Yesterday I showed you my barn sale finds, so today I'll continue with my church rummage sale finds:
Last year I went to a few awesome church rummage sales and they all had some good vintage items. This weekend three out of the four church sales were filled with rubbish. Really, poor quality stuff that should have just made its way to the trash can. Old weed wackers that didn't work, half used boxes of Depends and lots of other pretty useless stuff (unless you have bladder issues).
The Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans didn't have anything worthwhile, but I did luck out at the Christian Church though.
I bought a bag of a whole lot of miscellaneous kitchen utensils for 25 cents. 99.9% of which I just turned around and donated to Goodwill, but I was interested in this thing in the bag.
It has a great chippy green handle.
Any idea what it is though? And don't ask why I bought something that I didn't know what it was. You've all been there, done that.
And then I found this vase. A little old lady working at the church sale came over to me when I picked it up and told me she hoped I would love it as much as she had. She told me her Grandmother had given it to her and she had kept it all this time but had recently decided to go ahead and donate it to the church sale.
I told her I would love it as much as she had and I told her about some of the other vases I had. She seemed very happy that I was buying it.
For 75 cents. Did I mention it is a Hull vase?
It is called a suspended vase, but I'm not sure what the decorative finish is called. Hull tended to make the same vase styles with different finishes and details on them.
Oh, and I left a little sumpin sumpin as a donation to the church when I checked out. Something about the combination of the nice old lady, being in a church and a ridiculously priced piece of pottery made me feel a little guilty.
BTW, my theory on why I find a lot of pottery pieces at thrift stores and yard sales is that a lot of pottery was made within an hour or so drive of where I live in Ohio, so I think it is just more readily available around here. Roseville, McCoy, Weller, Shawnee and Hull were all eastern Ohio pottery manufacturers. As well as Homer Laughlin in East Liverpool, Ohio.
There are benefits to living in Ohio!
Anonymous
We used loose tea (like coffee) and the strainer was used to keep the tea leaves out of the tea.
ThriftyAnnabella
The vase is very pretty 🙂
dogsmom
Most of us had the red handled strainers so you found the rare green handled one!
We did not drink much tea but it came in handy for straining all kinds of things.
Anna
yes, that would be a tea strainer. If you make an old fashioned pot of tea with tea leaves (back before they had tea bags) you had to use one.
That Hull vase is really unique. I have recently started collecting some pottery and dishes - mostly Fiestaware and other vintage dishes. I love finding something for cheap and looking it up online to see how much it is really worth, even if I am not going to re-sell anything it is fun to know you got a great deal!
Paula
A Hull vase for $.75? Wow! You were very kind to make a donation since you knew the value of what you purchased. Let's just say that I've never seen anything like what you found at a church sale around here.
Erin
Seriously, only you Pam!!! You get the best stuff, and that donation will bring more goodness to you, you're a good egg Pam:)
artteachergirl
Yep, it's a tea strainer, I have a red one that was my mama's. She used lose tea so she'd strain it through there after it boiled. Love the green handle on yours. You've really found some treasures lately. Church sales are usually the best ones. What a sweet vase and story. It's Hull...how wonderful is that?!!
Linda
Love the Hull vase, I haven't seen one like that before! Great find!