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.

Wow 😮 not cheap either. I’ve just seen a poseable monkey doll dressed in pink 😬

If I had loads of money I’d buy lots of it. We’re all so carefully tasteful these days. I want to be the granny with the strange ugly ornaments.

I'd forgotten about them - I was offered a job there back in the 1980s!

Back in the 90s i worked for a company like the Bradford exchange, the BE were one of our rivals. They advertise in TAB etc.
The mark up on stuff is about 800%, the stuff is OK but definitely broadly dust collectors!

When I was at uni, we had a 'Tack Shelf' in our student house, where we displayed the most tacky, tawdry and horrendous stuff that we could possibly find - with competitions to find the worst examples to bring back when we were back at home during the holidays.

Snow globes, plastic 'gold' tissue box holder, furry magnets, lace-encrusted wooden spoon, knitted cat toilet roll covers and other equally splendid items of true beauty.

Are they actually based in Bradford?

I have one of their Christmas trees with a working train round the bottom. I absolutely love it

In the 80s my dad used to buy loads of sets of ornamental plates from Bradford Exchange. He claimed they would be worth a fortune one day.

They weren't 😅

Oh I was waiting for this to show up. Thank you.

It's been around for donkey's years. Usually advertised in magazines (I think). I'm not sure what the attraction is.

My dad was housebound at the time and used to order all the shite under the sun from BE.

It's so weird that this topic has come up today.I've just brought down from the attic a set of 12 'Countryside Village' plates I collected from the Bradford Exchange in the 1980s.I'm under no illusion at all that they're worth much at all,I'm just wondering how best to get rid of the flippin' things as I don't think it would be fair to dump them on a charity shop!

Coins sets not count!

I think they're probably one of these companies that specifically target people who aren't online, and thus whose world of retail opportunities will be very, very small - as well as them not having a great context in which to compare prices and value.

I wonder at what point there will be (virtually) no elderly people left who aren't online, when the oldest generation now who are firmly comfortable with tech and the Internet as their second nature eventually become the oldest generation who are still alive?

Franklin Mint used to have similar stuff, but I did buy one of their “heirloom” dolls recently at our local antiques warehouse to go in my Silver Cross dolls pram and I do love her ❤️

Oh I couldn't have that in the house. Dolls like that creep me out. My friend bought one of those re-born dolls it looked awful.
I would have loved a silver cross pram when mine were babies but we lived in a flat.

I don’t like reborns either, she is porcelain and not scary at all!

The monkey dolls are actually horrific!

😀Is this a British Temu?

I would have said that it was Temu that was chinese Bradford Exchange 🤣

OMG... Franklin Mint. Donkey's years ago I was PA to a Consultant Psychiatrist who had a stalker who sent him endless Franklin Mint stuff after he rebuffed her advances.

@thenightsky 😮😂

Another one who was wondering when that would make an appearance, but hang on ...
It's been for sale for years and I'm sure it was "only" £500 last Christmas??

I have never heard of this, I have just had a look and my mind is completely overwhelmed. People buy these things?