Wedgwood - where it's now made

It's confusing. Wedgwood was sold, became part of a conglomerate, smushed together with Waterford crystal and Royal Doulton. You go into a good department store, and yes, you can still buy newly produced items. They are *lovely*. They say "Wedgwood - England" on them. And NO, they are NOT made in England. Virtually all but premium manufacturing was outsourced (that must be one of the ghastliest modern terms coined) to Indonesia in 2009.

Quality is as good as anything produced in Barlaston. And yet - to mark these goods with the country name "England" is misleading.

To be clear: "Made In England" backstamped on items means the Wedgwood piece was made in England. "Wedgwood - England" is amorphous and is not an indication that it was made in the UK. For the record, Time Travelers deals only with the former, and passes on the latter. We do so primarily due to the age of the items we buy and sell. We also do it, though, in solidarity with the spirit with which the original company was founded.

Here's a link to the Wedgwood family blog, and their views on the state of what eventually befell the family business:

http://wedgwoodfamily.blogspot.com/2009/05/production-has-no-wedgwood-family.html

The photo of the lilac Jasperware 3-part tea set dates to 1959, when this delightful color was produced in limited quantities. The date stamp on the "Brewster" shape teapot is clearly marked, and makes this a desirable and unusual find. So often pale colors (in my opinion) used in Jasperware don't do the bas reliefs justice; but this is not the case with this lovely set.

This Saturday - Trash to Treasures in Tarpon Springs

The weather's warming up, the sun is shining again, and it's time for Trash To Treasures, the flea market sale in Tarpon Springs at the other end of Pinellas County from where we are. We are well prepared this time around with the appropriate inventory; we'll have our portable shade with us, and items priced to sell! Bargains for everyone, from books and ceramics to jewelry and glass.

We passed on the chance to set up at the Thieves Market earlier this month on Anna Maria Island, as it was simply too cold, windy, and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Not conducive for customers to stroll and shop, and it would have been utterly miserable for us (well, ME, as Bob seems to be able to handle any weather condition thrown his way) to set up wearing mittens. This can be a capricious time of year with the weather, and I don't blame the snowbirds for their dismay at our out of whack seasonal temperatures.

Meanwhile, sales at Patty & Friends are holding their own, although my Teapot Extravaganza sale has been a fizzle. I don't think it was a wise idea with the coincidence of the Tea Party, perhaps. I could be all wet here (antique and collectibles folks certainly cover the gamut of political views), but maybe my choice of merchandise struck a nerve with some people. I'll finish it up at the end of this month and try a different promotion for March, and try to give the selection more thought.

One place that has definitely gone silent has been the eCrater site. I added a large number of items before the holiday season, but there hasn't been a single sale since October. I don't know what could have caused the sudden drop in sales, but I am just happy that I have no cash outlay in that part of the business, because if that was the case, I'd be very upset. At the most I'm just really puzzled and disappointed.

I am continuing to develop my paper and found object jewelry necklaces, and am really enjoying the creative outlet it affords. When the glaze is dry and the findings are crimped on, I'll take some more photos and post them here.

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...

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!)

Gainesville was Bloomin'

OK, so I obviously don't know anything about the economy - it would seem that people are perfectly willing to spend small amounts of money on antiques and collectibles (in Gainesville). It was a lovely show, well attended and promoted, with a good number of vendors, though not as many as we had hoped to see. The show was situated in an outdoor shopping area, like a cluster of small buildings, with covered walkways and park areas that connected them. On Friday and Saturday, the shopping center itself is a busy place and so there were plenty of people coming and going, and we had lots of ambient traffic. Sunday, however, was a different story; all but a handful of the stores were closed, and even though there were signs on the street directing traffic to the show, it was very lightly attended - a real disappointment.

But, having said that, it was our best show ever. It also had our highest cost to us, given the 2 1/2 hour drive to get to it (the gas prices are only getting higher and higher, and we paid $3.66 a gallon to fill our minivan's tank); and we had to pay for one of the two nights' stay in a hotel, the first being covered by Bob's hotel points that he'd accrued. Throw in the cost of eating out versus being able to dine at home, and you can see that it's a different kettle of fish to do these out of town shows - they pretty much HAVE to be lucrative, or you'll be hundreds of dollars in the hole. If the weather had turned, as it threatened, then it would have been a bust. So, we were lucky, very lucky.

