The Route 30 Antiquing Trail

Take Route 30 Eastbound through Forest Hills right outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and you embark on a thrifting and antiquing odyssey. This single road winds its way from the bustle of Pittsburgh, and rambles for miles through the pretty, rural landscape of Ligonier, Latrobe, and beyond. It’s along this route that an adventurous shopper can discover bargains and beloved treasures.

Thrift stores? During your time on the road you’ll encounter the Good Samaritan Thrift Store, the Price is Right Thrift Store, two Goodwills, and several Salvation Armys.

Maybe flea markets are more your style? How about the indoor Super Flea, the L&L Fleatique (pictured at left)? Or, if outdoor flea-ing is a particular favorite, far down the route in Latrobe, the Hi-Way Drive-in Flea Market is open seasonally on weekends.


But well-before you hit Latrobe, take a minor detour off 30, into downtown Jeannette, a city once renowned for its manufacture of beautiful glass items. Here you’ll encounter everything from the higher-end antiques of the Jeannette Antique Mall and Antique Oddities (pictured below), to the unique mix of antiques and fun fixer-uppers in Junk for Joy...


You’ll even find thrifting at the large St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store right on Clay Street.
Weary from all that shopping? Take a break at one of Jeannette’s restaurants with your choice of sandwiches, Chinese, pizza, and in evenings, The Nest for seafood... (For lunch, Rick’s Hometown Diner is a favorite haunt of mine when the hungries hit, with homemade soups, pies and other diner favorites.)

Head back up the road from Jeannette to join Route 30 again, and consider a minor stop in Greensburg. Who knows what you might find at the U. F. O., an indoor antique/thrift store/used furniture mecca? Then, back to good ol’ 30 and head off to Ligonier. Right near Idlewild Amusement Park, you’ll find the Flea Tique, another indoor flea market/antique mall (not to be confused with the L&L Fleatique of earlier in the journey!). Here you’ll find a mixture of antiques and collectibles, all jumbled together in several large rooms of booths.

Leave the Flea Tique parking lot, get back onto 30 East for just about 500 yards, then u-turn onto Route 30 Westbound, and there you’ll find Graham’s Antique Mall, with even more booths filled with antiques and collectibles.

It’s usually at this point, that I’m bleary from scanning and weary from walking the aisles. And, spoils of the day packed in the trunk, I make Graham’s Antique Mall my final destination before I head on home. But if you still have energy, I understand the Route 30 antiquing adventure continues eastward even beyond Ligonier along to Gettysburg. Perhaps you’ll discover some antiquing and thrifting locations along it that you’d like to share. (I’d love to hear about them!)

But just to get you started, below are the places I pick and choose from on my own well-traveled path (and if you like, you can also read a summary of each place in the Resources section):

Good Samaritan Thrift Store
500 Lincoln Hwy North Versailles, PA, (412) 829-1898

“Super Flea” Flea Market
833 E Pittsburgh Mckeesport Blvd, North Versailles, PA

Price is Right Thrift Store
1930 Lincoln Highway, North Versailles, PA

Salvation Army Thrift Store
12751 Route 30, North Huntingdon, PA, (724) 863-6116

Goodwill
8755 Norwin Ave, North Huntingdon, PA (724) 864-2980

L&L Fleatique I and II
Adamsburg Edna Rd., Jeannette, PA (724) 523-0595—visible from Route 30

Antique Oddities
316 Clay Ave, Jeannette, PA (724) 523-7767

Jeannette Antique Mall
500 Clay Ave, Jeannette, PA (724) 527-1555

Junk for Joy
209 Clay Ave, Jeannette, PA (724) 523-6221

St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store
631 Clay Ave, Jeannette, PA (724) 527-5776

Jen & Ed’s U.F.O. (Used Furniture Outlet)
320 S Pennsylvania Ave, Greensburg, PA (724) 834-9070

Salvation Army
3780 Route 30 Latrobe, PA (724) 539-2080

Flea Tique
230 Route 30 W, Ligonier PA 15658-8777, 724-238-9198

Graham's Antique Mall
Route 30 W, Ligonier PA 15658, 724-238-8611

Think Zinc: Decorating with Spelter

Zinc. We use it to relieve colds. We include it in our multi-vitamins. And some of us even decorate our homes with it.

