A Mountain Backdrop

I've just returned from a lovely holiday in Austria. Normally when I'm on holiday I might visit the odd antiques shop, but as my husband and I often go to destinations where you have to fly, there isn't really the opportunity for buying vintage items. This time we travelled by car, and there was a flea market near our hotel on Sunday, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a really good one, with lots of stalls and plenty of private sellers. And isn't this the best view at a flea market, ever?

We've found some lovely things at this first market. From left to right: A Goebel ceramic fish money bank, two Rörstrand tea or coffee jugs in the pattern Irene, a Bitossi vase in the decor Sahara, a glass elephant paperweight (which is marked, but I haven't figured out who made it), and a blue Bay vase.

The first few days we had lovely weather, but later on in the week it started to rain. As we weren't able to go biking as planned because of that, we decided to do some more hunting. We visited a number of antique malls/halls and charity sales in the area. Again, we came up with a pretty good haul!

From left to right we found a ceramic lantern by one of the West German factories, a Holmegaard candle holder, a Bay Fat Lava vase, a Ceramano jug (sadly, damaged at the handle), and a large yellow Sklo Bullet vase.

At a charity sale for a local animal shelter we also found this beautiful cup and saucer by Weimar Porzellan in kobalt blue, which is weirdly also marked by Goebel. I discovered these are called a Herrengedeck or a Fernsehgedeck in German. The saucer is extra large so it can contains some cake or cookies. Very convenient!

The day before we left we visited one more antiques hall near our hotel. This hall was full of little stands and small shops and opened every sunday morning. We had to get up pretty early to fit it in our schedule, seeing we also had to drive the 1000 km home, but we weren´t disappointed!

Again, from left to right: a Scheurich 414-16 with fab blue and black crusty glaze, two teak vikings, one carrying a massive spear, a small glass elephant by Bertil Vallien, a Sommerso Murano vase in blue and yellow, a Bavaria Porzellan trinket box, a Baller bronze donkey/zebra, possibly by Walter Bosse, and a Scheurich vase with a beautiful blue and yellow glaze.

We were just about to leave when we spotted one more store around the corner. As a cherry on the cake this shop contained a fab shaped Bertoncello vase and one of the best Nierentisch I have seen in a long time!

Most of these items will be for sale in my Etsy shop, which you can check out at www.etsy.com/shop/Vaseomania

Catching a Bullet Vase

I know I mentioned this before, but part of why I do this is because I LOVE going out and hunting for new items to add to my collection or shop. Once a month there is a huge second hand market close to my home that has about 250 to 400 stalls. The good thing about this fair is that the sellers often vary, so you won't run into the same (frustrating) chipped vase or that beautiful piece you cannot afford every single time.

Last weekend was the last fair of 2013, and in my experience the one before Christmas is often the best and busiest, both in number of sellers and number of visitors. Obviously that meant I had to be there early to catch the proverbial worm, so early that it was still dark when my alarm clock started ringing.

Even though it was early on a Sunday morning, I was glad I made the effort, because there was already a line forming to go in when I arrived. Smart little trick I picked up over the years, and that I would like to share with you now: directly walk to the end of the hall and start at the back! Most people will automatically start at first rows, so it will be more crowded there. At the back you'll have plenty of room to start your browsing session.

It was a good day indeed, as you can see I found loads of pretty things! From left to right you can see an original roll of seventies wallpaper, two American pyrex dishes from 1975 (very rare to find these in the Netherlands!), a yellow Sklo Union Bullet or Lens vase, a set of six shot glasses in original rack from the fifties or sixties by the german company Ruhrglas, a green Ruscha 346 vase, a vintage dalarna horse, and a Sklo union candlewax vase by Frantisek Peceny (the larger version).

Because it is almost Christmas, I was hoping to find some Czech glass from one of the factories grouped under the umbrella term Sklo union, as my mum is a collector of these vases. She particularly loves the Bullet or Lens vase, designed in 1955 by Rudolf Schrötter for Rosice glasswork, and produced from that year onwards. 

Her collection started with one yellow bullet vase that came from my grandma. I'm not a 100% sure, but I think my grandma might have actually bought it new during a trip to Prague in the seventies. However, my mum now has 14 small bullet vases in different colors, and the larger model in 7 different shades. They are presented on the windowsill, and they look lovely with sunlight shining through them. 

Originally these vases were made in 12 different colors: clear, turquoise, dark green, spring green, amber, yellow, citrin, light blue, mid-blue, cobalt blue, rosalin, amethyst, lilac, smoke. It is getting increasingly harder to find a color variation she doesn't own yet, so finding a yellow colored bullet vase, similar to the one that started it all, but this time in the large model, really made my day!