All of this week’s fresh to market vintage picks were made by hand. Though they have that in common, they all have different stories. The Japanese bowls were production pieces. The lace pendant might have been a custom piece or might have been from a line made by a jewelry artisan. The cross stitch was made from a kit or a pattern. Of the four handmade pieces, the wood burned bowl is the only one that can truly be called one of a kind. It was made by an artist for one specific purpose, maybe as a gift.
Handmade vintage can be hard to date, unless it’s dated like the sampler. You have to use clues like its style to try and narrow down the era. The age is important for high priced antique pieces. But for garden-variety vintage, a few years here or there doesn’t effect value all that much.
And with that thought, here is this week’s made by hand fresh to market vintage.
Encased Antique Lace Pendant Necklace|
If only this bit of lace could talk. What prompted its owner to salvage this tiny piece of history? Was it from a wedding veil or a special dress? Or was it simply a random pretty scrap found in a pile? These questions haunt me when I look at this necklace. Why this piece? What is its story? And why put a clearly antique scrap into such a modern-looking frame and chain? So many questions, and answers I will never know. This is the intrigue of finding vintage in the wild. The history is a mystery.
Encased Antique Lace Pendant Necklace, $34.95
-Pam, Vintage Renude
Seahorse Dishes made in Japan
99% of the “Made in Japan” ceramics I have in my shop are made in molds, so I was very delighted to find these dishes that clearly show that they were hand crafted. The process is called slump. Clay is rolled out, cut out if needed and then shaped over a convex mold. The shape is not perfectly round and the design is drawn on with slip (moriage) and then decorated with different colors of glaze which flowed together during the glaze firing.
Two other features that fill me with joy is that the artisan created the base color of the dish with deliberate craquelure to give an exciting lively feel to the water like background. I also love that the unglazed bottom of the plates retains the texture of the rough fabric that the clay was rolled or stored on. What great plates to serve sushi on!
Seahorse Dishes, $53.99
-Mary Ellen, AuntHattiesAttic
Pyrographic bowl, St David’s PA (c 1906)
Another interesting piece that I wish came with a clue as to its backstory. This wood-burned folk art bowl is dated 1906 on the bottom and contains the initials “CH” on the front but the slogan carved around the edge is what intrigues me. “KEEP A PLACE IN YOUR HEART FOR US” makes me think it was made for someone special but whether “CH” was the craftsman or the recipient, we’ll never know. Nonetheless, it is a unique piece of folk art that would make a nice addition to a collection of American pyrography.
Antique Wood-burned Bowl, $75
-Linda, Selective Salvage
“Don’t wait for your ship” cross stitch
Nicely worked cross stitch sampler from the 1970s with a nod-and-a-wink motivating quote. Samplers historically were used for stitchers to show off their skill with a needle. While this one doesn’t have any complicated stitches, it does have some a fabulous ship and equally fabulous fish.
1975 nautical cross stitch sampler, $48.
–Laurie, NextStage Vintage
If you are a maker, do vintage lovers of the future a favor and take a few minutes to write dates on some of your works. (This is also nice to do on your Christmas ornaments.) Who knows, maybe one of your pieces will appear in a fresh to market vintage post like this one on a vintage blog of the future!
The lace in the pendant reminds us of one of vintage life’s biggest challenges, cleaning vintage linens. We wrote about that here.
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