I guess you could say I am somewhat addicted to Craigslist. I confess that I can sometimes be found checking it nearly every hour, sometimes every 10 minute if I'm doing something that takes time to load and I'm impatient. I'll quickly pop over, check out a few of my favorite searches and then back to what I was doing. It's kind of like gambling I suppose. You never know what's going to show up, for how much and how quickly you can reply to be first on the list. Some of my favorite searches include: books, teak, mid century modern, retro, playmobile, vintage, 1960's and so on. The other day I decided to do a search for Ben Seibel. Anyone who is a regular reader of Apron Thrift Girl is aware of my love for this man's designs. Since he was featured in Modernism magazine I'm sure his fan count has grown. I did a rare search for him on Craigslist and opened up the search to include all of San Francisco instead of just the North Bay.
A listing popped up for one of my most adored patterns, Granada.....a large collection of dishes for $100.00. As I've said probably every time I bring up Ben's name, I only buy when the collection is usually large enough and the price is cheap enough. Especially since nearly everything I have from him is from eBay. Shipping can really run prices up so I'm just not going to buy a plate for $9.99 and add $12.00 shipping on top of that. Sure I love his dishes, but only on a thrift girl frugal budget.
I emailed the seller and asked if I could pick up the dishes on Sunday. She agreed and gave me her address in San Francisco. I'm trying to get used to city life compared to island life. It still makes me a little nervous even driving on a simple freeway.
Rather than drive all the way to the city just for some dishes, we added a trip to the Museum of Natural History.
I think in all there were around 50 pieces making the average cost per item $2.00.
The coffee pot, gravy boat & lone little salt shaker on the right aren't Ben's design or at least not officially. Sometimes Mikasa borrowed some of Ben's style of an item without signing his name to the piece. It's still Mikasa and overall sort of matches the set.
So I was definitely a little apprehensive about this purchase. I was heading into a city, into a neighborhood that I was unfamiliar with and buying these from someone I didn't know. It really isn't much different from a Seattle CL purchase but if felt bigger and more intimidating. And it went incredibly smoothly. The seller was so kind and was happy to see the dishes go to someone who had actually heard of Ben. She wrapped each piece for me and even gave me boxes & packing peanuts.
I'm still going to try to avoid temptation from wandering the pages and pages of items on Craigslist outside of the North Bay community. It's just to much of a tease. What is the longest distance Craigslist purchase that you have made?












