Back into the Selling Swing of Things
Posted: February 6, 2013 Filed under: Ebay Watch | Tags: auction, Cambridge Audio, Ebay, Metronomy, retro, seagull, Steve Lamacq, vintage 1 Comment »You know, I made a promise to myself when I wrote my last post that I would really try to write a blog once a week. Once a week, I thought to myself, that’s more than do-able. It turns out that’s not really the case when you have a very active baby who rarely naps during the daytime…
However, I have managed (with the help of Aidan and his wonderful photography skills) to get some items listed on eBay. They were bought a few weeks ago: perusing chazzers is something that we can still do with a baby in tow.
Caithness Glass Vase
‘JAJ’ Pyrex Cups
Vintage Glasses
Baret Ware Vintage Biscuit Tin
Serpentine Dish Souvenir
The pictures of the Serpentine dish are my favourite. The seagull reminds me of this video by Metronomy:
Aidan and I celebrated our ten year anniversary last Saturday (ten years!!!) and he got me a digital radio to match our Cambridge Audio stack. Unfortunately, it was too late to listen to the BBC 6 Music Greatest 100 rundown on it, but it’s barely been turned off since. Most afternoons, Corliss and I have a dance around the living room to whatever either Radcliffe and Maconie or Steve Lamacq are playing. Great fun! If we’re not dancing, we’re playing, reading, cuddling or just laughing at each other:
Getting her started on the books already!
She manages about three minutes before she starts to whinge – it’s about the length of one of the stories!
Aidan has been continuing with the West German Pottery selling since early January. In fact, these are what he has ending this evening:
West German Pottery ending tonight!
If you click the pictures, it should take you to the eBay listings for the relevant items.
Tonight, we’re having Rachel round as it’s her birthday today. Happy birthday, Rachel! This is the lady in question:
It’s the lady to the left…
I’ve given up all hope of finishing one of her presents for this evening… and the other one hasn’t arrived yet! So, we’d better hope I can get some tea on the table at least!
Until next week*…
*By week, I mean month and most likely the month after that. Shall we say… May time?
Üeberlacker Twin Pots
Posted: September 28, 2010 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: 1950s, 50s, auction, ceramics, Ebay, fat lava, Germany, glaze, Ireland, Photograph, road trip, Servers, Shopping, Uebelacker, vintage, West German, West German Pottery Leave a comment »That title makes it sound like yoghurts. It’s not yoghurts, I promise!
1414/14
Üeberlacker Keramik make some luvverly pots (I’m getting my Masterchef style voice ready for tonight’s show…); bright, unusual and original… Yep, I like them. These are a pair we decided to keep from the original German Road Trip. For once, I’ve attempted to take some reasonably decent photographs. The pots are stood upon a 1950s blanket box – Aidan did attempt to sell this box on Ebay, but nobody wanted it. All say, “Aaahhh…” Which means it’s now stood in our bedroom. It’s definitely growing on me though: makes a great stand for picture taking.
Üeberlacker was originally founded as a metal works by tin maker Johann Üeberlacker, based in Ransbach Baumbach. The Arts Director for the company, Heinz Hommerich, developed a fire red glaze in 1954 and this was the first mass produced glaze in Germany. However, it contained Selenium (highly toxic chemical) so presumbly this production was stopped! The company eventually went bust in 1990, partly due to an investment in Ireland.
Auction Viewing With Parents…
Posted: April 9, 2010 Filed under: Auction Viewing | Tags: auction, chairs, Ercol, Holmfirth, lights, retro, suitcases, vintage Leave a comment »On Thursday, my lovely parents came up to visit. They were bringing me my birthday presents (quite early but I won’t see them around then). I’ll post up the best present after this post. We had a little trip to Holmfirth:
My dad... posing as usual!
After that, we headed up to the auction in New Mill. Few interesting bits and bobs, but nothing worth putting an offer in for. As we can never make the actual auction, we have to put commission bids in. Most of the time, it’s just a few bits in a box we’re interested in: not worth driving forty minutes for on a Saturday morning!
Old lights from a railway station
West German pot in a box of junk
Pile of dusty old suitcases
Ercol-Style retro chairs
If we’d actually been there, probably would have put a cheeky bid in on all of them, just to see. But never mind. Fun to look round anyway. Thanks Mum and Dad for a lovely day out and my present…!
