Vintage Gypsies: In Search of the Truth

Vintage Gypsies: In Search of the Truth: What a long strange trip it's been. I bought this bitchin' little 14" lamp at a Flea Market and have not been able to find out much about i...

In Search of the Truth

What a long strange trip it's been.  I bought this bitchin' little 14" lamp at a Flea Market and have not been able to find out much about it. There are no markings of any kind on it.  So let's do it together!

The body is a white chalky material, unpainted and it's soft, like chalk or gypsum. My first Google search is for "white nude chalkware lamp".  In those results, I found a great site www.tvlamps.net with a great collection of tv lamp pictures and descriptions.  Wonderful collection! But I don't see anything similar to my lamp. Another search turned up www.atomicwarehouse.com that had really great 50's lamps...made me want to change up my living room decor! But still nothing. Many, many searches in different ways:
female nude chalkware lamp; vintage nude plaster lamp; 40s nude lamp; torso plaster lamp; female torso lamp. Nuthin'. Not on eBay, not on Worthpoint, not Etsy. Hmmm.  Now I've been searching for hours and can't find anything even close.  Does that mean it's rare or that I'm just missing some obvious search words. What to do?

It's time to call for help. I've put a shout out to the Etsy Vintage Team.  I'm confident someone will be able to get me in a direction of identification! But after being on the Discussion Board for days, only one possibility surfaced--that the lamp was possibly made with a museum store gift item (the torso) from the 1910-1930's.  Hmmm. Maybe! A great possibility, but I just don't think so. The torso material seems too soft for someone to successfully drill all the way through to wire it without it causing structural problems, but not out of the realm of possibilities!

Well, we will update when we find the complete story.  We know it has to be somewhere!

Best Picks of 2011

2011 was not a good year for my family, but I'm looking and moving forward because it's the only thing that will keep me sane. There is one look back that will be fun and that's to show you our best picks of the year.  Since you never know what you will find out on the hunt, we always get truly excited about great, unexpected finds. First up, I found about 50 of these great linen post cards. We really haven't even marketed them yet--pictures really don't do them justice. We enjoy looking at them every time they pop up  when we are looking for something else! They cover the 40's, 50's and 60's for the most part.

Next we have a Rebajas copper bracelet that we had verified by the company and it was made by Francisco Rebajas himself and is not a production piece. It is really pretty, but a tad too small for either of our wrists and so we have cast it out into the Etsy universe to find a new home with someone who will love and wear it. We had such fun trying to find out what this was and glad we went with our gut that it wasn't "just" a copper bracelet.

Another memorable day was a call from a friend that she was at a great estate sale. It had 2 hours left and I made the mad dash to get there. This picture is of one of the 3 beautiful opaque milk glass plates that I found along with about 20 other items and my only mistake was putting things back before I got to the check out. When I got to the cashier to pay, they gave me such good pricing that regretted putting anything back but I had so much in my pile that I really needed to just be thankful for what I had. I love these plates.

This wonderful mug represents the fun trip we took to Pismo & Grover Beach and San Luis Obispo and the very cool estate sale that our dear friend and Junior Gypsy, Charlene found for us. Over the course of our time there, we made several trips to the sale and got some really great things. This turquoise Fireking mug was one of my favs.  Now it is living in Taiwan.

This group of pins and earrings are also from the same sale---Chris scooped them up the second she saw them.  Love!

Chris scored these beauts and they sold so fast it wasn't even funny. They are so 60's cocktail / Bond girl.

These great melmac plates were another fun score. They were so covered with dust that they didn't look green! I love this color but my boys would not appreciate the care instructions for them so I don't want them subjected to abuse so they will end up going to a good home.

So as we say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012, we are looking forward to finding more great treasures, telling tales and sharing our joy. Happy New Year from Vintage Gypsies!