This above all, to thine self-storage be true

One of the better aspects of living in a (relatively) small space, is that you can't accumulate a ton of stuff. I say relatively small space, because at 1,240 square feet, my condo is larger than many homes. Especially when compared to Europe, where - as anyone who watches House Hunters International can tell you - apartments tend toward the miniscule. (My favorite shows are those in which families are relocating from Atlanta or Dallas to Paris or Amsterdam, and they want to experience city living and European charm, but go into cardiac arrest when they see the size of kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms. No walk in SubZero fridge for you, dearie! No en suite! Kids will have to share!)

While my (relatively) small space doesn't allow me to acquire lots o'stuff, I still have plenty. Of course, at my age, I'm no longer in acquisition mode, and I make runs to Goodwill a couple of times a year to drop off things that are still useful and in good shape, but which I no longer use. And whenever I see my nieces, I invite them to browse for anything they might want or need. 

Anyway, my closets - which are by no means walk-in generous - are sufficient for my storage needs, which are primarily suitcases, Christmas decorations, paper towels and TP.

When I have had large items - i.e., furniture - that needs to go because it's been replaced by something better (typically something from my sister Kath, who's recently downsized), I find someone who wants it. During covid, I bought a new dining room table and chairs, mostly because I hated looking at my set and because the chair struts were so weak from lack of polishing that they snapped when barely touched. Fortunately, my friend Joe has a niece who'd just bought a 1920's vintage home, was looking for 1920's vintage furniture, and is a furniture refinisher. 

Anyway, I have absolutely no need to rent storage to keep excess anything in. When I make a move in the next couple of years, I will likely be in smaller quarters. Anything that doesn't fit will be given away or GOT-JUNKed. 

But plenty of folks I know have rented storage space at one point or another. And as it turns out, it's a real American thing, as I read in a recent New Yorker article by David Owen. Not that I was surprised, exactly, but it was just one more reason to be at least a tiny bit taken aback at the reminder that we are a nation of consumers.  

The United States is the world leader, with roughly ninety per cent of global capacity. Texas, of the fifty states, has the most facilities, Hawaii the fewest. Among cities, New York ranks third, after Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, although on a per-capita basis many smaller municipalities are comparably served. Reno, Nevada, is home to a number of operations that pick up, store, and redeliver tents, chairs, bicycles, and other gear for repeat Burning Man attendees, and Wichita, Kansas, was once named the Self-Storage Capital of the U.S. Units range from closet-size to cavernous, including spaces that are large enough to hold entire houses...According to the co-founder and C.E.O. of Neighbor, an industry marketplace that works like Airbnb, there are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than there are Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Domino’s, Dunkin’, and Costco locations combined. Annual revenues are estimated to be more than forty billion dollars. (Source: New Yorker)

Okay, who didn't laugh - or at least smile - when they read about Burning Man storage? Thought so. 

But more self-storage facilties than all the rest of those businesses combined? Well, that sure strains my personal credulity. Maybe because I live in New England, I can't imagine anything outnumbering Dunkins. Let alone Dunkins, plus Starbucks, plus Mickey D's...

And that doesn't even count the garages used for storage:

...A 2022 survey by the Craftsman tool division of Stanley Black & Decker found that more than a third of the country’s residential garages were so full of overflow possessions that their owners were unable to park cars in them.

People store stuff for a lot of different reasons, but the industry recognizes four drivers of the personal storage apocalypse: death, displacement, divorce, and downsizing. To which Owen nominated a fifth: 

...the delusion that your children will want the items you’re planning to bequeath to them, especially the kind of furniture that used to be called antiques but that young people for some time have referred to derisively as “brown.”

Guess I was most fortunate to have Joe's niece take my mahogany table and chairs.  

I would add a sixth reason: city dwellers in small places that really don't have room for their Christmas ornaments, the golf clubs, the beach chairs, the skis. And who just can't resist the urge to acquire more stuff, given how easy-peasy it is to order from Amazon and eBay. 

Self-storage isn't cheap, but, because it's out of sight, out of mind, it's simple enough to ignore it. Even if you've slapped a credit card down to handle the recurring charge that's showing up on your bill every month. And then there are the many folks who just can't pay and just lose their stuff. (I can't tell you how many homeless folks have mentioned their storage, and how difficult it is to keep payments up. It's heartbreaking to hear their stories, because what's in storage is all that they have to their name. It's not their spillover.) Owen's article mentioned that some people throw their stuff in storage and stop paying immediately, as it's cheaper to get rid of things that way than it is to call GOT-JUNK.

