Yes, Virginia, you can still find treasures on eBay!!!
Being a lifelong thrift store treasure hunter, I realized quite a while ago that I could no longer hope to stumble across under-priced vintage sterling brooches at the Goodwill, that everybody had finally gotten a clue and now the good stuff was all on eBay, and people consulted price guides and so on...
I moved my regular treasure-hunting to eBay for a long time. But then all those Chinese mass producers started taking it over, and the kit crafters too, and it wasn't the fun place it had been at first. Then Etsy got to be the fun place! But then Etsy got big and there was a lot of crap there too.
So this is the story...
My preferred "too-fried-to-function" or "just-can't deal-with-reality-right-now" activity, to which I must resort about 3 times a year is...
...browsing eBay for vintage poodle jewelry and figurines.
It just relaxes me. Takes me back to a more innocent time -- in my own life, in our world...
(That dusty (till I get it) '50s? '40s? cast iron, bobble-head/-tail poodle pincushion up there -- also acquired this session -- is what happens. Very rarely. When it's too fun to say no...)
Random, I know, but that's just the way it is. I was raised with poodles. And I'm a francophile. And they're beautiful and smart.
I have a tiny (4, now 5 with above) poodle collection (does not include brooches of which I have 2, including one late '60s or early '70s Calvin Klein, Goodwill, $1, thank you very much, bought long before The Internet), which you can see on the app Boxes, which I reviewed here. '50s & '60s are my decades of preference for poodles.
So there I was, blissfully and brain-deadly flipping through pages and pages of kitschy poodles, when all of a sudden there were these horses.
Darlins, these objects are the sign, signifier and signified of H-O-R-S-E.
IMHO.
Which the poor, unenlightened seller thought were from the '50s (probably because pink was big in the '50s). And which the poor seller, who also happened to be selling a bunch of recently acquired vintage poodle figurines, had mistakenly tagged "poodle."
Now, normally, I would have sent a quick "Yoohoo, you've listed these guys under poodles and you'll probably get more bids if you fix that" kind of message. I'm that kind of cowgirl.
But I didn't. Because I am evil. Because I had to have them. I was under their spell. The second I saw them I knew they had to be mine.
Being a serious admirer of Art Deco, I recognized the lines immediately. These not-poodles were born loooong before the '50s. The '50s were much more literal.
So I placed a bid. And, nearly 72 hours later, I was still the only bidder. Because of that seller's ignorance. And my selfishness!
And then they were mine.
Please don't hate me.
Will you look at those rumps? The arch of those necks? And did I mention they're pink? You all know how I feel about pink by now.
For some subliminal reason which I will not state because it should be obvious these horses just seem to be all about virility to me...
Eat your hearts out, cowgirls. These hunky horses are gonna be living on my bedside table and galloping through my dreams any day now.
xoxo
Pam