Tag: Tips

What are some different designing styles that you will run across?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Beginning to collect, Styles, Tips for the beginner, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage!Leave a comment

Through the years, there have been some designing styles that have come about that have been very popular.  Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern and even Art nouveau are some of these, but what are some of the other styles that you will find?

Egyptian Revival—this style came about in the early 1920’s when the discovery of the King Tutankhamun was found.  This style ran at the same time as the Art Deco Style, and the Egyptian Revival influenced a number of items from architecture, jewelry and even furniture (the style has an Egyptian flair to it).

Baroque—this style is highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, décor and even music.  The style flourished in Europe from the early 17th century to the late 18th century, and this style evolved into an even more flamboyant style called “Rococo” when the 1740’s rolled around.

Streamline Moderne—this is a late type of the Art Deco Era, and it’s sometimes called Art Moderne.  It emerged in the 1930’s and it has emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes it even has nautical elements to it.

This is only a small handful of the great styles that have come about.  What kind of style have you seen?

How do you take a photograph of an item that’s round?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Photography, Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

When you get to selling items online, you will run across a wide variety of items that are different sizes and shapes.

Round items were always a problem when I needed to take photos of them.  I was afraid that they would start rolling around (and eventually fall and break) before I could take the photo.

Because of this, I would have to hold the item and have to take terrible photos.  That is, until I came up with a simple (and very cheap) way to help take the photo.

IMG_2104.JPG

The trick is to put a rubber washer under round item.  I know it sounds silly, but it works.  The washer helps prop up the item to keep it from rolling around, and the center of the washer is open to accommodate for the round surface.

The washer that I have set aside for photographs didn’t cost me much at all—it was a couple of bucks (the good thing about it is that I have used some of the other washers around the house).

shade

The trick works on a wide variety of items, just like the lamp shade in the picture above (you can barely see the washer at the bottom of the photo).

What kinds of tricks like this do you use to help you take photos?

Simple things to remember to help keep the cost of shipping supplies low

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Selling tips, Tips for the beginner, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage!, Wisdom LaneLeave a comment

When you start to sell items on the internet, one of the things that could eat up any profits are shipping costs.  There are plenty of ways to help keep costs low, and here’s a few of them:

Grocery stores like Wal-Mart will set aside some boxes for you if you ask them to.  They will give you a wide variety of sizes so you can pack any number of items.

If you have a paper item (like an ad or even the cover of a record), you can use plastic bags from stores to help keep it from getting wet.  Make sure that you also put a piece of cardboard with it to help it from not being bent.

When you are packing an item, a good substitute for packing peanuts is newspaper.  Make sure that you use plenty of it so that the item you pack with it doesn’t move around and get damaged while being mailed.

This is just a few of them, what kinds of tips have you heard of?

3 simple tips to remember when you sell an item online

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Selling tips, Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

You decided not to long ago to sell some of your items around the house, and some of your item have sold.  What are some simple tips that you need to keep in mind to help things go smoothly?

Tip number 1—when selling items online, make sure you have a scale to help weight items you are shipping.  You don’t have to worry about getting a scale from the post office—you can use a bathroom scale if it registers anything less than a pound (this will help with first class mail).

Tip number 2—make sure that you pack the items you sell as good as you can.  When I pack an item, I will use bubble wrap and packing peanuts to help keep the item I sold from getting broken.  You never know what might happen when the item is being shipped.

Tip number 3—If you are unable to get an item you sell to the Post Office, you can always schedule a pickup with them.  This can be very useful if the weather outside is bad or if you have to get to work (you can tell the post office to come where you work if it’s ok with your boss).

This is just 3 tips to remember when you sell an item.  What kinds of tips have you run across that help you out?

Different names of furniture that you might run across

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Functional items, Furniture, Tips for the beginner, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage!, Vocabulary WordsLeave a comment

There are many different names of a certain furniture item (or a certain part of that piece of furniture) that you will run across.  There will be times that it will literally make your head spin on what the word could mean.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that furniture definitely has its own vocabulary.  This is especially true when you are dealing with items from overseas.  There are many places in Europe that have made furniture, so you will run across words that are from another language.

You never know what you may run across, and here are some of the words that you may scratch your head over:

Pietre Dure—this is decorative work that uses inlaid, semi-precious stones to depict scenes.  These scenes are geometric patterns, floral motifs, farm scenes, and many more.  More often than not, you will see this on a table top.

Lit de repos—this is a day-bed.

Gueridon—this is a small, round table. It was made to support a candlestick or even a candelabrum.  It could almost get away as being called a side table.

Gesso—this is made from a composition material, it’s often made with chalk and parchment.  It’s made in a size that is commonly applied to furniture, picture frames and even mirrors.  This is a base upon which gilding (or even silvering) was applied to.

Coquille—this is a seashell or scallop shape.  The shape will often be seen on the top of a table or chair leg.

This is just a small sample of the vocabulary words that you might hear.  What have you heard?

A little history for the Goudey Baseball cards from 1933

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Beginning to collect, Paper, Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

When 1919 rolled around, Enos Gordon Goudey started a chewing gum company called The Goudey Gum Company.  The company was in business until 1962, and they are known for chewing gum and the baseball cards that they produced.

The company and its gum was so popular that Enos Goudey was called “the penny gum king of America” by William Wrigley Jr. in 1933.

