Collecting Vintage Christmas Year-Round: A Guide to Treasure Hunting Success

Yasmina Greco Crazy4Me Vintage Christmas
Yasmina Greco Vintage Christmas

In this blog post, we’ll explore the joys of collecting vintage Christmas year-round, a guide to treasure hunting success. In fact, searching for vintage Christmas can lead you to some incredible finds that might not be available during the traditional holiday season. Learn some tips on how to find the perfect pieces on popular social platforms, and collector groups and more! Continue reading to learn more.

Hello again my friends, I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas and that Santa was good to you all!! As I put the finishing touches on post number six, the final post of our Vintage Christmas Collecting series, it’s New Year’s Eve as I sit at my desk surrounded by my vintage treasures (vintage Santa’s, snowmen, shopper girls, bottle brush trees and my vintage candy cane holders) and want to thank you all for your lovely comments and questions along the way of the collecting series.

I have truly enjoyed putting the series together and hope you’ve benefited from some of my tips and enjoyed seeing pictures of my collections. I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that 2021 is good to us all!!

Collecting Vintage Christmas Ornaments
Collecting Vintage Christmas Ornaments

I collect vintage Christmas all year round. As you know from my previous posts, I am obsessed with vintage Christmas items and the hunt is really part of the fun. As our digital worlds keep moving forward, it actually makes searching for vintage Christmas items a little easier and simpler as we have access to wonderful resources that are available 24/7 and 365 days a year and spans the entire globe!! 

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Vintage Weddings and Flea Market Wedding Ideas

Aren’t these vintage 1930’s-1950’s vintage bridge and groom wedding figures and salt and pepper shakers so cute? Today’s trends are all about up-cycling, re-purposing, and re-using so I thought these adorable vintage bride and grooms pictured here fit just perfectly into this theme for a wedding. Many couples today plan their ‘Vintage Wedding’ and even ‘Flea Market Weddings’ as these are very trendy wedding themes today (there is even a new magazine called Flea Market Weddings) and with June upon us,  wedding season is in full swing. So, for couples planning their ‘big day’ and want some vintage charm added to their event, I hope they consider placing these adorable vintage bride and groom shaker sets on their guest tables, or make them part of the wedding favor that your guests will leave with. You can find these vintage goodies on Etsy, Ebay, Rubylane and at flea markets sand collectibles shops and many can be had for $9.99-$25 but expect to pay upwards of $60+ for the German-made Goebel shakers. Cheer!

You can find Crazy4Me on Ebay, Etsy and Rubylane

Collecting Vintage Josef Originals Figurines

JosefOriginalsCollection

About Josef Originals:

Josef Originals are designed by artist Muriel Joseph George who is the creator of Josef Orignals back in 1945. These figures are created with the utmost attention to authenticity, including the detailed ceramic construction and 24K gold paint for character accents. Cute animals, charming dolls, delightful Christmas characters.

Some of the more popular lines created by Muriel for Josef Originals:

  • Dolls of the Month Series–A doll for every month of the year
  • Days of the Week Series–Dolls for every day of the week
  • Little Pet Series–Children with pets
  • Birthday Girls Series–Dolls for every year from newborn to 21
  • Birthstone Dolls Series–Girls with dresses the same color as birthstones
  • Career Series–Showing careers such as teachers and nurses
  • All sorts of Christmas figurines

There is a story behind the name “Josef Originals.”

The name was supposed to be spelled “Joseph,” but the printer made a mistake on the first set of labels that were ordered. It was too late to change the labels. The orders were in and the ceramics had to be shipped. So, “Josef Originals” was born.

Today, Josef Originals figurines are gaining in popularity and prices are starting to go up. When you are looking for these figurines be sure that they retain their sticker labels and if they are birthday girls they should retain their poem tags….this makes their value higher. Ebay, Etsy, Antique Shops, Thrift Stores are where you can find these cuties. The doll figurines can be had for $14.99-$50 and the older figurines with black eyes and black labels can go as high as $75+. The Christmas figures too are going for approx. $45-$75 on average. How many Josef Originals do you have in your collection?

