Posted by In the reselling biz, sellers often have items they refer to as “bread and butter”–lower value items you can sell all day long because they have some popularity and the price point is accessible to a wider pool of customers. Some months the sale of these items may represent a good chunk of my revenue.
Now I have wanted to move my Etsy store inventory in a more upscale direction and while I do have more items now that fit this goal and vision (and they are selling!), I’m realizing I don’t want to fully abandon these more affordable items. So today I ventured into my neighborhood thrift store (also with a bag of Etsy donations in my trunk!) to have a gander. I went up and down the few hard-good aisles before deciding to buy anything.
What I Left Behind
I really liked the looks of this vintage autumnal pottery creamer, likely Otagiri, but I knew it had little money in it, maybe $14 to $20. I was seriously tempted to buy it for myself and even carried it around for a while. The cast iron and copper kitchen tools were sturdy and well made, but unbranded and would need to be cleaned up before listing. And at $6 each I felt they were priced a bit too dear.
This gold-tone metal elephant with lid was exotic, but somewhat crudely rendered and I suspected wasn’t that old. In the end I decided against him. Later I found a similar new one on an India website for $18.
What I Bought
I have bought and sold a dozen Native American pottery pieces over the years and while I have never found wildly valuable ones with super intricate painting, even the smaller, more simplistic tourist pieces sell. I thought this signed Navajo polychrome vase was so striking.
Spotted this carved Polish wood box (of no great age) in the wood aisle. Now I have not been buying these boxes like I used to. Don’t get me wrong, they are charming, but fairly common. Still I thought this one was especially attractive, a good size (just under 8″ wide) and priced well. So I nabbed it. It has a lock, but alas no key.
Total paid for both: $5.30 (with senior discount)
So no happy-dance finds. No English hallmarked sterling silver gavel or Steuben glass apple or antique Austrian majolica bulldog pipe stand, all of which I have all found at this neighborhood thrift store over the years.
Still, these bread-and-butter items–modest bits of pottery and wood–sell and make people happy and on my end provide a bit of money for this and that. Mostly for boring things like groceries and toiletries but occasionally for lunches with girlfriends and once in a rare while a splurge for myself. A few weeks ago I bought this large silver (830) Finnish Jorma Laine cross on Ebay for $175. (I have a small collection of rather big crosses, mostly silver, that I wear all the time.) And this one spoke to me. According to Nordlingsantik.com “Jorma Laine (1930 to 2002) was one of the most unique voices in the history of Scandinavian jewelry, and is considered one of the most interesting Nordic silversmiths of the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a very characteristic abstract, modernistic style of working with silver and bronze…He lived large parts of his life as a recluse in a cabin deep in the Finnish woods. There he lived close to the wildlife and got his inspiration from nature itself but also the from local myths of spirits and gnomes.” I am thrilled to have one of his pieces of jewelry.
So all this to say, that while I am focusing more on finding higher-value items for my Etsy store, when I spot bread-and-butter pieces that I think will sell, I take a punt.
Wishing you happy hunting.
Karen
Hunting for Vintage 