Trees to Treasures: Why Wooden Antiques Are Bringing Premium Prices

Interestingly enough some antiques, namely Treenware or wooden wares are still fetching big prices. Whether you side hustle on Etsy or Ebay, this episode may give you some ideas of what not to pass up, and the ridiculous prices.  

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Wooden Collectibles
• 1:42 Dough Bowls: Identification and Value
• 6:31 Carpenter's Mallets Worth Thousands
• 9:16 Firkins and Wooden Buckets
• 12:00 Wooden Salt Spoons and Utensils
• 14:25 Make-Do Contraptions and Unknown Items
• 18:26 Tree-N-Ware and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Living a Vintage Life by Retro Chalet. Thanks for joining. Here's your host, cindy Fannestock-Shafer. Hey guys, thanks so much for joining. I'm going to try to do this podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:14

It has been a quick minute, since I've been having the time to do so Been very, very busy. As you know, in my real life I just sell barbecue and on the side I work in my little humble Etsy shop, retro Chalet, and so today I wanted to talk a little bit about wooden collectibles that are still hot. So if you're a collector or if you're an Etsy seller, these are things that you want to scarf up on in the thrift stores, in the antique shops. They have a good resale value and I wanted to go over why and how. Okay, so first off, let's just talk a little bit about wood products. Okay, so before there was metal and before there was all this you know, plastic there was wood. Back in the day I'm talking 1400s to 1600s people had to make do with trees. They literally had to make things out of raw wood, and that took a lot of work and basically time and effort. Now you might say, well, how do I know if an item is from the 1600s or if it's actually a reproduction, because primitive reproduction is hot. So here's the thing Reproductions are worth money, antiques are worth money. Originals are worth a hell of a lot of money. So here's how we kind of figure that out.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Now the first thing I'm going to talk about is dough bowls. Dough bowls are a single piece of wood that was formed into a bowl-like material. So you might see them round, you might see them oval, you might even see them squarish and you might see them imperfectly round. So these are indications of what you're looking for. Dough bowls, first off, highly collectible, whether it's reproduction or whether it's old, people love these things. They put them in their kitchen and they display croquet balls in them, they display eggs in them, they display little yarn balls in them. They're decor items. But they're also functional for people who are doing homesteading and making dough. They might still use these things.

Speaker 1: 2:40

So a lot of times the wood itself is an indicator of the age. Oak is a very hard wood. Over time it will have imperfections in it, maybe a crack. If you see an old hard oak bowl with cracks, chances are it's super old. If you go to pick up the dough bowl and it's lightweight, it is made out of bamboo or possibly an African wood that might be a little bit less heavy. That is an indicator that it might be a reproduction. Now it's hard to tell because a lot of reproductions were made out of teak woods, lighter woods, a lot of trees coming out of Africa that aren't the hardwoods of the United States, so to speak, but still collectible.

