ah, the retirement home shop turned up some stuff today

[grasswire]

Walked over to visit my auntie at the retirement home, and spent some time combing the donations shop for goodies.

Four vintage swedish signed tiles from the 60s for fifty cents each. My friend in the mid-west who likes to sell these when she finds them says they're good for $20-30 on eBay each.

A souvenir tray that appears to be a copper veneer. It has peacocks on either side and a large decorative building in the middle that looks to me like some kind of pavilion -- maybe a world's fair. Gotta do some research on that one. I've never seen a copper veneer before.

An Eames atomic style decorative pottery bowl -- white with a nobby exterior. Gotta research this one. There is a mark, but I don't know what it is.

Some pieces of Iroquois pattern pottery dinnerware and two serving bowls. I love this stuff. I might keep it.

That was fun.

[Vinca]

1. The Eames era bowl sounds especially interesting.

Good for you! My only neat thrift shop find of late has been a bright orange dial phone from the 1960's. I swear the workers in that place must pick off anything decent.

[grasswire]

3. yeah, I suspect that's the case in a lot of places.

The mark on this white bowl is like two half circles connected by a line. I know I've seen it before but can't remember what it is.

[grasswire]

2. come on peeps --- get out there!

Soon the weather will turn and the fun will be over!

Today I went early to see what the Methodist ladies scrounged up for their rummage, and I was not disappointed! I was the first one at the linen table, and lordy lordy, everything was priced very very low. I got pairs of embroidered cotton pillowcases for fifty cents a pair! In good condition, and lovely! Various sets of mid-century napkins for a buck a set. Some of those are Vera. Several good tablecloths for a buck. I felt guilty getting this stuff so cheap!

I also found something from the fifties called Flintware -- a salad set of bowl and six individual bowls. This is real interesting stuff. This set is black with speckles. I learned from google that it was made from wood in the fifties and mimics plastic in its durability but looks like ceramic. I'm hoping to find it a good home.

I ignored the aromas of the Methodist ladies' pies and beef stroganoff, and walked toward home. (Seven blocks.)

But I detoured to take in a garage sale, down a side street.

Oh gee.

A little man was sitting in his driveway and the three carports and covered porch were CRAMMED with stuff. Stuff that hadn't been moved for decades. I can't even begin to describe it all. There were old wooden wagons and rocking animals, copper washtubs, shelf after shelf of old copper pots and various metal teakettles, and lamps, and old tools of all kinds, and spiders (free), and you just wouldn't believe the place. Just incredible. And his prices were very very very low. I bought some old candlesticks from Italy and some silver plate ornate things, and some very vintage kitchen things (red-handled rolling pin, various OLD canning implements, and so on. I passed up on a copper cannister set (ouch). I could have spent a LOT of money there but had walked and had an appointment to keep! I should have bought a wagon and trucked it all home. I'll be going back first thing in the morning.

I am thinking of opening a little shop. Seriously. Just a couple of blocks away from the Methodist church is an empty retail space next to a coffee house. Across the street is an auction house. Within blocks are three public schools. A few doors away is a small medical office. There's a hairdresser and a small old general store. It's a corner with a lot of local history, fair foot traffic, and good drive-by. Many people have to go by to get to the grocery store and the arterials to get to work. A little place that time forgot, in retail terms. The trolley used to stop there years ago.

So I know that the rent is cheap and could even be cheaper. I'm seriously considering the idea. I have a lot of stock but I also could take consignments.

One problem to solve is how to address the matter of different eras of collecting in one space. Is it better to only focus on one style (retro-mid century or cottage or something else)? Or can a smallish place mix several styles and go for broke?

I'm assuming that my customers would be teachers, mothers, and people who come to auctions, and church people. The coffee shop attracts many locals.

The community is a bit less up to date than the city neighborhoods. The full retro would not be profitable, I don't think. I suspect that many potential buyers are still decorating with cottage rather than modern.

Still, beautiful things are beautiful things. I have an acquaintance who sells her own line of greeting cards -- I'm thinking of adding something like that.

I would appreciate any input both to tone, style, and the mechanics.

[Vinca]

4. OMG - I'm so jealous. Is Flintware like Texasware?

Earlier this year I found a couple of vintage Texasware mixing bowls and they sold right off the bat on ebay. I love your shop idea, but I'm afraid I have zero decorating sense so no help there. It poured on Saturday, but I ventured out to the one sad yard sale that was rain or shine. It was not only sad, it was pathetic. Maybe next weekend.

[grasswire]

5. well, I went back to the old man's sale today

A lot of stuff was gone, but plenty of good stuff remaining. I was looking this time with the idea of fixtures for a shop. There was an old wooden wagon with great crackled paint, and a very old wooden ironing board, and two huge old tin washtubs that I asked him to set aside for me to pick up later.

Oh, and one ceramic piece I got yesterday is signed Don Confrey. I wasn't able to find out much about him except he was a California artisan in the fifties.

