In today’s episode, Bex Scott uses her confessed addiction to thrifting to share the top six items that she always seeks out at thrift stores. Bex lives in Canada so the availability of items, and store names, may vary from country to country, but the general categories of vintage items Bex looks for are a great guide. She walks us through what to look for, why, and how to value an item if you do find one.
In today’s episode, Bex Scott uses her confessed addiction to thrifting to share the top six items that she always seeks out at thrift stores. Bex lives in Canada so the availability of items, and store names, may vary from country to country, but the general categories of vintage items Bex looks for are a great guide. She walks us through what to look for, why, and how to value an item if you do find one.
Bex’s list of items she frequents Value Village, Goodwill, and Salvation Army to find wouldn’t, of course, be complete without Pyrex occupying the number one spot. She tells stories of lining up before the store would open to be one of the first inside and she divulges some of the greatest Pyrex finds she’s experienced. Her six top sought-after items after Pyrex are brass, Blue Mountain pottery, cross stitch and crewel patterns, vintage linens, and kids' books. Why does she search for these specific items? Bex tells all in this episode: the why, their collectible value, and some of the pieces and brands to be on the lookout for. Tune in and then share your own top ten list with Bex on Instagram @PyrexWithBex.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Rebecca Scott | Pyrex With Bex:
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Transcript
Bex Scott: [00:00:02] Hey everybody, it's Bex Scott and welcome to the Pyrex with Bex podcast where, you guessed it, I talk about vintage Pyrex, but also all things vintage housewares. I'll take you on my latest thrifting adventures, talk about reselling, chat with other enthusiasts about their collections, and learn about a bunch of really awesome items from the past. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love listening to podcasts so you don't miss a beat.
Bex Scott: [00:00:30] Hey, everybody, this is Bex Scott and you are listening to the Pyrex with Bex podcast. Today. I wanted to go through the top six items that I always pick up at the thrift store if the price is right. That is the most important part of this. If the price is right for you to resell, if you're a reseller, or if it's right to you as a collector. So for those of you who know me, I am addicted to thrifting. And I realized that I had an actual addiction this year when I took all of January off of thrifting and buying anything vintage, and it was so difficult for me, I had no idea it would be that hard. But it really brought to light the fact that I love going to Value Village. I love going to Goodwill. And it is a huge part of my life. It's become a hobby, something that I like to do when I'm feeling stressed, and it's really helped me to connect with an amazing group of people on Instagram and whatnot, and it's just something that's really fun to do.
Bex Scott: [00:01:41] So when I go to the thrift store, I usually have a few things in mind that I'm always on the lookout for. And for those of you who are new to thrifting or new to reselling, I thought I would bring up these six things so that maybe you could start taking a look when you go to Value Village, Goodwill, Salvation Army. And I'm located in Canada so what I'm finding might be a bit different than what you're finding in the States or different parts of the world, and I would love to know what your top ten items are as well. So feel free to find me on Instagram @PyrexWithBex to let me know your opinion of what I'm going to go through in this podcast episode, and what you would add or maybe take out from what I'm going to mention, because price has a huge impact on what you pick up when you go out thrifting. If you're a collector, that price may have a lot higher of a ceiling, because you'll pay a lot more to have that piece in your collection. I know I'm like that with Pyrex. If there's a piece that I absolutely need to have and I find it at the thrift store and it is a bit higher than I would usually pay, especially if I'm going to be reselling it. I don't hesitate to invest that money in it. But if I'm looking to make some profit off of it, then I'm looking for a lot lower of a cost.
