Depression Cobalt Blue

Collecting is habit forming and when starting young and working at it over many years, I get flash backs of – no, not the things I did buy, but the items I passed by; the treasures that got away.

Last week at an estate sale Wifey spotted a very fifties coffee table very much like this one, in a blond wood. She turned to find me for my thoughts on buying it and poof, it was snapped up by another buyer. I’m not sure it would have fit our décor, but now I’ll never know. If it hadn’t augmented the existing furnishings, it surely would have looked good at the next flea market, where we will have a booth.

You snooze – you lose, so the saying goes.

One that sticks in my mind as a lost opportunity is a cobalt blue butter dish in the Moderntone pattern. A sad story all around, since I was the culprit that broke the bottom portion from a set my mother had given to me and Wifey. Since it was my wrong, I wanted to make it right and started a secret search for a replacement, always keeping an eye out for one in our antique searching. After several years, I spotted one at an antique store in Madison, WI, at lunch time while on a business trip to that city. There it was, sitting in a locked case with its price tag hidden. The clerk opened the case and handed me the prize I had searched for, and I almost dropped that one too when I saw the price. So back in the case it went. The next trip back and still reluctant to spend the money, I check on the butter dish again, only to find it had been sold. Still I had hope of finding another. Now remember, this was back when Ebay and Google didn’t exist, and searching had a whole different meaning. So another five or so years went by without even seeing another dish until I came across a reproduction, easily spotted by its poor quality, and so cheap, I could not refuse. For the moment I had my replacement. Time passed again and I finally found another at a very reasonable price, with only a small chip on the edge of the bottom (must be the Achilles heel.) Now did I learn my lesson?  Probably not, I still have nightmares of other opportunities that I passed on. Now you can’t regret an overpriced piece, nor one that you have no point of reference on its potential value.

But!!!

At a flea market many years ago, a mariner’s telescope lay on a blanket with a minuscule amount of household items. It was hard to phathom the seller making enough to pay for the booth space, and since the telescope was the only thing of value, I reluctantly asked the novice seller for a price. $25.00. I put it down and walked away. What was I thinking? KICK KICK KICK.

On one of our many trips through Indiana to Louisville, for a weekend of antiquing, at the last stop of the day, and with the van already so full, I didn’t think we should purchase anything bigger then a post card, I found a Roseville vase in the Wisteria pattern. Unforunately, Wifey talked me out of buying it because she had noticed a back sliding of Roseville prices, and felt the asking price was too high to make a decent markup upon resale. A short time later we found that the object was worth well above her estimate. My turn to kick her behind.

On a similar trip to the southeast, in Georgia or South Carolina, we spotted an old adding machine, so unusual and ancient yet wonderfully clean and with no apparent wear, it must have sat on some bigwig’s desk who couldn’t figure out how to use it. ( I’ve had a boss with the best computer money could buy sitting on his desk, and he had to ask others to turn it on and get his email for him. It was strictly to impress clients coming into his office , to show them that he was PC savvy.) It, too got passed by and since that time the values on early office technology has increased dramatically.

I’ve related great finds during many blogs here on Collector’s Quest, but this confessional is painful. It’s hard to admit the things I should have bought, but hope it’s a lesson to both you and I. It’s never too late, unless the next person is smart enough to buy what you shouldn’t have passed by.

Welcome Pez preservers, Superheroes hounds, Movie Memorabilia moguls, Barbie Doll delighters, Jewelry junkies, Dinosaur diggers, Star Wars students, Die Cast Vehicle virtuosos, and anyone with a drawer or closet stuffed with stuff. Thanks for bringing your personal interests to CQ, your place to show and share with others your collecting passion.

You are proving many of my peers in the antique business totally wrong. First we heard from them that Ebay would be the death of the sellers’ market, lowering the value of collectibles as more and more items were uploaded for sale. Then came the crash of the Beanie Baby craze – and that we were assured, was the death of all collecting, as many novice collectors/ dealers were caught with vast quantities of the B-B’s, mass produced and declared retired.

The latest pronouncement from the antiques selling community is the lack of collecting by younger folks. That’s because they just want new stuff. Well, gentle readers, collecting is alive and growing and we are here because of your desire to learn and share information on collections, whether new, vintage or antique.

As a youngster I collected sports cards, Cracker Jack trinkets, Hoppy toy guns and a wrist watch, comic books, radio premiums, Lionel trains, and plastic models of cars, airplanes and navy ships. Young girls collected dolls, doll houses full of furniture, stuffed toys, trading cards, 45 records and figurines of dogs and horses. (gee, wish I had my stuff now).

Today my collections are useful or decorative, and sometimes considered over the top. Can you have too many ice buckets? Not me. Sill adding to my Depression glass Modern Tone, cobalt blue dish set? Sure, if the price is right and I don’t have the example already.

I’m accused by friends of having more flatware serving pieces than many good restaurants including a pastry server, cake server, asparagus tongs, sugar cube tongs, olive pincher, grape shears, and cheese shaver. But many were picked up on our antique hunting trips to the South and East coasts and considered souvenirs of those adventures. 

 We ignored each prophecy of the impending collapse of the collecting market, by selling antiques and collectibles on the web, and even with a down economy, collectibles still sell. Collecting is collecting and when the bug bites early, collections grow. So I salute your efforts in hunting for your next addition and hope your plan is to share your finds with the Collectors’ Quest community. And if you do upgrade or switch your collecting direction, you can now take advantage of the new feature on Collectors’ Quest and offer your extra items for sale on the CQ Marketplace. See the tab at the top.