Oh Fun!

I've thought about this for some time and today took the leap...  I just joined The Vintage Rising

The website is "dedicated to the Re-Purposing of Vintage or Antique items that might have otherwise been thrown away or discarded.  Our goal is to breath New Life back into items that have either been damaged beyond repair or just to give an outdated object a new purpose."  Thanks Lora for another great web page!

Pieces of the past have been my passion forever - whether they are in whole or in little parts!  Over 30 banana boxes full will attest to that!  My family looks at "mom's stuff" with strange eyes, but I see it all as amazing potential possibilities yet to come!   Whether I design something or you design something, it doesn't matter.  It's just my little way to keep the planet rolling green and recycling yet once again!

Stay tuned!  Me thinks there might be a need for a whole new Etsy shop to cover all this.  But for now, I'll leave it in the main store in the Trim Parts Beads Fabric department.

Cyber Shopping

If you are like me, you are already tired of complicated holiday sales promotions!  I am really old school in this department and just can't muster up all the whoop-la necessary to "create an event" for each specialty that comes along.   So my dear friends, here's the special you'll always get from me when shopping online:

• Great products at great prices everyday.  No up then down then up marking.
• Any jewelry items $20 or more will be mailed in a gift presentation box
• Appropriate shipping options and no padding.
• Super quick service and shipping - most of my orders from Etsy or eBay ship on the same day or within 24 hrs max of received payment
• Great packaging for secure arrival to you
• Full satisfaction guaranteed.  I'm thankful for the customers who shop with me!

You'll always be talking to the boss ... and she is really quite flexible! ;) 

That's the way we do it in small business operations!

Small Business Saturday

One Woman...

     One Dream ...

         Yes - That's Small Business USA!

Having a main street store for many years was fun and challenging.  I encourage everyone to support those small businesses on your Main St. today and everyday.

And then remember for favorite small business operations that are now online thanks to great sites like Etsy.  The dream remains alive ... and as always challenging!

Nov 8 Go Vote

I walked the streets for you......

 I talked the talk for you .......

I fought the fight for you and won ..........

Now Go Vote Today!

Happy Halloween!

from our Sunday bulletin at Christ Church Unity of Rochester NY.

Shifting Gears

A long time ago, back in the mid 1970s I got interested in the auction scene around our area.  Not really sure why because I wasn't collecting anything particular.  But summer auctions in western NY in the 70s were an entertainment venue for sure!  Hot dogs, coffee, sometimes soup or chili (especially good in fall) filled the day along with farmhouse treasure after treasure.  I was learning something new every minute.  I know my husband had a megga heart palpitation when I came home with a van literally stuffed full of green house clay pots because I bought "the contents of a shed" at one local farm.  Those pots started my very first business venture, called Pots & Knots,  for macrame plant hangers!

Fast forward and Another Time came into being in 1978 as an antiques business!  (That craft market was a tough sell!) Co-ops were the order of the day and I joined a local one in an old grain mill.  I can still taste the grain dust we battled with every time the shops opened for the weekend! Just like with internet malls today, every time a new co-op opened, everyone thought "that was the place to be" for the best antiques sales! Boy did I move around!

Like all good antique dealers, flea markets and shows were a must and boy did I do my share! Besides running shops and raising young children, I did 13-15 antique shows a year at my peak!  My kids still lovingly remember soup and sandwich weekends with Dad!  (He still makes a killer pot of soup!

 

Starting in 1993 I went into the sole proprietor store owner stage!  4 stores in 15 years and all within 10 miles of each other!  Next life I may just hire myself out as a Mover!

Last but not least..... ??  Hey, ya never know!

 These stores will forever remain precious in my heart.  Talk about maximum output in creativity, education and endurance!  Being a single store owner is the best education I ever could have given myself.  The numbers of degrees I earned far outweigh anything I could have earned through the college route!  Talk about student loans!  I have so many skills to play with it's mind boggling.  Work never gets dull.

