Beautiful Vintage Christmas Ornaments

We stopped in at the thrifts last week and they had just put Christmas out on the shelves. We hit the jackpot with vintage Christmas ornaments- so many boxes of beautiful mercury glass baubles and of course I loaded them up! Sharing a few of them today and some tips for thrifting vintage ornaments.

Vintage Christmas Ornaments

Boxes of vintage mercury glass ornaments are always such fun treasures to find and when you find a whole stack of them? Oh my. We didn’t think that Christmas would be out when we stopped in at the thrifts but were excited to see so many shelves loaded up. Even better- we were the only ones shopping the Christmas section- I guess because it was so early. Good news for us is that we had a whole lot of selection to shop from. We found probably a dozen boxes of vintage mercury glass ornaments- I already added some not pictured here to the attic tree & am excited to get these on other trees this year too.

Vintage Mercury Glass Ornaments

Number one tip for shopping vintage mercury glass ornaments is to open up the boxes and take a look. Often times, there are broken ones or missing ornaments or reproductions that if you are only into vintage – you won’t want.

I will buy a box of ornaments if they are talking to me even if there are missing. Because, they are so pretty and I mix and mingle anyway.

Hand painted Ornaments

Aside from those beautiful mercury glass baubles- anything hand painted or otherwise embellished are always going in the cart too.

These bells are so lovely- we scored several boxes of them.

The pretty floral painting is pretty much perfect for my style.

Vintage or Reproduction

Honestly, unless you are super focused on vintage only- it doesn’t really matter if some of the ornaments are new. But if you are only looking for vintage- keep an eye on the tops. They are usually going to be plastic or old silver metal tops but I have seen gold as well. Though I have been fooled many times so honestly, I just go with what I love regardless of age.

The vintage mercury glass will also often be ‘mottled’ or imperfect and I love them just like that! I will buy all the crusty mottled mercury glass even at full price though some stores will mark those as ‘imperfect’ (even though they are not) and will discount them.

How much?

This varies greatly between thrift stores and areas. Most often the boxes of ornaments are anywhere from $2.00 to $7.00 here depending. But I have seen some of the vintage boxes as low as .50 and higher than $7

Shop Often

Another tip- shop often. You just never know when the thrift stores will start decking their halls for the season and so, stopping in often will be your best chance to shop the biggest assortment and as shelves get restocked. We have a general idea of when different thrift stores put their holiday out- some wait until after Thanksgiving but most are right after Halloween. This year a couple are early as I mentioned. We were surprised to find so much Christmas out already when we stopped in a couple weeks ago. But we are waiting on some of the other thrifts to share their holiday treasures yet so stay tuned for more of what we find soon! I am already itching to go shopping November 1st when I think there might be a whole lot more on the shelves!

How to Enjoy

Everywhere and anywhere is perfect for vintage Christmas – but a few favorite ways I enjoy them? Alll over the tree, in bowls, on small feather trees, in crates on the table, in table settings, on shelves and mantel decor and more.

Get the Look

Shop these reproductions to get look.

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What do you look for when thrifting vintage Christmas?