Category: Articles
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What’s The Difference Between “Antique,” “Vintage,” & “Retro”?
Helping buyers, collectors, and, yes, antique dealers, vintage sellers, and resellers, with industry facts. In the strictest sense, age is the difference between antique, vintage, and retro items. Antiques are items which must be at least 100 years old. That means, as of the date of this posting, an antique item was made on or before…
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Letterman Mid-Century Modern Paintings
It’s not often you find oil paintings with such a well-defined and readable signature, but the one on this triptych we have in our booth at Fargo Antiques and Repurposed Market is clearly LETTERMAN, stylized with extended letters to evoke modernity and motion. And, not only is the name so readable, the signature readily identifies…
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To Eat A Chocolate Dirigible
Back in the day, in ye olde candy shoppe, when you went to buy chocolates, you would see little shapes like these sitting in front of little candy boxes. Made from the same molds as the candies themselves, these little plaster pieces indicated the shape and size of the offerings. One imagines such visual depictions…
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Falling In Mush Love
Part of my job as an antiques dealer (or vintage seller, if you prefer) is to properly clean, research, and identify reclaimed and discovered items in order to best present these old things to potential buyers. Continually making discoveries, uncovering new-to-me stories is one of my favorite parts of this gig. But sometimes, as I’ve…
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This Week’s Story: Smells Like Grandma (Spirit)
(If you prefer, you can listen to this as a podcast! Smells Like Grandma, episode 1 – 5.) A few weeks ago I spent the weekend washing out old perfume bottles. Well, technically, washing vintage & retro figural eau de cologne bottles – because perfume rarely comes in such bottles. Which is why most of…
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This Week’s Story: Paint By Numbers & Wundertüte
Hi, I’m Deanna Dahlsad of Fair Oaks Antiques, here with This Week’s Story, and I am a paint by number collector. (If you’d prefer, you can listen to the podcast here.) Many mock paint by number paintings, saying the works are kitsch – meaning they are of poor taste. Even those who love kitsch in…
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This Week’s Story: It Was The 80s – Even Lingerie Had Shoulder Pads
This Week’s Story is prompted by a vintage piece of lingerie. You can listen to the audio podcast here. This particular lingerie piece, in a powder blue satin, is more slinky sleepshirt than naughty negligee. With its built-in shoulder pads and double-breasted suit jacket front, this nightie looks more like an oversized power suit jacket…
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This Week’s Story: Man Enough For Pink
Hi, I’m Deanna Dahlsad of Fair Oaks Antiques. This Week’s Story is a little bit different… It’s still about an object, just not one for sale. And it’s also a story for the month, as you’ll see. A reminder: You can listen to This Week’s Story as a podcast! Due to it being Breast Cancer…
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This Week’s Story: One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s… Art?
Hi, I’m Deanna Dahlsad of Fair Oaks Antiques. This inaugural edition of ‘This Week’s Story’ is based on a mixed media artwork we found. (You can listen to this short audio podcast here!) We found this piece on the street during Fargo’s Cleanup Week. Yes, that makes us trash pickers. That’s not really news; we’ve…
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Crafty Quarantine
Given the current situation, the dreaded coronavirus, we’ve seen an explosion in DIY and crafting — including a throw-back to Victorian hobbies, such as scrapbooking. We’re no different; we’ve been putting in a lot more hours in the studio – and not just for custom pieces, but been listing items in our handmade Etsy shop,…
