Right spiffing, innit?

So I spent some hours Tuesday at the booth trying to spiff the place up a bit.  Spiffing isn't always my strong suit, but I think I've made some progress.  I had decided a week or two ago that the blue industrial cup-washing rack thingies in the booth had to go.  I love the idea of them.  There a bright cheery blue, and kind of swirly looking:

I loved how they looked as a backdrop, like to this cute mushroom mug set (still available, by the way!)

And I thought they'd be handy for displaying things like scarves and small linens and things:

Here they were with a few little bits inside - still looked kind of fun.

But as the booth got more... I'll just say it: crowded, and more and more of the little cubbies in the rack got filled, I think it just became too much.  It was like visual noise.  It just didn't help show off the merchandise anymore:

With all that crammed in, it just looks messy.

I had already planned to take them down and do a bit of an overhaul of the space, and now, thanks to the  lead from my Mom and Dad, I had found a great shelf to help in reorganizing.  

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, someone bought my little book shelf, and I replaced it with a somewhat rustic little blue and white enamel-topped table, which had already opened things up considerably.  I went from this:

Still a bit over-crowded!

To this:

A bit more open - making progress!

So Tuesday, I did the following:

1. Took down the blue crate/cup-rack things.

2. Stacked the small table that's hidden behind the suitcases in the above picture on top of the little wooden cabinet you can barely see since it's stacked with blue cup racks, overflowing with linens and piled with merchandise.

That gave me this:

A little more space for the eye to see, and with one door closed, maybe people will even
be able to tell the little cabinet exists!

3. I moved the suitcases back up against the back wall, stacked them and used them to show off some of the cute vintage purses, shoes, etc.:

Vintage suitcases are a personal weakness. A stack of three serve as an end
table in my living room, too!

4.  I brought in the new shelf.  You've already seen this pic if you saw the blog yesterday, but here it is again, in context of the overhaul:

I need to improve the display-quality of those linens.
Too much of a good thing is too hard to see.

5.  I took the little wire cart that I'd previously crammed between the beat-up low shelf on the right above and the clothes rack, I filled it with the smaller purses, and the scarves, doilies, small linens, etc., and placed it next to the blue and white enamel table at the front of the booth, and tucked the cheery little green footstool/doll table underneat:

I like the pop of green under the table to go with the bright green craft book on top,
and the little cart takes up very little space at the entrance to the booth.

6.  I swung the clothing rack around so that rather than being on the side of the booth, it's along the back wall.  It leaves less room for pictures/paintings/etc., but I'm still trying to make a go of the whole vintage clothing aspect of the booth, so I think it's worth it for a time.  At least through Halloween (because everyone who's anyone is going to be buying vintage awesomeness from booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall for the Halloween costume this year!).  

So here's the overall effect.  I don't think I'm done tweaking, but I like where it's going a little better than before:

I still feel like it's a bit too busy, but it's definitely getting better.

There's plenty of room to walk around inside now, and with more shelf space, things aren't as crammed together, so I'm hoping that makes it easier to see and not just look, if you know what I mean.  I think next I'd like to replace the wire cubes on the left wall with something that's less deep.  Preferably something I can put a price tag on and sell out from under my merchandise!  And I definitely need to replace, or at the very least paint the long low shelf on the other side.  That's the one I picked up in an alley a few days before I was supposed to start my booth.  Or possibly just put more tall shelves on one side and leave the other side free for some bits of furniture and wall art.

What do you think?  Is this better?  I'm open to any and all suggestions.  I just want to make buying from my little 2ndhand Moon booth easier and more enjoyable.  Am I on the right track?

Oh, and I keep forgetting to say, go Like the 2ndhand Moon Facebook Page, so you'll know when there's a sale, deal or special event!

Philosophy of reselling?

Most of what I thrift, I plan to at least try to resell.  And yet, I haven't done a ton of research on what sorts of items are hot sellers, and I don't go looking for particular brands/marks/designers/etc.  Maybe I should.  Maybe if I did, I'd be already making money at it.  But I admit I haven't ever been all that motivated by money.  Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have money.  I'd like to make money off of my obsession with vintage things, particularly.  But money has always seemed more like an unfortunate necessity that forces me to spend 40-50 hours a week in a cubicle than something I want to someday swim around in like Scrooge McDuck.