Ah, America, land of endless and mindless consumption possibilities. And plenty of places to store it all. Forget E Pluribus Unum. Maybe our true motto is This above all, to thine self-storage be true.

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Image Source: GoStoreIt

Looks like Converse could use a little DEI

When I first saw the image, I was taken aback. What was I even looking at? This was supposed to be an ad for Converse, but what I was seeing was a KKK hood and what appeared to be the dead, dangling Chucks high-tops shod feet of a Black man. An image that pretty much screamed lynchiing.

It was only after I scrutinized the picture that I could see that the KKK hood was formed by shadows on a white dress. And those dangling feet? If you loked really closely, you could see that whoever was wearing the white dress that in the shade was a dead ringer for a KKK hood was actually holding those Chucks in their nearly invisible hand.

All part of an ad campaign designed to push some new and improved Chucks that look an awful lot like the old and unimproved Chucks my brothers and every other boy in the world were wearing in the 50's and 60's, way before anyone thought to call them Chucks. 

Talk about an ill-advised picture. 

Social media was quick to jump in and jump on:

“No, you’re not crazy. Yes, the Converse ad is racist,” one user wrote on X. “Yes, it looks like a Klan outfit. Yes, it looks like a lynching. And no, ‘it’s just a shoe ad’ is not a defense.” (Source: People)

And, one social media took and sunk their jump shots, Converse responded:

“We’re sorry,” Converse said in a statement to PEOPLE. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong.”

“We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement continued. “This should not have happened and we will do better.” 

This should not have happened? Ya think?

I don't imagine there are many who believe that Converse was deliberately trying to use racist images, but who knows? Anything seems to go these days, and maybe the cool marketing folks were trying to be edgy. 

I hope not. 

Edgy-away, but at your peril. Especially if you're a sneaker brand, with a lot of Black folks in your audience. (Not that you have to be Black, or someone in any Converse demographic, which I sure ain't, to take offense to this ad.)

“Even if it wasn’t Converse’s intentions, whoever decided that it was a good idea to post this ad in this political climate, you are a dumbass and you deserve to lose your job,” one user said in a TikTok video. “That is a depiction of the triple K right there. Pointed hood, dangling Converses, as if someone’s being strung up from a … Black people ain’t stupid, bro.”

Maybe the lunkhead(s) who approved this ad don't deserve to get fired, they sure do deserve being called dumbass. 

But Converse maybe wants to look into how to keep something like this from happening again.

Like maybe having some diversity on your advertising and marketing team might have been a good preventative. Because while it's hard to believe that anyone - of whatever race - okayed this dumbass ad, it's nearly impossible to believe that a Black person would have given the go ahead. 

DEI has been getting a lot of pushback for a while now, and god knows there have been plenty of dumbass DEI initiatives. But the reason for DEI in ther first place was because women and minorities actually were losing out on professional opportunities, and they (we!) were just looking for the chance to compete on a level playing field (and to be every bit as mediocre as the supposedly superior specimens whose jobs they were supposedly taking.)

Another reason for DEI is that having a diversity of viewpoints at the table keeps dumbass things like this Converse ads from happening. 

 Sheesh. 

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Image Source: Instagram

Encore! Encore!

I see it whenever I'm on the train toing-and-froing my sister Trish's n Salem. I see it whenever my brother Rich and I are making a periodic trek to Bertucci's in Medford. 

If you're anywhere near it, it's hard to miss Encore Boston Harbor, looming up over everything around it. Which ain't much.

This casino has now been here for 7 years.

I've been meaning to get there, if only for a look-see, but the closest I've gotten is a look-see out a train car or car car window. And if I ever do get there, it will be via water shuttle, which is kind of a cool way to get to a casino. I guess.

And I will go there, if only because I do like gawking. It's just that gambling's not my thing. The few times I've been to casinos, it's been for however long ten dollars lasts on the quarter slots. 

When Wynn Resorts decided to take a gamble on Boston, the location they chose for Encore was the decidedly unprepossessing blue collar town of Everett, an industrial "suburb" that's not exactly the sort of place that comes to mind when you hear the word "suburb." The only cool (or cool-adjacent) thing about the location is that it's on the Mystic River which, let's face it, is one fabulous name for a river, no?

