Bread-and-Butter Finds from Local Goodwills

While I like to buy the really, really good stuff (old sterling silver, MCM artwork, fantastic jewelry, etc), it’s harder to find at reasonable prices. And truth be told many of us in the online vintage biz rely on the sale of items $45 and under to keep afloat. Which makes sense. More folks can afford a $30 item than a $200 one.

But I don’t want my bread-and-butter items to be what every other shop seems to be selling. For awhile every YouTuber I followed seemed to be infatuated with glass fairy lamps. Now glass blue birds of happiness are a big thing. Neither excites me. I’d rather go for a unique handmade pot (half of the ones I have here on display in our family room are listed in my store…I love to enjoy them before they sell!) or a quirky book.

Here’s how my shopping went…

Too Darn Expensive

This big, green ’70s glass ashtray was fabulous but $15.49. Holy smokes! This typically sells under $20 so I was particularly surprised by a thrift store price tag that was essentially full retail. It will likely sit on the shelves for weeks and eventually get damaged and removed. Sad really.

Too Broken

This artisan-made vase was intriguing, but it had been broken at some point and glued back together…possibly by a toddler. Too bad they hadn’t fixed it kintsugi-style, it likely would have added value!

Worth a Go!

My favorite find of the last two days was this zippered accordion leather Coach wallet. Gosh, this was nice. All leather, well made and a sought-after brand. If this doesn’t sell, this will be my new wallet!

I thought these small vintage made-in-Japan card china plates were cute in the right way. Something a 1950s/60 bridge party would have used for canapes. But I noticed (after buying them of course) that I have two hearts and no diamonds. I’m guessing this was once a set of eight…maybe?? Still hoping I can find a new home for them.

This was sooooo out of my wheelhouse, but the store had dozens of small and larger bagged new-old-stock Leo et Popi French monkeys, circa 1996. Tried to do a little in-store research, but I struggled finding concrete sales info. In the end I decided just to buy one of the larger ones to see what happened.

I spotted this pretty el Palomar Mexican pottery bottle/jug/flask on an end cap. Just a nice thing.

This amazing Mexican folk art Adam & Eve terracotta candelabra wowed me and these can sell for over $100, but it’s got so many breakable bits extending everywhere! What was I thinking?! Do I really want to ship this?? No! I could keep it, but I would want to do some repainting. The hot pink leaves aren’t working or me and I think the snake needs help! This might be worth repainting. Hmmm. Not sure what I’m going to do yet.

These World Market Russia ornaments I bought for myself. My youngest suggested last Christmas that maybe we should get some new ornaments. I thought these would be fun since two of us have been to Russia.

So I am happy with these few thrift store finds. No happy dances. No great scores. But good sellable items.

Surprisingly things have been selling steadily this June and I haven’t experienced the summer slowdown…yet!! But it will be fine when it starts. I have three little trips coming up over the next few months and other special events so it will be nice to take time away from the biz…though likely when I’m traveling I’ll be doing some antiquing!!

Hope your start to summer is going well.

Karen