Rain and wind go away!

 

Before Storm Hannah hit Devon!

When it comes to buying and selling antiques and vintage items the weather plays a key part. It can make or break a fair! Our friends, Vintage Vixen and her partner Jon, suffered a nightmare this weekend when the top of Gilbert, their campervan's, roof blew off on their way to a fair in London. 'Fortunately' they found the roof wrapped around a bus stop...



Some of the items we'll have for sale at our next fair

Yes, on Saturday morning Storm Hannah well and truly visited the UK and popped down to Devon on Saturday morning just in time for the Matlock Antiques Fair at Marsh Barton. It was blowing a gale which meant that the number of brave souls trading outside was at a bare minimum. Trees fell, ceramics crashed and we wondered whether anything would be left in one piece! Despite these conditions there were some great stalls inside and out selling all kinds of treasure. We'll have some of these for sale at the Langstone Cliff Hotel Antiques and Vintage Fair on Sunday May 12th.
 



Old Rosie at Spooneys

After the fair we caught the bus back into Exeter St Thomas and had a good look around the charity shops and then popped to Spooneys for a much needed pint of Old Rosie. 

 

On Sunday the Crash Box Car Rally came to Dawlish. Unfortunately the weather put a bit of a damper on it but there was still some beautiful cars to fall in love with.  


We love vintage cars!



Fingers crossed the weather improves soon, we had lots of sunshine over Easter so we're hoping it makes a very welcome return for the Bank Holiday

 



Our next Antiques Fair!



 

The Vinyl Avengers!

 

After hearing so many groovy things about them we were chuffed last weekend when we got to see, hear and throw some shapes to the Vinyl Avengers at our favourite pub in Teignmouth, the Blue Anchor.

 

DJs Loadz and Lady Jade played a stonking 3 hours worth of back to back Northern Soul, Funk and Two Tone classics - all on VINYL too... totally Old's Cool! - and everybody was soon up and dancing. Yes, even us. 

Make sure you catch up with them soon!

New Faces!

Not only did the sunshine do us proud on Easter Saturday but so did the antiques and vintage lovers who flocked to the Strand Centre for our fair. There was a great turnout and we had a brilliant day.

Rising and shining bright and early on Saturday morning we got ourselves over to the Strand Centre for just before 7am to get the room ready. There had been a Good Friday sermon the night before so we even had to wheel the grand piano back into place. The stallholders started arriving with some very welcome new faces amongst them, some of whom have already booked again for our next fair on May 25th! 

The fair started at its new time at 10am and there was a constant stream of customers throughout the whole day. In fact we were so busy that 3pm seemed to come round from nowhere. We sold a wide variety of vintage and antique items but jewellery seemed to be our biggest seller of the day, easier to carry round in the lovely sun. 

We're now getting ready for our next fair on Sunday May 12 at the Langstone Cliff Hotel. It's our first fair outside Dawlish so we're mulling over which items to take. If you're planning on coming along let us know what kind of stuff you'd like us to bring. See you there!

 

Hop along to the Antiques Fair!

Easter's here....hooray!...and we've got a long weekend ahead of us! Those two extra bank holiday days make all the difference.

There's no excuses to just stay at home so why not hop along to the Antiques and Vintage Fair at the Strand Centre tomorrow.

There'll be lots of lovely vintage and antique bargains and you can also drop in for a cuppa and slice of cake.

See you there!

The (vintage!) Clothes Show

 

Over the past few months we've been sourcing lots of lovely vintage clothes for the Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fair and now they're all labelled, arranged and ready for the next one which is this Saturday (April 20th)!

 

We've got Harris Tweed jackets, Peaky Blinders style waistcoats, 1980s jumpers, ABBA-esque dresses and jump suits, all styles and all sizes, something for everyone in fact.

 

So why not pop along to the fair this Saturday and treat yourself to a whole new look? We look forward to (clothes) showing you what we've got!

Spread the word!

Love the sign at Ellie's Attic

 

On Saturday we decided to visit Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth to spread the word about our next antiques and vintage fair taking place on this coming Saturday, 20 April at The Strand Centre in Dawlish. 

 

 We walked to Dawlish Warren along the sea front and almost got blown away in the process, the waves were that high and the wind that strong! On a summer's day it would have been gorgeous but what can you expect in April eh? Mind you the forecast for this weekend looks scorchio!



Yes, it's Ellie's Attic!

 

Looking like we'd spent a week in a wind tunnel the first place we visited was Lady Mile Holiday Park to drop off a few flyers, then it was onto Ellie's Attic.

 

Wow! What an Aladdin's cave, full of treasure! It's a great place to spend hours doing our favourite pastime of rummaging. We came away with some very cool jewellery which will be for sale at our fairs and a very sturdy grey record case for £3! Bargain!

 

After visiting Ellie's Attic, we tried to leave flyers with a few other holiday parks but unfortunately there was no room at the inn...as it were. All of the leaflet racks were already stuffed full of flyers and you had to pay to use 'em which seemed a bit pointless unless you put yours in front of someone else's.

Outside Hello Retro

 

We decided not to give up hope though and hotfooted it to Teignmouth where we spent a brilliant afternoon.  We visited Hello Retro and had a lovely chat with the owner Nicola Smeardon. We always get shop envy when we visit her. Then it was onto Seeking Vintage where we bought some very pretty marcasite brooches from shop owner Hollie King.

Outside Seeking Vintage

We also visited Sound Preservation Society's record shop on its opening day to buy some vinyl and then to see Moriarty play. It was loud, scuzzy blues rock and there was so much heat in the shop the windows steamed up....perfect!