Bex Scott: [00:03:15] So let's get into it. The first item that I have on my list is obviously Pyrex. I would be feeling pretty weird if I didn't have Pyrex on this list. Unfortunately, it's becoming harder and harder to find good Pyrex in the thrift stores, and I'm sure all of you know this. It's the same across the board with all of the collectors that I talk to, and those of you who have been collecting for quite a long time, not myself, you have mentioned to me how easy or how much easier it used to be, even 5 or 6 years ago, to find good pieces at the thrift store. So before we had our daughter, I would wake up early a couple of times a week to go to Value Village and Goodwill. Those are the ones in the city that I lived in that I like to hit up, and I would line up before it opened, so I'd be there super early. It was cold a lot of the time. I was still going in the winter. And this was the only way that I could find good Pyrex at the thrift stores, and it was definitely worth it for me. It was pretty funny because the same people lined up every single morning, there were about 15 or 20 of us, and I always try to be maybe 4th or 5th in the line. Any earlier than that and I was not awake enough to be out there. But you would start to recognize the people who were in line and start chatting with them, and you'd get to know them. And there was always a teacup lady. She was always ahead of me. There was always a video game and book guy. And then you had your handful of what I like to call vintage generalists like myself. And those ones were my main competition. You'd see the doors open and everybody would pile in all at the same time, and then kind of disperse into the store. And if you were fast enough, you could grab a cart. But sometimes there wasn't enough time because people were in it to win it, and you'd all rush towards the same shelf and kind of scan the shelves that you pass to see if there's anything good on your way back, and you would hope that you got there first. And some of the best finds that I've had at Value Village and the Salvation Army have been an almost full set of the Friendship Cinderella bowls. The 441 was dishwasher damaged, but it was, the rest of it was in amazing condition. I found a charcoal Snowflake divided dish, a Friendship divided dish, a full primary set. I found a few full primary sets at the thrift store. And a bunch of other just random, little less desirable pieces here and there.
Bex Scott: [00:06:01] Something that I see all the time is the JAJ Cherry Blossom, and those ones I always leave behind. When I first started reselling, I would pick them up, but they are so common now that they've kind of lost their appeal to me. Those are the ones that I would buy if I needed something to cook in, that I wasn't going to put into my collection or my display, or if I wanted to gift somebody something. I've heard that people, they make their friends and their family casseroles, and they gift them the dish that it comes in and I think that's a really great idea to do with some of these less desirable, more commonly found casserole and pieces of dishware.
Bex Scott: [00:06:46] Next up is brass, and I only pick up brass if the price is right. And depending on what it is, that price is usually $7 or under for me. And my favorite have always been the animals, especially deer. Our baby's nursery was full of deer. I even put some brass deer in there. And I know I always mention this on my podcast, but my husband despises brass and I try not to put it around the house. I love it at Christmas. I've purchased huge brass deer for Christmas decorations, and I've also found large seagull wall hangings, a massive brass easel, a set of lounging frogs. The frogs were probably top of my list for my favorite. I like to call them the sexy frogs because they're both lying on their side with their arms under their head, lounging like they're striking a pose on a beach. And I've been pretty lucky as well with brass at online auctions. Just this past week, I won a box of 11 pieces for $17, which I'm pretty excited about because the Whatnot Canadian group of resellers that I'm a part of, we're thinking of having a brass, glass and wood seller train coming up, and I'm hoping to join that one to sell a bunch of brass and glass goodies. So most antique brass items are solid brass, and something that I've learned, a way of identifying solid brass pieces is by using a magnet. And if you feel a pull when you put the magnet up to it, then the item is brass plated and not solid brass. And a lot of the vintage or antique brass pieces, they don't have the display stamps or maker's marks to depict the place and year of manufacturing, so that's not as common. So usually if they do, you'll know that they are more modern pieces and not the antique or vintage brass. So any brass that I pick up now I don't usually hold onto. It's listed for sale on Marketplace or in one of my Whatnot shows. So if you're a reseller or looking to get into reselling, brass is definitely a no-brainer if you're able to find it for a decent price. So always keep your eye on that price tag.
Bex Scott: [00:09:08] Next up we have the Canadian favorite Blue Mountain pottery. So I have sold a large amount of Blue Mountain pottery over the years, especially animals; elephants, deer, dogs, and then other common objects like vases, ashtrays, candy dishes. And it's actually a pretty hot seller with Americans right now. A lot of my fellow Whatnot sellers, they sell Blue Mountain pottery online in their auctions and their live shows, and it does really well. So word to the wise, though, when you find it at a thrift store, check every single inch of it because it is so commonly chipped. I've gotten overly excited way too many times and haven't realized that there was a chip or 2 or 5 until I got home. I just was so excited to have found a piece. And then I get home and I'm super disappointed and there's not much you can do with it at that point except keep it in your collection or, I guess, say goodbye to it. So I wanted to give you guys a bit of information about Blue Mountain Pottery, because I've known about it for quite a while, but I've never really dug into the backstory or its beginnings.