Are you in teh boonies there? I'm hoping you'll get some good opportunities soon. I would feel bad about sharing if I didn't love to hear about others' experiences picking and gathering myself.

[Vinca]

7. Not the real boonies, but close enough. The biggest problem

is the number of people on the hunt these days. The worst ones to contend with are what I call the "tag teams." Pairs of people who hit a good sale early and one goes one way and the other goes the other way and they scoop up everything in between. I keep telling myself that I've always made my best finds late in the day when everyone else has picked it over and gone, but I've been seriously frustrated this summer. Even the recycling shed at the dump has been overrun. We live near a lake that is surrounded by million dollar "cottages" and this summer the "cottage" residents would pretty much stake out the recycling shed. You'd think people were dropping off Faberge eggs for heaven's sake. There was a trio of older ladies in a Mercedes who particularly ticked me off, but they're as entitled to be there as I am so there's nothing to do about it.

[grasswire]

8. we need means testing for scroungers

Anybody with a certain amount of income and assets (a Mercedes?) to be prohibited from dumpster diving or dump watching or buying anything at a tag sale marked under $100.

THAT would stop this nonsense. Well, it wouldn't stop the tag teams.

Someone seriously ought to write about this phenomenon of pickers and peddlers in America. A series of novels.

And I will never understand why there isn't an Antiques and Collectibles TV network. There surely are as many people interested in the hunt as there are people interested in making a tiramisu or watching machines wrap candies.

[Vinca]

9. That's so funny you mention novels. I've always thought the characters

you encounter at auctions or out picking could be the subject of a really interesting story. I don't know about you, but I've encountered some very odd people along the way. It makes me miss a friend who moved away. We would sit in the front row at the local auction house and speculate on the sex lives of the losers going up to the checkout to pay for their stuff.:rofl:

[grasswire]

10. oddly enough...

...I have seen up close a few of those pickers in New England over a number of years. Yes, I think there is material for a novel. I was acquainted with a man who had a museum-class collection of daguerreotypes and other old images in his home -- a home where the wallpaper had not been changed since 1920 or so, and who looked like a doofus in his manner and dress. He's a picker working the territory of the Cape and a lot of northern and western Connecticut River area. His best friend is a good friend of mine, from whom I learned the "trade" and the passion for the hunt. I miss those N.E. auctions and characters.

[Vinca]

11. Here's an odd one for you. One guy I see at yard sales all the time

is a listed artist. For the life of me I don't know why he's also a picker. At church sales I'm always battling for stuff next to one of the local psychiatrists. We met at a yard sale last year and I tried to swap him a decent book for a bunch of old car brochures and he couldn't be budged. Very strange. Your daguerreotype guy reminds me of an old fellow who is still in the hunt around here looking for postcards, precious metals and old bottles. I think he's pretty wealthy so it was a shock when I went to his house to sell him some postcards and discovered he lives in trails. You could barely get to the couch in the living room and I could see the dining room table in the next room was covered with about 4 feet of stuff. My worst nightmare is getting as bad as that. A few years back I went to an auction where they had cleaned out a deceased dealer's shed and they turned up artwork by Antonio Jacobsen that went for almost $80,000. (Maybe you ought to go back and check out that sale again. LOL.)

[pipoman]

6. I work

in a retirement community...it is a nonprofit. The management has frequent garage sales. The residents donate stuff to the org, a few of us know a little about antiques/collectibles and we look at the donations before they go on the garage sale. Any good stuff is saved for our annual fund raising auction. That auction was last Saturday..it raised almost $20k including some new handcrafts (quilts, wood working, pottery, etc,). I can imagine that some good buys could be had at retirement homes if there were not oversight of the sale items.

[eleny]

12. There is a series of novels about a picker

It's the Jane Wheel Mysteries. A cozy mystery series set in Illinois. I've literally gotten sweaty palms when the scene is set at an estate sale with everyone scrambling for goodies.

Here is the author's web site. http://www.sharonfiffer.com/

I suggested her latest, Scary Stuff, to my library and they ordered it right away. Makes my palms sweaty anticipating a mystery, set at Halloween about a collectibles picker.

[eleny]

13. P.S. Here's a booklist from a search for more books about pickers, dealers etc.

http://www.overbooked.org/booklists/genres/cf/antiques.html

I've read the Mary Kay Andrews books listed and enjoyed them, too, although they aren't always about picking. But they always have old things and houses as a central part of the books since Andrews was a picker herself. They're special without necessarily being mysteries.

[grasswire]

14. for many years I've had real night dreams about...

...being at an old store or sale and gathering up all manner of fabulous stuff that I'd never seen before, and then not quite getting the sale finalized. Arggghhh!

[eleny]

15. That little old guy's sale sounded like a dream to me!

Back around 1980 when I was working out in the field for social services I parked to eat lunch in my car. Then I noticed a yard sale was going on down the block. So I ditched lunch and went to the sale.