Also in 1998 I joined into the wild and wooly eBay scene!   Wow - a whole nuther' world and a whole new adventure in antiquing and sales.  It was that venture that made my decision to close down the main street store venture in 2008.  Shortly after though I left eBay sellling around 2010 to try the online store venue.  The clientele truly has become worldwide.  Oh my how "my little corporate" entity has grown!  Same hats to wear but definitely a different desk to sit at and manage from.  But the creativity and education remain, so onward I go.  My passion is fulfilled.  Sometimes I think about retirement, but not too often!

And bottom line ...  recently I went to some good old barn auctions again because I missed all that great entertainment and surprise!  Still some great soups and chili to be had too!  Definitely hot coffee flows.

Last but not least, you guessed it, I decided to give eBay a whirl again.  If I didn't some other young lady might wind up buying "the contents of a shed" at my own estate auction some day! LOL  Amazing how the circles just keep on a keepin' on!

Once Upon a Lady's Travels

Some of the jewelry I featured below came from one estate.  The woman was known to travel and she collected jewelry where ever she went.  Her tastes range from very traditional to sleekly modernist abstract designs.I thought it would be fun to show you the kinds of travel she visited by putting together one photo album of some of her jewels.  I now have it posted on my Facebook fan page.  Please stop by ... and I hope you "Like" the page while you are there!

Here I go again...

Feels like it's a time to claim "the devil made me do it"...LOL.  But actually I have been drawn to head back to the auction world for a while.  So tonight I listed a few pieces of older glassware and Blue Ridge Red Nocturne to start up the ol' board again.  Remember, my trading name is boycetime on eBay:

Vintage Clothing Auctions November

Always like to help spread the word for the advancement of vintage clothing & accessory collectors! 

Vintage Clothing & Accessories Auction

November 5th 

Horsham V.F.W. Banquet Room

324 Sawmill Lane

Horsham PA.

Click below to see what's already arrived.

 Auction Zip Listing

And of course do NOT miss the opportunity of Karen Augusta's fabulous specialty fashion and historic textile sale. Wednesday, November 2.  It is the 25th!   The 412-lot auction will be held in New York City at St. Pauls Auditorium on Columbus Avenue (at 60th Street) and will begin promptly at NOON.    You can view the auction catalog online

November is a great month for vintage fashion!

Estate Clues

Moss Agate Brooch

The fun part of working with vintage items is doing the research for the items and the estate from which they came.  Over the years I have always made private estate buying my main mode and getting direct information was much easier!   But now that the B&M shop is closed, I find myself intrigued by the auction world again. It's a fun way to keep up with the happenings in the business.  Thanks to the internet, product identification is possible goal! 

A recent auction showed an abundance of very nice jewelry so I had to go.  The auctioneer mentioned only one fact about the woman's estate:  she traveled extensively.  One region for sure she traveled to is in the UK, Scotland, Ireland region!  How can I tell?  Take a peek at these wonderful jewels from her collection!

Robert Allinson

Moss Agate - Cornish Stone Co.

The two moss agate brooches are still in their original purchase boxes from Cornish Stone Co which I located at the Cornwall tourish region of UK.  The upper left sterling two piece Celtic pin comes from RA jewelry of Scotland.  The lovely thistle pin is enameled sterling silver.


My lady traveled even further north into the Baltic Seas around Norway and Sweden.  The next pin has very faint etchings on the back.  I can make out: Finn and also Made in Norw... (Norway)

Norway

Another region she traveled was in the American southwest.  These Native American silver jewels are still under research, but surely the Zuni and Hopi artists were obviously favorites of hers!

Pet Pieve on Bills

Today I received yet another request to go to e-billing "to save money and the environment".  Well lets just take a closer look at this argument!

