Venetian Decanter and Glasses Set

I just think this set is stunning, especially after we cleaned it up at home. Hand blown Venetian glass in a turquoise, almost teal color, with a gold, lacy applique overlaid in a beautiful pattern. It's right out of the 1960's and you can just picture it on somebody's kidney shaped coffee table, serving up some sherry.

Evocative.

I just love how some objects we find can transport us to another time like these can - one look and they definitely are NOT from a 2008 Crate and Barrel catalog. They are swinging; they are lounge music from an enormous console in your rec room; they are air blue with cigarette smoke, and ladies' hair teased into Dippity-Do gravity-defying shapes. All this from looking at a bunch of glass!

Yes, I love what I'm doing.

I hope that the photo does the set justice.

Time Travelers now at eCrater

Wow, my head is spinning, and so early in the day. I've been working on setting up shop at eCrater, and getting Google Checkout ready there, and we even bought a domain name. I think I have the forwarding set up so that it will bring people automatically to the eCrater storefront.

Let's give it a try, shall we? Try this link: timetravelersonline.net

That should take you to a very small storefront at eCrater. At the moment, we've got it on hold until all the kinks are worked out. I think we'll be opening it soon even though it doesn't have many items in it as of yet, because now that I've got the hang of all that taking photographs and writing descriptions down, the process is a bit more efficient than it was 6 months ago.

But please, take a look at the store, with all its 4 items in it. I like the look of the place, myself. It shouldn't be unfamiliar compared with the TIAS store, apart from looking rather empty... just a virtual change in geography, as it were.

I can't believe that I've done as much as I have. We've had to forward the domain name to eCrater instead of masking it because bookmarks won't work properly, and there is some glitch with the Checkout unless you do it this way. But I don't mind. I like the domain name better than the clumsy one we'd been using before, and we'll be able to take it wherever we end up. I have a feeling, though, that we'll be at eCrater for some time. They make it very easy to set things up, it's completely personalized, and all the promotion - the really important stuff - is also, totally up to the seller.

So we'll give this a try.

Quite a nice bunch of stuff

The estate sale we went to couldn't have been better. Close to home, and just overflowing with lovely, well cared for items that had seen a lifetime of love. We whizzed through the home and quickly built up a pile of some very special things to take away with us.

I took a quick photo of what we found. Briefly - some Wedgwood Jasperware ashtrays, including a Winston Churchill, and, to my delight, a Canadian 1967 Confederation one (which you had to know what it was just by the abstracted symbol of a maple leaf on it - no mention of Canada or 1967 at all). I was tickled pink to find it, because I'm a closet 1967 memorabilia collector. Also a covered trinket box, and a horse and chariot ashtray, both in the classical Grecian relief that you often see on the Jasperware pieces.

Silverplate - some serving pieces, like a large ladle, a small lade, a cake server, a sauce boat, and a sugar and creamer set. All terribly tarnished, but with TLC, some time and my favorite silver polish, they will all soon be gleaming, and will command decent prices.

A very pretty hand painted teapot in a soft teal color with gold handle and spout. So pretty and a practical size.

A covered cheese dish - something you just don't see any more. Very old, most definitely antique. It's lightly crazed all over and does have some staining from age, but I don't think it's a detraction. It's a special piece and in great condition.

A Stangl 1960's flower vase. I'm just starting to learn about and appreciate American pottery, and I'm glad I spotted this tucked away in a china hutch at the sale. It's in some very "Florida" colors - turquoise and gold - and still has the label on it from the factory. Mint condition.

A Venetian glass decanter set. Something special for company in a deep turquoise glass with gold lace decoration. It has all 6 glasses present in the set.

We also picked up a covered casserole dish that caught our eye, cream with green relief decoration. It just looked like something that people might like.

So that's the shopping for today. We are really pleased with what we found!

