Posted by Monday morning. It’s my usual post office run, neighborhood thrift store browse and grocery shopping stop. It’s a predictable routine. But this Monday when I walked in the thrift store there were two full “new merch” carts stacked with items that hadn’t hit the shelves yet. Yeah!! And blessed be on one of the carts I found some designer John Rocha Waterford wine glasses in two different patterns–one very fresh and modern and the other more elegant and traditional. The cart was loaded with them!! WTH! Who donated all this Waterford?!
I grabbed a couple in the Voya pattern (on the left, below) and tried to do some in store research, but was not coming up with any actively for sale (the pattern is discontinued) and the sold ones were not revealing the price. The second pattern is Geo (Cut Squares). Both were big and felt good in the hand.
I was in a bit of a quandary because I wasn’t finding solid price info in the store, but figured I couldn’t go wrong with Waterford wine goblets. (Actually most signed wine glasses do well for me.) In the end I grabbed six in the Voya pattern and four in the Cut Squares pattern, leaving behind a couple for somebody else. (Don’t ask me why! I mean who does that??! So stupid.) The sales clerk was kind enough to wrap them individually and give me a box to carry them in.
Back at home on the research trail I did find a couple of listings for the Geo glasses at $120 each. But do they sell at that price? Hmmm.
And I found one of the Voya wine glasses that sold at 75 UK pounds or approx. $100 US dollars. Other Voya pieces for sale include the champagne flutes and the old-fashioned glasses.
So potentially each glass I picked up today is valued at $100 or more and I’m thrilled. They are nice things, with a good brand name and a potentially good profit. Shipping will not be fun however. The glasses are 9″ and 10″ tall with long stems. Still. I have no complaints, this was an epic score for me–ten Waterford glasses for a snip of a price (under $60). I’ll sell these in pairs, likely for $225 or so.
Now on Tuesday, truth be told, I went back to the thrift store to see if, by any remote chance, the few glasses I had left behind on Monday were still there…alas not. Well, of course not. But I did find this antique hand-tinted engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815). The old frame, possibly gold leaf, is pretty beat up, but it seems to suit the print which is “View of the Entry to the Temple of Jupiter.” The print may be a later restrike rather than original (don’t know for sure), but it is antique and beautifully rendered.
It felt good after so many empty-handed trips to this thrift store to have two back-to-back visits with good finds. While I love hunting, many of us have to do a lot of it, a lot, to find “the good stuff” and it’s discouraging at times. But on Monday the thrift gods were with me and I was in the right place at the right time.
Today is Wednesday and I would have gone back to the store for a third day in a row, but I caught a summer cold! Apparently the gods decided it was someone else’s turn to score.
Wishing you happy hunting,
Karen
Hunting for Vintage 