Treasures from the Past: Thrifting Today

Today's we have a guest post from Sue at Fifty Plus Travel. She's also my mum! Please make her welcome.

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Every now and then while thrifting you come across something so precious it makes you pause and wonder how much it meant to the original owner. Last Saturday, I brought home the most beautiful Meakin soup tureen, a beautiful bowl edged with royal red and reminiscent of my mother's perfectly appointed table.

We would sit down for dinner with knives, forks and soup or sweets spoons lined up in order, napkins in their old worn silver holders, salt and pepper cellars and tablecloth freshly starched. I thought of the time when this tureen had been cherished and placed on the table filled with soup and ladled out to each family member sitting around the table! It speaks of love and long lost table manners!

I also collect gloves, handbags and oddments like my magnificent old trunk which has a mystery to it to be solved! I love the see through spotted voile wrist styled gloves I own and the long evening gold gloves like those my older sister used to wear to balls! I have some of my mother's worn gloves and also own another precious pair, carefully preserved in their original Dents plastic covering! Most of my handbags are from the 60's like Glomesh and Oroton - some being mine, some with a locked history from the past.

 

But my prized possession is bound for the curator at the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba. I found this at an auction centre a few years ago. Nothing I have ever bought has been so evocative of the past and so mysterious as to its origin. I found it underneath a bench with many other vintage items, just waiting for me it seemed! It has hessian laid over timber and rusted steel bands over that. it is a traveling trunk of the type you would see atop an old stage coach....just the kind of trunk you can imagine a lady would take laden with her possessions - on her way to a distant destination in the 1890's!

Maybe I can hear the echo of the young boys rushing out to unharness the horse team ready for a fresh one, as she stepped down from the coach with the help of an outstretched arm of a gentleman traveller! This trunk was used by the photographers at my daughter's wedding on the farm to display her wedding dress.....those memories will overlay the history of yester year.

Layer upon layer, that's how thrifting builds upon the previous person's usage, what a wonderful legacy we leave when things are passed on and lovingly cared for by their new owner!

Have you ever been absolutely overcome by the history of an item you have thrifted like me? 

The High Cost of High Fashion

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If I've learned one thing this week, it is this: never, EVER come between a fashionista and her handbag.

The tale unfolds thusly: I now work in the freight industry. There is a thing called Customs. In Australia, if you import goods over the value of A$1000, GST is incurred. And that's when the shitfight starts.

Did you know that about the GST? I did, but only because a few months ago I heard about Gerry Harvey's rants about the strong Australian dollar killing our retailers, because people were shopping online and importing, rather than buying at their local Harvey Norman, like he would have wished. He wants all online buys to be taxed, not just those over a certain value.

Now, the strong Australian dollar is causing Aussies to go a little crazy in their online shopping. I'm not talking about indulging a little more than usual on ASOS or Net-a-porter, I'm talking everything from cameras to shoes. And guess what? If you ship through my freight company (I don't know about others, but I imagine they have a similar process), once the goods have passed Customs and Quarantine they will hold them - until someone pays the duties and taxes.

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This is a Prada Hobo. It retails for A LOT. Let's say you're a fashionista wanting to blow their monthly bonus on something they've been coveting for a while. And that item? They find it cheaper on a foreign website, and pay to have it shipped. Except the value, when converted to Aussie dollars, is over $1000.

GST kicks in, and that's 10% of not only the value of the goods, but is also calculated on the transport and insurance costs on top of that. There's a Customs clearance fee too, plus some duties depending on the type of goods (eg. leather). Plus a brokerage fee for the freight company. It all adds up. So when you get a call from the freight company saying basically that your Hobo is being held for ransom, that's when you are NOT HAPPY JAN. Especially when a $1400 handbag incurs an extra $300 in duties.

I do not write this post out of self-interest because I'm sick of being yelled at by bright young things wanting their leather jacket NOW. I write it to educate my fellow shoppers, so that if or when you get stung, you'll be prepared. And can budget appropriately.

Have you ever been stung by Customs or Quarantine? Tell me your import nightmare stories.