Doing some Shopping, and Looking Ahead

We're going to an estate sale tomorrow afternoon. What a luxury - a sale during the week and without a show facing us! It's been a while since we've felt the absence of any pressure to restock, but we have officially ended the show season. We won't be doing anything until an indoor event in Fort Lauderdale at the beginning of August.

So now we are able to catch our breath and really take a close look at what we have left from the shortened season that we just got through. I want to do a review of exactly what has sold well for us - I bet it won't be what we think it's been. I know that Bob gets excited every time we've sold something that takes up a lot of space! even if it hasn't been of high value; he's also been pretty happy when something heavy has sold, because it's meant that he wouldn't have to lift and carry it again... So does that mean we should only be buying light, fluffy things??

I can see us developing several different levels of merchandise. One level for outdoor shows, where people expect to find and see the "bargains" of the collectibles world. The $5 table at the Treasure Island show was truly a good thing for us, because it allowed us to pull together a bunch of items that we wanted to clear out of stock and reduce their prices to sell. It was the right thing to do, and it created some room for us.

Bob and I want to start doing indoor shows, which cost more to participate in - usually three times the cost of doing the same show out of doors. But you don't see the same merchandise indoors as outdoors - once inside, you see a higher quality of merchandise, expect to see higher prices, and you might not even negotiate on the prices as you would outside. All this just for airconditioning!

The good news is that we won't have to buy all new (old) merchandise in order to start selling at these indoor shows. We already have a broad range of prices and values in what we offer. We will have to go through the bins and decide what exactly is appropriate for the indoor show, and what we should leave at home - and that brings up another point: we'll likely have less space, so we'll have to be more discriminating in what we bring.

I'll also take a look at table coverings that can help make our lovelies pop! The right color and texture can make a big difference. At the higher end of the shows you see retailers getting into elaborate displays, spot lights, and cases. Again, since this is our first year, I'll be trying to keep things as simple and inexpensive as I can for now.

Realistically I think we'll be doing both types of shows, as weather permits, and where it makes sense to do business indoors and where it will be expected that we show outside.

Meanwhile, eCrater awaits. I've been toiling on putting the correct values into the dreaded Shipping Matrix, the place where you can make or break your own store. I've read easily 20 pages in their online forum about the subject, so it's worthy of extra study up front, before I get too deep into this new store. Once those values are in (how much to charge for shipping by weight), then I can start to enter some items into inventory, which will require me to enter a weight in for each at that time. If I don't have a value for weight, then I can't enter an item. Luckily, I just happened to have bought a postal-grade scale when I was setting the shop at at That Other Internet Place - which we didn't end up using, but should have, in hindsight.

But first things first. Shipping Matrix. Then I get to pass go.

Sun, Sand and Swing?

No, no, and no.

Not at 84% relative humidity and over 80 degrees F with a constant breeze. It was what I would imagine a slow roast in a convection oven would feel like. Totally unpleasant. And absurdly inappropriate to have the vendors come to set up at 7AM, when the main attraction, which is live music (that would be the Swing part of the event's name) doesn't even begin until 3:45PM. So for 6 and 3/4 hours we were pretty much twiddling our collective thumbs, waiting for the crowd to arrive. What were the Treasure Island Chamber of Commerce thinking when they planned this act of stupidity? What a complete and utter waste of our time.

Note to selves: we won't we doing this event next year.

The ultimate in recycling

As we continue to fill our landfills more quickly than new ones can be created, it's worth looking at how green it is to market antiques and collectibles. What could be more wise than to reuse an object, rather than to discard something to a garbage bin and purchase a new one to replace it?

This is more than clever marketing - this is about reducing our production of refuse in our world. If we encourage people to buy gently used glassware, linens, clothing, dishes, and decorative objects, we are preventing those very objects from becoming fodder for the overburdened landfills. It makes huge sense.

