Every week brings a different mixture of vintage treasures from Sweden, and that unpredictability is one of the things I love most about sourcing for AllThingsRetroStore.
A Danish Design Classic Hiding in a Box
Not every good find announces itself. This week, a box containing three rather curious black iron objects turned out to hold a Danish design classic.
They are Spider candleholders, designed in 1962 by Jens Harald Quistgaard for Dansk Designs. Cast in heavy iron, twelve arms radiate from the centre, each ending in a small holder for Dansk’s slender Tiny Taper candles. The different heights create the wonderfully sculptural form that earned the design its familiar Spider name.
One of the three even had its original box, which is always a lovely bonus when something has survived for more than sixty years.
This is exactly the sort of object I enjoy finding. It’s small, functional and beautifully designed, yet without knowing what you’re looking at, it could quite easily remain sitting unnoticed in a box.
It’s a rather good start to this week’s vintage treasures from Sweden. One box, three Spiders, and suddenly 1960s Danish design has joined the week’s haul.
My Favourite Find: A Well-Loved 1920s Steiff Bear
Of all this week’s vintage treasures from Sweden, this old gentleman is my favourite.
Dating to the 1920s, he is an early Steiff teddy bear made from golden cotton plush. He has the long tapered muzzle, glass eyes and wonderfully distinctive profile associated with Steiff bears of this period. Almost a century of life has softened his colour and worn his plush, but it has also given him something a pristine bear simply can’t acquire: character.
What I particularly love are his repairs. At some point, all four worn paw pads were carefully covered with hand-worked knitted or crocheted replacements. He has other old repairs too, including one across his back. I decided to leave them exactly as I found them. They belong to his story.
His original Steiff button has disappeared somewhere along the way. Considering everything else he appears to have experienced during the past hundred years, I think we can forgive him that.
I’ve restored vintage teddy bears for many years, and the temptation can sometimes be to make an old bear look younger. With this one, I think that would be a shame. His worn paws, faded plush and old repairs are precisely what made me pick him up.
He has already travelled through the better part of a century. Now he’s looking for his next home.
See the 1920s Steiff teddy bear in AllThingsRetroStore
A Bear Made from the Swedish Forest
At first glance, this cheerful fellow looks as though he might be pottery or perhaps carved wood. Pick him up, though, and things become rather more interesting.
He was made by Carl Roos of Hammerdal, in Jämtland in northern Sweden. His original maker’s label still survives beneath his foot. What makes these figures particularly unusual is their construction. Rather than conventional ceramic or wood, Carl Roos sculptures were made from a composite traditionally described as forest moss mixed with glue.
The result is surprisingly solid. It also explains that wonderfully irregular surface, which has an almost leathery quality beneath the dark brown finish.
I love objects that make you stop and investigate. Without the label, it would be very easy to misidentify this bear simply by looking at him. Instead, his unusual material connects him rather neatly with the part of Sweden where he was made.
And then there’s his expression. Upright, paws raised and mouth wide open, he looks either delighted to see you or deeply concerned about something happening just outside the photograph.
Among this week’s vintage treasures from Sweden, he certainly wins the prize for the most unexpected construction.
A Piece of Swedish History
Some pieces don’t need to be large to carry a famous name.
This miniature glass star comes from Bertil Vallien’s Sirius series for Kosta Boda, one of Sweden’s best-known glassworks. It is a tiny piece of Swedish design history that fits comfortably in the palm of your hand.
The stylised star combines clear glass with areas of colour and softly textured glass suspended within the form. Turn it towards the light and the sculpture changes. Blues, warm amber tones and the textured centre appear at different angles, giving this small object far more depth than its size suggests.
Vallien has spent much of his career exploring the possibilities within glass, not simply decorating its surface. Sirius captures a little of that idea on a wonderfully small scale.
Finding pieces like this is one of the pleasures of searching for vintage treasures from Sweden. Sometimes the most interesting object in a room isn’t the largest or the most elaborate. It’s the little piece you almost walked past.
Hidden History
Some vintage design reveals itself immediately. Other pieces keep their cleverness hidden.
This wonderfully simple folding stool dates from around the 1980s. Made from solid wood, it has a beautifully economical construction. At first glance, there isn’t much to it: a round seat and a pair of crossing supports. Then you discover the hinge system.
The whole stool folds almost completely flat.
This model is often attributed to the Suzy Stool, a minimalist folding design associated with Adrian Reed and Roger Tallon. Without a maker’s mark, however, I prefer to leave the attribution open rather than turn a possibility into a fact.
What attracted me was the design itself. It solves a practical problem with remarkably few components, while the warm wood and decades of wear have given it a character that the original designer could never have manufactured.
That’s something I find again and again when searching for vintage treasures from Sweden. Sometimes the history is written on a label. Sometimes you have to unfold it.
Thank you for joining me on this week’s treasure hunt.
Every Friday, I’ll be sharing five new discoveries, unexpected stories and forgotten pieces of history uncovered while searching for vintage treasures in Sweden through auctions, estate sales and loppisar.
If you missed last week and would like to see what I uncovered, you can follow the previous treasure hunt HERE.
I hope you’ll visit again next Friday to see what treasures and stories I’ve uncovered.
Amanda