Sally Nicol, curator of The Cary Cottage, shares tips for finding high-quality vintage pieces at secondhand markets
BY ELIZABETH BRIGNAC
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SALLY NICOL EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE NOTED
Sally Nicol has an authenticated work of art signed in 1946 by Henri Matisse hanging on her wall. It is not an original, but a reproduction that the artist personally saw and signed, indicating his approval. Nicol found the piece in a South Carolina thrift store. It’s one of many art pieces and other household treasures she has acquired from secondhand markets over the years.
Most of Nicol’s discoveries aren’t as dramatic as a signed Matisse art print, but they are high-quality pieces: furniture, works of art, lamps, china and porcelain, and other decorative and useful household items. She keeps some of what she finds, but she sells most of it through The Cary Cottage, her online shop for curated vintage treasures.
Nicol’s profession started as a hobby. At a transitional time in her life when she was both pregnant and job hunting, she needed a distraction. “I started going to thrift stores to find furniture pieces to make over, mainly for our home. I would find really great pieces,” she says. She and her husband started a side business painting, repairing and reselling furniture. “When I was outsourcing the furniture, I would also come across amazing little vintage, decorative pieces—art objects, things like that—that I began to collect and stage with our pieces,” Nicol explains. “And eventually, those items became more successful than the furniture.”
Now on Thursday evenings, The Cary Cottage releases 10–20 pieces Nicol has found—mostly vintage items that sell the night she releases them. She shops for her pieces in person rather than online. “I like to hand source all of my items,” she says. “I also occasionally do online auctions, but it’s probably 90% thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales—pretty much anywhere you would shop secondhand.”
Nicol finds these items in the same thrift stores and yard sales we pass every day. How does she identify them as special? And how can ordinary shoppers looking to find treasures for their own spaces do the same?
Why Buy Vintage?
Sustainability is one reason many people buy vintage items. “You’re saving something from going to a dump or otherwise being tossed out. And obviously, when you rehouse it and love it in your own home, that’s even better. [You get to] have something unique that you selected. Something sparked a joy in it for you,” says Nicol.
Interior designer Cameron Jones usually incorporates vintage pieces into her projects. “I’m a huge advocate for incorporating vintage for a few reasons,” she says. “Obviously, there’s the price point. It tends to be, in general, more cost-effective to [buy vintage]. Two—and most importantly from a design standpoint—I think that there is an originality, a uniqueness, a patina, a soul … I think vintage gives you that without your even really having to try.” In addition to being a unique and sustainable choice, she says, vintage items are often higher quality than mass-produced products available today. “It’s better for the environment to use or reuse something than to go and buy something brand-new, especially newer things that aren’t made as well,” she says.
Finally, antiques and vintage items are currently fashionable. “A Federal-style sideboard or a Chippendale-style mirror, something that your grandparents may have had—all of that is on trend,” says Nicol. “A lot of things that have a traditional, English look to them are very desired right now.”
Where—and how—to look
Any secondhand market or sale may be selling something special. For thrift shops, Nicol says, the secret is repetition. “You have to go very often to find pieces. You can walk in and not find anything, but if you go often enough, it increases your odds … They’re constantly putting new things out,” she says. “That’s the neat thing about thrift stores. I always feel like I’m treasure hunting a little bit because you just never know what you’re going to find.” Sometimes she drives to small towns and explores their antique and secondhand stores as well. These shops can be less picked over than shops in more urban areas.
Estate sales are an underused resource, Nicol says, because they are not on people’s radar to the extent that other shops and stores are. “Estate sales are a great way to find really unique, and often older, collectors’ pieces—definitely for a bargain,” she adds. These sales are exactly what they sound like: public sales of people’s belongings after they die or downsize. They are held for single estates and for groups of estates. You can find out about where and when they will take place at estatesales.net. Often, you can get a sense ahead of time of what will be on sale in order to help decide which sales to attend.
Occasionally, people might learn about smaller estate sales just from seeing signs posted in their area or announcements on neighborhood forums. “Sometimes these can even be the best ones, because they’re not so publicly advertised,” says Nicol. Other sales can be very large. Black Rock Galleries in Apex, for example, offers huge auctions every weekend to which consigners bring estate items.
Nicol is also a fan of The Raleigh Market, held each weekend at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. “They have traveling vendors that come from out of state,” she says. “There are usually a lot of good vendors that come from Pennsylvania who always bring really nice items.”
Another resource people don’t always consider: family furniture. “Sometimes when people want to get into decorating with vintage and antiques, I’ll say, ‘Well, have you ever shopped at your grandma’s house? Have you shopped at your mom’s house?’ Especially if they kind of have a fondness for decorating themselves, family can be an excellent place to find beautiful pieces,” says Nicol.
Identifying Treasures
Experience is a valuable teacher in this area. Nicol recommends browsing design publications to help with “training your eye. If you look at a lot of design books or magazines, you can [study] the colors or the texture or the types of pieces they’re displaying and use that as a guide when you go into a thrift store.” She also recommends Google Lens as an excellent tool to identify vintage items. A quick photo taken through this app pulls up similar items off of Ebay, Etsy listings, and other resources that can help determine whether the item is an antique or vintage piece or a mass-produced item made to look vintage. Look for stamps, labels and identification marks. Google Lens can scan details like these and identify them on similar items, helping shoppers understand what they signify.
As explorers grow in experience and confidence, they discover what materials and styles they like, colors that appeal to them, and sometimes themes—like coastal art or travel-themed pieces—that unify their look. With experience, shoppers can identify not just valuable or vintage pieces, but their treasures, honing in on exactly what pieces interest them.
“It’s just amazing what you can find,” says Nicol. “There’s really nothing better than the thrill of the hunt.”
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