Hunting for Vintage in Placerville, CA

It’s funny how things often aren’t as good as you remember. My husband and I recently took a mini-vacay to the Placerville/Apple Hill region of California. After three hours of driving to get there our first ports of call were two apple farms—ones we had been to before when our girls were young and remember fondly. But even mid-week, on a boring old Tuesday, the farms were packed. Thronged with couples, families, extended families. Both were a mad house. Besides a plethora of apples, apple products and other items, face painting was a feature as were craft vendors of all sorts. Still the noise and the crowds were off-putting as was the 90+ degree heat and it just didn’t seem as fun as we remembered!

Next we went to a good-sized thrift store, Snowline Hospice. They had a separate, curated “better items” section and the prices reflected that–there was a vintage hobbyist ceramic ashtray for $7.50 and some pretty vintage pink pressed glass champagne coupes for $9.50 each and honestly I don’t think I could sell them for much more than that. I was tempted by this teacup, though I’ve told myself I’m NOT buying anymore teacups, but this one seemed to be a rather old and possibly worth buying. (Google dated it to the 19th century.) Alas it had a large crack so I left it behind.

In the end Snowline came through and I found a few good things. I liked this quirky MCM Danish teak viking bottle opener, in the style of Kaj Bojesen. True Kaj pieces are listed in the $$$, but I will list this much more modestly!

There was a box of 10 or so MCM framed military prints that appear to be Scottish. I went back and forth about getting any of them. In the end I chose three.

By this point my feet were aching and I felt overheated, but we could finally check into our room at at the lovely Eden Vale Inn (which was thankfully air conditioned) and relax with a glass of wine.

The next day we hit downtown Placerville which is as cute as can be with a plethora of shops mostly catering to the tourist trade. We hit up two antique stores and one vintage store.

As per usual most items were priced too high for my purposes but the truth is sometimes you can find undervalued items. And of course just looking at all the items is both enjoyable and an education.

In the end I found one item at Placerville Antiques & Collectibles—a vintage Metropolitan Museum of Art wool scarf with the sweetest floral crewelwork inspired by the French artist Eugene Delacroix’s “Basket of Flowers.” I asked if there was any wiggle room in the price and the woman manning the cash register gave me almost 20% off, so I had no complaints. MMA scarves, particularly rare ones like this, can easily sell for over $100.

At some point the temp hit around 97 degrees we felt ourselves wilting or perhaps baking is a more apt verb. We got a spot of lunch (rather uninspired food so I’ll say no more about that) and hit two more thrift stores on our way back to our inn. One was a bust, but we stopped back at Snowline Thrift to see if there were any more of military prints left. Someone else had snagged some of them, but I grabbed the last three. So now I have six of the 1940s Dewar’s White Label Regimental prints in simple wood frames. Happy about that. I should have bought them all to begin with! Having decided if I’ll list these singly, in lots or a whole group.

Total spent for all items: $77.99

Last day at the inn and I’m happy to share that Eden Vale was delightful with nicely appointed, comfortable rooms, and extensive grounds that have rustic charm. Each morning I enjoyed my coffee by the pond and it was so quiet and relaxing. (I spotted herons and wild turkeys.)

Rooms also have private outdoor soaking tubs and we greatly enjoyed ours and the gourmet breakfasts set us up nicely for the day. Would happily stay here again. (Thank you David and Karen.)

It was good to get away but I’ll admit we struggled being out and about in the heat and it put a damper on some of our plans. So when we pulled into our own driveway it felt good to be home. (It was only 84 degrees here!)

Wishing you happy hunting wherever you live and travel!

Karen