Five Flea Finds

This week was a very one successful at our local flea market… with 5 excellent vintage finds for our online shop.

First is this original catalogue from the Festival of Britain held in 1951. We’ve really enjoyed browsing through this booklet. In addition to the run-down of the exhibition itself, there are some fantastic period ads.

Next up is this enamel teapot made by Finel. It was covered in dust and badly tea-stained inside, but it’s come up beautifully – a good wash revealed the lovely pattern and the inside bleached clean & white.

This 1960s coffee pot couldn’t fail to catch our eye. We’ve actually had a set in this pattern before – what a great design with its simple, stylised flowers.

This plate was at the bottom of a pile. We could just see the petal edges poking out. We’re glad we made the effort to dig down a bit! It’s a lovely vintage hand-painted sunflower plate produced by Arabia of Finland.

Finally, we have this tea trio – a set of six trios to be precise. It’s the Amanda pattern produced by Ridgway in the 1960s/70s – bright, cheerful and very usable.

All worth getting up early for!

In addition to the five finds destined for our shop, you may also have noticed some wine glasses in the background of the group photo. We were down to our last couple of decent wine glasses (and we do love a glass or two of red wine in front of the fire!). We’ve been looking for new ones for a few weeks now and were determined to pick some up in a charity shop or flea market. There they were – lovely wine glasses – large bowls, long slim stems, nice quality – £2.50 for a set of 8!! Now that was a great buy!

It’s a date!

Any of you vintage fans born in 1979? This could be the perfect thing for you.

It’s one of a series of ceramic date plates produced annually by Arabia of Finland.

Here’s an extract from the English translation of Rune 33 from which this plate draws its reference:

From a tree the raven answered:
“O thou little silver buckle,
Only son of old Kalervo,
Why art thou in evil humor,
Wherefore sad in thy demeanor?
Take a young shoot from the thicket,
Take a birch-rod from the valley,
Drive thy herd across the lowlands,
Through the quicksands of the marshes;
To the wolves let one half wander,
To the bear-dens, lead the other;
Sing the forest wolves together,
Sing the bears down from the mountains,
Call the wolves thy little children,
And the bears thy standard-bearers;
Drive them like a cow-herd homeward,
Drive them home like spotted cattle,
Drive them to thy master’s milk-yards;
Thus thou wilt repay the hostess
For her malice and derision.”

You don’t have to be born in 1979… they were made from the mid 1970s to the late 1990s. That gives a good span of potentially significant years – birthdays, anniversaries etc.

And don’t mind if there isn’t a special date to be marked… the artwork is so fabulous, they’re covetable for the patterns alone.