Moriarty - great set!

Moriarty on the streets of Teignmouth!

Caught in action!

To finish off the day we visited our favourite pub in Teignmouth, The Blue Anchor. A proper pub, selling proper cider with proper ambience. They're holding a Cider Festival over Easter Weekend too, pint glasses at the ready!

No wonder we love The Blue Anchor!

 

This week we're getting ready for the fair on Saturday, our vintage handbags, clothes and other goodies are sorted and all ready to go and we've got half a dozen brand new traders too, so if you're anywhere near Dawlish please pop along, we'd love to see you there.

Planning for a cracker!

With the Dawlish Antiques & Vintage Fair just over a week away this weekend we'll be planning what vintage clothes, handbags and other goodies to take with us. So egg-citing! Please just let us know if you're interested in anything particular and we'll see what we've got in stock. 

Here are just some of the items that we're already planning to take..

 

Dresses for sale

Vintage Handbags for Sale

We've added some items to eBay to this week too including these beauties...

As seen on Ebay!

So make a date and pop down to the Strand Centre on Easter Saturday April 20th, it's going to be a cracker! 

The Egg-citement's Building!

Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fairs Dates

Easter, it's almost here....hooray! Those two eggs-tra bank holiday days make all the difference. It means that there's not such a mad rush to get everything done and you have time to relax that little bit more (unless you're running an antiques and vintage fair of course!).

 

At Old's Cool Traders we're really looking forward to it, especially as we're holding the next Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fair at the Strand Centre on Easter Saturday. We've got even more stallholders this time, selling everything from vintage clothes to gold and silver jewellery and stamps.

 

The fair's FREE to enter, you can enjoy a cuppa and a slice of cake from the cafe and there'll be plenty of lovely bargains to buy too. That's your Easter Saturday sorted!

 

Easter baby chicks at Dawlish's Bird Sanctuary...so cute!

 

Small is Beautiful!

Small is Beautiful!

Having had lots of successful pickings buying vintage handbags and vintage clothes recently we decided to go small with our buying on Saturday!

 

The wind was bitterly cold when we got to Newton Abbot antiques fair around 8am but it didn't stop us from having a really good look around the outside stalls. Brave souls those outside stallholders when the weather's not being kind!

Vintage Jewellery boxes

We picked up some beautiful jewellery boxes, love the fact that some of them come from Exeter, Sidmouth and Taunton. We even picked up a vintage Mappin and Webb one. They always add a touch of class to vintage jewellery. There was also a great stall selling gents watches and we picked up a groovy Marina one from the 70s and a classic Smiths one from the 50s. Popping inside to get warm we found a gorgeous 20s Smiths clock, a 60s style hippy boho clay necklace and some fab brooches.

 

After trawling a few charity shops in Newton Abbot it was time for the obligatory Saturday lunchtime pint. Spooneys once again didn't disappoint, Cheddar Valley's all round! Although 16 Wetherspoons pubs are closing soon we seriously think they need to open another one in Newton, it's always so busy! We couldn't believe our luck when we got a booth, we drank our pint much slower than usual...and had another cheeky half to celebrate!

Exeter Theatre programme from 1930s

After that we visited the rest of the charity shops and the market. We picked up some fascinating paper ephemera including a 1930's Exeter theatre programme, Hancock Half Hour and Steptoe & Son original vinyl albums and the ultra cool (and heavy!) Pet Shop Boys Catalogue book.

 

We got back to Dawlish in time to put a few bets on the Grand National but quelle surprise none of our 6 horses won. Still, with a bag full of bargains we did pretty well!

Cheddar Valley love!

Bag Yourselves A Bargain!

 

At Old's Cool Traders we love buying vintage handbags and recently we've bagged some real beauties.

 

We think that every lady (and chaps too, if that's their bag!) should have at least one vintage handbag/purse in their collection so we've decided to start selling a select few on eBay in addition to our stall at the Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fairs.

 

We'll keep you posted each week with which bags are for sale on eBay but be quick, they'll be snapped up in no time. 

 

We'll also have a great selection at our next fair on Easter Saturday, 20th April, at the Strand Centre in Dawlish so please pop along and bag yourselves even more bargains!

Good Day Sunshine!

 

Ready for a day in the sun!

If Saturday could be described in one word, it would be ‘glorious’! From start to finish it was sunny and warm, just like a mini heatwave.

Perfect timing then for our trip to Exmouth and Topsham. We got the 7.30 train direct to Exeter St David's then ran like mad things to platform 1 to get the train onto Exmouth. Although it meant we got there before the shops opened (now that is early on a Saturday) it did mean that we got early pickings!

Pint at the Powder Monkey

We had a really successful trawl of the Exmouth charity shops and went to visit Exmouth's Antiques and Collectables Centre. It's always great to see owner Kirk Axson before popping in to Spooneys' Powder Monkey pub for our early lunchtime cider pit stop.

 



With the lovely Liberty Sisters

Then it was onto Topsham to see The Liberty Sisters and the South West Lindy Hop Dancers as part of the Spring Forward event. They were brilliant and we strutted some vintage moves ourselves.  

Great moves by the South West Lindy Hop Dancers

We spoke to The Liberty Sisters afterwards to say thank you for such a great show and they mentioned they've got 60 gigs ahead of them this year! If you get the chance you must go and see them.  

Vintage handbags, one of our many great finds on Saturday

To finish off our day before heading off home we visited the charity shops and Topsham's Antiques Centre.  

Another successful day, thank goodness for the sunshine!