22 pm
RED!! I will totally buy a large flat rate box full of broken dishes and bottles and interesting bits from your old dump! They will work great in my never-ending mosaic garden wall project. Or I will trade you for a fantastic box ‘o fuckery. Seriously, get in touch!
April 28, 2012 at 8:35 pm
For Serious, Kniti? LOL Hey… Lots of crap up there and every time it rains new treasures are revealed!
April 28, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Time to start collecting and washing crockery bits & glass, RedSolo. They are “supplies” in Etsiese. Antique dealers will fight over mostly intact objects from these family dumps. There is an artist in Portland OR who makes such ‘supplies’ into overpriced mosaics: garden tiles, trivets &s/o. When she is short on materials, she breaks china from second-hand stores to use in these things. She is related, I believe, to another craftperson who broke her grandmother’s antique china into shards to make bird baths (etc) to ‘remember her by’. You have a fortune lying half buried out there. Frankly, I’m jealous. There’s a similar hoard on my property that some shortsighted idiot put a building up over.
April 28, 2012 at 8:36 pm
I’m going to have to go on a hike and get some pictures of this crap for you all sometime!
April 28, 2012 at 8:57 pm
another craftperson who broke her grandmother’s antique china into shards to make bird baths (etc) to ‘remember her by’
I keep reading this sentence over and over again but it has yet to make any sense and my stomach has yet to stop knotting up. WTF is wrong with these people? She must be related to the hobo wedding folk.
April 28, 2012 at 9:44 pm
There are some things you don’t want any more details on. Trust me.
April 28, 2012 at 11:32 pm
I kinda think that etsy, ebay, etc, are all the internet versions of the old county auction barn where you can buy anything. Of coarse, etsy describes junk as craft supplies. Personally I would love it if my pottery were to end up in someones memorial wall, birdbath, garden path, whatever. (Maybe not a memorial urinal, though.)
Secretly, I envision one of my pottery pieces being discovered 5000 years from now, and the person picking it up flips it over, and says to his archeology buddy, “Who the fuck was Danny? And why did he sign a goddamed bowl.”
April 29, 2012 at 1:49 am
Please check with your local university archeology department or history museum first. They may be interested in studying these artifacts (even just for students to practice on) before they become Etsy fodder.
April 28, 2012 at 11:05 am
I need that Brick. When it arrives I can hit myself repeatedly with it for buying such a worthless piece of Detritus.
April 28, 2012 at 11:11 am
Oh fancy Jesus. It’s sold. Someone bought that.
I wanted to buy it, tie a cryptic threatening note to it, and throw it through a window at Etsy HQ, which I’m pretty sure is made of doilies and barnwood and would come crashing down in a satisfying manner, pinning people under tons of potential upcycled home decor items.
“OW MY LEG! Hey… if I get out from under this sheet of drywall I’m going to mosaic something with it. OW!”
April 28, 2012 at 11:12 am
My flower bed is lined with 60+ year old cinder blocks that are starting to crumble. I’d better get out there and dig them up!
April 28, 2012 at 11:13 am
Oh, and the railroad waste better come with a free voucher for a tetanus shot.
April 28, 2012 at 11:36 am
Y’know, the thing that gets me most is that this old, crumbling, jagged edged brick is being used as a bookend for old books. I wouldn’t want my old books up against that, it’s likely to scratch their covers and they’ve been through enough shit.
April 28, 2012 at 11:48 am
Especially if they still have the dust jackets. You wouldn’t want to rip or poke holes in it.
Seriously! Old books are worth way more if they still have the dust jacket and it’s in good shape.
April 28, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Maybe when they say “book end” they mean “the end of your books, because now they’re ruined.”
April 28, 2012 at 11:44 am
Blueprints: the next barn wood.
April 28, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Don’t say it some one will do it with old steam engine blueprints and decupage them to the wall.
April 28, 2012 at 11:45 am
Am I the only one who saw not the brick, but a decomposed penis??? Is the seller actually Lorena Bobbit???? Inquiring minds want to know!
April 28, 2012 at 11:59 am
I thought it looked like a fossilized turd.
April 28, 2012 at 3:52 pm
I saw a petrified penis, too!
April 28, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I thought it a paleolithic penis sculpture, so yeah, close enough.
April 29, 2012 at 12:18 pm
@ilikepink..you were not the only one
April 28, 2012 at 11:47 am
I’m confused how one brick is bookends.
I mean if you clove the brick in twain with a mighty halberd or something, it would be bookends.
But that would diminish the awesome majesty of the brick’s Vintage/Industrial/Antique/Rustic charm, which isn’t cupcakey.
April 29, 2012 at 12:24 am
i dont think they know what plural means. that’s ok.
lots of sellers seem to have no concept of the english language is or how to use it.
April 28, 2012 at 11:58 am
My collective has 2 industrial size bins of vintage 1935 shingles just waiting to be upcycled into something. Maybe cybersteam punk rain gear, umbrellas, the possibilities are unlimited.