• Convenient e-mail notifications when your bill is ready for viewing online.
  Of course that depends on the success of my mailbox, computer health, and then having it arrive on a day I don't stick it in a "Follow up" folder because today is really full of emails to read and reply!  
• No paper clutter or misplaced bills. 
  Balder-dash!  I still will print it out using my own paper, ink, printer and electricity!  Then I have to file it in the "right" folder in my office immediately or the PaperMonster will strike again! 
• Having the same information and look of your paper bill - but more: build access to 13 months billing history and gain the ability to manage your account online. 
  Hello... that is why I have my own accounting system and filing cabinet!  If I am savvy enough to have a computer, I probably already have this in place!
• Security - all personal data is held in strict confidence behind firewalls. The bills are encrypted as they are displayed across the Internet, assuring confidentiality of information - and peace of mind. 
  Well, your pitching to a person who has suffered from keyloggers and virus issue and computer crashes.  I read in the news endlessly about major corporations getting hacked, stolen data, computer issues and on and on.  Internet Security is a fraudulent term, in my humble opinion.  Pulleeeze - don't sham me.
• Helping the environment by going paper-free. 
  Oh, you mean your environment at the office? or my environment and printing paper here? Why don't you just mail the bill in one envelope and forget all the other crap you stuff in!  Keep jobs at the Post Office too!

 Every time a corporation wants to shift it's cost elsewhere it either takes jobs out of our country or waves Mom & Apple Pie in my face.  This is one small issue but it bugs me.

One more thought:  is your great aunt and grandmother on the computer too?  If not, they are probably getting "charged extra" for the privilege of receiving a bill in the mail to pay the bill!  Think about it.

Happy Cockadoodle Day!

Well thanks to the many wonderful customers... and Etsy Treasury creators... and super team members all around the website... and the Vintage Village.com, today I marked my 700th sale!  It's very exciting and confirming that focusing on just one shop can be a good move.

Something that I struggled with for over a year has proven itself:  simplifying in the internet business world is good  housekeeping.  Every new site that comes along tells me ... "We can do more for you!"  or "join us - we're the fastest growing..."   The claims always sound great and on the surface it looks like a major event.

But for any newbie in the internet business world, I have one solid piece of advice:  pick your corner and work it consistently.  Every thought and every little pebble you cast, causes ripples beyond your wildest imagination!  The more I remain focused on one store and a small handful of social networking sites, the better the sales.  Without a staff, it is just impossible to spread the time over too many places.  I refuse to work like a workaholic any more.  What is the point?  Life is too short and there are so many roses yet to smell!

So, Thank YOU! to all my followers and customers.  You make working with my vintage goodies fun!

Fearless

Looking forward to a week long workshop at the Option Institute in MA called Fearless.  If you order from the Etsy shop this week, please know your purchase will be processed on Sept 19. Sometimes I really wish I had an assistant to cover my tracks!!  Adventure bound... will be amazing, I'm sure.

Rochester Tweed Ride

Oh I am so tickled!  Just found this blog through Etsy because of a Treasury that included my ladies straw fedora style hat! 

http://rochestertweedride.blogspot.com/  Come see it.  

I do believe I have some tweed jackets still in storage - I'll check them out!  and these two stylish hats for gents could certainly be costume fun!  Both are smaller size 7 1/4 and suede.

In any event - this looks like a fun local hoo-ha!  Yea Rochester!  Fall in upstate NY is just beautiful.  Genesee Valley Park is gorgeous! 

Where is your Thought going?

Some time ago this little ditty arrived in an email:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions;

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits they become character;

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny

 From my personal spiritual work and growth through Unity and other teachers, I have learned that "thoughts are things" is not just a catchy little idea - it is the truth of life.  From Old Thought to New Thought to physicists & science - the connection is real and evident.  If you have doubts about the concept, then I invite you to do your own experiment.  For one week, speak only positive thoughts.  If you catch yourself with a negative idea, melt it away in your mind before you speak it forth.

 Watch the magic happen.  You will be amazed. 
Today is a great day to start.

Etsy Treasuries

What a fun surprise - woke up this morning to find my listings have been featured in 4 different treasuries in one day!  Now that is awesome!  See my link on the side bar for AT in Etsy Treasuries.   

