Latest Compact Additions

From left to right - top collage - London souvenir compact by Stratton, Engraved Elgin American square compact, scalloped shell compact by American Beauty, blue-green leather bound vintage powder compact produced by Elgin American - book shaped, possibly a former perfume compact with green stone. Bottom collage - Wadsworth gold, red and black book shaped compact, Dixie Deb miniature silver rogue compact, very old and early double compact for powder and rogue - leather bound in the shape of a book. 

It appears I haven't mentioned my vintage powder compacts for a fair while - in fact I started a blog purely about them but that occurred at the time my shops were growing and now I can't get into it. So here we go. These eight vintage compacts - a mixture of single powder, double powder and rogue, rogue and just a perfume compact have all been gifted by Joe for my birthday or estate sale finds. Hopefully I'll get around to posting more in depth about them all but they too look good as a college together. 

Compacts have been a little easier to find at estate sales - but then again they are either priced perfectly (really cheap or bang on) or unrealistically over charged. The same sadly can be said of etsy - they are over charged within an inch of their life. As someone who has just one off 60 compacts you get a feel for their pricing and in the last year there has been a vast increase in compacts on the online market. But unless your a collector you don't really know their true pricing, just because their old doesn't necessarily mean they can be expensive especially when they aren't even in a fair condition. With crackling enamel, broken or missing, blurry mirrors, damaged patina etc sadly too many people are asking perfect prices for them. That is not to say there aren't compacts out there that aren't worth paying lots for - even into the hundreds - but you learn to know which these days. 

The same can be said for any collection - get aware of the market, what the pricing should be like and you'll find yourself making better judgement in what you buy, from where and for how much.