April 28, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Prom dresses?
April 28, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I bet the seller didn’t even bother to put some protective felt on the bottom, because that would have ruined the mystique of utter worthlessness.
April 28, 2012 at 12:46 pm
I’ll be damned, it sold!
I can go into the backyard and get something similar…they’re called rocks!
April 28, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Just a thought. From now on, when someone on Etsy asks something that MAKES SENSE TO EVERYONE BUT ETSY, they should just be sent a link here. Then, they won’t feel so alone.
April 28, 2012 at 12:55 pm
This looks kinda like the stuff I want to build my garden wall of. Guess I’ll need to scare up about $12,000. That’s a lot of steampunk octopodes.
On second thought, it doesn’t even look like stone. It looks like a section of blacktop road with aggregate in it. Used to see whole piles of it beside repaved highways.
Or a fossilized penis, of course. Thank you for that image, ilikepink. Thank you very, very much.
April 28, 2012 at 1:56 pm
The breastfeeding avatar for “ImABetterMomThanYou,” is so brilliant! I just peed my pants with laughter.
April 28, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Buy Handmad….aww fuck it
April 28, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Am I the only one that thinks it has a bit of a phallic shape? Yes? Oh.
April 29, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I’ll think you’ll be rather pleased once you get to all the comments to find you are not alone…
April 28, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Well my son did ask if I could buy him a brick for his birthday. He’s seven.
So now we know the maturity level of someone who buys/sells a brick online.
April 28, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Didn’t you hear?
Bricks are very good pets.
April 28, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Just saw the picture for ImABetterMotherThanYou. Priceless.
April 28, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Is it wrong that I actually kinda do like the brick? I wouldn’t pay for it, as I could find my own.
April 29, 2012 at 2:26 pm
I don’t usually do this but…yes it is wrong. What’s wrong with you, wrong person?
April 28, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Oh boy, I love upcycled tetanus!
April 28, 2012 at 7:28 pm
I have to point out, that my hubby and I had a whole set of these in college. When combined with scrap wood, we created wonderfully “rustic and weathered” book shelves. We were so very hip!
Hmmmm….and I thought we’d just created poor-college-student crap…that was cheaper than even Ikea. Who’da thunk it?
April 28, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I bet if you piss someone off enough, you could get one of these for free.
April 28, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Wait. If someone else throws one of these through your window, do you have to declare them as part of your collective?
April 28, 2012 at 8:19 pm
No see, it’s useful. As soon as they get it and come to the overwhelmingly stupid realization that they paid fifty bucks for a rock, they have this super fashionable rock to beat themselves to death with! In style!
April 28, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Oooo! If only natural selection worked that well!
April 28, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Probably took them longer to find that mineral book to place next to that petrified poop brick.
April 28, 2012 at 11:01 pm
This is stupid, not only because is a brick,but how do you know is actually real? If they had photos, evidence, actual paperwork anything. Also it looks like it was made with a common rock, so placing a date on it would be retarded. Is only a sorry excuse to get quick money doing nothing.
April 29, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I’m sorry but I don’t follow. Are you insinuating that it’s a fake brick?
April 28, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Bless her heart, I have 5 lovely bricks from the backyard of my mother-in-law’s house, mauve color centers with a white ceramic finish on the outsides. Yikes! I’ve got $200 holding down a garden tarp??!!???
Quick, where’s my slippers? Where’s my pants? Where’s my flashlight?.
*runs for the backdoor*
April 29, 2012 at 12:46 am
1. That brick looks like a fossilized piece of shit.
2. What the hell is a ”Vintage brick”?
3. Why on earth would anyone buy that pile of tetanus!?
April 29, 2012 at 6:03 am
I’d really like to know what the person who bought the metal shards used them for.
April 29, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Yup, I scour the best trash heaps in the world, and cut out the middlemen, so I can sell these at rock bottom prices!
Discount Dan, The Trash Heap Man
I will not be undersold….except by factories passing themselves off as collectives.
April 29, 2012 at 2:02 pm
brick seller has been called out on etsycallout blog
April 30, 2012 at 6:48 am
Hey now this is a steal! At Anthropologie that brick would cost $49.
May 1, 2012 at 9:38 am
There is a store in my itty bitty teeny weenie town that got torn down 10 years and all the brick is just sitting there antiquing the shit out of itself. I think I’m going to mosey my fat ass down there and start taking bricks to sell on etsy; since it’s cool, and vintage, and just so fucking awesome.
May 2, 2012 at 7:11 pm
“Etsy believes in the free exchange of ideas and opinions, as long as they’re in praise of both Etsy and its sellers.” I assume that’s in their policies somewhere.
May 2, 2012 at 7:13 pm
“I love my brick!”
“Ah, feck it! Fed up with ‘briiiiiick’!”
- Father Jack Hackett, Father Ted
October 31, 2012 at 8:19 am
I don’t know if anyone mentioned these bricks yet, but they took at least a little effort. And they’re cool.
