airplane propeller, brass bell, lake sign


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Stories of A Simpler Time

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The Best Airplane Propellers, Brass Bells, and Lake Signs

When started eleven years ago in the Mall of America in Minnesota, A Simpler Time didn't carry some of its current best sellers such as vintage wood propellers and aviation gifts, all types of brass bells, personalized lake house signs or nostalgic hockey gifts. Our gift and art selection on our first day in September of 1997 tilted heavily towards Norman Rockwell with sculpture and art by the famous illustrator who inspired our store concept.

We slowly dropped product that didn't sell, added to categories that did, and listened carefully to our customers. One of our biggest (and first) "hits" was when we made our first prototype antique wooden airplane propeller replica after hearing numerous customers remark about the price of original wood props, which could range in the thousands of dollars. Hand carved in mahogany and edged in brass, our WWI replica propeller has been a best seller for years and has spawned a whole collection of aviation gifts, including propeller bar stools and stretched canvas airplane models.

Vintage nautical replicas became good sellers, so we started to produce our own product to be competitive in a new Internet world. We added a few brass ship bells to our product line and found that, surprisingly, our customers really liked them! Now we have bells in all different sizes, in types ranging from dinner bells to hand bells. We've even added a sophisticated engraving machine so we can engrave bells up to ten inches in diameter.

Customized Wood Signs, Wood Propellers, Hockey Gifts and More!

A few years ago, we started selling unique vintage graphic lake signs, and they quickly became our best sellers. Who could have forecast that a store located in the "Land of 10,000 lakes" could sell hundreds of cabin signs? Then, after being asked hundreds of times for hockey-related gifts, we came up with a personalized nostalgic look wood hockey sign. Soon we had funny hockey signs, hockey CD racks, hockey coat hooks...well, you get the idea.

We realize not all of you want a wood propeller (or any aviation gift for that matter), a brass bell, a lake house sign, or even the coolest hockey gift there is. These best sellers only scratch the surface of what you'll find at A Simpler Time. But we're pretty sure you won't find such an eclectic group of nostalgic products anywhere else.

The Smile Train

At A Simpler Time, which celebrates the innocence of childhood, we feel it's important to give something back to kids who aren't as fortunate. We have chosen to support The Smile Train (www.smiletrain.org), a top-notch charity that conducts cleft palate surgeries on thousands of third world children every year. To date, almost 300,000 children have seen their lives changed by The Smile Train. Instead of being social outcasts facing lives of begging, these children have a chance to live a normal life. With major sponsors covering all advertising overhead, almost every dollar you donate goes to performing a surgery! The New York Times calls it "...one of the most productive charities...dollar for deed...in the world."

A Simpler Time donates $1 for every online order to this wonderful charity, and so far (thanks to you!) the lives of 37 children have been changed forever! If you don't see anything on our website you can't live without (and we freely admit we don't sell necessities), or if you would like to donate more, we encourage you to go directly to The Smile Train.

37 NEW SMILES!

Thanks to our customers, we've managed to donate enough money to The Smile Train to pay for 37 cleft palate surgeries!

$1 donation to The Smile Train on every online purchase

The Smile Train

"Your company is by far the best on-line company I have ever dealt with. Your dedication to your customers and to Smile Train should serve as an inspiration to all business owners."
-- David G. Townshend Jr.

Remember swinging on a tire over the creek, building tree forts, or playing marbles? Perhaps your nostalgia is a little more recent, like staring transfixed at a slowly moving light in the early video game of Pong.

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