Speaker 1: 3:35

So here's the thing I just looked on eBay and I could not believe my eyes. There is a primitive dough bowl that is actually really old and it's really unique because it's got a lot of characteristics to it. It's a darker color, it's actually quite well made and it is currently listed for $999. Now I'm not saying that every single dough bowl you find is going to be $999, because then why would you go to work every day? You would just be literally classifying your new job as a dough bowl seeker. But you know, I don't know if the seller's going to get it or not. I'll be curious because I saved the item just to watch it and see, and I'll probably make a little video of these screenshots on my TikTok, because the prices of the stuff that I'm talking about right now, I think, are on the high end, outrageous. But if you pick up a dough bowl at a thrift store, at a flea market, you know upwards of 12 bucks, you're looking at quadrupling your money easy.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Dough bowls sell on Etsy between $40 and $60, easily on eBay between $50 and $75 if the customer gets into a bidding war. But you want to make sure, if you're not sure of the age, to be honest and say you know, I'm not sure of the age of this bowl, I'm not even sure of the wood type you know. Now one thing I do want to say is a lot of the really, really old bowls will have wormholes in them or holes in them or cracks in them. And don't think that you have to turn down an older dough bowl because it's got a crack in it that actually may indicate its age, although it may not be worth something as good as something in mint condition. Your cracked 1800s primitive dough bowl might still bring you upwards of $200 versus a perfect reproduction teak dough bowl from 1970. So keep these factors in mind when looking and or collecting.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Now one thing that I tend to steer away from I've had a real hard time selling are the Mexican dough bowls that look like floral platters. They're made of wood. They're actually more wiggly, looking like they've whittled them and carved them out, but they're brightly painted with all kinds of flowers and a lot of times they're painted on the inside, which means that someone homesteading cannot use that to make dough because it's got paint on it and your possibilities of decor are limited to like hanging it on the wall, because if you put a lot of stuff in it now, you can't see the decoration. And I've had a real hard time selling these items. That's just my personal opinion, but you can take it or leave it. So the next item I want to go into that is primitive and all wood is a carpenter's mallet.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Now, a carpenter's mallet was made out of wood from the 1400s through probably the 1700s and then in the 1800s Probably wood, and then, once rubber and plastic and metal and iron became a thing in the late 1800s, possibly more iron or metal was used. But there is a listing on eBay right now and again I'm watching this listing. I'm going to make a TikTok because I'm in shock. It's a $40,000 carpenter mallet $40,000 carpenter mallet. So the mallet itself looks like something you would see in an old-time carnival where they you know, or a cartoon where they take this big wood mallet and the top of the mallet is huge. It's a big chunk of wood and it's just attached to a tiny little wood handle and basically they would slam down you know the carnival toy and and and hit this little thing and the ball would go up and see if they could hit the top. It looks to me like a carnival mallet, but the seller has it listed as ancient 1600s carpenter mallet for forty thousand dollars. Now am I telling you that you're going to get $40,000 for every wood mallet you find? Oh heck, no, but obviously they are collectible in the tool collecting circles they're also super cool.

Speaker 1: 7:57

So, whether this is a carnival mallet or a wood carpenter's mallet, if you do see a hammer that is all made of wood, you might want to look it over, see if it's got any imperfections. Make sure it's not something that's like for cracking crabs. I'm not talking about a tiny little crab cracking mallet. I'm talking about a big, heavy duty wood mallet. If you pick that thing up between $10 and $20, you're most likely going to quadruple your money on eBay or Etsy, if not more. Now I don't know why this seller thinks this thing is from the 1600s.

Speaker 1: 8:32

It is painted painted. So it's, you know, maybe been handed down and somebody painted it so you can't really tell. You can't really tell the type of wood when it's painted, you can't really tell if it's got. You know how it was hewn together. So you know, in my opinion I'm just saying wood in itself is collectible. Handmade items are collectible. A carpenter's mallet is a good buy. Whether this guy gets 40,000, you know he has to have some kind of provenance, like this came from such and such a state and it was handed down. It was the mallet of John Quincy Adams then maybe. But you know I wish him luck.

Speaker 1: 9:10

So another thing that basically is collectible are firkins or sugar buckets. So if you're going along your way and I'll tell you where you find these farm, barn sales, estate sales, where there is a farm or a barn, you may very well find yourself an old wooden bucket. These buckets are, you know, the slatted wood put together and most likely will have some type of either wood banding around them or iron banding around them. Firkins are considered like a sugar bucket or a storage bucket From primitive times. Sap buckets are also big in Vermont and on the northern east coast for tapping sap out of trees are a little bit tinier than a firkin. Sugar buckets are a little bit bigger than the sap bucket. So these little you know sap buckets and sugar buckets can range from six inches tall to 12 inches tall, and then larger storage buckets of course. So I've been finding that all wooden buckets are pretty much holding their value.