I found one of those wooden ironing boards. Also, a wooden trunk that belonged to the elderly lady's mother. Her mother had come to America at age 15 from Ireland to keep house for her brothers who worked in a mine here in Colorado up in Central City. Now that I don't have room to use the trunk I plan to donate it to the Gilpin County historical society if they want it. I squirreled away the precious cardboard tag that was in the trunk with her name on it. As soon as I come across it, I'll donate.

There was a bunch of neat stuff in her backyard and basement like wooden checkers in the box and other collectibles. But my car was too small. So I paid up and they kept everything until I could return that evening after work with our hatchback car.

I'm sure I passed up some treasures out of ignorance. I often think of her and her daughter who was helping with the sale. When I returned to get my things she said a dealer tried to offer her more for the truck but she refused. She was ticked at him because he persisted even after she told him it had been sold. Nice people. That's one of the reasons why I want to donate it.

[grasswire]

16. thanks for the tip about books

I could live vicariously for a few hours, eh?

Do you agree with me about the need for an antiques and collectibles TV network?

[eleny]

17. You'll like the Jane Wheel character - she's one of us

About the network you suggest. I would watch every program recording the shows airing at inconvenient times. That's how it was after we had cable tv decades ago and HGTV started up. They repeated the daytime programs at night and I watched them all. In fact, HGTV is missing the boat on this possibility. It would be a natural for them to have several shows on this to replace a few of the endless variations on house buying.

Btw, I didn't realize that the Lovejoy tv series originated as novels. I watched it religiously on PBS and might go ahead and read the books. But I don't watch Antiques Roadshow that often. I get more enjoyment reading this group. Go figure.

[grasswire]

18. I wonder what the number of pickers in this country is today.

So many, many people are on the hunt, it seems. As we know, competition is fierce at auctions and sales where dealers prowl. I'd sure like to know how many people are hunting for vintage and collectible items to sell.

Millions?

[eleny]

19. Don't know but I think I see them often

You can tell by how quickly they move through the store scanning the shelves and racks. They don't dawdle like I do but move smoothly through the store staying very focused. That's what I presume about that type of shopper since they usually go through the entire store quickly and efficiently.

[grasswire]

25. okay

I've read two of the wheeler books from the library. The one set in Hollywood, and the first in the series. I enjoyed her first book more than the Hollywood one. I would never pick up and read a mystery book -- it just doesn't occur to me. But I did get a kick out of the descriptions of lust for "stuff" -- the main character is pretty amusing.

Thanks for the tip!

[Vinca]

20. I thought I had a great find this weekend, but . . . no such luck.

I went to a yard sale where the son of a professional photographer was selling part of the estate. I was the first one there and among the photos offered for sale I spotted two matted Ansel Adams pictures for a dollar each. All morning long as I went around to other sales I kept wondering if they might be the real thing. Sadly, under close inspection at home, they turned out to be framed and matted postcards. I did find a Baccarat perfume, though, and a Rosenthal-Netter rooster which seems to be rare. At a rummage sale I found 2 older handbags - Chanel and Cartier, but I'm not convinced they're the real thing.

[grasswire]

21. well, that sounds fun!

I would never think of looking through handbags. I know nothing about that stuff.

Good on you for being the first one at the sale! I would be hoping to find a Leica for a few dollars. Ha!

Oh....do you know if there is a photographer registry of some kind? I found a beautiful vintage very large signed and framed photograph at the retirement home donation shop, and wish I could know more about the photographer. The last name is Nordstrom. The title of the photo is "Forest in Fog -- North Cascades." I found a lot of photographers on google named Nordstrom, but none of them are vintage.

I'm also having trouble identifying the mark on my eames era bowl. I got Kovel's dictionary of 5,000 marks, and this one ain't in it. I'll have to keep trying.

[Vinca]

22. I would love to find a registry of photographers.

It seems that unless someone is internationally known and pops up right away on google, there's nothing. I found 2 interesting pictures signed "SAW" and actually located a photographer who signs his work that way, but he said it wasn't his. One of the photos is so sweet I'm thinking of framing it. It's black and white and shows 2 old dogs sprawled out on a cemetery crypt. Have you tried looking in Lehner's for the mark on the bowl?

[2Design]

23. Just stopped at an Estate sale - but it was so crammed and unclean

and nothing marked that I looked without touching and left. The mattresses were upended the the rug was moldy. The rug everywhere was filthy - this was a hoarder for sure - there was barely enough room to walk. I asked about prices, he said things were priced, then said most the things in the kitchen were not for sale. Hard to tell. There might be something good there but yuck.

Last week the one I went to everything was marked and they weren't budging on prices. At 1pm, everything was half priced, they had said that in their craigslist ad. A bit overpriced

[grasswire]

24. thanks for your report!

It really takes some grit to dig in those dirty sales. I wonder what a seller would think if a customer put on some latex gloves? Not a bad idea to carry some purell at least, and some baby wipes. I never thought of that before.