We’ve been remiss about posting our traditional thrifting roundup in the past few weeks.  Our lives have been a little more frantic than normal.  You see, we’re having a sale over at Fab.com at the end of October, which means we’ve spent most of our free time taking photos and cataloguing items for that.  You guys, it’s going to be epic!  If you’d like to see a preview of what we’ll be featuring at the sale, head over to flickr and take a peek!

We’ve found a lot of glass in the past few weeks.  Honestly, glass is not something we knew a lot about when we first started collecting and thrifting.  There’s so much mass-produced, knock-off glass that it was daunting for us to take chances on whether a piece was from the 1960s or from IKEA.  The golden glass vase in the middle is from Mr. Butter’s new obsession, glass made by the Finnish company,  Riihinmaen Lasi Oy.  This particular vase is no. 1436, the “Stromboli” vase, and was designed by Aimo Okkolin.

The tall vases in the back all have silver rims.  Usually, when we find these at thrift stores the silver looks really sad, but after a quick rub with toothpaste or silver polish, silver-rimmed vases look so elegant and simple!  We thought that the vase on the left was designed by Dorothy Thorpe, due to it’s shape, but after doing some research, we’re not sure that it’s her design.

The two “vases” on the left are actually giant hi-ball glasses.  They stand at an impressive 12 inches tall, so we can’t imagine drinking a gin-and-tonic out of one and living to tell the tale!  We’re assuming these are novelty glasses from the 1950s?  You’ll find the silver-rimmed items in the shop during the next few days!

The two candle holders in the front are Ms. Butter’s favorite items.  As soon as she brought them home from the Goodwill, she lit candles and the flames looked so beautiful dancing in the little ice mountains!  These were designed by Rune Strand for Nybro of Sweden.

We’ll also be featuring some Scandinavian glass in our upcoming sale with Fab.  We found 5 glass hurricanes that must have originally been part of a lighting fixture of some sort?  These hurricanes are very much in the style of Tamara Aladin’s “Maljakko” vase, but we haven’t been able to find a solid attribution, sadly.  We think they’d look amazing with a simple tea light!

This post is linked to Flea Market Finds and Thrift Share Monday.

Usually I take a thriftbreak without Mr. Butter once during the week.  After I’m done teaching I head for parts unknown and hit a few thrifts to see if there’s anything good.  Today was a disappointing day.  I went to my first stop and found absolutely nothing.  I visited the second shop and struck out again.  I was beginning to get a little depressed, but I pressed on since the final store on the loop is just a 2 minute drive from the second shop.  Boy am I glad I went!

I found a set of four “combi” (modular) candle holders designed by Caesar Stoffi and Fritz Nagel by BMF (Bayerische Metall Fabrik).  I stared at the bright pink box for a minute before I picked it up because I figured it was too good to be true.  It was probably filled with old socks or potpourri.  When I opened the box I was really excited to find four of the modular candle holders instead of the three “leuchter” the box claimed it would have.

Two of candle holders came in their original smaller boxes with their original care instructions.  The 9 original candles are also in the box in addition to a little brochure (not pictured) and an interesting business card that gives this set some interesting, if not limited, provenance!  Usually I wouldn’t post someone’s phone number on the internet for all to see, but somehow I think that the Telex number for GM has long since gone out of use!  From what I can gather, GM might have given this set out as a gift to clients, interesting!

From what I can gather after doing a few minutes of research on Fritz Nagel is that he must have lent his surname to the Nagel company who also made “combi” candle holders.  I can find no printed attribution to link Nagel or Stoffi with any of these holders — perhaps the Nagel branded holders had attribution?  None of the brochures, labels, or boxes list any designers (sadly), so until I can do further research, I’m at a loss to provide any other information on Nagel or Stoffi.

While we were in Beijing we went through thrifting withdrawal.  We didn’t see any western-style thrift stores in the city, but everyone we spoke to mentioned the Panjiayuan Antique Market (潘家园).  The market is open all week, but apparently the “Arts and Crafts” zone is only open on weekends.  We got there at around 8:30am (the market apparently opens at 4am, but we weren’t that brave) and we were completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and vendors.  It was amazing!

This photo catches only a corner of the entire market.  We wandered up-and-down rows of sellers hawking jade, lacquer-ware, snuff bottles, porcelain, and much more.  Truth be told, Asian antiquities are hard to come by at markets such as these and since its not our forte, we decided to look instead of buy.