Auction Viewing
Posted: March 19, 2010 Filed under: Auction Viewing | Tags: auction, Whitefriars Leave a comment »This week saw another jaunt to the auction house in New Mill, nr Holmfirth. To be honest, I didn’t think it was that great – Aidan seemed to like it more than me. However, there was this one little gem:
Whitefriars 'Coffin' Vase
Naturally, we put a commission bid in. The auction was today; we can’t find out til tomorrow morning if we’ve won it or not. If we have, looks like a trip over the Pennines to Holmfirth will be on the cards.
Auction Viewing
Posted: February 6, 2010 Filed under: Auction Viewing | Tags: auction, Holmfirth, italian pottery, taxidermy 2 Comments »Thursday saw the first visit to the auction house in Holmfirth since before Christmas. In all honesty, it was a bit thin on the ground for retro and vintage items. We did put a few bids in on boxes that contained the odd bits and bobs for us, then junk for a car boot sale. One such box contained this:
Italian Dish
I quite fancied this as a ‘party’ dish. Aidan wasn’t so keen, so I put a bid on the box. Bit disappointed not to have won it, but clearly someone was willing to pay more than the £7 I put on the box! (Such a cheapskate…)
Other things that caught my eye were these:
Now, don’t get me wrong, I would not want these in my own house. But, there does seem to be a current trend for taxidermy in vintage styling. How many times have you seen faux (and real) stag’s heads and antlers in interiors photos?
We have won one box, but it’s only full of some retro kitchen ware. I’ll upload pictures later. Right now, I need to leave for a friend’s birthday afternoon tea. Plus, I’ve just realised that it’s that cold in my spare room that I can see my breath!
A Pre-Christmas Catch Up…
Posted: December 22, 2009 Filed under: Random Retroness | Tags: auction, carnaby street, christmas, London, mari simmulson, retro 3 Comments »I must confess, I’ve been extremely slack at blogging my retro escapades for the past month. Usual excuse: far too busy with end of term assessments blah, blah, blah. Nevertheless, a catchup is in order.
Mari Simmulson Dish
This amazing dish is one of our latest auction finds. We bought a box full of stuff, mainly because this was in it; though Aidan has since sold many of the other objects from the box. This dish is going nowhere though! It’s made by a Swedish potter called Mari Simmulson – very similar stuff to Bjorn Wiinblad, which is what I thought it was when I first saw it. Chuffed to bits with this, but alas, our last visit to the auction was fruitless. Perhaps after Christmas, it will pick up again.
At the start of December, as well as visiting the auction house, we had a little trip down to London, courtesy of free first class Virgin travel… I didn’t take too many pictures as we’d been only a few weeks before. However, I did take one of the supposedly ‘retro’ Christmas decorations on Carnaby Street. Note to the council: try harder.
Using stereotypically swirly-whirly-psychedelic fonts DOES NOT make for authentically retro decorations. Though top marks for the giant pink reindeer – I’ll pretend it’s a little lost roe deer…
Auctions, Avon and A Little Owl Ski…
Posted: November 8, 2009 Filed under: Perambulations, Retro items | Tags: auction, Avon, British Sea Power, cologne, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Moonwind, vintage Leave a comment »As always, Saturday was taken over by gallivanting. Isn’t that possibly one of the best words ever created? Gallivanting. I gallivant, you gallivant, he/she/it gallivants. Brilliant. Anyway… Yes, Saturday was a day for cruising round the mill towns of the Peak District; all sparked by a visit to the auction house to pick up my winnings.
Alas, I didn’t bid high enough on the vintage hats (slight despondency at this, but I shall learn how this auction malarkey goes with time – malarkey, there’s another great word of the English language). However, I did manage to win one item:
Avon Fly-A-Balloon Moonwind Cologne Bottle
This little chap is the only thing that I won – for the grand sum of £4. I didn’t realise it was Avon when I first picked it up; I thought perhaps it was some old decorative figurine. Then I turned it over and read the ‘Avon’ impression on the bottom. Good design, nice materials plus the Avonness… had to be mine, really.
More Wheeling and Dealing at the Auction…
Posted: November 4, 2009 Filed under: Retro items | Tags: auction, Avon, Her Majesty's Voice, Kangol, vintage Leave a comment »We’ve been to the Sykes & Sons Auction again tonight. Not quite as good as last time, but still some bits and bobs. Actually, thinking about it, I think I’ve got more bids on things than last time but possibly because I’m more confident in bidding? Not sure. I also managed to forget to take pictures for some items, then didn’t take some of others as I didn’t want a man that was there to spot what I was interested in! He had two full sheets of items with bids on. Admittedly, he probably wasn’t looking at the same things as me, but still!