When you take the water shuttle:

...it passes former scrapyards and gritty warehouses, remnants of the Mystic’s industrial heritage. Then, as it approaches a bend in the river, a bronze and glass tower appears, the single word “Encore” shimmering in gold script at its top like a $2.6 billion monument to the idea that everything in its glow, including the hardscrabble city of Everett, would be transformed.

That was the promise of owner Wynn Resorts, when it opened seven years ago. The casino would replace a contaminated industrial waterfront that had sat empty for a century, create thousands of union jobs, generate millions in tax revenue, and build a luxury destination that would bring visitors to a long-overlooked corner of Greater Boston to stay, eat, and, of course, gamble.

...After winning a hotly contested license to build Greater Boston’s only casino in 2014, Wynn executives promised a destination that would attract travelers from around the world, with high-quality dining and nightlife and entertainment “unlike anything the region has ever seen.” It wasn’t just marketing talk; it’s partly why they prevailed, with state gaming officials weighing the broader boost it would bring to the region’s economy. (Source: Boston Globe)

Let's see how all this has panned out.

When it was being built, the Encore was definitely a boon for local union members in the construction trades. But as I'm writing this, over 1,300 of those promised union workers are striking for wages and benefits that are comparable to what Boston hotels pay. (The local political establishment is pretty much with the workers, and the unions have - here's hoping - put a bit of a dent in operations, even though some positions (like those that take care of the gambling) aren't unionized/striking. My brother-the-union-guy (ret.) has spent a bit of time on the picket line. And I will be deferring any visit to Encore until the strike has settled. Among other things, the free water shuttle isn't running, so there's that.)

As for any transformation of Everett? Hundreds of Everett-onians/Everett-ites are employed there. The environmental cleanup that was part of the development has surely been welcome. Everett has received over $50M a year of payments in lieu of taxes. And there's promises of a new commuter rail stop, which I'm hoping will not be on the Newburyport/Rockport line I take to Salem, as there's already a quick stop in Chelsea, a few minutes out of Boston.) 

But has Everett been transformed? Not from what I can see. (And I have no idea what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has done with the $1B in taxes that Encore has put in our coffers. I'm sure it was put to good use.)

As for creating an international destination that would bring in visitors from around the world?

That, apparently, ain't happening.

International visitors to Boston are nothing new. We're in the Top 10 of destinations that foreign travelers come to in the US, but they're here for Boston. Not for Everett. 

Alas:

Encore lacks the sort of amenities that draw non-gamblers and multiday visitors. With little available land, there’s no golf course, pool, or shopping mall. Nor is there a theater or arena for major concerts or big comedians to perform; state law, designed to protect nearby concert venues, prohibits Encore from operating on-site entertainment facilities of between 1,000 and 3,500 seats.

What Encore is is pretty much a casino for locals. One that faces a lot of compettion from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, the well-established tribal casinos in Connecticut that have a lot more of the amenities that draw visitors. There are also casinos in other nearby states. And with all the sports betting opportunities out there, you don't need to go to a casino to satisfy your gamblng jones. 

There are some high rollers who frequent the joint, the most recognizable being professional athletes, who certainly have the coin to fancy sup and high roll at a casino (where they're likely comped on the fancy supping). 

But things may look up yet. The New England Revolution are supposedly building a soccer stadium in Everett, but that won't be opening for a few more years.  

Meanwhile, once the strike's over, I will at least consider taking the water shuttle over, ready, willing, and able to spend my ten bucks on the slots.

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Image Source: Wikipedia

LL Bean steps out

I've been an L.L. Bean fan for a good many years now. 

In 1972, before my friend Joyce and I embarked on our cross-country camping trip, we made a pilgrimage to their store in Freeport, Maine, and bought a tent and some other camping gear. I also brought a hunter-green rain jacket, which saw me through the cross-country trek (2 months) and the longer Euro trip (5 months) the following year.

I don't remember L.L. Bean being that big a deal back in the day. I think it was mostly a New England thing, and it was mainly camping gear, hunting/fishing stuff, birdseye sweaters, tote bags, and duck boots.

I did have a birdseye sweater at one point, but I was never one for the duck boots. I did try the low cut version once, to wear in the rain, but they were pretty much the most uncomfortable shoe I'd ever owned. I think I wore them once.

But I have plenty of L.L. Bean clothing: jeans, tees, turtle necks, cords, sweaters, shirts, khakis, fleeces, parkas, hoodies, PJs, slippers. And tote bags. In multiple sizes. 

I've been to that flagship store in Freeport a few times, and to their local stores (Boston, Burlington) a few times as well. But I'm mostly a catalog shopper. 