I don't care about the best cars or big houses in perfect neighborhoods.  And so like everything else in my life (the French lit degree, trying to move to Mauritius, getting involved in urban ministry...), I know I probably could make choices that would make more money thrifting.  For instance I keep reading about people making money off of certain Starbucks mugs.  But I can't be bothered.  I keep passing on the mugs, for $.10 at St Vincent de Paul, because they just... don't interest me.

So I buy what I like.  Sure, I keep my phone handy and Google the names on labels sometimes, but for the most part, if I don't get excited about it personally, it's not coming home with me, and if I do get excited about it, I don't care what Google says.  I'm hoping that "what I like" (which is a very, very broad category) translates into "what people want to buy", but I'm not trying to force it.  Which in one way is nice, because... at least if nobody does want to buy it, I'll be stuck with a bunch of stuff I like, instead of a bunch of stuff I hoped other people would like.

But if you are, or are thinking about being a reseller, do you have a coherent philosophy for what you buy?  Do you stick to a certain type of thing, or a certain era, or a certain aesthetic?  Do you buy only what is in a certain price range, or what you think will sell for X amount more than what you pay, or, like me, do you just blunder around without a plan, buying what pings some pleasure center in your brain and hoping it will do the same for the next person?

A few more lovely things that will be going into the shop

Hey all!  Just thought I'd share a few more bits and pieces that I've got pics of, that will be going into the shop:

Royal blue wool coat.

Spiral bound floral photo album.

I love the font on the photo album, and this one came complete with a few pages of actual old photos.  I haven't decided yet whether people will like it better with or without them inside, so I'm not sending this to the booth right away.  What do you think?

Vintage fabric - an old curtain panel.

\This fabric is amazing.  Its not very big, but what an impact!  I can't for anything imagine who designed it or who thought it would make a good curtain, but I'm glad they did!

Two planters and a small vase.

The green planter is a Haeger piece - stamped on the bottom, and there's a sticker still adhered to one side.  The other two are unmarked, but nifty.  I like the origami-esque nature of the brown and cream pot, and the speckle finish and sweet green interior make the little vase special.

Half a dozen Nancy Drew titles.

I don't know much about Nancy Drew, but I do love the cover art.  On one of them, the bottom corners of many pages are torn, or possibly chewed.  The others are in much better shape.

Bovano of Cheshire Connecticut ashtray

I love this thing.  The company is still in business, but hasn't made these glass-enameled copper trays since some time in the 60s (according to their website).  It's just such a cool mid-century Mad Men cocktail party kind of thing.  But I can't imagine smashing out your butts in something so pretty.  It should hang on the wall like the artwork it is!

Small desk lamp.

Sorry the picture of this is so dark.  Suppose I should have plugged it in and turned it on.  He may look shy, but just wait till he lights up - he's a handsome little guy.

Fabulous mid-century clock radio

This little lady isn't going into the booth just yet.  I haven't tested her out yet, and to be perfectly honest, I'm enjoying looking at her too much to be disappointed if she doesn't work.

Look how cool she is!

Autumnal kitsch - tin mural-clock.

I need to get some batteries and test this guy out as well.  So awesome - the image is printed on metal, and I love the font of the clock.  I could have kicked myself when I bent one of the hands slightly (after it had survived all these years unscathed), but it went back into place with no signs of a problem.

Semi-sheer red and white polka-dot dress.  AB FAB!

What can I even say about this one?  It's a show stopper.  Can't you just see it in a movie musical from back in the day?

Learnin' about my treasures: Dru Holland cast iron/enamel cookware

I've had a strange string of luck with orange cast iron/enamel cookware just recently.  First I found a pair of orange flame Le Crueset saucepans -  at the Goodwill on South Lindbergh:

Classic Flame colored Le Creuset saucepans - sizes 14 and 18.

I did a little research to try and date this style of saucepan with the fat hollow iron handles.  Best I could find was an Etsy listing for a Le Creuset pot of this style that said (without attribution) that it was made in the 60s, and one blog that showed some similarly shaped iron/enamel pots with different knobs that were Cousances brand, which Wikipedia says Le Creuset bought out in 1957, but then the same blog said that the famous Le Creuset Flame color was inherited from Cousances, which is untrue according both to Wikipedia, which says Le Creuset introduced the Flame color in 1934, and the Le Creuset websites "our story" section, which says Flame was the first color they ever used, and was inspired by the color of the molten iron before it was cast.  Of course, the Le Creuset website fails to mention the fact that while Le Creuset is made in France and has always been considered ever-so-French, both of the founders were Belgian.  Still, the picture on the blog with the iffy color info are definitely the same style pots, and one of them has a sticker on it still, so I guess it really was a Cousance style, so the (early?) 60s does seem a reasonable guess for when Le Creuset would have been making the style.