I often speak of the treasures that we find at garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. We also have things just outright given to us to resell - and these things would not otherwise be used. We aid in finding these items their new lives in peoples' homes. Buying used items means that you're not contributing to the mindless cycle of always buying new, and discarding your old, things. You're breaking that cycle - interrupting it - and also extending the life of an object by enjoying it for many years, before in turn, sending it on to another home yourself. And likewise, when you're done with enjoying something in your home, think about donating it to a charity shop, gifting it to someone else in your family if it's a precious heirloom, or have a sale of your own, instead of putting it in the garbage. Just because you're done using it doesn't mean someone else won't get years of enjoyment from it - if anything, it's kind of wonderful to think of the extension of life it will get by being passed on to another household.

It's another way, however small, to green your small corner of the world.

Internet store to live another day

First of all, wouldn't you know that we got an order on the TIAS site yesterday??!! Massive panic as we searched through multiple storage bins to find the item that was purchased - I knew this would happen! After months of packing and unpacking for show after show, never being able to pack a bin the same way twice, it's become complete chaos to try to find anything that we've listed on the website that is also something that we take to the shows.

Which is our complete internet store inventory.

And now approaches the end of the TIAS store, and an opportunity to start fresh someplace else. We are going to set up shop with eCrater, a free web store builder and a free online marketplace. With this new store will be different merchandise, however. I have seen (and did see, the entire time) the sheer folly of listing the same inventory in the old store that we were taking to the live shows. Keeping track of items sold was never a problem - I keep very detailed records - but that nightmare of actually putting my hands on something that's been carefully wrapped and packed away in a box that's buried 3 deep and 2 back in the spare room - well, that dream was realized and it wasn't pretty! The air was blue with the language coming out of my mouth, oh my!

And we never did set up our shipping rates properly at TIAS, which meant that we hadn't covered our expenses properly. So this time we'll be doing our homework more diligently, and also, having to weigh each item as we put it into the new store. The shipping rates will correspond to the postal service's Priority Mail rates, which is how we prefer to send items out.

My head is spinning at the work ahead of us. I've got the postal scale already, as I'd bought one months ago, then not used it when setting up shop at TIAS. Hopefully, this will dovetail nicely with the end of the live show season here. As we slow down with the shows, we'll be ramping up the new internet store.

A new look (template)

I've changed a few page elements and so thought I would freshen things up a bit overall with a new template.

We're getting ready this week, after a bit of a break, for the Sun, Sand and Swing celebration right in our own backyard here in Treasure Island. It's only a mile away from home - what a treat! And so we're shaking things up as far as what we're bringing to the show. We're debuting a $5 table, with selections taken from our original inventory of items that came with the purchase of the business. Something for everyone, we believe. I'll be making up an eye-catching sign for the table to help draw attention to it.

In preparation for this weekend we had the chance to really go through most of our inventory - several hours worth of work, but very satisfying as there were odds and ends that were in bins that we had forgotten about; so they'll get to see the light of day again. It's interesting to take a fresh look at these things given our accumulated experience of having done a few months' worth of shows, and having gone to estate sales, and auctions. It really helps you see what you have with new eyes - sometimes more discriminating, and sometimes with more appreciation.

What we're surprised about at the moment is the number of garage sales in the area at any given time. There hasn't been a weekend when there wasn't an enormous choice of sales, whether they were church rummage sales, community sales, multi family sales, estate sales run by professional appraisers, or people who just dragged all their contents of their garage out to the front lawn and stuck a sign on to a telephone pole with some duct tape. You can always find a good 10 to 15 sales going on within several miles of where we live. We've never had to go beyond our county limits.

A lot of it has to do with where we live, geographically. You can hold garage sales year-round, unless there's a hurricane bearing down on us. No danger of being frozen out, or often, in this years-long siege of drought that we've been in, rained out. So we don't have a season when people are clearing out their homes - it's more of a perpetual happening. I've already done my haranguing about the garbage versus garage sales that goes on, but I'm thinking that's a cultural happening that I just hadn't been exposed to before. Kind of in the same department as the guy next door who you never see wearing a shirt, and you wished to god that you could cover him up, because it's not a Chippendale moment when you lay your eyes upon him! It's just what some people do, put it all out there, because, well, they can. It's a free country, ain't it?

