Hi everyone. Today’s thrift topic is about “stepping outside your comfort zone”. If you do a lot of thrifting, you’ve probably gotten to the point where you already know the types of things you’re looking for. Your thrifting comfort zone – whether it’s clothes, ceramics or electronics – is a good thing to have. It allows you to focus on picking out the goodies you recognize and prioritize your thrifting hours, so that you can hit more stores in less time.

But it’s a good idea (especially if you’re a Thrift ReSeller) to continually seek out new areas that you can learn about. I’ll probably write more about this later, but successful thrifting is all about Knowledge. The more fields of expertise you can handle, the better you’ll do. Unlike with straight-on collecting, when I’m at the thrifts I feel like a little knowledge in a large amount of areas is better than a large amount of knowledge in one area. Just my opinion, though.

So, my personal thrifting comfort zone is probably ceramics, enamel and glass – with an emphasis on midcentury ceramics, Pyrex and Fire King, and dinnerware produced in California and Scandinavia. I’ve made it a point to try and get more acquainted with ceramics from other countries, like the Denby Arabesque pattern shown in the photo above (left,front) and Italian goodies like the wonderful covered jar (left, back). Can you identify the other items in the photo? Two of the three remaining items I recognized just from looking at from across the room.

But just sticking with ceramics isn’t enough. We’ve made it a point to learn as much as we can about collectible plastics, like these yellow and red Heller mugs by Massimo Vignelli. Sorry – going back to ceramics for a bit, the polka dot blue and orange casserole is actually a Bunzlau (Boleslaweic) piece. Until last week, I had no idea about Polish pottery – it just goes to show that within your own specialty, there’s always room for improvement! I still sometimes get things without knowing what they are, like the great Norwegian souvenir tea towels shown in the photo. These are probably newer (the one on the right is definitely older though since it’s made by Kay-Dee), but they were in such great condition with original tags from the Steen & Strom store in Norway, that I just picked them up without knowing anything about them.

This modern, cut and welded gazelle candle-holder thingy was definitely out of my comfort zone. I had seen a few similar animals before online, but hadn’t really thought too much about it. But I knew that it would probably fit all right in our store(s), so I ended up getting it at the thrift. It may be new, old, by someone famous, someone’s art project – sometimes you just have to try and get educated after the fact. I still have no ideas on it actually – anyone know?

One area we’ve been trying to learn more about is children’s books. Yes, I know this is a tremendously crowded field already, but because we do a lot of thrifting and estate sales, we do see a ton of children’s books. We’re banking on the fact that ALL the book experts can’t be at the thrifts ALL the time. So eventually we might pick up some interesting things. These books (plus the Vera Neumann scarf in the corner) came out of a dingy, scary estate basement. I don’t know a thing about them, and didn’t have time to try and type the names into the iPhone while there – but they were all from the 60s or before, so I took a chance. I think “The Little Boy From Shickshinny” might be a decent find.

OK, hope you enjoyed this thrifting roundup. We may skip next week’s in order to try and get to another Tuesday Tips ReSeller post.

This post is linked up to ATG’s Thrift Share Monday and HLA’s Flea Market Finds.

Did you find something cool at a thrift or flea market lately?
Please leave a comment here if so…