Maybe a week after the Le Creuset find, I found a larger, older looking French oven/cocotte/casserole in a similar orange:

The markings on it say "Dru No 8", and while I've known about Le Crueset since I was a teenager, I'd never heard of Dru, so I asked my good friend Google about them, and found lots of vintage pots and pans for sale, none of which looked a lick like mine.  They were all in white/yellow/blue/green and had little tulip patterns on them, like so:

Nice, but not my style really.  I searched through pages of Google images but the only time I found plain orange ones was when they were on the same page as some of the country-kitchen-tulipy stuff, but were by Le Crueset or one of a handful of other companies that make such things.  So then I started looking around for just plain info on the company.  A few different sites had bits of information.  Mostly that the company was called Dru Holland, the pots were made in Holland, the company went out of business sometime in or before the early 70s, and nobody really knows all that much about it.

Then, I finally found a post in the Amazon forums from someone who purported to know something about it:

"My Uncle Robert E. Evans started a companey in the 50's after he got back from war and imported the Dru Iron from Holland. There is an article in the Boston sunday Herald, April 28, 1957 that talks about his business and how he got started."

I saw mention on a couple of different sites that various colors of the Dru pots and pans were from different eras.  The earliest ones mentioned before I found the Amazon thread, from the 1930s, had the tulip pattern.  But, quoting the nephew of the importer again:


" The orange with grey inside was the first line. Next came the blue, green and last the yellow. Uncle Bob's cookware was featured in Better Homes and Garden issue in the late 50's."

So it appears that I have a very old, and very rare (rare enough that there are no Google images of it at least) pot on my hands  that goes pretty nicely with my two Le Creuset via Cousances saucepans.  Serendipity!

Can you imagine the yummy meals that were prepared in these beauties?  Mmm....

New Kitsch and treasures - could use help IDing a couple of them!

I've been so bad.  I know I have plenty of great stuff for my booth for the short term, and should be spending all my free time on cleaning/researching/pricing my finds to get them ready for This Coming Saturday (eek!), and I have done quite a bit of cleaning and researching, but I can't stop myself from the fun of the hunt, and now that I can officially use the excuse that I'm acquiring "inventory", I just keep on doing so.  But I think I've acquired some nifty inventory, at least!  Here are some new nifties that have made it home with me this week:

Cool machine-age bronze colored desk lamp. 

 I love the (pencil-holding?) grooves in the front of the base.  Now I just need to test and see if it works!

Rubbery spindly-legged baby deer.  

Kitschy and adorable.  It's hard to tell but this little fella's huge.  He's at least twice as tall as the regular-sized coffee mug below.

Adorable bunny with pink and mustard colored mushrooms.

Very cute bluebird/angel print.

Sweet vintage Hoenig of California candy dish.

Hawaii tiki napkin-holder.

Fabulously kitschy scowly owl with rolling pin - love him!

Palest green sculptural bud vase. 

This little vase seemed so unique I had to snap it up.  It has the name "Mary Withrow" written on the bottom in what could easily be gold paint-pen.  That is the name of a former US Treasurer, but not of any potters I could find.  If it seems familiar and/or you might be able to point me in the right direction, let me know - I'd appreciate it!

Set of 4 black/gray/orange tumblers.

These really needed washed before getting their picture taken, but I couldn't wait.  Oh, and also they'd just come in from the trunk, so they were really cold and condensation was forming!

Signed and numbered picture in pinks and yellows.
Huge, in heavy wood frame (cropped out of pic).

 I love, love, love this, but the writing is faded so that, while it is definitely signed and numbered, I can't quite make it all out.  In the bottom left corner it says Ed 90.  In the middle I believe it says "Opera Interiors", and on the right it's signed Dorothy Something, 55 (which I assume is the date).  I Googled all the bits I could work out, but haven't had any luck.  If anyone has any guesses on the Something part for me (I think it starts with a B?), or can hook me up with a research resource, I'd be thrilled.

What about you guys?  Anybody else thrifting this week?    Don't forget, I'll be in booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall starting THIS WEEKEND!  

Oh, and for my very first time, I'm linking to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday.  Yay!