Bex Scott: [00:10:22] So it was founded in Collingwood in Ontario, Canada in the early 1950s, and this is all information that I've found from my good old friend Worthpoint. The company initially bought ceramic blanks and decorated them with ski motifs, which I think is pretty cool. Soon the founders produced and sold their creations. Before long, the company was successful and exported globally, including to the United States, Europe and Australia. I'd love to know how many pieces or how prevalent it is in the United States, because I haven't heard of it much outside of Canada. So if you are a US or European or even Australian collector, let me know on my Instagram. So the pottery began in a barn at Blue Mountain Ski Resort. After they noticed the rich red clay being turned over to create new ski trails, they used it to make pottery to sell in the resort's gift shop. They decorated and glazed the products, primarily vases, ashtrays, bowls, and stylized animal figures. Moving to a factory allowed the business to manufacture tea and coffee sets, tableware, flower pots, decorative ware, and other sculpted animals and figurines. It became well known for its trademarked reflowing, or drip glazing technique that mimicked Blue Mountains colors during the summer. That's something that I also didn't know. I thought it was just a cool technique that they used with the kind of different glazes and flowy look, but it's really awesome to know that it was based off of the mountain's colors. After hand-applying one lighter and one darker glaze on a piece, the colors ran together during the firing process and resulted in mixed hue streaks. The company is best known for using this glaze to make deep green, almost emerald pieces. That's mostly what I've found when I go thrifting. Beginning in the 1960s, the company also produced other colors, including Harvest Gold, Cobalt Blue, Slate Red, Mocha, and Pewter. And I have to say that I think the red is my favorite. The color is so vibrant and it's just beautiful. So they designed many Blue Mountain pottery molds, including its frond vases, bookends, and jugs. They created the Angelfish figurine in the mid 1950s. If you haven't seen the Angelfish, look it up because it's also very beautiful and it's one of the potteries' most famous pieces, beloved by collectors. In the late 1980s, they made a more realistic version of the design called Tropical Fish. Studio potter Dominic Stazioni created hand-thrown vases, bowls, serving ware, and other free-form pieces for the company during the 1960s and 1970s. Designer David Bennett designed the Romar and Robert Wilson Collections, two animal figurine lines named after the company's later owner, Robert Wilson Blair. Rising production costs and increased overseas competition caused the factory to close in 2004.
Bex Scott: [00:13:27] Next up, I have cross stitch and crewel patterns. And crewel is something that I've recently gotten into. And I have to say, if you have the patience, it is a super rewarding hobby and also great for reselling. If you're able to find complete kits with a pattern and thread, you're definitely set. The kits they make now, they're pretty, but I find that the vintage ones, they have so much more character and color, depth, and just personality, so they're definitely worth finding if you can. A few of the brands to keep an eye out for are Dimensions, Sunset Stitchery, Paragon, and Jiffy Stitchery. And right now I'm doing a Paragon winter scene. It's massive so it's gonna take me probably like the whole year. But it is so fun and relaxing as long as you have that patience. Anything floral, mushroom, or with cute little animals is also a hit right now. And another thing that I do is I buy complete and framed pieces for resale, and I find that they sell really well because people love adding them to their collage walls in their house. Or a lot of people have a sentimental attachment to a certain pattern. I know that growing up my grandma had, I believe it was crewel because I came across the pattern for it actually on Facebook Marketplace the other day, and it was the Lord's Prayer, and it had flowers all around it like a frame, and that one really stood out in my mind. So I think for a lot of people, they remember their grandparents or their parents having them in their house, and it's nice to be able to recreate them or to have them in their home.
Bex Scott: [00:15:14] Number five on my list is sheets and bedding. So anything linens. Before collecting and reselling vintage, I'm not going to lie, buying used bedding and sheets did not seem that appealing to me. But now that I've kind of gotten over that fear, I know it's silly, I'm all over finding them. There are some pretty amazing floral print sheets and bedding sets you can snag in the linen section of the thrift store, and I typically look for flat sheets and pillowcases, as they're usually pretty reasonably priced, and I find it easier to look for damage or stains or rips on those pieces than some of the fitted sheets and larger items. Some of my favorite brands are Wabasso, Burlington, Elegance, and Picot. If I pronounced any of those wrong, which I probably did, I apologize to everybody. One of the vintage resellers that I met through Whatnot, she actually purchased a Wabasso flat sheet from me and used it as wallpaper in her new shop, which was a really cool idea. It looked amazing. It looked like it had been painted on the wall. So if anybody has old vintage sheets out there and you're looking to just spruce up a wall in your office or in your room, check out some old linens because it's such a great idea.