It was more difficult not to buy anything once we hit the book and record section of the market.  There were many sellers focusing on modern books, but a lot of people had Maoist posters, magazines, and ephemera.  There were also a surprising number of vintage LPs from the former Russia, Europe, and China too.  If only Scott had been with us!  I have a feeling he would have gone home with his hands full.

For any Westerners who want to visit the market and don’t speak Mandarin, you’ll want to bring a notepad and paper.  Most vendors will not speak any English, but they’ll understand Arabic numerals so if you want to haggle over prices (and you should definitely haggle), numbers will be your common language.  The sellers we encountered in the book section were not pushy at all.  We browsed many books and LPS and never once felt rushed.  Both of us had a great time at the market!

We’re sneaky over here at Chez Butter!  We are still away in the land of pandas and great walls, but we wanted to make sure that we had a post for this week.  We had a few random finds from the previous week that didn’t make their way into our earlier posts, so we thought we’d share them with you today.

This post is dedicated to little Scandinavian items.  You know, those teensy tiny pieces that fall through the cracks of blog posts and thriftstores alike!  Well, over here, we can’t get enough of “smalls” and this week’s finds are particularly wee!

First up are these four shot/cordial/schnapps glasses we picked up at a local estate sale.  The quality is great and we also love the lines of this set.  Sadly, we haven’t been able to figure out who the maker or designer is, as is often the case with little objects such as these.  They look Scandinavian to us, but we’re honestly not sure.

Next up are five tiny Royal Copenhagen pin dishes, featuring different buildings in Denmark.  We picked these up at the same estate sale.  No, they’re not too practical unless you have a lot of pins, but they would be very cute hung on a wall together, don’t you think?

Then there’s Mr. Pig.  We think he’s swell, and he even came with his original box, labeled Boda of Sweden.  Kosta acquired Boda and changed its name to Kosta Boda in 1976, so this little piggy predates that change.

The biggest item of the bunch is a plate by Stavangerflint of Norway.  Although we usually steer clear of getting single plates, this is a souvenir dish from Bogstad Gard, designed by Fredrik Matheson.  It’s always so nice when designers signed their work!

And last but not least is a silver-plate and enamel jigger made by Reed and Barton.  We think it’s quite lovely, and although it’s small, it certainly packs a little punch!

I’m posting early this week because tomorrow morning we’ll be on a plane across the Pacific Ocean for a brief trip to Beijing.  Mr. Butter is attending a super-duper-awesome conference in Beijing, so we decided to take a few extra days and play tourists!  But enough about our plans, it’s time for the thrift finds!

The first find of this week’s trip was actually found for us by Scott, over at Ars Longa.  He’s in town for a few days so we took him out to some Seattle thrifts and lo-and-behold he found a beautiful hanging rug/tapestry!  I know nothing about fiber arts of this sort, but I do know that it will look great in my office and that I need to thank Scott for his willingness to let me swipe his find!

This next photo is a smorgasbord of finds from this week’s thrifts.  In the back you’ll see a box.  Some eagle-eyed readers might already recognize that the box holds a Copco honeycomb spice rack!  Mr. Butter pulled it out of a dusty bin at a local second-hand store we’ve been meaning to visit for a while.  Honestly, it looked really sketchy from the outside so I was a little skeptical to venture through its doors.  Well, I was right…it was totally sketchy!  But it was also completely unpicked.  The spice rack had languished in the store for over a year!  We were amazed that it had lasted as long as it had.

I was quite surprised to find a Bitossi flower pot at a local thrift.  We rarely see such large pieces of Bitossi, but we quite happily picked it up!  I have plans for it, so it will have a home at Chez Butter for the time being.

Mr. Butter found the lovely Swedish carafe with the blue-and-white, leafy stripes.  It was made by Nittsjo and designed by Jerk Werkmaster.  He was the artistic director at the Nittsjo ceramics factory from 1933 to 1967, but apparently Werkmaster was quite adept at other mediums as well.  He’s a new designer for us, so we were happy to take a minute to learn more about his work.  (Another fun fact?  He also designed a marquetry panel at Eltham Palace in Greenwich!)

Finally, we found this kick-ass space-age lamp while we were thrifting with Scott this morning.  It was made by Hamilton Industries, but we haven’t been able to find out who designed this beautiful specimen.  Whoever designed it, our hats go off to her/him!

This post is linked to Flea Market Finds!

I’m sure that many of you have read Etsy’s “Get the Look” blog post that features Chez Butter!  If you haven’t, hop on over to the article and take a gander at our home!