Speaker 1: 10:15

There have been a lot of reproductions. Reproductions I can spot with the way in which they are held together. If you look sometimes you'll see tiny little metal staples. Tiny little metal staples was not something big in the 1800s. Okay, this is something with reproduction buckets. So if you see a really too good to be true, really great condition wooden bucket and you look at it closer and around the wood banding or the metal banding you see these tiny little nails or tiny little staples that just don't seem period. Then you know you've gotten a reproduction.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Now reproduction buckets still sell for people who want home decor and who don't want to spend $70 at the Macy's getting one or the Kohl's or whatever, wherever they're getting them. And basically you know you might be able to pick it up for 10 bucks and still sell it for 30. But make sure you know that it's truly vintage if you're listing it as such. If you're unsure of the age, then just say you're unsure of the age. But of course, etsy will only allow you to sell things that are 20 years old or more. So your best bet is going to be Facebook Marketplace for primitives, or basically you could upcycle it. So here's an idea, like, let's say, you come across a bucket and you pick it up for five bucks and you're not sure if it's new or old, but you're an artist, paint something on it. So now you've had an upcycled bucket, now you're able to sell it on Etsy because it's one of your handmade upcycled creations. So that's just a tip for you on how to cut through some red tape.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Now, another thing that actually is really really holding its value is wooden salt spoons. Now you know, I'm sure when you're in the thrift store or you're collecting or you're in an antique store, you see all kinds of wooden utensils. It's really hard for me to tell what wooden spoon was my great-grandmother's and what wooden spoon I just got yesterday, because normally if you're a cook with wooden spoons which you know would be the home cooker, because commercially you're not allowed to use them anymore in restaurants, like back in the day when I was a kid, restaurants used wooden spoons to stir their soup, but now they're considered unsanitary and they're not allowed to use them. They're not NSF. So a lot of the older restaurants you know got rid of all their wooden spoons. They ended up in estate sales, thrift stores, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 12:39

So now when you're looking at wooden spoons, you're not sure whether they're old or new. Well, stop looking at them, unless they're tiny salt spoons. So what you need to do is really kind of do a Google search on salt spoons so you know what they look like. They're very small and they're actually quite interesting because they're like a little wooden divot. So in other words, think of an egg cup, but think of a tiny little wooden salt spoon, so it would allow you to actually take out a scoop of salt.

Speaker 1: 13:08

These things are rare and they're hard to find and there's a collector on eBay right now selling a lot of like 10 or 12 for $180. So what I'm telling you is, if you find a wooden salt spoon for like a buck, expect to get 12 or $18 out of it, and that, basically, is going to be a $12 to $18, 12 to 18 time reinvestment for you, a return, I should say. So basically I've never, ever in all my years of collecting, come across a wooden salt spoon. I've come across plenty of salad tongs and forks and sporks and things of that nature and ladles obviously, forks and sporks and things of that nature and ladles obviously. And you know I'm not a real big buy the wooden utensils unless you really know.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Now some you can actually tell are super old if they're hand whittled, if the wood looks like oak, if they have a lot of stains, if they're very, very lightweight. Usually I put it down because that again is going to be like the teak woods and the later bamboo and reproductionary woods. So another thing to keep in mind is if you come across something and this is the fifth thing that's still collectible is going to be the to-do, make-do. So basically, back in the day, in the 1800s, they had to make do, they couldn't afford something, they had to make it, and so they would make these contraptions. And sometimes you'll come across something and it'll look really old and you won't know what the heck it is and a Google search won't allow you to find it.

Speaker 1: 14:46

Like the other day I was in a thrift store and I picked up this thing. It had iron on the top and the wooden handle and another wooden handle and I was like what the heck is this? And I Google searched it and it came up four different things. I personally thought that it was a wooden icebreaker, because the end of it you could hold and the top of it was iron, with these little like naily things that looked like it was just smashed through ice or chip up ice or something of that nature. It literally came up icebreaker. It came up rug puller. It came up carpet stretcher. It came up unknown contraption.

Speaker 1: 15:20

However, the selling points of all of these items, based on the age of the thing that I purchased, was about $79.99. Now the thing was in the thrift store for $6.99. I usually don't drop $6.99 unless I can make $79.99, right. So I was like, okay, I'm going to get this item. So now I'm going to be honest when I list it.

