It was a natural pairing up between me and Laurin of The Collar Find to talk about our love of collecting special things! I’ve loved hearing about her sharks teeth and how perfect that she can share during Shark Week! You can read about her thoughtful collection here and find inspiration for what you’ll start collecting!
Chalk it up to my early love of Arial and the Little Mermaid, but I adore a good treasure hunt of whoosits and whatsits! I’d had my mind set on collecting a wall’s worth of oyster plates for the longest time. I’m not sure where I first saw it, but I know that thumbing through the pages of my favorite magazines and books, collections of all kinds hop out of me! If you like something, why stop at just one of that something? That philosophy certainly shines through when it comes to blue and white porcelain in my home, and I was eager to start the great oyster plate search! When I learned that the 9th anniversary is pottery, I decided to “suggest that” as the gift for “us”. Curtis like the idea of the collection and LOVED the idea of not having to think of what to get me! Instead I had carte blanch – within reason – to finally get together my collection!
The only problem is that I had a newborn and was not really getting around to many shops, antique or otherwise! Not to mention, these plates can get really pricey and I didn’t want to go too crazy! So I decided to play the long game and stalk eBay and Etsy – patient and ready to pounce. The search took almost a year but as each plate came in I got more and more excited. My rules for “the hunt” were that no single plate should be over $100 and that I wouldn’t worry about colors or design schemes but that if I liked it, I’d go for it! I realize for something like oyster plates there are true collector’s traits to look for- markings, wear, type, etc … but that wasn’t my focus. I think it worked out, my average plate cost was around $70 and I love how they play well together.
I’d debated about doing the blank wall on the other side of the sliding doors, I even did a poll on my Instagram stories and it was literally 50/50. I decided to do a little bit of both and found two more that I love and put them on a small narrow wall across from the feature wall. Then I am going to do something different on the blank wall – I’m leaning toward an Audobon style waterbird print, or I have remnants of the wall paper that was in our dining room growing up and am considering framing that!
My advice to anyone considering starting a collection is to go for it! This wall brings me joy every single day and now I need to figure out what to collect next! Although I guess I can just keep going with my blue and white – I don’t think there’s a limit to that!
If you want to get really serious, I found this book on Oyster Plate collecting and maybe one day that’ll be me! But for now, I’m just enjoying this amateur hour! For our favorite adhesive backed hangers that we use on these plates, shop here.
I have quite a few oyster plates that I was left from a friend of mine who has past away probably 30 . I would like to know how to sell them .