Ah yes, a very weak pun attempt – please excuse us. We still have quite a few thrifted items that are stuck in “inventory purgatory”, somewhere between and photo taking. Actually, we have about 5 boxes worth of it, but who’s counting…

We had vowed to avoid thrift stores until the end of the year in order to work on inventory. But that vow lasted exactly 5 days… but again, who’s counting.

In any case, here are a few more goodies coming soon or already in the shop. I’m sure your eye was immediately drawn to the bright orange chalkware tiger bank with the goofy smile. He definitely stole the show in the picture. Sort of looks “Tony the Tiger”-ish. This guy was made in Japan – we didn’t know that there’s quite a few vintage chalkware fans out there.

The greenish Heath Ceramics cup and saucer is a thrifted item that we never get tired of finding. When we located this one, we immediately looked for more pieces, but no luck this time. This is actually a great thrifting tip – if you find a single piece of vintage dinnerware, immediately focus on looking for more of them. More often then not, they get separated within the store.

Speaking of thrift tips, we’re probably going to start up a series of posts on that in the coming year. We’re no experts, but since we spend a lot of time at thrift strores, we have some tips from experience that we can share.

The little crouching bulldog with sparkly eyes next to the Heath cup/saucer is most likely a Roselane of Pasadena ceramic figurine. These were called Sparklers and were made in California from the 50s until the 70s. We have seen some repros made in Japan, likely in the 80s, but we think this one is an original. The plastic rhinestone eyes are glued in. Roselane made all sorts of Sparkler animals – more info on the company is available on our sister site Potteries of California.

Behind the dog is a sweet little ceramic birdhouse, likely made in the late 70s to early 80s in Japan. At first we had thought this might be an ashtray. But it has a little loop for hanging, and it seems a little difficult to get ashes out of it! We think that this may have originally had some sort of wooden stick for birds to sit on since there is a little groove on the front that seems intended for a perch.

Lastly, the tray everything is sitting on is another Georges Briard glass serving tray with wooden handles. We actually see these quite often, but the goldleaf decoration is often rubbed off, or the glass is damaged. This one was in pretty great shape so it went into our cart.

OK, that’s it for this thrifting roundup. We have one more upcoming, and then we’ll probably wrap up with one last post before the New Year.