In 1933, the company dove into making baseball cards, and they released a 240-card set.  The set was also called BIG LEAGUE CHEWING GUM, and each pack that was sold came with a stick of gum.

After the set was released, the Goudey Company realized that they did not have a card #106 after collectors sent the company letters complaining that there was no card for that number.

In 1934, Goudey released a card #106, and it featured the retired player Napoleon Lajoie.  In order to get this card, you had to write to the company (they would send you one for a cent).

As you can tell from the photos, the cards had the name of the set at the bottom of the front and a little biography of the player on the back.

You need to be careful when you are out looking for cards for your set.  Since this is a popular set to collect, there are quite a few reprints and fakes of the cards—especially of Napoleon Lajoie, Babe Ruth (Babe was featured on 4 different cards) and even Lou Gehrig just to name a few.

There are many players that are in this set that have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, so a word of caution is to be taken when you are looking at a card.

Which cards have you run across?

What are some of the vintage serving pieces that I may not find on today’s table?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Serving sets, Tips for the beginner, Vocabulary Words2 Comments

Over the years, there are new types of serving dishes that are introduced, and then there are times when a certain piece from a dinner set for the table that may fall out of favor.  What are some of the pieces that have fallen out of favor over the years that may not be on the table of today?

Cheese dish—this is a covered dish meant to store and serve a whole piece of cheese.  The bottom of this piece is a little larger than a butter dish, and you may see a small cutting board in the place of this today.

Cream soup dish—this is a two-handled bowl that comes with its own saucer and is meant to serve bouillon, a soup or even consommé (a clear soup made from a rich stock).  This type of dish could be confused with a sugar dish without the lid.

Aspic servers–these are used to serve aspic, which is a clear jelly that is made from broth. Generally, aspic is used to accent the serving of meat, and it is a lot like cranberry sauce. The aspic server has a curved and sharp end for the cutting and serving of aspic.

This is only a small sampling of what you can find.  What have you run across?

What you need to know when you set up an antique booth

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

You start to look around the house and you notice that you have quite a few things that you have collected that you now want to sell.  You know that the items are too expensive for a garage sale, and you don’t have the time to list the items for sale online.

What do you do now?

A booth in an antique mall or a flea market is a wonderful way to help you make some money and clear out some of those things that you have around the house.  There are some things that you need to know before for jump into renting a booth.

The first thing you need to do is to find the perfect place for you to set up a booth at.  This could be at a place that you love to shop at or even heard of.  The best thing to keep in mind is to see if that place has a pretty good amount of foot traffic going through it.  This will help you have more potential sales.

Another thing you need to know is if the antique mall or flea market requires you to stay a certain amount of time.  It’s rare for this to happen in the area that I live in–you can shut down the booth after just one month if you want to.

More often than not, you will need to pay for your first month’s rent on the booth.  I’ve seen the rent cost anywhere from $35 for a small booth or showcase all the way up to $300 for a large booth.

The place that you want to rent a booth at may charge you a commission on every item you sell.  You need to ask if they do, and even how much the commission is (I’ve seen it around 10% of the selling price of the item).

You might be able to opt out of the commission; the mall might charge you a little more on the rent of the booth to cover this commission.

The mall will require you to have a number—this will help the mall separate out who sold what.  This will be done the day that you set up the booth, but don’t worry—the mall will have a list of what numbers the other dealers have so there is no confusion.

A word of advice—look to see what kind of tags the dealers are using (a piece of tape may not be wanted at the mall).  One thing that I have seen a lot of is a piece of paper cut into a small square tied on with twine or ribbon.

Good luck and lots of sales to you!

What exactly is the ART DECO style?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Styles, Tips for the beginner, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage!Leave a comment

You hear the phrase ART DECO quite a bit in the world of antiques, but what exactly is it?

Art Deco got its start in France just before World War 1, and the style ran from about 1910 to about 1939.

Philips_930
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

People also call Art Deco just Deco, and it’s short for Arts Decoratifs.  It combined several assorted styles—it was influenced by the lines of Cubism, the bright colors of Fauvism (this was a painting style) and even exotic styles from Asia.  Persian, Egypt styles and even Maya art had some influence on the Art Deco style.

club chair
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Its influence could be seen on just about everything—buildings, furniture, jewelry, cars, fashion, trains and even everyday items like toasters.

You can see the style around today—you can see it on buildings like the Chrysler Building in New York.

chrysler building
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

And you can even see it on the Prometheus Statue in Rockefeller Center in New York.

prometheus

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

What are some things to remember when you go shopping for antiques?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Beginning to collect, Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

Whenever you go shopping for antiques, there are always a few things that you need to remember.  The first thing that you need to keep in mind is what kind of budget that you have.  What I do so that I don’t go over my budget is to write down on a piece of paper how much my bill will be.

Another thing to remember is to keep an idea (or even a list) on what you are looking for.  It could be a lamp for your living room, a carburetor for your Indian motorcycle or even a Morgan dollar for your coin collection.  I often look in reference books or on the internet to see how much the item that I am looking for will cost so that I know what to expect to pay.

The next thing that I do is to figure out where I would like to go.  You may have several antique stores, flea markets and even swap meets that are pretty close to home, so you could hit several of them in one day.

The last thing to do is to throw a box or a sack into your car or truck.  It might sound silly, but I have one when I go shopping—you may be at something like a garage sale or even a swap meet and need to pack something in it.

The best rule of thumb of all is to have fun!