We interrupt Friday Flowers to bring you this special post
OR I couldn’t wait to tell you this story!
is held twice a year on a farm here in central North Carolina.
No, I had never heard of it until just recently.
How does it compare to Brimfield, you ask? It is smaller; much smaller. There are about 400 vendors (Brimfield boasts 5,000 vendors!). And there are not as many fine antique dealers. On the other hand, the prices are great, it’s not as crowded and, just as at Brimfield, the people watching is wonderful.
I’m always attracted to the colored glass. Details and color: those are two essentials for any antique show walk through, no? It’s also the forms, the smooth textures, the stories behind some of these treasures and the sheer variety that intrigue me.
This is what I brought home:
Finally, let me tell you the story behind the purple glass bottles:
These bottles were made between 1860 and 1915. Until WWI the United States imported manganese from Germany and added it to the glass bottles. This was to keep the clear glass from turning “bottle green”. The combination of sunlight on the bottles and the manganese has, over the years, turned the bottles this wonderful purple color. The deeper the color, the more manganese had been added, or the more the bottle has been in the sunlight.
You never know what you will learn at an antiques market!
And I have more for you next week: a fascinating product/vendor story…
