Back from England...June Jewelry Sale

Well, we're back from our English buying trip. Had great weather for the most part and pretty successful trip. Have all sorts of neat items arriving. We find it's like Christmas! You have forgotten what you found 6 weeks ago when you packed the container. Amazing!!!!

We have brought home LOTS of British royal commemoratives, Wedgwood, Shelley China, small silver items like knife rests, open salts, sugar tongs and other fun things and are listing them just as soon as we can get them inventoried and photographed.

We bypassed London this year because of the hotel costs...they went up 30-60% over last year...and stayed in other areas of the country. You can see the new items at Time Was Antiques.


JUNE JEWELRY SALE

Also at Time Was Antiques
we are having our first ever jewelry clearance. We are calling it the JUNE JEWELRY JUBILEE and most items of 14kt, 18kt, 10kt gold, sterling silver etc are 50% off. The reduced items include diamonds, emerald, sapphires, semi precious stones, and the last remaining stock of jewelry from the King Tut exhibit in 1974 in San Francisco, Calif. Neat!

Well, we are going to look for the final house furnishings needed today since our September move, rugs & curtains. Should be fun but I know it will be tiring. It's been a cool winter & spring, 8-12 degrees below normal & the coolest for 20 years. So much for global warming....at least here. But....we love the sea air, so no complaints.

Have a great day!!!

Camden Stables And Camden Locks Fire Tragedy

I am grieving for the loss of a fun antiques area in London last week by fire.

The area called Camden Stables Market in northern London
had a disastrous fire the evening of 9th Feb in a favorite area for us to go on our annual English buying trips. The area of Camden Town has several venues including the Stables Market including the old Horse Hospital, Camden Lock and Camden High Street with Camden Passage. The fire involved the Stables Market and part of the Lock market.

The photo at left is the Camden Town Crier outside the market on a Saturday which is a peak time. The man facing the camera in the rear is my DH. The crier was pressed into service this last Saturday as traders set up makeshift stalls and shared whatever areas were undamaged. A neat photo from 2 days after is a local pub with the menu boasrd outside reading "We're not burning...come inside for cold berr...Free drinks for firefighters".

The are has seen it's bit of controversy lately with the redevelopment plans scheduled to close the market anyway and redo it. Many fear it would mean an end to the centuries old small traders...that they would be displaced in the construction with upmarket chain stores which we hope won't happen.

We have formed relationships with several traders in the Horse Hospital adjacent to the Stables Market and it would be a shame to see them routed out by a fancier chain store.
Here are a few fire photos I found from the BBC website. One is of the locks next to the Stables where you can catch a canal boat back through Regent Canal to Regent Park which we loved doing in the good weather at the close of our shopping the markets for a leisurely way back to central London...especially as some of the tube stops don't run on Sat. afternoon.

Best wishes to all the traders at the markets and hope you are back up and functioning soon!
Cheers

Back on the Blogging trail!!!

After being of the blog for a few months...settling in after a move coupled with our busiest season, I'm back at it.

Hope Valentine's Day was a sweet day. Today, the 16th is our 34th Wedding anniversary so we just got back from a fabulous dinner at our favorite restaurant in Sequim called Alderwood Bistro http://www.alderwoodbistro.com. They do a cedar planked fish with fresh organic baby vegetables that is absolutely perfect! Slow food!!!!

Our websites had a wonderful holiday season with lots of business. We are back from a short after Christmas break and are busy loading inventory. We have a bit of stock left from last year's English buying trip and our next is coming up in April so I'm trying to get caught up.

I was also interviewed in the current issue of Tea House Times by Lady Gayle. You can access that at http://www.teahousetimes.com.

We have been adding some great items. We have added some English hallmarked silver watch fobs and watch fobs used as necklace pendants were featured in the January issues of both Victoria Magazine and Country Living. Amazing! They are certainly a fun accessory and I am thrilled that these wonderful ltiile collectibles is gaining recognition and appreciation.
You can see our current stock of these little cuties at Time Was Antiques . Watch fobs were a victorian must-have to decorate a pocket watch chain. Sometimes they were purely decorative and sometimes they were awards and medals. Mostly sterling silver but sometimes decorated with gold appliques or enamel work, with or without a monogram. Many were little works of art with engraving and beautiful cut work as you can see in the example above. They are certainly a neat collectible today.

Well, back to adding inventory to the websites. We recently opened a carton from our last buying trip to England with an estate collection of salts and a collection of British royal commemoratives we acquired while there so look for those items in our New Items category.

I'm baaacckk!!! Whew...a few months with NOTHING because it's been so hectic!

We moved home & business at the end of Sept. from Oregon to Washington to the top of the Olympic Peninsula. We are just across the Strait of San Juan De Fuca from Victoria, BC and the San Juan Islands, just to the west of the Puget Sound.

