Owl & Twig

The Field Guide

How to identify, date, and value the things you find. Written from what passes through our hands, one estate sale at a time.

Doorway into the Owl and Twig Vintage booth at The Rabbit Hole in Waterford, Michigan, under a hand-painted owl sign FeaturedSeller's Desk Find us in Waterford: our new booth at The Rabbit Hole The Rabbit Hole in Waterford Township is doubling its floor space and adding 23 new vendors, and Owl & Twig is on the lineup. Booth pieces are sold in the store only. Reopens September... September 16, 2026
A black Western Electric Model 500 rotary telephone, photographed in 1951 Electronics & PhonesThe Western Electric Model 500: A Patent for the Handset, and a Trademark the Company No Longer Owns By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · October 2, 2026 U.S. Design Patent D151,614 covers a... Oct 2, 2026 A vintage View-Master viewer with a reel loaded Electronics & PhonesView-Master: The Viewer Patented Before Its Own Trademark Existed By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · October 2, 2026 William Gruber filed the patent on... Oct 1, 2026 Electronics & PhonesSimon: The Best-Selling Toy of Christmas 1978 Still Had No Patent By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · October 1, 2026 Milton Bradley put the Simon name... Oct 1, 2026 Electronics & PhonesThe Polaroid SX-70 shipped before its own patent was granted By Matthew Partsch - Owl and Twig Vintage - October 1, 2026 Polaroid's SX-70 went on sale in... Oct 1, 2026 A 1972 Magnavox Odyssey console with its controllers, plastic game cards, and screen overlays Electronics & PhonesMagnavox Odyssey: The Console Whose Patent Beat Atari in Court Ralph Baer's patent existed three years before Magnavox sold a console. A signed guest register proved it in... Oct 1, 2026 A Southwestern Bell-branded telephone answering machine, model FA935 Electronics & PhonesThe PhoneMate 400: credited as the first answering machine, and the patent that beat it by 41 years By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · September 30, 2026 IEEE Spectrum inducted it into its... Sep 30, 2026 Electronics & PhonesThe Zenith Royal 500: Zenith's first transistor radio, one year behind the actual first Regency built the first transistor radio in 1954. Zenith's Royal 500 came thirteen months later — and how... Sep 26, 2026 Electronics & PhonesThe Motorola DynaTAC: the idea was Bell Labs', the phone was Motorola's Bell Labs proposed cellular phones in a 1947 memo. Motorola built the first handheld one in 1973 and... Sep 20, 2026 Electronics & PhonesSpeak & Spell: The Voice on a Chip That Outlived Its Own Trademark Texas Instruments put a working model of the human vocal tract on a single chip in 1978 and... Sep 20, 2026 Original Timex Ironman Triathlon watch, first generation. Photo by HuckleCat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Electronics & PhonesThe Timex Ironman: 1986, the Indiglo year, and the Wish Book page that dates it It cost $34.95 and became the best-selling watch in America. Press the light button in a dark room:... Sep 19, 2026 Electronics & PhonesThe first Walkman: two headphone jacks, a talk button, and a patent Sony did not own The 1979 Sony TPS-L2 has two headphone jacks and a HOT LINE button, and no later Walkman has... Sep 18, 2026 Electronics & PhonesThe Zenith Space Command: the TV remote with no battery, and why the name never dates one Zenith's 1956 Space Command had no battery and no circuit: a spring-loaded hammer struck a tuned aluminum rod,... Sep 16, 2026 A group of Western Electric Princess telephones in several colors, showing the compact oval base and center dial. Electronics & PhonesThe Princess phone: it's little, it's lovely, and it probably doesn't light The Bell System never sold you a Princess phone. It rented you one. Fifty-five million households were leasing... Sep 14, 2026 Nirvana In Utero promotional CD from the Owl and Twig collection, marked for promotional use only Electronics & PhonesThe thrift store CD rack is hiding money in plain sight The CD rack is the most ignored shelf in any thrift store. Four visual cues separate the dollar... Sep 10, 2026 Vintage Tyco Garfield telephone, eyes closed, handset resting on the cat's back Electronics & PhonesThe Garfield phone: the eighties' best-known landline, and the beach that keeps giving it back Tyco's Garfield telephone was a real phone whose eyes opened when you lifted the handset. Then a shipping... Sep 2, 2026 The Crusader SR-500 space shuttle phone: a collector's guide Electronics & PhonesThe Crusader SR-500 space shuttle phone: a collector's guide The Crusader SR-500 Space Shuttle Robot Phone is what the deregulated American telephone looked like at its most... Sep 2, 2026 Hewlett-Packard HP-01 calculator watch from 1977 with a red LED display and 28-key keypad on a steel bracelet. Electronics & PhonesThe calculator watch went from $3,950 to $20 without changing its design It was the most expensive watch in America, then the cheapest gift under the tree, then a punchline,... Aug 29, 2026