Her Majesty's Voice Record Player
This record player looked quite interesting (to me) but I’ve got no use for it. So, it got photographed but no bid was made. We were kind of crammed in at this point with bid-on-everything man, so the picture is a bit close unfortunately.
Vintage Bread Bins
Aha! Now here are some items I did remember to take a photo of and I’ve got a bid in for. Now, I’m not a bread bin maniac or anything, but I do quite like the red one. I think I can squeeze that in my kitchen somewhere (don’t tell the Holtster…), but if I can’t, I think they should sell well on a car boot sale. I know if they were in a ‘shabby chic retro’ shop in Lahndan, then all of the women down there would snap them up. I’m hoping northerners will do the same on a car boot somewhere next summer!
I’m afraid that’s the extent of my picture taking. Apart from the bed bins, I’ve also got bids on: a box of vintage (but still brand new in original boxes) shoes, a vintage Avon bubble bath holder which is a little boy holding a balloon (like this one here on Ebay, but mine has his balloon still), and – this is the best item in my eyes – a box full of vintage hats! Mostly Kangol, they appear to be from the 50s and 60s. One of them does seem to be genuine tiger fur… which is slightly worrying to my morals, but Aidan has suggested that if I want to sell that one, I could donate some profits to the WWF.
Anyway, as before, the auction junk was great fun to look around and hopefully, I’ll win something. We’re planning a day trip to Holmfirth and Huddersfield (partly auction, partly Ebay items collection) on Saturday, so no doubt there will be more retro and vintage goodies to blog about. Fingers crossed for the vintage hats, people please!
PS: Found this retro Avon advert on Youtube; it’s too good not to share! Perhaps if I win my retro Avon at the auction then I’ll do a post about all of my Avon… Aidan will roll his eyes at that one!
Auction Viewing: The bids are in!
Posted: October 14, 2009 Filed under: Retro items | Tags: 70s, auction, clock, Crown Ducal, Ebay, Hornsea, italian pottery, pottery, Smiths, vintage 3 Comments »
Crown Ducal Vase - Boyfriend wasn't keen, but I liked it!
Well, I’m back from my first foray into the world of auctioneering. While the other half wraps up his Ebay parcels (I await to write the addresses on them), I’ve looked over the pictures I’ve taken and decided on some to share with you. A is convinced that if I put pictures on of the items we want then somebody else might spot them on here and snaffle them. I think he overestimates how many people read my blog!
We had an interesting expedition to find the place. The address we had been given was in fact for the estate agents of the same name/company. Smack bang in the middle of Holmfirth High Street: no auction house in sight. Luckily, the library happened to be open and a menagerie of old ladies were in the process of being thrown out. I say ‘luckily’ because it just happened that one of them knew exactly where it was, in great detail, which she drew on the back of a piece of paper for us. So thank you, kind library-going lady, you saved our evening!
A vintage trio on the wall - guess which one we liked enough to put a bid in for!
It was an amazing place; ramshackle, old, falling down, opposite a gorgeous old church. There were plenty of boxes of random china – a few interesting bits and bobs hiding in there, most of which I managed to get photos of.
Do I see £5 anywhere?
Posted: October 14, 2009 Filed under: Vintage Home | Tags: auction, Ebay, iliketrains Leave a comment »In approximately sixty minutes time, I am venturing off to my first ever auction! I literally cannot wait. I’ve got food on the go as I type so we can scoff it down, then jump straight into the car. It’s at Sykes Auction House in Holmfirth (near Huddersfield). According to our antique-expert neighbour, Jim, it’s a 20 minute drive away. I hope so. We’ve also got Ebay items ending tonight that need wrapping… And we’re out tomorrow night to watch iLiKETRAiNS… Then out all over the weekend to go down to London to a craft fair. Too much to do!
I’m going to try sneaking my camera in to the auction tonight. Hopefully, there will be plenty of retro joyfulness on show and I’ll get away with some crafty picture-snapping.
iLiKETRAiNS video below; chosen for its retro radio at the start of the video…
I Used To Know What I Wanted To Say…