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Showing posts from November 7, 2010

Talking Turkey.... and Transferware

For some time after that first solemn feast in 1621, both the date and observance of Thanksgiving depended on national triumphs and local inclination until 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November the nation's official Thanksgiving Day. By the 1870s, America's rising middle class hungered to celebrate the occasion with dinnerware specifically made for this special holiday.   England's profit minded potters responded to the people of the United States wishes with a series of delectable transfer-printed china patterns depicting the holiday's bird of choice.  Transferware depicting turkeys has been in production for over 100 years and remains as popular today, if not more so, than it was when first it came into being.  Turkey plates and platters are highly sought by collectors.  In fact, there are many transferware collectors who collect turkey patterns only.  Prices can range but generally a huge, vintage or antique English

The Vintage Abode

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. John Updike   The Vintage Abode.  That is the name of my physical shop. I have mentioned our shop in previous posts, though often I refer to it as a warehouse because it was solely used to store the English transferware and furniture that we import from abroad.  Our space is an old, 4000+ square foot building in downtown Bixby, OK...just a few miles South of Tulsa.    Formerly the building was a T G & Y, a church, an antique mall...and a few other things over the many years past.    When we took possession of the building we found it leaked in the front windows during rain, there were holes in the walls, accoustical tiles riddled with mold and mildew, seriously freaky insect infestations and mars and marks galore on the dreary, flat white walls.  It was such a sad, downright u-g-l-y with a capital U, space.   It was gross.  I have long envisioned this in my mind look