Trip Loot: Part 2 (Give Me Some Sugar)

You've seen the thrifts, the Brutalist Harlow Town Center, the Mid-Century Modern Christmas presents, and the collection of West German pottery brought home from the last of my semi-annual UK excursions, but there's still one last piece of trip loot to share.

Granted, it isn't anything mind-blowing, but this vintage ceramic sugar pot was my favorite antique mall purchase of the lot.

Trip Loot: Part 1

I've dragged this out far enough.  It's time to get to the rest of the MCM souvenirs brought home from my biannual UK excursion.

This trip turned out to be all about the ceramics, with a healthy addition to my collection of West German pottery and a few other pieces that I'll share later on.

Estate sale scores

Sorry for the delay there.  The girlfriend just arrived back in town and we've been dealing with a few more house issues. 

So here's all the goodies that I picked up at the estate sale 2 weekends ago with Mr. Modtomic.  They had a decent selection of MCM stuff, but prices were a bit too high for my liking.  The estate sale companies seem to be catching on to the whole retro-modern trend and adjusting their prices accordingly (some more so than others).  There's also pretty stiff competition from dealers.  Mr. Mod, his girlfriend, my friend Jon, and I showed up pretty darn early but our team was 4-7th in line.

I was really lucky to get anything at all, because the organizers made me move my car AS THEY OPENED THE SALE!  Oh c'mon.  I'd been waiting there all morning.  Why make me move it now?  Couldn't it wait 2 minutes?

I guess the real competition was over the American of Martinsville dining set, because I was like 25th into the place and all of these smalls were still sitting with their tags in the corner.  Sweet!

I'd actually lost out on an Ebay auction for one of these brass candelabras a few months ago.  I was a couple minutes from winning for a few dollars and the seller took it down to "correct the international shipping rates" and then relisted it with a $50 reserve price.  Well, who needs him/her!  Now I've snagged my very own for a small fraction of that reserve.

I'd also been looking all over for some West German pottery.  This green and orange piece, with its texture and bright colors, is my personal favorite.  It almost looks like a Brutalist sculpture.

These mugs were kinda an impulse purchase, but at 50 cents, who really cares?  Now I can sip in style.

Overall, things turned out better than expected after the car fiasco.  I've spent most of my time/money going after large pieces of furniture and haven't really focused on smalls, so this will really help to fill the place out.

See you all in another couple days.  Good luck and good thrifting!

Let there be light

Well, the trip to Springfield was a bust, but I did manage to score a sweet Mid-Century Modern sofa. I'll start covering a few of my more recent finds once I have a camera again, but to hold you over here's a great set of ceramic lamps.

I'd been watching them on Craigslist for a few days and finally decided to pull the trigger. It's pretty surprising that they were still around as this type of thing usually gets snatched up pretty quickly and the price was definitely right.

After getting the address, I ended up at a rather nondescript antique mall in Valley Park. Given the style of the lamps, I assumed that there might be a few more MCM pieces inside, but was disappointed to find the usual antique store fare: piles and piles of country cottage "grandma stuff".

One thing that the seller failed to disclose was that these babies are HUGE (about 3 feet tall)! They do go nicely with the colors and the scale of the furniture in the dining room though. The "popcorn finish" also adds a really nice textural detail. I think I might hold onto them for a while.

Tea Time

Our first find came all the way from the UK. My girlfriend snatched up this great ceramic tea set at a "boot sale" before her trip over. We did a bit of googling and found that the pottery style, Troyan, originates from Bulgaria and that it frequently contains lead. So much for that tea party... It'll make for a nice decorative set though.