Although I haven't been up there in years, and have no plans to get to L.L. Bean's mothership any time soon, I was still interested to read that the store has been undergoing a total do-over, and was recently re-opened. I was unaware that it had been closed for two years. (The reno had cost $50M. That's a lot of duck boots - high or low cut.)

The makeover isn't just for the flagship store:

The bet goes well beyond Freeport. L.L. Bean is opening stores in new markets, refreshing its classic products, courting younger shoppers, and looking for new ways to connect with customers — all as it tries to break out of a decade of sluggish growth without losing what made it beloved in the first place. (Source: Boston Globe)

Because L.L. Bean is a local company, and because it's a privately (family) held company that hasn't been scarfed up by some ravenous PE crew hell bent on wringing out any profits while firing as many employees as they can and wrecking the brand, I'm rooting for L.L. Bean.

I'm all in favor of refreshing classic products and appealing to the youngs, but I hope they don't do too much refreshing. I hope they remember us loyal olds, even though we're dying out and even though we maybe don't order all that much anymore, mostly because we're still wearing clothing we bought decades ago. 

I just got rid of a pair of khaki capri pants that I've had for at least 25 years. I know they're that old because I have a picture of me and my sisters, taken shortly after my mother's death in 2001, when we gathered at Kath's house for a couple of days R&R. In the picture we're all wearing the same L.L. Bean capris and different color versions of the same L.L. Bean checked shirt. My capris were still in pretty good shape. I was just sick of them and haven't worn them in a couple of years. 

Among the innovations L.L. Bean has introduced is letting folks add phrases to their tote bags, and not just stick to initials and names. 

Now younger consumers are opting for phrases such as “cool mom” or “hot mess.” (Others are too provocative to print in a family-owned newspaper.)

Oh, you kids!

But I can get behind this, as long as - in memory of my husband - they still sell plaid flannel shirts. 

The company is also emphasizing that some of their products - most notably those iconic duck boots and tote bags - are home grown: made in Maine. 

As for the newly tricked out Freeport store, they're fulling getting behind personalization:

An entire floor is devoted to customization, where shoppers can embellish totes, coats, denim, and other items with embroidery, keychains, bandanas, and patches that lean into New England identity.

Which should definitely appeal to the Instagram all-about-me generation. Not that I didn't love personalization when I was a kid. Not much was personalized back then, as we all wore hand me downs, and it was hard to hand them down something with someone else's name on it. But two of my most memorable childhood possessions were a little red umbrella with Maureen written on it, and a very cute tee-shirt that featured little bears and Maureen spelled out in peppermint striped letters. (My mother must have used it for dust rags once I outgrew it. She was hardly going to have my brother Tom, who was next in line, wear it. And I know I never had to wear my sister's peppermint lettering Kathleen tee.)

With the newly jazzed up store, it looks like the company is trying to make the store a destination. (As if it's very L.L. Bean-ness isn't destination-y enough!)

There’s a trout pond, a tank of fish kids can view through a crawl space, an expanded café, and a children’s area modeled after Maine summer camps. They expanded their green space in front of the store for community events and outdoor programs. There will even be a beer garden with local brews.

L.L. Bean is also expanding its retail footprint, focusing on opening new stores in the Midwest and Southeast.

I wish them luck, but hope they never lose their New England charm. 

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Image Source: LL Bean

For kiddos with a really sophisticated aesthetic

If you have kids or grandkids, or know anyone who has kids or grandkids, or have ever walked by a daycare center and seen what's in the playground, you will be familiar with Little Tikes toys. They're cute. They're fun. And they're brightly colored. Brightly primary colored. 

Kids, as anyone who's ever had a kid or a grandkid, or known anyone who had a kid or a grandkid, are drawn to toys with bright colors. 

Even back in olden days, when playing Mr. Potato Head actually required your mother's giving you a potato, kids wanted the Radio Flyer red wagon. We wanted the shiny blue bike. The bright yellow hula hoop. We loved playing Cootie. All those bright shiny colors. 

In my house, we had a few giant sets of wooden building/alphabet blocks, all of which came in large mesh sacks. The OG set was made up of very nice alphabet blocks, primarily plain wood with muted red, blue, yellow, and green lettering in trim. They were great, and we had a lot of fun playing with them. And we also had a sack of non-alphabet blocks - plain wood that may have been painted a muted blue, red, and green but had faded to nothingness. 