Cool Vintage Cameras – New Etsy Store: Upcycled Classics

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Hi everyone, hope your Black Friday has been safe and for those that braved it and went to the malls…. did you score any deals?? We didn’t end up going anywhere today. Instead, my husband was hard at work and opened his brand new Etsy store – UpcycledClassics. He has a passion for vintage cameras and has found a way to combine his passion for photography, cameras, and art into these one-of-a-kind UpcycledClassics. He tests each and every camera to make sure it is in working condition; he actually locates the vintage film for these Pentax, Kodak and Polaroids and takes photos with each camera, cleans each, adjusts len’s and puts in new batteries and more and then gives them a whole new look with a blast of fabulous color. If you are into photography, art, or vintage cameras or know someone that is, would you please help spread the word of the UpcycledClassics store. Thank you in advance!!

Thanks for a Great Oregon Fall Antique Show

Portland Expo Fall Antique Show - Vintage Disneyana

I made it to Portland for the ‘Fall Antique Show’ at the Expo Center by http://christinepalmer.net over the weekend.

This is one of the largest shows in the country with 1,000+ booths!  I first attended the show with my sister this past summer and had such an amazingly great experience so I was eager to come up for the Fall show.

Parking took less than 15 mins this time compared to nearly an hour at the summer show. My sister and I made it into the exhibitor halls within minutes of the show starting.  This year we are interested in growing our vintage Christmas collectibles so we were hoping to find some treasures at the show.

 

The show started slowly. Some booths were not and all items under cover and yellow ‘caution’ tape blocking the entry. Of the booths that were open for business, many of the dealers seemed grumpy… not happy or excited to see shoppers. They didn’t event greet you when you entered their booths.  We decided to pullover in the food court and wait in line for coffee. With coffee’s in-hand we forged onward.

Items being sold seemed different than at the summer show. Yes, there was still those amazing booths with large collections of spectacular tin toys, robots, comic books, Disney and Disneyana,  vintage Halloween items, but the ‘smalls’ I would normally be going for were not really available this time. We did find some booths with vintage Christmas and lots of bottle brush trees and figurines. Some of these vintage Christmas items were super expensive and dealers were not at all interested in haggling or negotiating. When I attended the summer show prices were excellent and dealers eager to haggle.  It wasn’t until a good 2 hours into the show that dealers started to loosen up and get friendlier.

 

We did end up with some awesome finds to include vintage made in Japan Christmas bottle brush trees and wreaths. My sis even managed to negotiate an entire vintage Christmas tree that was all decorated with amazing vintage Mercury balls, Shiny Brite and German ornaments. It was great! We had quite the haul!!

The show turned out to be excellent over-all. It was a slow start and 5 hours later we were exhausted and found the treasures we came for. I can’t wait for the 2014 summer show!!

I am listing many goodies I brought back on my Ebay and Etsy stores!

Estate Sale at Historic Monroe House

With not too much to do this weekend I was hoping to find a good estate sale so I looked to see if there were any in my area on Estatesales.net and one poped up as ‘going on right now’ just down the road from us. The sale had been going on for just a couple hours and was advertised as an estate sale at the ‘Historic Monroe House’ in Sebastopol, CA. Cars and people everywhere. Walking up the front stairs I run right into Selena Cate from Apron Thrift Girlcarrying out large furniture items, she had a few tables and such so she got there in time to score!! I wonder if she is taking the items to her booth at the Antique Society antique mall just down the road. Anyway, walking inside I am immediately struck with the beautiful house that already has a sale pending. The house is a grand turn of the century home. The Monroe House, built circa 1894, has a wonderful presence and stately and spacious rooms with lots of period details in the moldings. Gorgeous house. It seemed like most everything was already sold except for the usual mugs, old tools, pots and pans. Only the main floor was open to the public and the top floors were closed off. The kitchen sure had that vintage charm with its turquoise counter tops!! I saw a couple stunning stained glass panels but they were also sold. Oh well, even if I didn’t buy anything I got to see a stunning turn of the century home and got to admire some very pretty items.

You can buy our finds at our Crazy4Me Ebay store, Etsy store and Rubylane store where we constantly are adding NEW items!