Shop of the Week- Wretched Shekels 5

This week’s Shop of the Week is Wretched Shekels, owned by Chrissy and Shaun. 

What is the meaning behind your shop name? 

We enjoy scouring estate sales and auctions for items! It started out of need and not desire though. As all people, we need money to provide for our children. We used the word shekels which is a variation of an old Hebrew word denoting money. We selected shekels, because as Christians, Jesus was sold out for a bag of shekels. We saw this as a way to incorporate our faith in our store. Like most people we can sometimes find ourselves constantly in a place of striving to earn more, worrying about what is in the bank account, struggling to spend what we have in the best way possible. Thoughts of money are pervasive throughout our days and it is a wretched place to be in. When you ball that all up, you get wretched shekels.

 How did you get your start selling vintage? 

We started selling vintage kind of as a fluke. When we had twin daughters, money went from tight to nonexistent! We put some baby clothes they outgrew on ebay and they sold for more than we thought. With that experience under our belt, we started to go to yard sales and bought baby clothes to sell. At one particular sale, I bought an old rotary phone for a quarter and sold it for $25. That was the end of the baby clothes and we started searching for auctions in our area! Ten years later, I still remember those first days with fondness!

What is your favorite item in your shop right now, and what makes it special to you? 

A couple of our favorite items currently, that’s a tough one! I really like these chemistry bottles. The look and feel of the bottles, the labels, when you think on these things it is easy to be transported into the time they came from.

Chemistry Bottles

My other favorite would have to be this ring which I made. It is an old coin from 1840, with the East India Company on it. When the world was being populated and most countries were merely colonies. It is an amazing part of history and I enjoy having this coin turned into a piece of history you can wear!

East India Company Ring

What is the most unusual or amazing item you have sold from your shop?

We really enjoyed this piece in our store. It was handmade by an unknown artist. I would consider it an unusual piece:

                                                                                                SOLD! 

Having sold 1200+ items, it is really hard to pick, we have had a lot of unusual and amazing pieces over the years. It is now the hunt for oddities and not the need for shekels that keeps us going back for more!

Do you sell your items at other venues outside of Etsy? If so, where can we find you?

We do sell outside of Etsy. We sell at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall http://www.ohiovalleyantiques.com/

We also sell in a handmade boutique store, Celebrate Local Ohiohttp://www.celebratelocalohio.com/

Please share your social media links so that we can follow you!

Our social media presence is not what it could be, but we are out there-
We use Facebook http://www.facebook.com/wretched-shekels-126331100823499/

We also use twitter occasionally: twitter.com/wretchedshekels