If you love vintage, you never stop learning. When you’re writing a listing for your shop, like the listings we each wrote for our fresh to market vintage pieces this week, you need to provide buyers with as much information as you can. And yes, we don’t begrudge the time spent one tiny bit because doing the research is usually fun.
Sometimes you have hints to help. (We wrote a post about that.) Maybe you have a hint from a backstamp on pottery and china. Maybe you recognize the clasp on the back of a pin. Maybe something fits right into your collecting wheelhouse like a tomato headed girl. And sometimes you are blessed with an actual date.
But there are other things you learn along the way too, perhaps about how something is made. Or maybe about what might have inspired a movement. Or how nuclear fallout will effect your cattle.
What did you learn this week? Here is what we learned about for this week’s fresh to market vintage.
Hand Painted Chocolate Cup & Saucer, Marked Nippon
Offering an elegant chocolate cup and saucer handpainted in a lovely floral design. Elaborate raised gold enamel paint trim embellish both pieces. The cup is marked “Hand painted” with a Nippon mark on the bottom dating it to the 1891-1921 timeframe. The plate is unmarked. Mismatched but purchased as a set in Japan in the 1950s.
Nippon Chocolate Cup and Saucer, $175
-Linda, Selective Salvage
Pierre Bex Art Deco Brooch
From 1969 until 1980, Pierre Bex created jewelry in France using original stampings dating back to the 1800s. All jewelry was made by hand and the company’s signature look of being encased in clear enamel and using trombone style closures makes these easy to spot. Much of the jewelry is unsigned, although the styles are distinctive.
Pierre Bex Art Deco Style Enamel Brooch, $39.95
-Pam, Vintage Renude
Tomato Head Girl
I go out of my way to find any anthropomorphic items. This very sweet tomato head girl was made in Japan in the very popular movement where fruits, vegetables and even flowers may have human faces and even arms and legs. The idea of animals in clothes acting like humans I believe was made believable in the Beatrix Potter books. Early cartoons also animated flowers including animals in clothes fairly early on the silver screen in the 1928 film Steamboat Willie directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. So the country went anthropomorphic crazy and I am glad it did.
Tomato Head Girl, $69.99
-Mary Ellen, AuntHattiesAttic
USDA Farmers’ Bulletin 2107, 1961 Vintage
There are vintage how-to pamphlets on lots of topics, but finding something like this particular publication from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, dating from 1961, was a real eye popper. Think about what was happening in 1961. John F. Kennedy was inaugurated. Diplomatic relations were suspended with Cuba. Alan Shepard became the first American in space. And the Cold War was raging. A nuclear attack was something Americans actively worried about. So of course the USDA prepared a how-to for farmers on what to expect and how to cope with nuclear fallout.
Defense Against Radioactive Fallout on the Farm, $15.
–Laurie, NextStage Vintage
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