Mystery Silver Jewelry

The game of identification is never ending in this business and truly is the fun part.  Well, in all honesty its one of the fun parts!  Having recently acquired a wonderful group of estate jewelry from a woman who did extensive traveling, I am all over the silver resource sites for ID help.

This amazing pin has the hallmark   S&Co  where the o is raised and has a line under it.  I've attributed it to Sydney & Co.  

 But the second marking is a little baffling:  Anchor - Lion - T
This indicates sterling silver and Birmingham - but the form of the T suggests an earlier time than the style of the pin.  Hmm?



  
 And here is my big mystery mark this week.  Etched into the back I can barely make out :  F I N N  .  There appears to be a small shield under it.  Over to the right a little bit looks to be Made in Norw...  The last letters are not there.

Even though small in size - I have to say this small brooch totally intrigues me.

Antique White on White

Beautiful antique hankies  are the prettiest little pieces of fiber artwork!  Every time I have batch to soak and then iron I become mesmerized at the amazing detail that went into so many of these old lovelies.  The tradition of giving hankies as gifts either for weddings or friendship is a heart warming gesture.  So many creative and personal uses too: sachettes, baby caps, pocket trims, framed for the wall and of course the walk down the isle!  I just refreshed an elegant batch of all white on white hankies on the Etsy shop.  Take a peek and you'll understand why I love these sweethearts so much.   Enjoy!

Time for another time move

Change is in the air again!  That's the only constant I've found after all these years of antiques business.  Effective this week, I will no longer run the website which I started back in the 1990s era!  It has been a great keystone but it's time for new directions.

I love the blog environment, so this is where I will focus my product postings and thoughts & Tidbits.  I'll be able to show you much more and share many more events in this wonderful format.

If you have been a Link partner from my website, I hope you will continue to follow on this blog.  Onward we go!

An Old and True Thought

I wrote this piece a couple a years ago, and it is still one of my favorite writings.  So with the newer format of a Blog coming into being, I'm sharing it here.  Enjoy!

Thanks to the quite early morning hours of the day, there's always time for coffee and quiet contemplation. One day, as I was reading the morning dose of doom --aka the newspaper-- it occurred to me that we merchants in the antiques business attempt to thrive in the toughest business on earth! 

The major grocery stores easily beckon your dollars week after week. Why? You need food, obviously. Your body takes it in, works it over, attempts to live in spite of it, and then throws it out. You need more of the same.

The automotive industry works on the same principle. As we build bigger and bigger communities, the need for the 4-wheeled monster grows. It demands your money day after day. You fill the tank, drive to work and drive home-- drive to school and drive home-- drive to shop and drive home. Drive till the tank runs dry. So goes the spark plugs, the tires, the muffler and the rest of the vehicle as well. You need more. 

The big business of education has the same philosophy too. When you look at the long term goal of smarts and degrees, how could anyone argue? We send our little dears off to pre-school, then kindergarten, then elementary, then high school. Now they go on to college for 4 and then on to masters and eventually doctorates for some. The more certificates on the wall, the better we seem to feel. Somehow more is better. 

But the antiques business has it all backwards. We who have chosen to keep the flames and artifacts of history alive and well don't get it. We don't accept that an endless supply of "a thing" is necessarily a good thing. We try to convince our customer that this "XX" will last another 100 years because it's made so well. Or we say, this "xx" is rare and only a few exist. It's unique. We insist that recycling life's goods is a good thing while we seem to live in a sea of throw away needs. 

Ours is a special task and one that needs the fires fanned by the guard at hand. Antiques merchants are faced with the job of re-training a customer base who have been grossly conditioned by the mass producers of the throw-away world. Lasting quality is a virtue. Non-throw-a-way goods are an asset. A cheap look-alike is not necessarily an equivalent substitute. Quality may seem to cost more upfront but it is always cheaper in the long run. 

Some things you just can't duplicate. It's the variety and uniqueness of each lasting treasure that makes life interesting and worthwhile. Ours is the business of nurturing that thought. The job is to keep it alive.