Bex Scott: [00:16:35] Okay. And last on my list I have vintage kids books. And I have always been a huge bookworm, especially when I was younger. I would go to the library and spend hours picking out books with my mom. Looking through all the kids books at the thrift store has brought back a ton of memories for me, especially when I find the same ones that I read when I was growing up and when I was little. And I usually find that the vintage books are easy to pick out. They tend to have hard covers, they have nicely textured covers, and they seem to use a different palette of colors in their illustrations and the covers of the books. So I tend to pick up anything with beautifully illustrated pages, because I've discovered that many collectors like to make craft projects out of the images. So this would fall under the ephemera category, which I'm still learning about. My latest addiction is actually a vintage greeting card, so I'll probably do an episode coming up about that, but I find that I have trouble cutting pages out of books unless they're already pretty damaged. But I have seen some awesome craft projects come out of books lately. And I obviously gravitate to the vintage Little Golden Books. But after doing some research on what to keep an eye out for, I discovered there are a bunch of other titles that are extremely hard to find, like needle in a haystack hard to find. They're first editions, they're special copies, and they're worth thousands and thousands of dollars. But I thought it was kind of fun to learn about them and to, you never know, keep an eye out for maybe some of these books.
Bex Scott: [00:18:20] So the first one is The Hobbit, the first 1500 first edition copies published by Allen and Unwin in the UK on September 21st of 1937, are the ones that you want to be looking for. Number two, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The current hot copy is Salvador Dali's illustrated limited edition. There are only 2500 copies from 1969. Three, Where the Wild Things Are. I loved this book growing up, and the movie was pretty good as well. The copy defined is the 1963 first edition published by Harper and Row. Number four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. This was another favorite when I was growing up, and the one that you're going to look for is the 1964 first edition published by Knopf. It has been signed by Dahl and has a pristine dust jacket. Good luck finding that one. And number five is The Velveteen Rabbit. And this one you want is the 1922 William Nicholson copy. And I just recently read The Velveteen Rabbit for the first time to my daughter, and it is a very cute story.
Bex Scott: [00:19:40] So I hope you enjoyed these six items that I always pick up at the thrift if the price is right. And I'd love to hear from you guys on my Instagram at Pyrex with Bex. Let me know what you always put into your cart at the thrift store. If you agree with what I've said, if you disagree, and what you would add to my list. Thanks so much everybody!
Bex Scott: [00:00:02] Hey everybody, it's Bex Scott and welcome to the Pyrex with Bex podcast where, you guessed it, I talk about vintage Pyrex, but also all things vintage housewares. I'll take you on my latest thrifting adventures, talk about reselling, chat with other enthusiasts about their collections, and learn about a bunch of really awesome items from the past. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love listening to podcasts so you don't miss a beat.
Bex Scott: [00:00:30] Hey, everybody, this is Bex Scott and you are listening to the Pyrex with Bex podcast. Today. I wanted to go through the top six items that I always pick up at the thrift store if the price is right. That is the most important part of this. If the price is right for you to resell, if you're a reseller, or if it's right to you as a collector. So for those of you who know me, I am addicted to thrifting. And I realized that I had an actual addiction this year when I took all of January off of thrifting and buying anything vintage, and it was so difficult for me, I had no idea it would be that hard. But it really brought to light the fact that I love going to Value Village. I love going to Goodwill. And it is a huge part of my life. It's become a hobby, something that I like to do when I'm feeling stressed, and it's really helped me to connect with an amazing group of people on Instagram and whatnot, and it's just something that's really fun to do.
