Dig This Treasure!

I briefly mentioned a purchase I made at this sale, but promised a full rundown.  So here it is…

If you remember, I had planned to return to this sale on its last day and hopefully score some deals on Herend porcelain.  When I saw that the Herend was all sold, I had to come up with a new plan.  I was prepared to spend around $200 on Herend, so I figured, what the hell, might as well take a chance on something else.  Except I didn’t want to take a $200 risk on something non-Herend…

I ended up taking a $90 risk on this piece of Moorcroft pottery:

The photos don’t even do this justice.  It is handpainted and crazy beautiful.  The shiny glaze makes it look extra fancy.

Before this sale I had never even heard of Moorcroft pottery.  I did some brief research on it after the first day when Sarah and I visited the sale.  From what I can gather, Moorcroft started in England around the turn of the century.  Early pieces are crazy valuable because they are made by the founder William Moorcroft.  Later pieces are made by William’s son Walter and are still collectible, just not as pricey.  From what I can tell, Moorcroft is still made today.

Here’s what we’re dealing with people:

That’s some expensive-ass pottery.  $90 certainly seemed like a good investment.

I decided to buy this particular piece because it was the pomegranate design and I read that that style was highly desirable.  I also bought this piece because as I was looking at it, this dude started hovering near me.  He was staring at the bowl like it was a giant glass of water and he was in the Sahara.  Finally he said to me, “Are you going to buy that?"  I said I wasn’t sure and he asked to look at the bowl.  He explained that he was a Moorcroft collector and this was an excellent piece except that it looked like it had been repaired.  Really?  There were absolutely NO signs of this.  Not one line or discoloration that suggested the piece had ever been chipped or cracked. 

I walked around for awhile with the bowl and saw the guy staring at me and following me.  Then another guy, who had seen our interaction, came up and said, "I hope you know that that guy wants you to put that down.  He’s trying to convince you not to buy it so that he can."  So that was the final straw.  Of course, when you know someone wants something you have, it makes you want it more.

I did actually start to fall more and more in love with this bowl and even considered keeping it.  It was like a repeat of Little Dummy, where I decided I might be too in love with something to sell it, even though I knew I was probably going to make a lot of money.

In the end, I did sell the bowl, and I did make money:

Turns out though that the bowl might have once had a lid, which was now missing.  Two separate people messaged me to say that.  If it had a lid, the piece would have sold for twice as much.  Whomp whomp.

Overall though, still a good investment and return.  So keep an eye out everyone!

-Erin

On Friday, Sarah and I were eager to hit a sale in Farmington Hills because it had a bunch of Herend fishnet animals.  Ok, so I was more excited than Sarah, but she still seemed interested in the other items at the sale.  Everything in the photos looked high-end and collectible.  The sale was run by the same people who put on that amazing folk art sale where we scored some mega deals.

Sure enough, the person who owned this house had expensive taste.

That lamp was so badass, but it was priced $395 :(

As for the Herend I mentioned earlier, I didn’t buy any because it was all priced pretty close to retail.  I decided to return to this sale on Sunday when they were discounting.  Unfortunately by then someone had already scooped up all of the fishnet pieces!  That’s what I get for singing the praises of Herend on this blog!  Now everyone loves it.  Sheesh!

I did buy one piece of non-fishnet Herend.  This tiny rabbit box for $20:

I know, that is about the most precious thing you have ever seen.

One more story about this sale is that Sarah got busted by the police on our way home.  She made a questionable pass through a yellow/red light and a cop car started following us.  He didn’t put on his lights right away so Sarah and I were living in terror for a good couple minutes. 

Finally, the lights and sirens went on and Sarah and I sat in scared silence as we waited for the cops to approach.  I thought about asking Sarah what she was going to say to the cop, but I realized she was silently freaking out so I figured it best to just keep my mouth shut.  I’m sure she appreciated that gesture.

Then the weirdest thing happened and this young, cool dude cop strolled up and said all nonchalantly, “Watch those yellow lights ok?"  And then he started to walk away!  Sarah was like, "Do you want to see my stuff?” (meaning her license, etc.)  He said, “No, I already know who you are.”

So then the BEST thing happened.  I said really loudly and shocked to Sarah, “YOU KNOW HIM?!?!"  In my brain, they were like high school buddies or something.  Sarah pointed out that I was in fact the dumbest person of all time and that the cop simply meant he had already run her license plate and knew her name and info.

DUH.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin covered this sale expertly. The only thing I’ll add here is… yes, these people are very nice and get lots of very nice high end sales. But sometimes I want to take items up to them and say, 

For example: 

Yo, dawg. A full sheet set should cost about $10 at an estate sale. FORTY FIVE DOLLARS? And we all know that Style&co. is the cheapo Macy’s brand. It’s not like those are some high quality Calvin Klein sheets. The things that are most offensively overpriced at their sales are things like this! Everyday items that do not need to be marked up a billion dollars. 

I did buy one item at this sale. A very cute, super fat "art glass” bunny (that’s what it said on the tag.) It was marked $20 which is a little steep for a brandless bunny but it’s still pretty unique and cool. 

She fits right in among all of the other bunnies that live in our dining room. 

And thank god that officer was so awesome! I would have totally deserved that ticket because the light was right at the questionable level. And thank god ALSO that Erin made the wise choice to keep her mouth shut during the whole transaction (until the very end when she thought we were long lost homies)… it’s a true miracle that she didn’t say anything else. 

Ev didn’t come with us on our adventure, and when we got back, it looked as if he was pretty pleased with that decision. 

Also, I feel sad that Erin didn’t get any of her fishnet pieces. That baby bear was adorable.