A couple weekend’s ago, I had a bit of a thrifting extravaganza. I’ll share a full look at everything at the end of the month, but in the meantime, I wanted to let you in on a little secret I use when I’m tracking down my thrift finds. If you like thrifting and you don’t already have the Google Lens app downloaded on your phone, do it now. It’s FREE and it’s super helpful.
Let’s use this adorable casserole dish I found for an example:
I recognized the pattern on this dish when I saw it jumbled on the shelf with a bunch of other items, simply because I already own the matching pitcher. I vaguely remember it being from the mid 1950’s, but just to make sure, I did a quick Google Lens search.
I opened the app, took a photo of my item and hit search:
Once I saw a bunch of similar pieces pop up with a descriptors of “Cronin” “Tulip” and “Stoneware”, I used these terms to better focus my search. I added the words “Cronin Tulip” next to the photo, so that the Google image search would use all that information to find me similar links:
Just by doing this super simple (and quick) search, I could see that similar items ranged from $30 -$55, which was all the information I needed to pull the trigger on my $5 purchase (yellow tags were on sale, yay).
When I got back home, I did a bit more of a deep dive by using the information I found and searching on regular Google Search.
That is how I found out that Cronin (aka Cameron Pottery) was founded in Cameron, West Virginia in 1936 and destroyed in a fire in 1964. In the mid 1950’s they produced the blue tulip pottery, which was the mid-century dinnerware choice for many American households in the 1940’s and 1950’s. While it’s not super pricey to collect, it’s the perfect addition to my china cabinet which already has a beautiful mix of vintage Pyrex and Lu-Ray Pastel items.
There are many, many ways you can use Google Lens — just in the last few weeks I’ve used it to identify a cute dog’s breed, find a similar skirt to one I liked that was $$$$, do a quick price comparison of a Lego set Jack wants, and of course figure out a little more information about some of my recent thrifting finds!