We got to talking to some other dealers who do this as their full time jobs, and got some more insight as to how people keep their costs down. Tips on where to find new stock (we should be looking at more flea markets, which abound in our area), and were warned away from certain auctions, which advice we took with a grain of salt, since we already keep our bids at the lowest end and drop out early if they climb too high. We're also fortunate to have so many garage and estate sales constantly going on where we live - there really isn't ever a time when we're strapped for places to find more items for inventory.

OK, whacked out story of the show: one couple, who sleep in their van during the show so they save money on hotels. Um, toilet requirements? They keep a piss pot in the vehicle, and empty it sometime (somewhere? I was afraid to ask) during the day. She claims to wash her hair using a particular brand of baby wipes; uses the same as a sponge bath for her body. I'm afraid that my eyes glassed over in horror as the stories went on - we shared a table at a restaurant for dinner one night - their one extravagance during the shows. It was a view of a lifestyle that neither Bob nor I have any desire to sample, and we did get kind of quiet talking with them after that admission from them. Baby wipes. Hmm.

Things of note at this show - nobody paid with high value notes ($50 or $100 bills) - more checks were written. It was the first show where we offered the option of payment by credit card, and we made several sales because of it (though I don't think it was ever a deal-breaker). Still trying to figure out how to process those sales through the TIAS website, which is an enormous worry for me at the moment. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, worrying about this very issue.

(I am less than impressed overall with TIAS - from their twice daily reindexing of their database which prevents someone from getting a good search result. You type in an item that you're looking for, and the search results in garbage! Reply heard back from the CEO is, "Too bad!" Nice! Thanks for answering! And I haven't done any credit card processing until now because I was a bit afraid about how to go about putting the transactions through the site. Lo and behold, last night I tried to do the first one using the manual transaction slip from the sale, and the TIAS site is asking for the customer's billing and shipping information. Well, I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm paying for anything "live" with my credit card (as opposed to on the internet), all I expect to do is give my card and MAYBE my phone number to the merchant. I would never think of supplying my address in order to make a simple transaction - it defeats the whole purpose of the convenience of offering credit card sales. You can see that I'm quite upset that I might have lost all this revenue, and I hope that TIAS will surprise me with a happy answer back this time. Not expecting it!)

So, what sold at this show? Most everything - jewelry, again - low priced, nice costume jewelry pieces. Nothing precious or high end - and we can't keep enough of it in stock. Have now sold out of the menus from the S.S. Normandy that we acquired from Mort and Anita Trautman's cruise. Books. Glass. Teapots. Teacups. A McCoy string holder. A monkey bank (people love animal shapes!). Some silver plate. It was a well-rounded show.

Here are some pictures of our booth at the show. A photographer from the Gainesville Sun newspaper came by on Sunday morning to take some photos of us, and said that we'll be in Thursday's edition. If we show up, I'll link to the edition!

The stars aligned

The Dade City Spring Antique Faire (man, I hate it when they tack on those "e"s at the end of the word fair!) was just a lovely, lovely show. What a pretty setting - one of those rare Florida towns without strip malls, or the mega stores - but the older lay out of the city center has been preserved. Of course, most of the businesses are antique stores! - but that makes for a natural draw for a show. And though the faire itself was held in the town parking lot, it was under the shade of Live Oak trees, dripping with Spanish Moss. No wind, no rain. Truly, the stars, or at least the meteorologists, aligned to make this past weekend's show just about perfect.

We debuted our collection of teapots, and devoted an entire table to about half of them. They really were a feature for the booth, and I am so glad that I went with my instinct on this investment. We sold four teapots - and selling four of anything is pretty remarkable. It's a very encouraging sign, and it did give me a flash of an idea that perhaps I should group together some teacups and creamers and sugars on the table as well, if we have room at the next show.

