Hi everyone. It's been a lot of "hit and miss" at thrifts and estates lately. Still, there's been enough hits to keep us busy with inventory.

I hit a thrift where someone must have donated their entire owl collection. It was about 2 shelves of owls - unfortunately, most weren't of any interest. I did pick up this cute owl candle holder, probably a Fitz and Floyd or Otagiri piece.

Also came home with this interesting "Toma" owl sculpture. I was pretty sure it wasn't a Jere owl, and thought at first it might be one of the knock-offs that came out of Hong Kong or Taiwan. But this one had the sig, and the only reference I could find was to Bill Toma who did brass scupture and worked for Disney. Haven't been able to conclusively ID it as his yet, and I'm sort of doubting it based on the pieces of his I've seen. Both of these owls are in our Etsy outlet currently.

This Arabia Saara small dish was a pleasant find at a local estate sale. It was hidden at the top of a cabinet... I had to wait for the older lady standing in front of it to collect and wrap sixteen ugly (to me) glasses before I could take a look. I didn't know if it was a ramekin, mini salt cellar or custard. It turns out it's none of those - the person who bought this from us kindly informed us it's an individual "espresso sugar", and that it's pretty uncommon.

On that same top shelf at the estate I also came across this great JIE Gantofta ceramic jar or container with wooden lid. The design is by Anita Nylund, and it's part of the "Var Lilla Stad" series. The scene is of a dairy - Maja's Dairy to be exact.

In the backyard of that estate I picked up this little stoneware vase for our collection. I have a hard time with bringing home too many of these pieces, so I'm trying to be a little more selective. Still, this one is signed: "Nakajima", which I know is a fairly common Japanese last name (I've had 1 or 2 friends with that last name). It's fairly well made though - anyone have an idea who the potter might be? It's signed in English instead of characters, so I suspect a Japanese-American artist from the 70s-80s.

This wooden Wittner metronome from West Germany was a great find. Now that our piano is moved into the new place, we've been trying to get more into playing again. We'll probably keep this one, though I know they're pretty expensive if you buy a new one.

Last up, I went back to an estate today for the 50% off to pick up these Upsala Ekeby pieces. It's a casserole and a saucepot, but with only one lid between the two. I just have a hard time passing up UE stuff. This line was known as "Kosmos" and was created in the 1960s by Berit Ternell. I don't know anything else about them, except that it's interesting that UE has a Kosmos line too - the Kosmos line for Arabia is more well known and we've found pieces from that one a couple times before.

OK everyone - happy thrifting!