The Bradford Exchange

[EarlofShrewsbury]

Having a browse on the Bradford Exchange is a guilty pleasure of mine.

I seem to end up there once every couple of years and I'm always surprised to see it's still going. It's quite a wild place, is it even real? Who shops there?

It's like a time machine.

https://www.bradford.co.uk/dianabag.html?_gl=11ceiu7y_upMQ.._gs*MQ..&gclid=CjwKCAiA8vXIBhAtEiwAf3B-g7jAf3sGoiMDuKK2spZyQbMhoVEVd5VCCsKbLCF3D2iKpfm3y0FL8RoCCHcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Diana bag anyone?

I've never bought anything from there but I bloody love it for a browse. Reminds me of my nana.

Good god that is genius. 😂

Complete tat but I don't think it's fair to say it's a scam. It's very open about what you are buying.

Bradford Exchange railway station closed in 1973 - the stations in Bradford now are Bradford Interchange and Bradford Forster Square.

On a separate note, I now feel my Christmas will be incomplete without kittens yowling 'Deck the halls' 😄

What on Earth?? Total shite, and the prices!! 😮 it’s got to be a front or something…

I don't think it is - it's well-established and some of the rarer, retired items go for a fortune on eBay. The Christmas trees are particularly popular - there's one with Disney characters all over it. Not to my personal taste but some people love that kind of thing and in terms of materials and manufacture, it's good quality, well-made stuff.

That Diana bag is so tacky I have to have it!

Also the collectable thing - at the charity shop where I volunteered we had a donation of about 100 collectable plates which someone had bought over the years mail order and under the impression they would eventually be worth a lot more than the money they paid for them.

Now it's impossible to say how much things will be worth in 100 or 400 years, but we couldn't shift the awful plates with frolicking kittens and twee landscapes for £3 each.

https://www.somethingawful.com/news/disgusting-fake-babies/2/

My friend buys the plates for about 20p each and paints her own designs over the top. My mum used to spend a fortune on these. No doubt geaded my way in her any will. Good grief

The original place to buy 'tat' but at vastly inflated prices.

Lots of 'collectors editions' which are basically worthless. Try selling them on and you'll get pence. Cons stupid people.

My parents bought several sets of plates as an ‘investment’ but they’re worth very little now. We dc all had a set gifted to us. Mine are in a box somewhere.
However, many years ago I did buy, monthly subscription, a set of Lord of The Rings plates. I’ve never displayed them (long story) but the artwork is lovely. My ds wants them and they’re his whenever he moves into his own place.

That Diana bag is brilliant! My younger self would gladly have bought that, to go with my Mona Lisa earrings off Shepherd’s Bush Market

Memories of Diana - oval plates that come with a certificate that has a different caption. 😬😂

Some - only some - of the cat things are cheesy cute for a split second, then I come to my senses. The Elvis section really is something else, though. And I don't know if the baby dolls are sad or just creepy. Probably both.

Shop By Theme | Elvis Presley | The Bradford Exchange

.

Christ almighty, there's some shite on there.

If my mum bought me this I'd wonder why she hated me so much.

https://www.bradford.co.uk/daughterornamentbge.html?_gl=1wxngga_up*MQ..&gclid=CjwKCAiA8vXIBhAtEiwAf3B-g7jAf3sGoiMDuKK2spZyQbMhoVEVd5VCCsKbLCF3D2iKpfm3y0FL8RoCCHcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

This seller is very much for the readers of the Daily Express.

Maybe when I'm elderly, although doubt my pension will stretch to this 😂

Kitten Kittens Cat Cats Feline Jürgen Scholz Art Ladies' Tunic Dress Apparel: 'Kitten Cute' Jürgen Scholz Art Ladies' Tunic

my late mil had loads of this shite and Readers Digest tat too books full of medical stuff most of it unopened, going in her spare rooom was like stepping into a tacky shop!
the trouble is with companies like that they will send you brochures for the rest of your natural!
to go with your Di handbag they also do a Betty Boop and Elvis bag

If you treasure the memories(!) of the Binnovations catalogue, you may enjoy the old Unnovations series, if you didn't see it at the time!

x

They used to sell “limited edition” plate collections back in the days when people hung plates on their walls. The idea was they’d increase in value, but they didn’t.

Private Eye have it as a regular feature of their Gnomemart that commemorative plates for the latest royal wedding, birth or coronation or whatever 'may' have traces of previous celebrations underneath - recycled, painted over old unsold stock from years ago!

Yes, and they were often 'limited to' not a single one more than they could possibly find gullible buyers for!

How did the idea of 'collectors' items' ever gain any purchase or belief of merit? It doesn't mean anything, other than 'stuff which some people may be persuaded to buy'. They're effectively telling you that you should buy some tat because there may (or may not) be other people who also want to buy that same tat at some point... and those people may only want to buy that tat because they've been told that YOU may possibly want to buy it too!

Viz used to spoof these adverts very well!

Oh, Viz adverts are amazing! I particularly love them when they have the customer 'endorsement' quotes at the bottom of the advert and they're saying how utterly useless it is and how much they deeply regret buying it!!