I love a charity shop. Not because I am looking for anything in particular. That’s the whole point. I tend to do the same little circuit around St Albans-the same shops, the same shelves, and probably some of the same volunteers who are beginning to recognise me.

I never really know what I’m looking for until I see it. Somebody has had a clear-out. Somebody has finally emptied a cupboard. Something that has sat in somebody else’s house for years suddenly ends up on a charity-shop shelf. And that is the bit I love. Not necessarily the bargain. The unknown.

The £3 pot at Peace Hospice Charity Shop

This particular Saturday I was in a Peace Hospice charity shop on St Peters Street when I spotted a little brown plant pot. It was sitting on the shelf amongst all the usual bits and pieces, and I noticed the flowers first. I absolutely love gardens- plants, colour, pots, things growing, and probably rather too many things competing for space. So the little row of handmade flowers around the top immediately caught my eye. Yellow. Green. Blue. Pink. None quite identical. None perfectly lined up. They looked as though somebody had actually taken the time to put them there one by one. The rest of the pot was quite unusual. The top has a ridged, almost tree-bark texture and the lower half looks like woven basketwork.

And it is brown. Very brown. The sort of thing you could quite easily walk past. But those flowers…

Then I saw the price

£3. Now £3 is hardly a major financial decision. Except I am saving for a Norwegian fjords cruise. There is a budget. I have written the budget down. Unfortunately, charity shops appear not to have been informed about it. I picked the pot up. Put it down. Walked away. Came back. Picked it up again. Carried it around for a bit. Put it back. Then picked it up for the third time and took it straight to the till before I could change my mind again. Clearly, it was never really staying on that shelf. I just needed three laps of the shop to admit it.

Then Google Lens got involved

When I got home, curiosity took over. There isn’t a clear maker’s name on the base, but there is a number, 3165 and Italy. So I did what I increasingly seem to do with things I bring home from charity shops. I photographed it, opened Google Lens and started searching. One name kept appearing: Fratelli Fanciullacci.

Now this is where I need to be careful. I am not an antiques expert, ceramicist or curator, and my pot has not been professionally authenticated. My identification is based on Google Lens, comparisons with other pieces online, its style and the markings underneath. So for now I’m calling it a possible Fratelli Fanciullacci piece. But naturally, once I had a name, I disappeared down an internet rabbit hole.

Who were Fratelli Fanciullacci?

Fratelli Fanciullacci was an Italian pottery associated with Montelupo Fiorentino in Tuscany. What caught my attention was the wonderfully experimental look of much of the pottery associated with the factory i.e. textured surfaces, unusual glazes, sculptural shapes and decorative details. Suddenly my slightly strange brown pot with its bark, basketweave and wonky flowers began to make more sense. I also discovered that many pieces attributed to the factory are identified through numbers and Italy markings rather than a prominent maker’s name. Which made the little 3165 underneath mine considerably more interesting than it had been that morning.

Could mine definitely be Fratelli Fanciullacci? I don’t know. And actually, I rather like the “possibly”. Because that is part of the fun.

Then I made the mistake of checking prices

Of course I looked. You would too. I found similar vintage Italian pieces offered online for considerably more than my £3 charity-shop purchase. But asking prices are not the same thing as value, and without proper authentication I’m certainly not about to announce that I have discovered a priceless Italian masterpiece in Peace Hospice Charity shop. Although I may have briefly behaved as though I had. The tea definitely went cold.

But the value isn’t really the point

This is the thing about buying second-hand. The possible value is fun. The discovery is even better. But neither is really why I bought it. I bought it because I just liked it. I liked the flowers. I liked that it was slightly odd. I liked that somebody bothered to make a plant pot look like bark and basketwork when a perfectly ordinary plant pot would have done the job just as well. And I love thinking about the journey objects make. Possibly made in Italy decades ago. Owned by somebody. Kept. Used. Eventually donated for a very good cause. Put on a shelf in a charity shop.

Nearly left there by me three times. And now sitting in my house. That, to me, is much more interesting than buying something new.

What I’ve learned from my £3 pot

A number on the bottom of something is not nothing. Photograph it. Search it. It may be the clue that tells you where to start. Google Lens is brilliant for giving you possibilities but it is a starting point, not an authentication service.

And finally: If you have walked back to the same charity-shop shelf three times…you probably already know the answer. I just liked it.

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I Just Liked It by Neyi Day | St Albans

Vintage finds, hand-me-down objects, inherited things, charity shops, car boots and the stories behind the objects mostly from St Albans, and wherever else I happen to find them.

And if anybody reading this knows more about Fratelli Fanciullacci ceramics, particularly shape number 3165, I would genuinely love to hear from you.