Bex Scott: [00:01:41] So when I go to the thrift store, I usually have a few things in mind that I'm always on the lookout for. And for those of you who are new to thrifting or new to reselling, I thought I would bring up these six things so that maybe you could start taking a look when you go to Value Village, Goodwill, Salvation Army. And I'm located in Canada so what I'm finding might be a bit different than what you're finding in the States or different parts of the world, and I would love to know what your top ten items are as well. So feel free to find me on Instagram @PyrexWithBex to let me know your opinion of what I'm going to go through in this podcast episode, and what you would add or maybe take out from what I'm going to mention, because price has a huge impact on what you pick up when you go out thrifting. If you're a collector, that price may have a lot higher of a ceiling, because you'll pay a lot more to have that piece in your collection. I know I'm like that with Pyrex. If there's a piece that I absolutely need to have and I find it at the thrift store and it is a bit higher than I would usually pay, especially if I'm going to be reselling it. I don't hesitate to invest that money in it. But if I'm looking to make some profit off of it, then I'm looking for a lot lower of a cost.
Bex Scott: [00:03:15] So let's get into it. The first item that I have on my list is obviously Pyrex. I would be feeling pretty weird if I didn't have Pyrex on this list. Unfortunately, it's becoming harder and harder to find good Pyrex in the thrift stores, and I'm sure all of you know this. It's the same across the board with all of the collectors that I talk to, and those of you who have been collecting for quite a long time, not myself, you have mentioned to me how easy or how much easier it used to be, even 5 or 6 years ago, to find good pieces at the thrift store. So before we had our daughter, I would wake up early a couple of times a week to go to Value Village and Goodwill. Those are the ones in the city that I lived in that I like to hit up, and I would line up before it opened, so I'd be there super early. It was cold a lot of the time. I was still going in the winter. And this was the only way that I could find good Pyrex at the thrift stores, and it was definitely worth it for me. It was pretty funny because the same people lined up every single morning, there were about 15 or 20 of us, and I always try to be maybe 4th or 5th in the line. Any earlier than that and I was not awake enough to be out there. But you would start to recognize the people who were in line and start chatting with them, and you'd get to know them. And there was always a teacup lady. She was always ahead of me. There was always a video game and book guy. And then you had your handful of what I like to call vintage generalists like myself. And those ones were my main competition. You'd see the doors open and everybody would pile in all at the same time, and then kind of disperse into the store. And if you were fast enough, you could grab a cart. But sometimes there wasn't enough time because people were in it to win it, and you'd all rush towards the same shelf and kind of scan the shelves that you pass to see if there's anything good on your way back, and you would hope that you got there first. And some of the best finds that I've had at Value Village and the Salvation Army have been an almost full set of the Friendship Cinderella bowls. The 441 was dishwasher damaged, but it was, the rest of it was in amazing condition. I found a charcoal Snowflake divided dish, a Friendship divided dish, a full primary set. I found a few full primary sets at the thrift store. And a bunch of other just random, little less desirable pieces here and there.
Bex Scott: [00:06:01] Something that I see all the time is the JAJ Cherry Blossom, and those ones I always leave behind. When I first started reselling, I would pick them up, but they are so common now that they've kind of lost their appeal to me. Those are the ones that I would buy if I needed something to cook in, that I wasn't going to put into my collection or my display, or if I wanted to gift somebody something. I've heard that people, they make their friends and their family casseroles, and they gift them the dish that it comes in and I think that's a really great idea to do with some of these less desirable, more commonly found casserole and pieces of dishware.
Bex Scott: [00:06:46] Next up is brass, and I only pick up brass if the price is right. And depending on what it is, that price is usually $7 or under for me. And my favorite have always been the animals, especially deer. Our baby's nursery was full of deer. I even put some brass deer in there. And I know I always mention this on my podcast, but my husband despises brass and I try not to put it around the house. I love it at Christmas. I've purchased huge brass deer for Christmas decorations, and I've also found large seagull wall hangings, a massive brass easel, a set of lounging frogs. The frogs were probably top of my list for my favorite. I like to call them the sexy frogs because they're both lying on their side with their arms under their head, lounging like they're striking a pose on a beach. And I've been pretty lucky as well with brass at online auctions. Just this past week, I won a box of 11 pieces for $17, which I'm pretty excited about because the Whatnot Canadian group of resellers that I'm a part of, we're thinking of having a brass, glass and wood seller train coming up, and I'm hoping to join that one to sell a bunch of brass and glass goodies. So most antique brass items are solid brass, and something that I've learned, a way of identifying solid brass pieces is by using a magnet. And if you feel a pull when you put the magnet up to it, then the item is brass plated and not solid brass. And a lot of the vintage or antique brass pieces, they don't have the display stamps or maker's marks to depict the place and year of manufacturing, so that's not as common. So usually if they do, you'll know that they are more modern pieces and not the antique or vintage brass. So any brass that I pick up now I don't usually hold onto. It's listed for sale on Marketplace or in one of my Whatnot shows. So if you're a reseller or looking to get into reselling, brass is definitely a no-brainer if you're able to find it for a decent price. So always keep your eye on that price tag.