Speaker 1: 15:41

I'm going to say I'm going to say that it could possibly be an icebreaker or carpet stretcher, because no one seems to really know what this thing was used for. I can honestly see it being used for either, or so it's kind of interesting because with the nails on the end, back in the 1800s in the old Victorian homes they had a lot of nice baseboard trim. They had a lot of, you know, nice baseboard trim, and so I could see like having to smush your carpet underneath the trim if you didn't want to actually remove the trim. There was usually like a little gap on the hardwood floor so you could like stick a carpet under there. I could see that. As far as a carpet stretcher, I think that the nails would wreck your carpet, so I kind of don't get that. But for an icebreaker I can see that too. So sometimes you really just aren't going to know what the contraption is. But if it's between zero and 10 bucks I say get it, because once you do find out and you might not find out right away, but once you do find out what it is it might be worth its weight in gold.

Speaker 1: 16:49

Like, for instance, I took a blacksmithing class and shout out to Randy McDaniel, who is a master blacksmith in Berkeley County, west Virginia, and he's been teaching and doing blacksmith for years. The guy is an old fart and I love him and he has all these contraptions that are antique blacksmith stuff. Now, if I came across this I would never know what it was, but sometimes back in the day, in the 1800s, the blacksmith used wood forms and wood pulleys and things of that nature to try to, like you know, make their carriage bolt pieces and this and that and the other, and there's all kinds of unidentifiable things there. Only he knows what it is, and so what I'm telling you is buy it, research it. You might not know right away. You may not know right away.

Speaker 1: 17:40

When you do a Google image search, it's bringing up the wrong images with this AI. It's just something that kind of is shaped, similar, but not the right thing. But the more and more you investigate, post a, you know, post a picture on Reddit and start looking for stuff. More and more pictures are getting digitized every day and sooner or later you're going to find out what that item is. So like, let's say, you, you know you find a wood form for a factory that was only used, you know, to make tools. Well, that's going to be a big hit for tool collectors and once you're able to identify it, you're going to really be happy that you listened to me and purchased the item. So I hope that this little podcast just on wood has been a little bit helpful to you.

Speaker 1: 18:27

I do want to say that if you're a seller on Etsy or eBay, tree-n-ware is a great word to use. So tree-n-ware, t-r-e-n-w-a-r-e is basically things that are made from the tree, aka wood, aka small little functional things that were used in the home back in the day. This could be wood cups, wood utensils, wood plates, wood bowls, wood buckets. Pretty much encompasses a lot of wooden things and, again, it is highly collectible.

Speaker 1: 18:58

People want to get back to the old. They want a cottage core up their homes, they want a country cottage style their house and they want a homestead. And in my home, wood is my go-to thing. I have so much wood in my home that it's not even funny. I'm kind of lucky that I don't have termites, or else I'd be crying, but I love wood. I mean, I'm just, you know, some kind of hippie pagan, maybe that just hugs trees, I don't know. But but when I look at something wood, I sit there and I think, wow, this thing was made by somebody and it probably took a heck of a long time. Based on the age, they might not have had modern tools and they really put a lot of love into this and for five bucks it's going to bring me joy in my home until I can pass it on through my Etsy shop to somebody who's really a collector of this type of thing. So I hope this little podcast helped you.

Speaker 1: 19:49

The only way I'm going to keep doing my podcast is if you share, like and leave me a five-star review on whatever platform you use. And remember, remember getting stuff out of a dumpster. Dive on the side of the road when people are throwing out trash left over from a flea market. Repurposing things, going to thrift stores, going to antique stores and re-donating the items that you don't need is a great way to keep these items in history and out of the landfill. And I don't really want to live in a world of AI and plastic 3D molding, but maybe you do and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 20:25

I'm not judging, but I'm saying if this podcast is helpful, please share it. And if you do shop my little Etsy store, always use code RETRO10 to save 10% off your purchase. It's not a lot, but the struggle is real. Etsy's fees are super high now. So anything you can do to share my little store or share my podcast really, really helps. In my next podcast I'm gonna drop. I'm gonna tell you the number one secret that I found that helped me boost my store. You know I've listened to all these podcasts about boosting shops but I nailed it, so hopefully you'll tune in and I'll be dropping that soon. Thanks so much for listening to Living a Vintage Life and I hope you have a wonderful vintage retro day.