Old ornaments - Germany or Poland? Vintage or antique?

According to my Christmas ornament book which I happened to be looking through as I saw your post. All shown appear to be pre 1940.

Santa with arms in coat- Japan
Swirl berry- Germany "Fancy All Mold"
Bell- Germany or Czech
Basket- no matches

 

Quite often ornaments of this type with thin necks and small caps are attributed to prior to WWII and made in Germany. Similar ornaments were made in the 50s but the necks seems to be wider and the caps a bit different. It also seems that many were marked in this period.

I am a bit of a neophyte to these but have been doing some research this year. Consequently, I need to caution you that the information given above may not be completely accurate. I am sure there are nuances to ornaments that I am not aware of. If my ornament sales are successful this year, I will probably delve further into this for next year. Seems that there is a lot to learn about old ornaments.

 

Hi Brad: The book I used as a reference is Christmas Ornaments Collectors Guide by George Johnson. I was able to find very similar to exact matches to photos in the book. We are actually saying just about the same thing. What ornaments are you unsure of?

 

Thanks, will need to get that book for next year . I am not unsure about anything right now. I am selling most of my ornaments in the store rather than on ebay. Most of what I have are newer collectible ornaments and some American ones from the 50s-60s. I do have some older ones but really just happened onto them rather than made any conscious effort to obtain them.

I was looking to expand my merchandise base for this time period since my sales usually dip the closer to Christmas we get. I put out about 150-200 ornaments this year. If the sales are worthwhile, I will make a more concerted effort at purchases for next year. My customers mostly seem apathetic to buying and collecting old. Sales have been rather random and sluggish so far.

I didn't even attempt to put any of the good Radko ornaments in the store. I just can't see my customers appreciating them, nor paying accordingly. I did put some of the Radko Shiny Brites in but that is a different ballgame. I think my most expensive ornament is $7.50.

 

I have two Christmas books, Vol 2 of the above mentioned book which has a complicated layout, but great photos. It only deals with early pre 1945 ornaments. The second book, Kitschmasland 1950-1970s is not as good but it is a good start to post war stuff. I used to do very well picking post ww2 Christmas until a lot of other dealers got in the game. I have found the over the years, the best window to sell Christmas on ebay is from second week of Nov through first week of Dec. Too early only dealers looking to resell buy it. By second week of December regular buyers already have their trees up and done buying. This year my Christmas selection is pretty slim, but it is the only thing selling in my store ....right on schedule.

 

Trip98 said:
" I have found the over the years, the best window to sell Christmas on ebay is from second week of Nov through first week of Dec. Too early only dealers looking to resell buy it. By second week of December regular buyers already have their trees up and done buying."

This is about what I thought. I am listing my Radko ornaments now, giving me some leeway to relist if they don't sell. Some are ending tonight and I will be listing more this week. Even if I sell just a few of the Radko ornaments for what I hope, I will have funded my entire Christmas decoration buying for the year.

In my brick and mortar store, I am going to cut prices by 20% on the Christmas stuff the second week of Dec. After Christmas, I will pull anything good that I want to hold over and put the rest at 50% off. Have to play the game to be successful.

 

I would think they would be worth it. Here are recent sales of Vintage German blown ornaments .....

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...t&_nkw=vintage+german+blown+ornament&_sacat=0

 

In fact, I might pull a few from my store to sell. Some of these prices are better than what I am asking.

 

This looks a lot like your Santa ........

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Blown-Glass-Santa-Christmas-Ornament-/111495347126?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19f5a3fbb6&nma=true&si=GZl%2BZOnXguFhF49nYE13iZu%2BGYE%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

You might sell the other 3 in a lot.

 

Sell. Vintage Christmas is still one of the few easy "sells" left on ebay. My usual places to buy Christmas (rummage sales) were not fruitful this year. Boo hoo I don't have much.

 

Nice! I like Christmas too. In fact, I am a bit of an expert in 1960s Japan ornaments as my dad was a sales rep for China Dry Goods a distributor of all Japanese, cute but cheapo Christmas imports from 1961-1967. We had piles of the stuff..lol.

 

I'm a sucker for vintage Christmas, too. Love it.

I have found the over the years, the best window to sell Christmas on Ebay is from second week of Nov through first week of Dec. Too early only dealers looking to resell buy it. By second week of December regular buyers already have their trees up and done buying."

Agreed, by 2nd week of December, its over. But I'm going to add my 2 cents on this. I think the best time to sell Christmas on Ebay might be early October. I know that sounds insanely early, but Ebay isn't saturated yet with holiday, and there are people already thinking Christmas and buying, not just dealers.

I've wanted to test this theory in years past, and someone posted here, I think it was @bercrystal with a 1980's ornament that sold for some tremendous amount under nice finishes, posted in early October. So that week I thought, I'm going to put my vintage bottle brush tree up. I've been trying to sell that for two holiday seasons. It sold in 48 hours, just went back and looked, date was Oct 9th.

I had a few other Christmas items that were also snapped up that week. So even before Halloween! If you have fixed price items, I think it can be a surprisingly good time.

 

Yes, Christmas collectors are always looking & buying (I'm one of them). While it might seem like this time of year has higher prices, if it is the right item it will sell for a good price anytime. I sold a couple of duplicate light bulbs in early October and they did great.
What other stuff do you have?

 

Interesting thought. Searching vintage ornament brings up approximately 110K listings. Looking at completed listings, there are 228K, of which approximately 73K sold. I can't imagine there are nearly that many in Oct. Given the sheer numbers, it is incredible that approximately 1/3 of them do sell. I imagine the numbers are much smaller in Oct. but also wonder about sell-through rates.