Bex Scott: [00:09:08] Next up we have the Canadian favorite Blue Mountain pottery. So I have sold a large amount of Blue Mountain pottery over the years, especially animals; elephants, deer, dogs, and then other common objects like vases, ashtrays, candy dishes. And it's actually a pretty hot seller with Americans right now. A lot of my fellow Whatnot sellers, they sell Blue Mountain pottery online in their auctions and their live shows, and it does really well. So word to the wise, though, when you find it at a thrift store, check every single inch of it because it is so commonly chipped. I've gotten overly excited way too many times and haven't realized that there was a chip or 2 or 5 until I got home. I just was so excited to have found a piece. And then I get home and I'm super disappointed and there's not much you can do with it at that point except keep it in your collection or, I guess, say goodbye to it. So I wanted to give you guys a bit of information about Blue Mountain Pottery, because I've known about it for quite a while, but I've never really dug into the backstory or its beginnings.
Bex Scott: [00:10:22] So it was founded in Collingwood in Ontario, Canada in the early 1950s, and this is all information that I've found from my good old friend Worthpoint. The company initially bought ceramic blanks and decorated them with ski motifs, which I think is pretty cool. Soon the founders produced and sold their creations. Before long, the company was successful and exported globally, including to the United States, Europe and Australia. I'd love to know how many pieces or how prevalent it is in the United States, because I haven't heard of it much outside of Canada. So if you are a US or European or even Australian collector, let me know on my Instagram. So the pottery began in a barn at Blue Mountain Ski Resort. After they noticed the rich red clay being turned over to create new ski trails, they used it to make pottery to sell in the resort's gift shop. They decorated and glazed the products, primarily vases, ashtrays, bowls, and stylized animal figures. Moving to a factory allowed the business to manufacture tea and coffee sets, tableware, flower pots, decorative ware, and other sculpted animals and figurines. It became well known for its trademarked reflowing, or drip glazing technique that mimicked Blue Mountains colors during the summer. That's something that I also didn't know. I thought it was just a cool technique that they used with the kind of different glazes and flowy look, but it's really awesome to know that it was based off of the mountain's colors. After hand-applying one lighter and one darker glaze on a piece, the colors ran together during the firing process and resulted in mixed hue streaks. The company is best known for using this glaze to make deep green, almost emerald pieces. That's mostly what I've found when I go thrifting. Beginning in the 1960s, the company also produced other colors, including Harvest Gold, Cobalt Blue, Slate Red, Mocha, and Pewter. And I have to say that I think the red is my favorite. The color is so vibrant and it's just beautiful. So they designed many Blue Mountain pottery molds, including its frond vases, bookends, and jugs. They created the Angelfish figurine in the mid 1950s. If you haven't seen the Angelfish, look it up because it's also very beautiful and it's one of the potteries' most famous pieces, beloved by collectors. In the late 1980s, they made a more realistic version of the design called Tropical Fish. Studio potter Dominic Stazioni created hand-thrown vases, bowls, serving ware, and other free-form pieces for the company during the 1960s and 1970s. Designer David Bennett designed the Romar and Robert Wilson Collections, two animal figurine lines named after the company's later owner, Robert Wilson Blair. Rising production costs and increased overseas competition caused the factory to close in 2004.