Darn #@!!$$ Internet!

Say - here's a link to our storefront at Amazon where we've been selling our books - and thanks to the fellow seller on the forum there who suggested I put it here...

I did spend too much time trying to figure out how to add the link as a permanent page element to this blog, unsuccessfully. I tried over and over to add it as a page element, only to have the link not appear. Luckily, though, it only reminded me of an Eddie Izzard discussion about computers that I watched the other day on YouTube, which totally made me laugh out loud.

Sigh. Now my eyeballs are hurting from forgetting to blink! Tine for a break.


Early the next day.... I tried again. Turns out that I needed to give the link a name. (Cyber dope-slap to the forehead.) Now it works great! Thanks again to the seller on Amazon who walked me through the maze to get there. I will link to his blog and sites too.

Stuff from Under The Sink

I really, really wish that people would not sell their half used toiletries from underneath the bathroom sink. Gross! One place this morning had three tables' full of it - hello? Would you buy an open tube of toothpaste from a garage sale? Do people actually buy this stuff?

Not us, obviously.

I used a bit more discretion today in how carefully I looked over some the stops on the garage sale trail - I didn't sit in the car the whole time, but I was rather quick in my perusals. It saved my senses from feeling overwhelmed, so it would seem that I learned my lesson last weekend.

Generally speaking, we do best at the homes of older people, whose belonging are also older. That makes sense. At the same time, you have to look much more carefully at these stops for the condition of the items; there will be things that have been used for decades, and so will be much more worn. We're always looking for those treasures that come from a loving home - well cared for.

(And if you can believe it, we even bought a couple of teapots today. I never thought that I'd be buying more teapots!)

Getting Re(t)a(i)l

OK, so that's an awkward title for a post! But I'm actually excited that yesterday I took delivery of a credit card terminal so we can put through those sales that I've been whining about. I'm waiting on a call from the helpful technician from NACCA, who sent us the machine. He'll run me through how to operate the thing, and we'll be off.

It's a step backwards technologically speaking, since we started out being set up for doing the transactions with them for the internet store. But since that's about to close up shop, we had to make alternate arrangements so that we could still have the convenience of offering the convenience of plastic at our shows.

This company has been helpful and supportive throughout the entire chaotic experience with TIAS. They actually speak with me on the phone, and answer their emails within hours, if not minutes, of getting them. Yes, I'm still a mite titchy about the treatment we had at the hands (-off) of TIAS.

So we'll be able to do the manual imprinting at the shows, and run each transaction through the terminal at home (or wherever we are, as long as we have electricity and a phone line) and that will be it. What a relief. And, what an advantage!

....The training for the terminal unit was a breeze. I was able to key in the transaction that I had left over from the West Palm Beach show. So great not to have to worry about the website coordination to do these! This is older generation technology - you need a land line for the phone, and a plug. None of this handheld wireless stuff - but then, this IS an antiques business. Aw! Isn't that cute! (But I loved it!)

What we pack our treasures in

Here's a secret to share from the antique dealers' world. We wrap our treasures not in newsprint, getting our fingers dirty and necessitating multiple uses of baby wipes, or, if we're lucky, soap and water; we have a secret weapon.

They're reusable, waterproof, absorbent, soft, and inexpensive. You'll never guess what they are...

Puppy training pads.

They allow us to pack up a show in the rain without having to worry about drying everything off first, because they're absorbent. They've got a waterproof underside so you don't have to worry about everything getting soggy and falling apart. The absorbent material is very soft and cushioning so it's perfect for fragile porcelain and glass objects. You can buy an enormous package of 200 12" x 24" inch pads for about $20 and they'll last for years. They don't shred or disintegrate - bad for landfills, but great for durability.

And that's the Tip Of The Day.

