To Be Triscritti: To the Untrained Eye

Eric's first antiquing adventure was today, and for a first timer, he didn't do too shabby.

Antique shops can be pretty overwhelming, because every single foot of them is crammed full of things you want, even if you don't really know why you want it. (Like trying to justify why you need a collection of antique Batman lunch boxes...)

But it's also hard to learn how to look through them for what you need.

I spent the majority of my childhood trying to convince store owners I wasn't going to break or rob them, which isn't easy when you're an 11 year old in an antique store.

I always loved antiques and I loved learning about them, watching appraisal shows on tv, and most of all SHOPPING for them!

Mostly I collected toys and photographs, and I would spend hours at a time in one store thumbing through boxes of photos, buckets of records, and haggling down prices.

From Clinton to Mount Carroll, Illinois I couldn't resist not stepping foot into every antique store I see.

And what more of a perfect excuse to go and actually purchase things than for a wedding!

Our first stop was Downtown Clinton. Main street is lined with antique shops, and although most of them are outrageously priced, they haggle pretty well and have a good selection.

For the most part, we didn't find a whole lot. Unfortunately the majority of the shops sell colonial, American antiques. But we did hit the jackpot at one shop.

Now, Eric doesn't particularly enjoy shopping. He was really coming along as a good sport, and the first few shops he was less than interested.

But I knew what it would take to get him all in...I'd seen the same thing with my brother who is my best antiquing buddy.

It just takes one good find, and that find happened to be the Terracotta Warriors.

Deep in the basement of one of the shops was a box of these Terracotta Warriors. They were of course expensive, but I told him (much to his surprise) that we could haggle the price down. He was so thrilled to find them, and he definitely got amped up after that.

His other favorite find was this Chinese fisherman, which for some reason he really loved and insisted we get.

My favorite find was hidden on the wall near a window display. This wooden map with gold foil globe faces on it:

The details are incredible, and it really looks fabulously vintage.

We also found a globe for seven bucks, which was amazing considering globes have turned out to be the most expensive things at every single antique shop. Every booth at this shop was on sale, so we got 20% off each item, which helped a lot! I also fell in love with these lanterns. Not sure if I'm going to keep them black or paint them gold. . .

After main street we hit up the antique mall on the Clinton exit. It's a massive two story barn FULL of stuff, and luckily there were more sales.

We found two trunks, each of which were 40% off! The cats seem to love them.

We also found this awesome, wildly inaccurate globe and a cheap camera.

I have to say one of the best finds was made by Eric, who by the end of the day was pretty proud of his now antique-trained eyes. On our way out he spotted this matador for our Spain table: