I had a busy week!

Three sales this week - I am flush with success. Two teapots and a book, and I'm so happy that the eCrater store is truly bustling - and that the listings on Amazon have come back to life. Something having to do with the school year starting up again, I think.

I do hope that the customers are pleased with their purchases. That's the only suspense of shipping the items off - I don't get to see their happy faces when they open the boxes.

Bob came back from a business trip (er, that would be with his day job) with treasures that he found at an antique shop in Savannah that was having a moving sale. Some Wedgwood Jasperware - great! - and a pile of interesting photographs, which I'll take the time to sort through, slip into protective plastic sleeves, and leave for others to wonder just who the people in the pictures are...

Seems all I do lately is polish silver!

Not that I'm complaining - but my shoulder is :-( Not the arm doing the rubbing, but the one that's doing the bracing. I decided to dose up with some ibuprofen and forge onwards. I'm still working through that box of silver and brass that Bob brought home a few weekends ago. Thinking that if I rub long enough, a Djini (that would be a Genie to us modern folks) would bubble out in a cloud of smoke - but, no. I have to content myself instead with the inherent beauty of the piece that is revealed by the effort of applying paste, over time, to a heavily tarnished piece of silver plate.

The favored paste I like to use is still Goddards, which I order directly on the internet. I can't say enough about their products, as the shine comes up quickly and stays for a long time.

I'm not planning to put these items on the website, but only because they get snapped up so quickly at the shows that we do. (Well, also because I find them to be dastardly difficult to photograph, but that's not reason enough!) But a nicely polished piece of silver is pretty easy to maintain. Keep it wrapped up when not in use - that is, away from the effects of oxygen in creating more tarnish on it - and it will stay shiny and lovely. The best way to stay lovely looking, though, is to USE IT. There is something wonderful about the dining experience when silver is involved. A meal prepared with love and care becomes memorable when you are using utensils that have heft to them. I know that I treasure my own set of silver cutlery when I bring it out for holiday get togethers. (Never mind that my mother gave it to me after my parents divorced! I can handle that sentiment...)

Even the brass candle holders have polished up very satisfyingly - they become so warm and gleaming. I'd be likely to cover them up with a hurricane glass cover to prevent spattering if I was to use them myself, but they too are likely to find welcome homes this year.

Just checking in

Nothing's really doing, but I thought I should write *something* to keep my hand in. It's a long stretch until the next show - at the end of September in Dade City. We're confirmed as having the same spot in the parking lot, under some beautiful Live Oak trees with Spanish Moss draped from the branches, as we had when we were there this past spring. If the weather cooperates (we're just now expecting our first major storm of the season to bear down in the next couple of days), it will be lovely. Hot, most likely, but a good show.

Bob came home from his foraging last weekend with a big box of "silver" - was it silver or not? We spent a few days digging in and marveling at the beauties that we've adopted. Silver (plate and sterling) items are always in demand at our shows, so it's wonderful to have an inventory from which to choose. Also in the lot were some brass candlesticks, some German Silver wine goblets - which is not silver at all, but an alloy similar to what coins are made of, and which came clean easily with brass polish. Most of the items were really heavily tarnished, so I've been taking my time with each piece, really giving them a workover with the ol' silver paste and sponge. Somehow uncovering the beauty of an elegantly executed piece of silver gives me great satisfaction, and I don't mind the elbow grease required to discover them. (Though I did manage to do something to my shoulder in the process - it hasn't felt right since I spent the afternoon polishing a bunch of silver items several weeks ago!)

We went through most of the boxes brought home from the last show, and repacked them. We hadn't run out of wraps at all - there were unused ones in virtually each box we repacked, which means that they were in a hurry at the time, and that Bob's help was inexperienced. Um, and maybe didn't relish the thought of ever being asked to help us out again? Clearly Bob and I have evolved in our works patterns so that we've become fairly efficient in the packing process. It was easy enough to recover the "lost" wraps and economically repack the boxes, so everything had a home again.

We're a better team than we give ourselves credit for, undoubtedly.

Next in the pipeline is to put more glass on to the website - we picked out a box full of suitable items. I've got a huge box of jewelry from Steve Cope that needs to be priced up - that will take quite some time to do it correctly. So I think the stretch to the next show is going to feel pretty small.

Lessons Learned

We probably shouldn't book shows that we haven't attended ourselves as customers. Fort Lauderdale was not an appropriate show for Time Travelers, unfortunately, but we couldn't have known it unless we had gone to it in the past. It was high end - what I would consider museum quality merchandise; and there we were, with our quaint and kitschy teapots and painted plates and depression glass. Kind of country mice come to the big bad city. We, er, didn't do well at all. Did not manage to recoup in sales what the fee to enter the show cost us. Oops. Put this one down as a show to have learned from - noted.

But, having said that, here's something downright strange. We sold, in a single day at the show, five sugar and creamer sets. That's astounding! I actually stopped unpacking more sets because I saw how many we already had out, and muttered to Bob, "we gotta stop buying these things!" And what do you know, five of them went in one day, during a show when we weren't selling much of anything.

Which is another lesson - you never know what is going to sell at any given show. (How many people do YOU know who regularly use sugar and creamer sets, or even collect them?)

So, yes, the show was a great disappointment to us. But it was also kind of quirky. And I consoled myself with a fabulous pair of Yves Saint Laurent (the genuine article) sunglasses from another dealer's booth. Diane got a pair for helping us out - Christian Dior, huge honking ones from the 1970's or early 80's, and selected a pair of Guy Laroche, equally as enormous, for her sister Sara.

Next month's show in Dade City is a known quantity for us - we did this show in the spring (and it was lovely and wonderful and one of our best shows ever). No qualms there. And the following month's show in St. Petersburg is one that Bob and I have been attending as customers for 7 years, and we're very happy to have been able to get in to - we'll do just fine.

So, we're down but not out.

Indoor show coming up in Fort Lauderdale

Of course (of course!) I'm filled with anxiety about our first indoor show, our first show in Fort Lauderdale, coming up next weekend - August 2nd and 3rd - who would I be without my stories of anxiety that never come to fruition? Gotta keep that monkey mind busy, is the order of the day.

We have our lovely and to-code fire retardant table covers. We are amply - AMPLY, that is - stocked for the upcoming season. Nothing has been packed away even unless it's been priced and tagged, which is pretty methodical if I say so myself. We installed the passenger seat in the minivan because Bob's daughter will be accompanying us, both to help us set up for the show, and to visit with his parents. This does mean that we'll have less room to take things with us, but, on the other hand, we're not having to take tables and chairs with us. I'm thinking it'll be a toss-up.

So what on earth am I so worried about?

Worried that we won't be successful. Several months have passed since our last show, and the nation's economy has been in steady decline, particularly in our part of the state. Gas prices have risen steeply. I know that I am not going out for shopping trips as often, and I'm feeling the impact that higher food and gas prices are having on my own discretionary funds - times are feeling tighter.

But Fort Lauderdale is worlds away from here. Just the other side of the Florida coast from us, the local population is much more affluent and the economy more stable than ours presently is. There's more of year-round population than our transient one, too (the traffic is horrendous!). Having an antique show during the summer in Florida is kind of, well, weird. You just wouldn't do that where we live - there's no business, and no dealers, either. They all go up north. But we're making the presumption that this show in Fort Lauderdale will have customers, and plenty of dealers.

I would love to say that I'm excited rather than anxious about this show. And perhaps it's partly because we've had this gap in our selling season, and I just don't have a pulse on the shopping public at the moment. All I know is what I'm exhibiting as behavior - which is, stagnancy. I'm not doing much shopping, and I'm not doing much driving either. I'm holding my breath, really. Which is also uncomfortable! And makes for more anxiety. (Note to self - remember to breathe!!!) Maybe it's just in my nature to worry so before an event. I do know that on the day, I will be able to relax and enjoy the moment, enjoy the buzz of seeing other dealers and their treasures, and really enjoy engaging with the public. As much anxiety as I've ever felt, it doesn't interfere with the business itself, which is good :-)

We have a Spooner!

No, it's not a sleeping device :-) It's a bit clunky for cuddling up to. It looks like a sugar bowl that outgrew itself. Some people just put a cup on the countertop and stick their teaspoons in it, but you're supposed to use a spooner. During Victorian times they were not only a symbol of ready hospitality, but also a sign of increased affluence among the expanding middle class who could now afford silver spoons. They had almost completely disappeared by the 1930's.

Because some dealers at flea markets and malls do not recognize spoonholders, they are often mislabeled. The beginning collector or dealer needs to look closely and study to differentiate spooners from open sugars, sugar bottoms, celery vases, goblets, and tumblers. Spoonholders are narrower and more cylindrical than sugar bottoms or open sugars. Unlike goblets, which always have a smooth-rimmed lip, stemmed spooners are usually scalloped, serrated or beaded at the top, and the stems are shorter. Though many flat-based spooners have smooth rims, old tumblers tend to be slightly shorter and narrower than spooners and are slightly flared toward the top.

So, now that you know all about spooners, here's the one from our store: a leaded crystal example. It has a small ding on the rim (there's a close up photograph of it - we always fully disclose condition issues when we're aware of them) but that really does not detract at all from the beauty of this piece.

First Sale at eCrater!

We opened shop at eCrater on May 30th, and today we got our first sale. Processing the transaction through Google Checkout was a breeze - the address was verified without my having to do anything, and they automatically sent the customer a confirming email. Once I processed the transaction (again with a click of a button), had the item boxed up and ready to take to the post office, Google sent another email confirming the shipment to the customer. I fiddled a little bit with the eCrater screen in order to print out a packing slip to put in with the item - I just didn't want to send something out without any documentation. Google doesn't seem to have the option of printing out a packing slip, or it's possible in my excitement and rush to get the order to the post office before it closed (today's Saturday) I just couldn't find it.

Then I looked at Google Analytics to see exactly how the customer had found us - we had been Googled. So that stuff is all working well for us - we show up on targeted searches there and on Google Shopping, with a thumbnail photo right from the website. Every item in our inventory has Google attributes associated with it, basically descriptors that identify the brand, product type, material, and country of origin - this helps items get picked up by the search engines.

I also noticed that the message boards I've posted at, for collectors, have resulted in some hits. So that's nice so see, that some of the work I've been doing is starting to pay off. And all this, so far, without having to pay for advertising, or listing. It takes my time and effort - but it's so satisfying to now see the reward.

Mostly, I must say that I am impressed with the comprehensive help that's available at the online forum at eCrater. What a motherlode of information, ideas, guidelines, out-of-the-box and inventive bunch of individuals that have collected there. Although I found it mind-boggling at first, and overwhelming, if you tackle the building of the store according to the simple instructions available to dealers, it's pretty hard to go wrong.