Garage Sales and GPS

We've spent the weekend going to the many garage sales in the immediate area, to stock up on the particular things that we need (colored glassware, teacups, and animal figurines - go figure!). Around here and during this time of year, the newspapers publish a garage sale map every weekend of the county, with the Saturday, Sunday, and both days' sales clearly marked on the map.

Armed with our TomTom - perhaps Bob's most favorite Christmas present of recent years - getting from house to house without a hassle is all but guaranteed. You do need to type in your next destination before you leave your last, or at least I do, risking getting car sick and getting confusing commands from the calm voice of the unit, as it tells you to "turn around as soon as possible." And there are times when the thing just seems as lost as WE are. But overall, it's removed the stress from figuring out which way the one-way streets are going, and how to most efficiently get from one place to the next.

All I can say is - thank goodness for that gadget, because the garage sales themselves are really hard work to go to. In many ways I have to equate it to dumpster diving, because people will put broken and filthy items out for sale that aren't even suitable for donation to a charity. I don't know how people get the nerve to do it (I even saw, at one garage sale, a package of feminine yeast infection OTC remedy - what on earth?) - is it desperation, stupidity, or what I've come to think of that Jerry Springer mentality, where people don't seem to mind that they are literally airing their dirty laundry for the sake of a couple of dollars? Got me, but I felt slightly sickened at what I saw at some of these sales.

We did pick up one bad find this morning, at what had been signed as an "estate sale" outside of a double-wide trailer. It looked like tables of stuff that had been left outside for weeks, if not months - covered with dirt and grime. We found a lovely teacup and saucer, and negotiated down to what we thought was a fair price. It wasn't until we got it home and gave it a good wash that we saw that the underside of the saucer had a chip out of it. Darn! Condition is king in this business, so although it's still a very pretty piece, it's not worth very much at all because of that chip. So we've got to be more careful, and feel the edges of what we're proposing to buy.

Also picked up this weekend: several pieces of jewelry, a German beer stein, an owl ceramic bank (looking very 1970's), a brass owl trivet, and some amber glass tumblers and dessert glasses. We were pretty careful to stick to our shopping list, as we could have easily come home with plates, books, and other things - but I'm guessing that it makes sense to be firm in sticking to what we know we need, rather than buying what catches our eye.

This definitely is almost as hard work as doing the shows - it's a lot of driving around, and for every garage sale where we find one item, we'll have stopped at four or more that will have absolutely nothing for us. But these are the right places for us to look for our stock. We also struck out early this morning to check out the 49er Flea Market in Clearwater, Florida, which some dealers had recommended to us as a source for inventory. It opened at (yawn!) 7AM, but, as the season really is over for this area, most of the outdoor stalls were empty; many local dealers have probably started doing the shows farther north by now, where the weather is cooler. Many people travel north during the spring and summer, coming back down to Florida for the winter months.

We didn't buy a single thing there. It's not that there weren't items to buy - but the prices certainly weren't as low as I thought they would have been, even given the bargaining that you're expected to do at flea markets. And actually, nobody was selling what I had on my shopping list - no colored glassware, no (suitable) animal figurines, but ones that I would not have wanted in our booth. Not a single teacup to be seen. The jewelry was not as contemporary as the pieces that I like to sell - more of the Old Lady stuff that just doesn't interest me. So again I'm glad that we stuck to our guns and passed on the impulse shopping.

We'll probably be doing the same next weekend - we'll see how the sale-ing goes then!

Leaving TIAS

We've decided that after a six month trial at TIAS to admit defeat, pick up our marbles and leave. A single sale in January can't justify the monthly fee that we're charged; the company doesn't seem to be seller-oriented in their support (just read about my recent experience with them trying to process credit card transactions as an example); and their cloodgey, clumsy search engine that prevents getting a good result a couple of times a day means that even if someone ever found us on the World Wide Web in the first place, they can't always get the search engine at the site to work properly. Here's an immediate example of how they aren't oriented towards serving their dealers - I sent them a message yesterday afternoon about terminating our service with them, and here it is, the next day, and I have yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply from them. It really says it all. On the Information Highway, TIAS has been a Dead End for Time Travelers!

