Randy Waters

Many summers ago, Randy Waters and his family created a challenge for one another. Each person had to find a puzzling object at an up-Island flea market. “We had to bring something home and try to stump people,” says Randy. Randy’s mystery contribution was a five-pound canoe-shaped object with a metal point. His family managed to figure out that it was a shuttlecock from a weaving loom.

Nancy Abrams

“Antiques are my thing,” says Nancy Abrams. “I’m always looking for things.” She’s found everything from an old butter urn to a Chinese cabinet on the Vineyard. But her most interesting Island find wasn’t in a store – it was near the King’s Highway in Chilmark. Bushwhacking near the road, she came upon parts of antique cars. Though she didn’t remove any of them, she always wondered why they had been abandoned. “Now I understand it,” Nancy says. “I have a car I want to abandon there.”

Michael Hunter 

When Michael Hunter was a boy, he broke many dishes his parents had received as a wedding gift. At the time, he didn’t think much of them. “We played with them in the backyard,” he says. Later, Michael – owner of the antique store Pik-Nik – started collecting that very set, Franciscan Starburst, which has a 1950s atomic design. “Some aesthetic thing hit me,” he says. “Suddenly the ugly dishes were the most beautiful thing.” He found a box of the dishware at the Vineyard Haven Thrift Store.

Patty Kirwin

At an Edgartown yard sale, Patty Kirwin found a 1958 poster advertising an Island steamer that took passengers to watch the America’s Cup trials off Newport. “The thing that’s neat about it is it has water stains – but they look like clouds. They couldn’t be in a better place,” says Patty, who also enjoys the poster’s lofty tone: “She [the steamer] will return in the evening to the Woods Hole dock, giving those an opportunity to land who wish and then will steam majestically on to New Bedford.”

Joyce Stibitz

 For Joyce Stibitz and her daughter, who lives in Katama, paint-by-numbers aren’t just games for kids. They bought a 1950s paint-by-number picture at the old Oak Bluffs Flea Market for $40. “It was a water scene,” Joyce says. “It looks very much like the Vineyard.” Now paint-by-numbers are popular collectors’ items. “It adds a lot of local charm to my daughter’s dining room,” she says.

Bruce Zila

As the owner of the antique store Never Say Goodbye, Bruce Zila has collected many objects. But the one that fascinates him most is something he found when he wasn’t looking. Bruce bought the Oak Bluffs house that belonged to civil rights leader Joe Overton in the 1950s. Cleaning it out, he stumbled upon a small address book. He opened it to find Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, and other African- American leaders listed. “That’s what helped us realize the importance of that house,” says Bruce.