I'm joining ABC Wednesday today.
Last winter, beginning around Thanksgiving, my mother and I started researching and looking for green depression glassware to grow her collection (she hadn't gotten anything new since 1995). In her search to find out more about a particular piece she owns she stumbled upon The Thriftshop Romantic blog and, in doing so, discovered the Thrifting Blogoverse.
Along the way, she discovered the joys of baby planters, specifically what Jenn (@ Thriftshop Romantic) calls "lambie whammies"; basically any planter with a lamb on it. My mother then hoped and longed for a lamb planter of her very own and, as you should well know, once you've seen something online, it shows up wherever you're looking.
I soon found this cute little lamb at our local Goodwill and we brought her home.
Little did we know that the lamb would spawn our obsession with looking for baby planters. Since we found the lamb in February we have acquired 9 baby planters. One that we just found, and haven't photographed, is a pink bassinet from Napco with a music box attached to it.
Every time we go to Goodwill or to any estate or garage sales, the first things I look for are Pyrex and Baby planters. I often find more planters than we buy because we're too cheap for most Goodwill prices and we have limited space so we hold out for the cutest ones.
Like this one!
This planter is the cutest I have ever seen. I almost missed it. I was about to leave Goodwill when I spotted it on the top shelf in the back. It is the most expensive planter we own at a whopping $5.99.
In trying to date our planters we found that the stylized R on the bottom of this sailboat stands for Rubens Originals.
Rubens Originals is particularly famous for head vases, but they manufactured many other kinds of planters. Planters were available for all occasions and could be bought at your local florist's shop.
Baby planters were especially popular and were widely produced by many companies (NAPCO, RELPO, INARCO, etc) and marked on the bottom with stickers or stamps. Some were sold in ceramic shops so that people could paint their own. You can tell commercially-painted planters from ceramic shop planters by looking at the base. Even if the planter has no maker's mark, if the bottom is unglazed it was likely commercially produced. If the bottom is glazed (with small unglazed sections from a tripod), it was probably painted at the ceramic shop.
In the 1980s cute and funny planters went out of fashion in favor of glass, baskets, etc. Baby planters can still be had today but they don't have the colors, the charm, or the stylings of vintage planters.
I have one that is not a baby planter per se but still gets to live with the cute ones. All I know about it is that it says Made In Japan on the bottom and is darn cute. If you have any information on this Wood Sprite, please let me know!
And I noticed this on the bottom of our lamb planter when I took them outside to photograph them for you all.
This indicates that, contrary to what my mother believed (based on the intensity of the pink) it IS old and is a Rubens Original. Our collection is supposed to end up in the bathroom eventually. Now all we need is a shelf to put them on...
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