Car boot season is here! I am lucky enough to live a three minute walk from a regular car boot sale that takes place on a giant school playing field. It is literally heaven but equally rather dangerous as I am at risk of spending all my money and submerging my house in ever-increasing mounds of junk. Here are some of my recent finds...
1960s Celtic hand painted pottery vase and 1950s Italian ceramic dish.
Joan, the lovely lady whose remarkable home I featured in
this post, has an enormous collection of Celtic pottery and the distinctive spiky designs made this vase leap out at me from an uninspiring pile of videos and mobile phone cables. I offered 50p and secured it. According to Joan, Celtic pottery often passes unnoticed as it does not have markings but originally came with stickers on the bottom, many of which have fallen off by now. She also informed me that the phoenix design is more common than the designs featuring cats, boats and horses so keep your eyes peeled for the more collectable styles. The little dish is a piece of Italian hand painted pottery from the 1950s. This is something that would have passed me by unnoticed had I not have seen Joan's gorgeous collection of 1950s Italian ceramics. I got it for £2 and I love the bold midcentury colours and the details of the lady's little etched face. This is definitely a style I will be collecting. Apparently this type of ceramic is increasing significantly in popularity (and price!) and so it is a piece I will be hanging on to for sure.
1962
Do It Yourself magazine. I came across an entire stack of these magazines but I simply couldn't take them all! I chose with with the least damage and the most colourful and era-specific image and only parted with a ten pence piece. It looks great in the magazine rack.
I simply adore Cornishware! T.G Green is a brand I have been collecting for several years already. The simple stripes blend into so many different interior styles from Victorian simplicity to sixties kitchenalia. I love it when I find an old piece at a bargain price as they sell for high prices on eBay and in antique shops and this three pound bowl is a welcome addition to my small collection. I have a couple of the new pieces too, the red striped cruet set and the sugar bowl, which are all available on their
website but it is a shame that Cornishware is now made in China and not in the U.K. It feels like eighty years of manufacturing heritage is simply washed away...
This is what I like to see when I turn over an interesting-looking piece of striped china! This bowl could be from any date between 1930 and 1960, I shall have to do some more investigation into the stamp. I also found a cracked 1930s T.G Green planter recently too for £3 in a charity shop which now houses a geranium on my dining room table.
And here is my beautiful Victorian nightgown I bought for a paltry fifty pence! It is just too beautiful to part with and I think I will always have it hanging on my bedroom wall. I love the intricate lace details and the tiny patches and the cotton genuinely feels crisper than any I have ever felt before. The framed photograph was a pound and I love the image so much. The fading makes it feel quite spectral and I wonder if the girl pictured is still around today? The houses in the background look very much like those on my estate so it has the potential to have a local source. It does make me feel rather sad to think of how it came to be discarded.
I am currently working every hour under the sun at my workplace to try and raise as much money as possible for my masters while I am on my summer holidays but hopefully I will have some more car booty to share with you all soon.
