Bargain Time .......by Gay S

At first glance it may seem that these pieces have nothing in common, apart from all being of Quimper manufacture, but they all come under the heading of bargains and show that sometimes if you keep your eyes open you can find things at very reasonable prices

For 3 or More Tuesday hosted by Tam @The Gypsy's Corner and Vintage Thingie Thursday a great meme found over at The Colorado Lady Suzanne's place,

I wanted to show you some of my collection of vintage pieces.

Please do go and visit these great blogs to discover more interesting collections and vintage items.

I have had the little Keraluc figure, above, for several years. I found her at a flea market and bought her from a couple of stall holders I knew very well (and they knew I collected Quimper). They always had interesting but cheap items so they were a magnet for the dealers. This little lady was on the top shelf of their display – when I asked to see her the stall holder admired her but assured me she was Greek, he had been to Greece for a holiday and remembered ‘Ker’ is used in the Greek language. The price was just £1. The amusing thing was that no matter what I said the dealer maintained his stance – he just never believed that Keraluc has anything to do with Quimper…

The shell dish I found this year: there is an antique centre about a mile away which is situated in the premises of an old abattoir, if you look up you can see it still has all the rails and hooks. It’s not very upscale but one dealer does like to sell French items and on this particular day we had found an old French glass kitchen measure (my husband has a small collection of old glass measures). I went to the office to pay and my husband spotted the little dish, it was filthy and covered in dust but it was only £5 and I just couldn’t leave it there, unloved. I just had to rescue it!
The décor is Ivoire Corbeille (we will be featuring this décor in the Clubs Spring/Summer Journal so please contribute photo's if you have any) and I suspect the lady is from Normandy.


The third piece we found recently in the local Oxfam (charity) shop, at just 99p we could hardly pass it by, could we? And it has been a useful serving piece over Christmas.



The fourth piece was more of a struggle to obtain. Again it’s a flea market purchase.

One dealer (who I knew from his other auction house job) had a specific routine – he stood in the middle of a square of tables and as he unpacked his boxes we used to grab what we were interested in, then when he had finished he would come to each of us and price our pile of items and we’d have a little haggle – when he got to know you he would often try to make sure you got first chance of anything in your area of interest – this being a blue plate it was ‘given’ to the lady who specialised in blue plates. Sometimes things would be rejected as too dear or damaged, but the ‘blue plate lady’ wanted this piece so she paid £5. About a month later I offered her 100% profit and the plate was mine……a good price for an Yvain piece!