At the shows we're doing we're starting to recognize dealers from the area. There's one woman in particular whom I remember from our first ever show at the Tampa fairgrounds, because she was so critical of a picnic tin that we had to sell. "Oh, look how dirty this thing is," she said. "And the lid doesn't fit straight - it's all crooked. Do you really expect someone to pay $xxx for THAT?" And off she huffed, leaving me speechless, and regarding this tin, which up until that point I'd thought was a pretty nice tin! It took a while for it to dawn on my befuddled head that it was something that she desired - and she was attempting to get me to drop my price for her.

Well, she was at the Dade City show. And of course she zeroed in on that tin, which has drawn lots of attention but no serious buyers at the shows we've taken it to. It's a bulky enough item that, at some point, you start to get a little concerned that it's going to become shop-worn, with being packed up and unpacked repeatedly. So when the dealer started in with her refrain of the unfavorable condition and high price of the tin, I asked her, "Are you interested in buying it?" and then, "What would you consider to be a fair price?" And so we were off on our negotiations. I asked what her plans for the tin were - I knew that it wasn't something that she sold in her booth, so it would be for her private collection. Well, she had a vision for her kitchen; picnic tins nestled between models of cows, and having antique milk bottles perched on top of them. Our tin was a missing and critical piece of her vision. Once having asked about her interest, there was no stopping her bubbling over in her enthusiasm about the different colors and shapes that the tins come in. We were able to come to an agreeable price and made a transaction - another happy customer, and I made a new acquaintance among dealers.

Aren't people funny? Starting by saying one thing and putting you off, and then, when you gently ask the right question, they open up like a flower, revealing their true nature and desires. I do really love this work. It took a while to get that flower to open, and I wasn't sure that she would at first; but I had the confidence that I had nothing to lose by asking, and if nothing, I would at least learn something (whether or not she wanted the tin in the first place, and what she thought a fair price would be). I was always in the position of being able to say "no" if I wanted to - we've had plenty of people who think that the fair price of any given object is far less than what we think it is. And when that happens, we smile, and say, Sorry, but no thank you. It's our right to decide to sell or not, and we're quite comfortable with it. There's never any shame in passing on what we consider to be a bad trade.

The next scheduled show is the last Privateers Thieves Market on Anna Maria Island, on the 12th of April.

So THAT'S what "Trash to Treasures" means!

Yesterday we were at the "Trash to Treasures" show in Tarpon Springs - I never did find a suitable link to put up - and now we know that it means you bring your trash to the show, and people find their treasures in them. (Cue dope slap to self's head.) Instead, we brought our usual array of inventory, set it all up on our tables, and were dumbfounded when we walked around the show to find a load of junk for sale.

Well, almost. I did find 2 treasures - a Crown Staffordshire hand painted teacup and saucer in a lovely yellow with sprigs of forsythias on it, and for childhood memories' sake, 4 small Beatrix Potter books. But most of the stuff for sale was truly awful.

So our booth, and several others, were rather like diamonds glinting in the garbage heaps. We didn't hear any deprecating remarks about our prices, or our selections. It wasn't a great show for us, and in the future we'll be certain to bring our less wonderful items. Things that, at other shows, sometimes I'll unwrap to put on the table, then think twice about having it out, and wrap it back up as being unworthy for an antique and collectible show. Items such as these would have been perfectly suitable and might have found a home, at the right price.

People are really on the look out for silver these days. Sterling, plate, just about anything will go - and I'm always looking to add these items to our inventory. It's quite incredible what you'll find at a rummage sale, covered in tarnish; and it really isn't until you've spent some time with polishing paste and some elbow grease before you can find out what shape the item is actually in. So there's a certain amount of risk there, but quite often the initial investment is not too terribly great. It's the cleaning time and materials that are the true investment. I do admit to feeling a wonderful little rush when the gleam of a piece of silver starts to show as a result of a little bit of effort!

