Monday 12 April 2010

Arthur Swallows Antiques Fair

Last week Judy and I had a lovely trip to the Arthur Swallows Antiques fair at Swinderby. It's on for two days and has over 200 acres of stalls to browse. We decided to go for the second day, as it is only £2 entry, compared to the £15 for the first day. Unfortunately, the weather was not brilliant and it was chucking it down. With most of the stalls being outside, this meant a lot of the stall holders were packing up but it also gave us a brilliant opprotunity to haggle!!


Anyway, here are a few of my top picks of the fair, followed by our actual purchasses. The first thing to catch my eye was this amazing 1950s cocktail cabinet, I tried to capture the brilliant design on the mirror but just couldn't! But here it is anyway:Just for Sarah, my friend from my last blog post, some statues, she loves religious kitsch!We stumbled accross an amazing stall with some absolutely stunning 1950s dining tables. I loved the formica tops, but at £288 they were way above my budget!This blue one was definately my favourite:However, after coming home, I did some searching on ebay and came accross this lovely:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VINTAGE-RETRO-1950-60S-FORMICA-CHROME-TABLE-AND-CHAIRS_W0QQitemZ250609612311QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Home_Garden_DiningRoomFurniture_SM?hash=item3a597f3617


This set didn't sell at £25! Possibly because it was listed as 1960s rather than 50s, but despite the fact that it isn't the bright blue of my favourite, I think it's still fabulous. I also think this was an absolute bargain rather than the ones at the fair being overpriced. Even if you paid for a courier, you're nowhere near the £288 of the others. It just goes to show, if you look hard enough, you can find it!


Next, I loved this tiki style 1950s vase, but at £50, was too much for me!And this amazing coffee table would have been coming home with me if I had the space:If there's one thing I love it's flying ducks/swallows/seagulls! So when we came accross a stall in the indoor sections, they were packing up but let me take some snaps of their lovely stock! They are way out of my price range, but still, I may find some in a charity shop some day!
I loved this 1950s sausage dog: And this amazing drinks set complete with tray. But this was definately out of my price range at £122!!And now on to our actual purchases, firstly and most importantly, dohnuts!

There was one thing on our list for today, a sunburst clock for Judy! And at the very end of the day we found this beauty hiding under a leather jacket. It was labelled at £40 , but Judy managed to sweet talk them down to £30, bargain!
I found this knitting book which I got way too over excited about. I especially love 1940s patterns and I have found a couple of other books by this author, so when I found this, I had to take it home. It was labelled at £6, but I got it for £5.




Here it is with my others, I love the cover illustrations too. So that was our day! If you fancy a visit I will highly recommend it, here's a link to the website for more details:


http://www.arthurswallowfairs.co.uk/lincolnshire-overview.php

1 comment:

  1. I would LOVE three little birds for my bathroom! And i really want that Mary!

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