Antiques Road Trip Eat Your Heart Out… (Well, it’s worth a try)

We’re diversifying, and having far too much fun doing it. It’s early days yet, but we are now buying antiques, vintage, brocante, bric a brac, you name it, as long as we like the quality, look of it and think we can sell it ~ and particularly if it has a wine theme.

Vintage Roosters of Barcelos from Portugal

One wonderful thing about France (besides it’s wine and cheese) is the vide-grenier, the equivalent to the USA’s garage sale, or the UK’s car boot sale. Each town has one, no matter how small. And my goodness, they are popular. The French really do like to sell anything, from bathtubs and heaters to children’s clothes and shoes. But in amongst the day to day is some real amazing antiques and fun items, like these Barcelos Roosters which just make me smile, but maybe that’s because we look after chickens and a rooster.

But I digress. First I should explain the why. You see, Pumpjack and I are great fans of the Antiques Road Trips (as seen on TV). We’ve been watching them for years. For those uninitiated, an antique expert buys in one place and sells at auction elsewhere and hopes to make a profit. We have always wanted to give this a go.

Smoking Granny Butter Biscuit Tin

So with the excuse it may support our wine making ventures, we felt this was a prime opportunity to try our hand and see how we do. With vide-greniers to rummage at, it’s at least worth a try. As a side aspect we are adding greatly to our knowledge about French (and other countries) antiques as we research the pieces before putting them in our shop, from Limoge and Etain pewter, to English Old Sheffield Plate. And a long the way we are finding some really quirky items, like this so not very PC, these days, Smoking Granny Butter Biscuit Tin. (This has to be one of my favourite finds.)

We will continuously be adding to our Vintage Shop, but here is just a taste of some of the items we have found…