The only drawback to yesterday's show was really the capriciousness of the weather. It was sunny; it was warm; but there was a constant breeze that would build up to some 25 mph gusts (which I think were the tail end of a violent system that the day before had swept through Georgia, with tornadoes in its wake there), and we lost 2 pieces to the wind. I think every single vendor there suffered breakages as we did. Of course, we had also just received our shade canopy, which can really be a godsend as the springtime quickly moves into summer weather down here. Unfortunately, we found ourselves having to hang on to the frame as it promised to take off like some kite across the municipal parking lot several times. We were able to inch it a bit closer to a patch of grass in order to bungee cord it down to some stakes, but ultimately, we were forced to take the whole thing down before the heat of the day was in full force. Some passers by were kind enough to help us lift up and carry the whole frame and canopy over our the tables off to where we were able to take it down in relative safety. Nonetheless, for the entire day, I was on edge every time a gust of wind would come up, and we kept on having to take one thing after another off the tables and stow it away in the storage tubs, to keep it from blowing away.

Packing up at the end of the day was tortuous, as the lids of the storage tubs were liable to fly across the parking lot, as were the wrapping materials. It just felt like it took twice as long and four times as much effort to safely pack up and stow everything away. By the time we got home, ate some take away Thai food (I don't ever attempt to cook on a day when we've done a show), I showered my wind-burnt body, took a bunch of ibuprofen, and fell into bed, where I slept for 11 hours. Whew!

So for now, it's back to the Teapot Project, as I've come to think of my latest TIAS fling. I'm halfway done with the addition of the various teapots on to the website, and I'm increasingly pleased with the acquisition, as it's such a great variety.

Here's a picture of a wonderful pot in the shape of a dragon, being ridden by a wizard. It was made by the Clay Art Company of San Francisco, which was known primarily for their cookie jars and masks. Just beautifully made in very rich colors, with great details.

Teapot Acquisition

Well, I'm so excited that I just couldn't wait to take a picture and post it. Here's our latest acquisition - a lot of teapots from an avid collector who needed to make some room, and wanted to pass on her old friends to their new homes.

I couldn't quite get them all in the photo - one was in the kitchen, getting cleaned - but I think there are 39 in total, not counting the teapot shaped purse, the framed picture of a teapot, or the lamp decorated with teapots. There are miniatures, a musical teapot, a Mickey Mouse tea-for-one, a couple of elephants, a dragon with a wizard as the lid, a Hall, a Sadler, a Villeroy and Bosch, a Mikasa... well, you get the idea. Something for everyone, I believe.

I'm just in the process of giving them a clean and then I'll be taking pictures, doing some research, and putting them all on the Timetravelers website store at TIAS - they'll be in their own department. They've all been lovingly cared for in their previous home, and I'll be sure to see that they're sent off with suitable fanfare to their new destinations.

I'm just so very pleased to have these lovely pots as part of our collection! Take a good look at the photo and see what you can find.

I've started to photograph, research, and add the teapots to the store. I issued a press release after I'd put about 10 of them into inventory (this will easily become the largest category of items we carry, until such time that I get around to entering the rest of our vast array of stock). Though not every single pot is of high value, I think there's a great variety in terms of size, and quirkiness! Not to mention that a high-priced teapot isn't necessarily what the average customer might be looking for - maybe they're just wanting one with the right colors, or one that has fish on it.

I'd say I'm about half done with the process. Luckily, I got the lighting problem with the photo studio resolved - well, kind of. After trying multiple internet vendors, plus a local lighting specialist, I was unable to find the correct replacement bulb for one of the two lamps that had blown. I contacted Hammacher Schlemmer, and their customer service department kept on trying to get me to order the bulbs from yet another online vendor - I pleaded with them that the information supplied on the bulb was not sufficient to get a suitable light. (I kept on receiving bulbs that fit the appliance, but cast the wrong color light, and was a flood and not a spot light.) Yet there was no other information supplied with which to order the bulbs - I kept going around and around, receiving bulbs, sending them back, ordering other ones, sending them back. Argh!!

Finally, the folks at Hammacher Schlemmer felt pity for my plight, and they sent me two replacement bulbs that are the correct type for the lamp. Now, they didn't come in any kind of packaging - merely bubblewrap - so I'm still completely in the dark as to what on earth I'm supposed to order from a lighting vendor!! But at least I'm able to take pictures indoors again, and the colors are true. So I'm happy. Kinda. For now.