In honor of Etsy’s feature, we’ve decided to give our new readers a little treat!  Enter the code “FEATURE” when you purchase an item from our shop and you’ll get 15% off your purchase!

I’m happy to report that the thrifting bug has officially bitten my parents!  My mother texted me yesterday that she went to two estate sales this weekend after we dragged her to a few last weekend.  Sadly, she didn’t find anything awesome enough to take home.  It was much the same at Chez Butter this weekend.  I went to two estate sales on Friday and one this morning (thankfully, stumbling distance from our house) and came home with nothing.  There was great stuff at each sale, but nothing I needed for myself or for the shop.

We went to a few thrift stores this weekend and found some nice items, which made up for the fact that we found nothing at the local estate sales.  The rarest item is a Russel Wright ceramic decanter in his Casual line for Iroquois.  It’s by far our favorite piece of Russel Wright out there because it blends utilitarian function with amazing design.  Right now it’s quite happy sitting on our shelf, but it will eventually make its way over to the shop.

Other items for the shop include  a lovely teak condiment holder with glass inserts from Digsmed of Denmark.  We have a few of these that we bring out when we have guests over — they’re beautiful and infinitely useful as well.  Hiding behind the Wright decanter is  a set of Eva Zeisel Prestige juice glasses made by the Federal Glass Company.  Each of these has the letter “E” monogrammed on them, so they’ll have to go to the right person, but we’re confident that an Emile, Emily, or Eric will find them eventually!  Guarding this week’s finds is a darling glass viking figurine.  We just picked this up today, so we haven’t figured out the maker yet.

As usual, we’ve saved the best find for last.  Actually, Mr. Butter went thrifting without me today and brought home a piece of studio pottery and encouraged me to turn it over and look at the signature.  It was clearly signed Heath (here’s a photo of the signature), which made my eyes bug out a little in surprise.  Could Mr. Butter have found a piece of Edith Heath studio pottery?  In his California Pottery Scrapbook, Jack Chipman mentions this little vase as possibly created by Edith Heath or Heath Studios (211).  (Thanks to Bryan over at A la Modern for mentioning this book!)  We also found this auction for another Edith Heath studio vase, which bears some similarities to our vase, including the light, speckled glaze on the bottom with the darker glaze on top!  In any case, we’re both very excited about this find!

This post is linked to Flea Market Finds and Thrifty Treasures!

This week’s thrifting update is somewhat abbreviated since my parents were in town for the weekend.  I spent most of the week cleaning up residual clutter and getting the house ship-shape enough for a parental visit.  Mr. Butter and I went thrifting during the week and scored a beautiful Sascha Brastoff ashtray and the wee Dansk hippo.  Both will eventually make their way over to the shop later this week once I’ve taken their photos.  This is the first time we’ve seen either of these pieces in the wild, so we were more than happy to have them for the shop!

The second estate sale had some interesting furniture pieces including a pair of Drexel Declaration nightstands.  Mr. Butter and I have been using a pair of two-tiered end-tables as nightstands for a long time until we found some proper nightstands that we liked.  We had almost purchased a pair of these same nightstands a few months back from our friend, Brad, who is a local mid-century dealer.  I never thought we’d find a pair ourselves, so I was thrilled when Mr. Butter found them!  (And they were even half-price!)  My parents really enjoyed the sale as well — my dad even bought a gift for one of my siblings while we were there.

I’m very proud of this week’s estate-sale acquisitions.  Usually Mr. Butter and I are an unstoppable team during estate sales: he goes left and I move right and we meet in the middle after we’re finished.  Well, this Friday I went to an estate sale by myself.  I saw a few great things I really wanted for the etsy shop so I got up early on Friday, drove to a nearby town, and waited in line!

This little yellow gem is the item that I hoped I would score at the sale, and I did!  I had never seen a Dansk Kobenstyle Fondue Pot with its original stand before, so I was very excited to have it for the shop.  There were also some surprise pieces at the estate sale, which are up at the shop as well.

I found a number of “Kosmos” cups and saucers designed by Gunvor Olin Gronqkvist for Arabia of Finland.  These hand-painted pieces exemplify everything I love about Finnish design: simple lines, rich colors, and timeless design.

After I went through the dishware I turned my head and saw a Viking Ice Bucket designed by Jens Quistgaard for Dansk.  As soon as I left the sale I took a quick cell-phone photo to send to Mr. Butter and practically squealed when I called him.  As you can see, it has a place of honor and is currently guarded by our collection of wooden Vikings.

This post is linked to Flea Market Finds!