Vocabulary Words For The Beginning Collector

When you dive headfirst into the world of collectibles, you’ll hear many terms that will become an essential part of your vocabulary.  Here are few that you’ll often hear:

Cross-Collectible—A item that falls into multiple collectible categories (like toys, Salesman’s Samples, and advertising).  A cross-collectible will be of interest to more collectors, and in theory, will be an easier sell.  I have a couple of great examples of cross-collectibles in my Etsy store.  You can see the Salesman’s Sample sad iron here and the screw jack by Simplex salesman’s sample here.

Milk Glass—A type of glass that is opaque or white in color, and is either blown or pressed into a mold, and is made into all types of items.  It could be a vase, tray, or even a lamp shade.  There’s a great set of milk glass spice holders in my Etsy shop.  You can see them here.

Transferware—Getting its start in the Staffordshire England area in the 1800’s, this is a type of decoration process for pottery.  It uses transfer printing, and starts with a copper plate printing an image onto tissue paper.  While the ink is still wet, it is applied to the pottery.  The item is then fired in a kiln at a low temperature to permanently adhere the image to the pottery.  I have a great example of transferware pottery in my Etsy store; it happens to be a mug by Royal Bonn with a pattern called THEETRINKER.  You can see it here.

What collecting terms have you heard recently?