Featured Metal Japanese Vase with birds, flowers

This will be for sale at an estate sale this weekend. This sale has been going on for 4 weekends (with no mark downs unbelievably) but finally they are having a 50%-75% markdown on everything left. Pretty sure this is still at the sale and the discount would make it $20. It is a fairly large vase, 12-14" or so, if memory serves, stamped "Made in Japan" on the base. Only have the one pic from the ad. Is there a name for this kind of piece? (So I can check comparable prices). Thanks.

 

is it ceramic ?

 

It's metal.

If I got it would be buying for resale. The "Made in Japan" stamp seems like it might not be a good resale item, but not used to seeing larger vases like this. $20, what do you think?

 

I call it mixed metals

 

metal....20 bucks.....sure...go 4 it !

 

At that price, if it's metal and in good shape you might as well. If they try to jack you up for more, I'd mark down the name of the company handling the sale and run the other way from their work from here on out.

 

maybe check out Japan mixed metal floor vase? Looks like a nice piece, has the chrysanthemum and bird which are popular

 

Maybe too late, @Lucille.b GRAB

That's monumental, right????

Grab. You are one cagey shopper!!!

 

Sorry, it looks huuuuuuge in the image, but wait, I guess 14" is not monumental

 

So.... what happened, @Lucille.b ? Did you buy it, or not?

 

Could be a cloisonné vase so glaze composition on a silver base maybe

 

I did wind up going back, and the vase was still there, but noticed some damage, so passed.

This was the oddest sale. Absolutely fantastic older home in a great part of town, Koi pond in the back, kitchen to die for, floor to ceiling glass on one side and tons of beautiful space. The sale was for a locally well known person, apparently she had a weakness for collecting and probably got gifts for her collections on travels. Mostly the collections were newer, like 1980s or later. But there were a few older items too. Clean and well presented, literally thousands of things. Looking into the living room, antique table to seat 12, covered with glass, vases, etc -- not total junk, but recent. In the corner, floor to ceiling giant curio with hundreds of hedgehogs. Some English, Swedish, but also many just resin. Displays like that. Walls and rooms of other collections, shelving everywhere. Pretty much every square inch had something, but clean and had an order. Part of the home was a full library, thousands of books.

I've never seen a sale run like this. It wasn't relatives, also not a professional company. Must have been acquaintances that knew a bit about sales and as the weeks went on, they got less and less friendly.

The first time the sale ran was two months ago. They wound up running the sale for FIVE 3-day weekends 10-5pm, taking a week pause here and there, only to resume the following weekend. There wasn't that much stuff, it was just that they had it priced too high and were not flexible on prices (weekend after weekend zero discounts) AND they were holding back inventory for some reason. So every time you went there were items "they hadn't priced yet" "hadn't gotten to yet". I was pretty desperate for sales, being February, so I kept going back on the first weekend day, hoping that they finally got to this or that.

By the 5th weekend every dealer in town was burned out, so there were only 3 people waiting in line at opening, and that is the weekend they opened up 6 new rooms! So did wind up getting a few things.

On what was originally advertised as the final weekend, I asked whether a certain higher priced item might be discounted and got read the riot act about how someone was coming in to "buy everything that was left", so they weren't discounting anything.

Well apparently that "buy-out" didn't "pan-out", because two weeks ago the sale was advertised again, "everything 50-75% off". That is when I posted here about the Japanese vase.

So that final weekend at 50% off there were a few items that must have been freshly unearthed... one was an oversized scrap book with vintage menus for $1, probably 40 vintage menus in there. Might post a question on the forums about that.

And just like the sale that kept going and going, there is more to this post. On week 3, a fellow dealer, in town for 35 years, was accused of stealing (can NOT imagine this, nothing small was valued at over $5, it doesn't even make sense on any level. I'm sure they had it wrong). I had a few items that were in bulk priced boxes that once I got up to the check out they announced, "oh that's not for sale". No apology, just briskly grabbed it out of my pile. They even gave me the "evil eye" staring at my trusty fully translucent plastic estate sale tote. The ad said "bring boxes and bags", I figured a 100% see-through bag was the ticket, but they stared at the bag every time I was walking past the cashier like I was up to something. So strange!

On that final 50% off weekend I brought my daughter. I had her buy the menu book thinking if they saw me with it they'd announce it wasn't for sale or something.

It was a sale for the record books.

 

Sounds wild! You are very persistent to go back so often. Looks like you might have gotten some good things there, but... what a pain! On the other hand, you've said in the past that you love estate sales, so... I'm glad you enjoyed it.

 

That sounds like a crew who knew something, but not nearly enough, and didn't know the least bit about customer service. Customer DISservice maybe. I know a company who also treats me like that; I avoid their sales if I know who it is, no matter what they advertise. I don't need to pay someone to treat me like dirt, thanks; I can get that for free elsewhere.

 

Part of what I love about estate sales (other than buying priceless treasures for pennies on the dollar...) is the experience. Watching other shoppers, imagining the lives of the people whose estate it is, even how the sellers run the show. I can tell you I probably would have purchased even more if these sellers were a bit more friendly. But I don't think this crew is in it for the long haul. They held the sale for 18 days over the course of two months, 7 hours per day. That doesn't include behind the scenes pricing, etc. Got to be some kind of world record.

 

Just thought about another customer (dis-service) event at another estate sale a month ago. This sale wasn't the same folks, but professionally run by a well regarded local company.

I walked in on an argument. Some woman was buying a bed pillow that was marked "$3". It was a pillow and pillow case together. When she got up to the counter the sellers said, "The pillow inside isn't included". The buyer and sellers were fighting back and forth about this. Actually thought the buyer had a point, can't imagine a used bed pillow having that much separate value, plus it was marked as one price, and now everyone at the sale was listening. Further, the buyer had just laid out $150 on other purchases! The estate sale held to their guns and would not include the pillow.

I kept to myself, but as I was walking out I ran into the buyer on the sidewalk and I said something like, "Jeez, that was bizarre". She said, "Yeah. And I'm going home to write a bunch of online reviews about this company."

 

yeah it's beautiful, wondering about its age