Bex Scott: [00:13:27] Next up, I have cross stitch and crewel patterns. And crewel is something that I've recently gotten into. And I have to say, if you have the patience, it is a super rewarding hobby and also great for reselling. If you're able to find complete kits with a pattern and thread, you're definitely set. The kits they make now, they're pretty, but I find that the vintage ones, they have so much more character and color, depth, and just personality, so they're definitely worth finding if you can. A few of the brands to keep an eye out for are Dimensions, Sunset Stitchery, Paragon, and Jiffy Stitchery. And right now I'm doing a Paragon winter scene. It's massive so it's gonna take me probably like the whole year. But it is so fun and relaxing as long as you have that patience. Anything floral, mushroom, or with cute little animals is also a hit right now. And another thing that I do is I buy complete and framed pieces for resale, and I find that they sell really well because people love adding them to their collage walls in their house. Or a lot of people have a sentimental attachment to a certain pattern. I know that growing up my grandma had, I believe it was crewel because I came across the pattern for it actually on Facebook Marketplace the other day, and it was the Lord's Prayer, and it had flowers all around it like a frame, and that one really stood out in my mind. So I think for a lot of people, they remember their grandparents or their parents having them in their house, and it's nice to be able to recreate them or to have them in their home.
Bex Scott: [00:15:14] Number five on my list is sheets and bedding. So anything linens. Before collecting and reselling vintage, I'm not going to lie, buying used bedding and sheets did not seem that appealing to me. But now that I've kind of gotten over that fear, I know it's silly, I'm all over finding them. There are some pretty amazing floral print sheets and bedding sets you can snag in the linen section of the thrift store, and I typically look for flat sheets and pillowcases, as they're usually pretty reasonably priced, and I find it easier to look for damage or stains or rips on those pieces than some of the fitted sheets and larger items. Some of my favorite brands are Wabasso, Burlington, Elegance, and Picot. If I pronounced any of those wrong, which I probably did, I apologize to everybody. One of the vintage resellers that I met through Whatnot, she actually purchased a Wabasso flat sheet from me and used it as wallpaper in her new shop, which was a really cool idea. It looked amazing. It looked like it had been painted on the wall. So if anybody has old vintage sheets out there and you're looking to just spruce up a wall in your office or in your room, check out some old linens because it's such a great idea.
Bex Scott: [00:16:35] Okay. And last on my list I have vintage kids books. And I have always been a huge bookworm, especially when I was younger. I would go to the library and spend hours picking out books with my mom. Looking through all the kids books at the thrift store has brought back a ton of memories for me, especially when I find the same ones that I read when I was growing up and when I was little. And I usually find that the vintage books are easy to pick out. They tend to have hard covers, they have nicely textured covers, and they seem to use a different palette of colors in their illustrations and the covers of the books. So I tend to pick up anything with beautifully illustrated pages, because I've discovered that many collectors like to make craft projects out of the images. So this would fall under the ephemera category, which I'm still learning about. My latest addiction is actually a vintage greeting card, so I'll probably do an episode coming up about that, but I find that I have trouble cutting pages out of books unless they're already pretty damaged. But I have seen some awesome craft projects come out of books lately. And I obviously gravitate to the vintage Little Golden Books. But after doing some research on what to keep an eye out for, I discovered there are a bunch of other titles that are extremely hard to find, like needle in a haystack hard to find. They're first editions, they're special copies, and they're worth thousands and thousands of dollars. But I thought it was kind of fun to learn about them and to, you never know, keep an eye out for maybe some of these books.
Bex Scott: [00:18:20] So the first one is The Hobbit, the first 1500 first edition copies published by Allen and Unwin in the UK on September 21st of 1937, are the ones that you want to be looking for. Number two, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The current hot copy is Salvador Dali's illustrated limited edition. There are only 2500 copies from 1969. Three, Where the Wild Things Are. I loved this book growing up, and the movie was pretty good as well. The copy defined is the 1963 first edition published by Harper and Row. Number four, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. This was another favorite when I was growing up, and the one that you're going to look for is the 1964 first edition published by Knopf. It has been signed by Dahl and has a pristine dust jacket. Good luck finding that one. And number five is The Velveteen Rabbit. And this one you want is the 1922 William Nicholson copy. And I just recently read The Velveteen Rabbit for the first time to my daughter, and it is a very cute story.
Bex Scott: [00:19:40] So I hope you enjoyed these six items that I always pick up at the thrift if the price is right. And I'd love to hear from you guys on my Instagram at Pyrex with Bex. Let me know what you always put into your cart at the thrift store. If you agree with what I've said, if you disagree, and what you would add to my list. Thanks so much everybody!