I'm feeling defeated by this decision, but at the same time, greatly relieved. It was so disheartening to check my emails every day and NOT see any orders. It was discouraging to write press releases twice a week, only to have them swamped amongst the scores of others on the TIAS site within hours. It's really, really hard work to take good product photographs and write the appropriate copy, only to have it sit unread and unseen in your store. I've learned how to take great pictures! And I'll continue to post my best ones here for people to enjoy.

The reality is that our antiques and collectibles business is quite successful - the shows that we've been doing have been getting better and better with each time out, as we refine our product selection and learn our customers' wants and needs. This after only 4 months of doing shows. It makes sense to cut back spending money where it's not being used wisely, and concentrating more on the areas where we are doing well.

Upcoming for Time Travelers: Memorial Day weekend we'll be close to home at the Sun, Sand and Swing event at our very own Treasure Island. Right on the beach! Music! Food! (I wonder if we'll sell anything??!!) We'll just have to see.

The last weekend in May we'll be doing a one day show in Arcadia, Florida - surely the last outdoor one of the season!! This is a regular event that gets great reviews from all the dealers we've spoken with.

West Palm Beach and also TIAS

It's too darn hot! I really think that it's too late in the year to be doing outdoor shows in Florida - especially for this northern native. This second-to-last show of the season at West Palm Beach, held at the Southern Fairgrounds, was packed with indoor vendors, but the outdoor vendors were sparse and the atmosphere was more like a flea market than an antique fair. Many of the shoppers inside the building were unaware that there were vendors set up outside, as I discovered when I briefly sat inside (to cool off), and overheard someone say just that. I interjected myself into their conversation to steer them to the offerings outside, but at the same time I was cringing that people had that impression in the first place. It wasn't well signed, and there weren't any show promoters greeting the arriving shoppers to tell them of the vendors outside - kind of pitiful.

It was an average show, and a lot of work for three days. I think that since we had just done another three-day show, I was particularly weary and not really enthusiastic about being out in the elements so soon. Maybe I wouldn't feel so grumpy if there had been a bit of a break between the shows!

And then there's TIAS.

At the Gainesville show we put up our sign announcing that we were accepting credit cards - and then after the show I discovered that I wasn't able to put the transaction through the TIAS website. Compounding the problem is that TIAS doesn't even allow their stores to talk to anybody on the phone - you have to put through a "contact us" report, then wait for them to get back to you - it can take a long time to resolve issues (or not). When, after a few days, I wasn't getting anywhere with their customer service department, I tried to approach the issue from the credit card processing company, in whose interest it is that I put these transactions through as well as mine. It was determined, finally, that TIAS does NOT SUPPORT non-internet credit card transactions. (We're in the process of getting a phone line terminal sent to us so that we'll be able to use a machine at future shows.)

Except that this morning, the orders that I attempted to put through the TIAS site appear to have gone through, and our bank account has been credited with the sales. Can you say - I am confused? Can you say - I am totally Not Impressed with how TIAS has handled this matter? First telling me that I absolutely can put the transactions through, then not being able to, then having it confirmed that they absolutely won't put such transactions through, and then presto! There they are!

What a cowboy outfit. The worst communication skills on the information highway that I've ever seen. Combined with their non-functioning search engine which doesn't allow people to find what they are looking for, plus a lonely sales transaction from the month of January, it adds up to us thinking it's time to say goodbye to TIAS altogether. I'm extremely frustrated, because I have put so much effort into the store there, and have had nothing really to show for it. I've never really felt that the organization is on the dealers' side, with their "don't call us with your problems" approach that further alienates their dealers when they need the support the most.

Boy, am I glad that we have a week off from shows. I think that I need a break at the moment...