Unexpected Thrift Store Find

I popped into my neighborhood thrift store on my way to church with just 15 minutes to spare. It was a fun race around the store and I found some interesting things but they did not fit my 2025 buying and selling guidelines…alas, alas.

Then I picked up this small bird figurine. Good grief this thing was heavy (1 lb. 7 oz.). That was a good sign! And it had been nicely cast and painted. Two more good signs. I wondered…could it be a cold-painted bronze piece?

Now some of you may be saying to yourself, how the heck would she know that?! And I’ll tell you–from watching many episodes of the UK “Antiques Road Trip.” This show has taught me so much about antiques. I don’t always agree with what the dealers buy to sell at auction, but I have learned a lot from them. (Some day I hope to find a piece of Troika Pottery in the wild.)

So I did a quick Google lookup in the store and it confirmed that this was likely a Vienna cold-painted bronze piece from the early 1900s. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were dozens of Austrian bronze foundries producing Viennese cold-painted bronzes. Some were signed, others not. It was a labor intensive process with men handling the casting and women often doing the painting at home. Major themes included animals, birds, nudes and orientalia.

Franz Xaver Bergman was the most famous designer of that time and a signed Bergman figure with a similar bird motif sold for $515 in 2015!

Mine is unsigned, but here’s a similar unsigned one that sold in 2022 for $179.50.

I am definitely happy with this find and it is right in line with the type of thing I want to be selling. I did find a similar one listed for $449 on eBay, but it’s also unsigned and I think that it’s unlikely that anyone will pay that much for an unsigned piece–but good luck to them, maybe someone will. I have priced mine at $248.

And what did I leave behind? Okay I was really, really tempted by this pretty 12″ carved wood tray from India or Burma, which is actually the top to a small table. I had just watched YouTuber Andi, of All Put Together recently buy a number of carved India boxes of similar design (she does well with them in her booths) and I asked myself “What would Andi do?” And for $7.69, she probably would have bought this! But I realized at best I could list it for maybe $45 on Etsy, then there would be a hefty shipping cost and it would likely linger for a long time in my store. So I VERY reluctantly left it behind.

Here are some of the complete tables with the same design. Prices vary quite significantly–from £25 (approx. $32) to $924!

On Monday, I was hoping for another neighborhood thrift store score, but there was nothing. I also popped into a small boutique thrift store in a nearby town. They had some nice things (as they always do) but many were priced at full retail. Still it was fun looking.

Wishing you happy hunting,

Karen