Then one Christmas, one of my brothers got a new sack o'blocks: bright purple, red, and yellow. We'd have all the blocks laid out on the braided run in the family room, and we'd all go for the newbies. It helped that the set included cylinders. But mostly it was the vibrant colors that set them apart.

Little Tikes toys didn't exist when I was a kid, but nowadays they're ubiquitous. And it isn't just Little Tikes. PlaySkool. Play-doh. Fisher Price. Legos. They all use bright colors, with some pastel pink thrown in for the girlies. 

But now Little Tikes has just introduced a new concept.

The Little Tikes Cloud Collection, which launches Sept. 15, is aimed at allowing parents "to create inviting play spaces that fit within the colors and design of every home without sacrificing the fun kids love," the company said in a news release.

"The collection was designed with both children and parents in mind, and responds to the growing popularity of neutral, design-conscious children's products," Little Tikes said. (Source: USA Today)

Because nothing says fun like white, grey, and beige toys.  

The new collection is presumably in response to the "beige moms" trend, "beige moms" being "a term for parents who curate their children's toys and clothes with exclusively neutral colors."

Dressing and toying your kids with "exclusively neutral colors?" Yikes, just yikes!

Reaction on social media was mostly from those who aren't in favor of this curated childhood thang:

"Mom here! this is awful & depressing, kids need color!" one person wrote on TikTok, while another commented, "Nothing says childhood like 47 shades of oatmeal."

..."Why are we taking color out of kid’s lives??" one [Instagram] user commented.

"Sad beige baby toys. Babies need color in their lives! Sad beige parents sucking out all the fun," said another.

True confession: I may or may not have gotten one of my nieces an environmentally-friendly upscale wooden dollhouse that was just plain wood. It came from a fancy toy store that specialized in toys for folks who hate plastic and watch PBS. I truly can't remember whether I bought it or just considered it. 

But I didn't stick with plain wood toys. I went all in on VW Beetles for Barbies. Groovy Girls' everything, in the fab wild colors they used - orange, chartreuse, bubble gum pink, and royal purple; lots of purple - for the doll clothing and accessories. (Just saw that the Groovy Girls had been discontinued in 2018, but are now back. Yay!)

In response to the pushback, Little Tikes has emphasized that they're not replacing their classics, but are just giving those "beige moms" something to curate: 

"The Cloud Collection is simply a new option for families who love a softer palette," it said.

Wonder if these curators allow their kids to have colored markers. If they're not verboten, I can see the kiddos going after those bland, depressing toys with a vengeance. 

It'll be interesting to see whether the Cloud Collection takes off, or ends up in the discount bin. 

Oops! (I see a lawsuit or two in this future.)

Developers in New York have been converting what had been Pfizer HQ in Midtown Manhattan to residential use. (Pfizer has decamped to a spiffier, hipper more happen' new build in NYC's Hudson Yards.) The old Pfizer building, located in fairly prime real estate on East 42nd, is being turned into 1600, with 25 percent of the units designated for affordable housing.

The conversion has been interesting for a couple of reasons. One, it's New York City's (and maybe even the country's) largest ever commercial-to-residential conversion; and second, they were adding 19 more floors to one part of the existing structure, and a few new floors will be topping off the more recent, higher section. (The original building, over 100 years old, had ten floors; the new part of the building, constructed in the early 1960's, had 32 or 33 floors - I've seen both figuress.)

In order to add floors to the OG structure, and to the newer 1960s-vintage building, they needed to add support columns.

In early July, a couple of columns buckled and the building started to sag. It was in danger of becoming "dangerously unstable." The building and it surrounds were evacuated, and construction was shut down. 

Initially, it was reported that only two columns were compromised. 

But a review of public documents obtained by The Times through a records request to the New York City Department of Buildings shows that steel plates were missing or inadequate on eight more columns that were supposed to be strengthened to support floors being added above.

In the documents, the insufficient reinforcements were referred to as “missing/partial length,” which could include missing plates intended to strengthen steel columns, or smaller plates — called “stiffener plates” — to ensure structural continuity through floors. Plates that were shorter than designed could also have been mistakenly put up. (Source: NY Times)

Hmmmm. That doesn't sound good.  

Someone was supposed to be checking out those columns to make sure they were up to spec. As Daniel Linzell, Worcester Polytechnic Institute's engineering dean, noted:

“It appears that whoever’s eyes were supposed to be confirming that the columns’ strengthening was completed were not.” He said he did not believe that this happens regularly in the construction industry.

Good to know!

“This appears to be a lack of oversight,” he said.