And now, I’m going to show you how to make a mosaic out of zinc tablets...

Kidding, kidding. Zinc tablets dissolve too easily for effective mosaic-ing.

So instead I guess we’ll have to talk about spelter. Spelter is the metal zinc, which is sometimes mixed with lead. And while spelter may not carry the innate value of gold, silver and bronze, the Victorians did use it to create beautiful statuary, tableware and personal care items. This allowed the growing middle classes to own status items similar to those of their wealthy counterparts, but at less expense.

And spelter is versatile; it can be coated in a patina to make it look like higher-end bronze or silver. For the Victorians, who loved to entertain, appearance was everything.

I suspect the little cherub above is a spelter piece coated to look like bronze. Why do I say that? Well, by scraping gently on an obscure area of the statue, say here under the base at the left, the mark appears more white in color than bronze. (So this is a good reason to make sure you know what you’re buying when someone tries to sell you a bronze piece!)

Here at right you’ll see spelter in its more natural state. Items like this bowl may have been silver-plated at one time, but while they now lack the brilliance of their silver sisters.


Yet notice the delicate art nouveau designs. You can tell the art nouveau style by the sinewy vines and mystical maidens that peer from the metal. They pretty much don’t make ‘em like that anymore! So spelter is an affordable piece of history.



And occasionally, it’s very affordable. Would you believe the hand mirror below came from a thrift store for under $6? I’ve found two that way. Spelter is quite a soft metal, so general use means spelter pieces may have dents, holes or dings. But considering the examples here are approximately 100 years old, this looking-glass lady is still a fair beauty.

My most recent spelter find was the two art nouveau busts in the photo at the top of the page. I stumbled on them two days before Christmas in a back booth of a flea market. The dealer, whose flea market specialty was in selling all-you-could-fit-in-a-box-for-$3, was genuinely certain they were bronze. The telltale white metal shining through the patina told a different story.

But quick negotiation and the nouveau ladies had found a happy new home. (And no, they weren’t $3-- let’s not get too over-confident. :-) ) Today they peer from my bookcase with all the dignity of their bronze sisters.

Postcard Perfect New Year

The tradition of sending postcards began in the Victorian era-- and it wasn’t just a way of saying “Wish You Were Here” while sunning yourself on some sandy beach. No, in fact, they functioned pretty much like a cross between today’s greeting cards and text messaging.

There were no telephones, so rather than spend time trying to get across town-- or across the country-- to visit someone and share day-to-day information, postcards served as a quick way of sending news. Especially since in many places the mail came multiple times a day

But postcards also functioned as the formal way of sending well wishes for particular holidays. Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving and, yes, New Year’s were all occasions which merited a postcard. Postcards were also used to send a potential sweetheart encouragement, such as official permission to visit. Or to enquire if a particular person was the one he or she had met at some social gathering. Postcards were the polite and accepted way of saying much of what the Victorians wanted to share.

Initially, Victorian postcards were paper cards rimmed in fabric fringe. But over time, the fringe was left off in favor of the more streamlined postcards we know today.

The wonderful thing about postcards from the Victorian and Edwardian eras are the elaborate designs, the gold or silver leafing and the insights they provide into the thinking of the time. Plus, scanned images of these cards can be used for a variety of decoupage crafting projects-- or even for simply sending your own quaint greetings.

In terms of collecting, postcards can be quite reasonable in cost-- anywhere from $0.50 to $5.00 depending on rarity and condition. And because they take up such little space, they’re easy to store in an archival quality album.

Largely, they’re available at flea markets and antique shops, but I recently found two at a thrift store, so it never hurts to keep your eyes peeled.

Sending all of you well wishes for a postcard perfect New Year of your own,

--Jenn