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Passing the salt: Edmonton family selling heirloom shaker collection

Passing the salt: Edmonton family selling heirloom shaker collection

For Ruby Mills, passing the salt was never an ordinary affair.

Her family owns a collection of more than 500 salt and pepper shakers. There are pigs and swans, pineapples, corn cobs and mushrooms.

"There is a bear holding shotgun shells, there is set of Garfields and a set of cats that meow when you shake them up and down," Mills said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

Now Mills, 28, is putting the shakers up for sale. Her family no longer has room to store the collection.

Mills' father has been dealing with serious health issues, prompting her parents to move out of their large home in the city and relocate to their one-bedroom family cabin at Lessard Lake.

'Salt and pepper shakers for everything'

The vintage shakers, collected from around the world, have been passed down from generation to generation.

"It all got started when my mom bought a single set of salt and pepper shakers for my grandmother and she absolutely loved it. So everyone in the family started buying her salt and pepper shakers for everything."

"It has just continued to grow over the last 28 years … and there is not a pair in there that matches another pair. They are all completely different."

Collecting the shakers has become a family tradition, and each pair comes with a story, Mills said.

"There are sets in there from Jamaica and Cuba and Thailand," said Mills, an Edmonton-based condo manager.

"It seems like anyone in our life, anytime they go anywhere, they're bringing back a set of shakers for this collection."

Mills is asking $1,750 for the entire collection and has no interest in selling it off in bits and pieces.

She said her parents will use the money to pay for renovations to the family cabin and a summer vacation.

Mills hopes the new owner will cherish the shakers, and keep adding to the sentimental collection.

In the meantime, there were a couple of sets she just couldn't bear to part with and decided to plant on her mantle instead.

"I kept the bear holding the shotgun shells, and I kept those meowing cats."