I'd say. 

Shutting down a project of this magnitude is costly, even if it's only for a short time. (The structure has been declared stable.) Then there's having to go in and rectify what should have been done right the first time. 

The columns buckling mid-construction is actually a godsend. They get to make the repairs before anyone's living in the building. Imagine if it had been occupied? 

I'm no clairvoyant, but I can see a ton of fingerpointing and plenty of lawsuits before this one is settled. Financial and reputational damages, coming right up!

And how'd you like to be a member of the sales and marketing team responsible for selling/renting these 1,600 apartments? This situation has got to knock prices down, one would think. And, whatever the price, you'd have to be desperate to take a flyer on a building that had experienced a mini-collapse. I sure wouldn't be comfortable living there, hoping every creak wasn't signaling a floor caving in. Or something.

The thought of a building collapse is particularly front-of-mind, given that the recent 25th anniversary of 9/11 has brought up all those images of the World Trade Center Towers going to ashes and dust. (By the way, according to my construction engineer brother Tom, the Towers were well built, and actually held up remarkably well. It's just that they hadn't been engineered for the unimaginable - huge airliners, fully loaded with jet fuel, deliberately crashing into them.)

Not that I'm ever going to be living in Manhattan, but a newer build and likely a much higher rise than the 5-storey, 160 year old building I've been living in for 35 years now, is in my future. Hope nothing collapses around my ears!

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Image Source: Reddit

What's Danish for holy moly?

A fellow in the small northern Danish city of Rebild was digging around in his backyard, making way for a terrace he's planning on putting in. After a couple of hours of "hard gardening work," his spade hit something and he heard a strange noise.

The backyard gardener (who wishes to remain anonymous, for reasons soon to become obvious) figured it was a piece of old fencing, or a pottery shard. He started rooting around with his hands and began pulling out some pretty magnificent buried treasure - 700 pieces (over 40 pounds worth) of Viking Era silver objects.  

Among the pieces were a small Thor's hammer, bracelets, many silver bars, cut-up objects and 47 coins, some whole and some fragmented, the [Nordjyske Museermuseum] group said in a statement. (Source: WCVB)

Wow! What's Danish for holey moley?

I haven't done much gardening, but before my green thumb neighbor took over our building's front garden, I used to plant crocuses, daffodils, and tulips every fall so we'd have a colorful spring in our little front "yard." But all I ever unearthed when I was troweling away were earth worms. Oh, and once I found that a box turtle had taken up residence. 

But no spectacular finds. Nothing from the 1860's, the vintage of our building, let alone something from the before times. 

As for the Danish discovery, it's estimated that the treasure trove has been there since the 10th century. Now that's a while back.

And since some of the coins were of Anglo-Saxon and Arabic origin, it's pretty safe to say that those Vikings got around. Which we knew, of course, given that Leif Erikson was the first European to step toe in North America, hundreds of years before "we" were "discovered" by Christopher Columbus, whose day we will be celebrating shortly. Or not. 

And anyone who's been in Dublin with their eyes open for more than a day are aware that Vikings founded that city way in the wayback. 

This year has apparently been a banner on for the discovery of Viking hoards in the Scandinavian countries. 

Last month, Kalle Lappinen was buzzing around southern Finland with his metal detector and he detected 10 pounds of Viking Era coins and jewelry. Norway also posted quite a find when last April their country's biggest hoard ever - nearly 3,000 silver coins - was unearthed.

However, none of the record-setting finds of 2026—the 10 pounds of Viking silver from Finland, the thousands of Viking Age silver coins in Norway, nor the 40-pound Viking hoard in Denmark—can claim to be the largest Viking hoard ever discovered in Scandinavia or the world. The largest Viking treasure ever found remains a 150-pound hoard discovered on the Swedish island of Gotland. Known as the Spillings Hoard, the 1999 discovery featured more than 14,000 silver coins. In that find, most of the coins came from Islamic countries or other European sources, which allowed archaeologists and historians to reconstruct trade routes and learn the sources of Viking Age wealth. (Source: Popular Mechanics)

One interesting aspect of the finds is how contemporary the designs of the Viking objects are. When you look at items individually, they aren't that far off from the modern Scandinavian aesthetic. A look that has always appealed to me. (I'd be quite happy to live in a mid-century modern house furnished entirely in "Danish Modern.")

By the way, holy moly in Danish is hold da helt op, which translates back as "wow."

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 Image Source: Nordjyske Museer via Archaeology Magazine