We have a great location and more warehouse which is very good, as now I can actually find some of the crates from our last English buying trip.

We had our first snow on the surrounding Olympic Mountains in Olympic National Park just to the south of us. It's beautiful. And having lived for years at 5,000 feet with lots of snow it's great to have it up THERE.

We have the office and photo room set up and have gotten back in the groove with photographing great items for the websites. We have almost 2,000 items online at Time Was Antiques at http://www.timewasantiques.net
and will be adding more every day.

VICTORIA Magazine is Back!!!! My favorite for years until 2002, I think has been republished. You can see more info online at http://www.victoriamag.com/
We are so excited. Like meeting a close friend you haven't seen in a while and realizing just how much you have missed her.

We are part of a cooperative full page ad in Victoria by one of the other publications I advertise in, Tea House Times. You can visit them at http://www.teahousetimes.com.

So, we are back on track and excited about the coming holidays. I have gourds, autumn leaves and red candles on the table and am enjoying the crisp air and the anticipation of new traditions to establish in our new hometown.

Pull up a chair, fix a cup of tea or hot cider and browse our fine English antiques and collectibles at http://www.timewasantiques.net.

BACK TO REALITY AFTER ENGLISH BUYING TRIP

I've been awol for a bit. A combo of allergies and an annual buying trip to England. But am back, recovered from jetlag and back to listing fab items for Time Was Antiques.

The trip was fun and featured a lot of walking and shopping in different venues. The last week of the trip was in London in unseasonably gorgeous weather in the 60-70s. We hit the various daily antique markets and this photo is from the Saturday antiques market at Portobello Rd by Notting Hill in London. If you have claustrophobia or enochlophobia (fear of crowds) you don't belong there!!!! It's always the most packed, and amazing at what a mass of humanity can be packed into 4 blocks between shops and street stalls, and how much STUFF! Valuable to junk. Amazing! This year though, prices were up, variety was down and we came away with less than usual. Sigh...

I've got London pictures at the moment. A bit out of order for the trip, but haven't gotten to the other to transfer/upload from my laptop.

We also spent 2 days between/after markets being London tourists and walking the north & south banks of the Thames on the Thames path which is always fabulous, especially in the good weather we had. We did the British Airways London Eye which we tend to do every year or so. Love it for great views of the city.

As for the stock we purchased, we have started adding what we brought home with us in our carryons. Because we flew back on Maxjet (http://www.maxjet.com) an all business class airline at an incredible price, they didn't weigh our carryons so we were able to cram a lot in. The rest is starting to arrive as well.

So we have added/adding British royal commemoratives, Shelley China, small silver items like knife rests and sugar tongs, motto ware, china and lots of interesting things. Quite fun. It's neat to remember as you unpack them where you found them. Like reliving the trip. Awesome.
New items can be seen at:
http://www.timewasantiques.net


Back to listing on a gorgeous day in southern Oregon. Supposed to be high 70s which is about perfect! Plan to first go to the weekly Grower's Market for some organic produce thena cup of tea and a pastry with my DH in the park then back to work!!!
Have a great day!
Ruth

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It's 2007, and we have drawn our winner for the Time Was Tea Time Gift Pack. We want to congratulate Alan L. of California whose name was drawn from all of our customers during the months of November and December 2006. Alan's gift pack was shipped today.

We will be announcing a new drawing in our next newsletter. I have to decide what it should be!

We want to thank all of our customers for a great year and many new friends. I had tea the other day with a local customer and very much enjoyed having a customer become a fried. We plan to meet for tea again. We had a lot in common and had a great time.

We are planning our annual buying trip to England and will be leaving the US on the 13th of April. We will only be gone 3 weeks this time instead of the usual month because of other committments, but let us know if you have anything we should be looking for for you.

Have a great week. Our kids & grandkids are in town for the next few days so we will be busy having a fun time with family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It's Christmas eve and everything is quiet. The winds have died down and it's cozy by the fire with my Honey watching football with the cat on his lap.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve morning service at Ashland Christian Fellowship with a 4 person bagpipe group doing their annual traditional Christmas fanfare, then the kds, then lots of carols, hugs and best wishes.

Lunch/dinner with friends and a sigh that the hectic Christmas shopping period is over for another year. We actually had a SUPER year and are very grateful for the wonderful notes we have received from our customers. Thank you!

Tomorrow we report for duty at the Historic Ashland Armory to help at the 16th annual Christmas dinner given by our church to the community. It's free, all are welcome and we will be serving from noon to 4 PM. We usually serve 500-1,000. Last year we were with the kids in Salt Lake City but will enjoy helping this year.

As for Time Was Antiques we will be hard at work adding lots of new items. We recently acquired an estate collection of knife rests from England so we are adding those as well as lots of new teacups and saucers, linens, costume jewelry and lots of goodies!
Have a blessed day celebrating tomorrow.
Ruth