Hand Crafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam - Painted Mud Vase

 I was visiting one of my frequent treasure hunting spots today not only to browse for new Asian art and antiques to add to my collection, but for some studio pottery as well since I have recently began collecting it.

 Since I was now shopping for studio pottery, or hand crafted ceramics in addition to Asian art and antiques, I decided to pick up this pink, green and brown, earth tones vase off the shelf at the thrift store.  This vase isn't something I would have normally considered for purchase, nor for adding to my Asian ceramics collection, however, due to that I was now seeking out studio pottery pieces, I decided to check it out.

 The vase is coarse and rather crude, as if it was made out mud, hardened and then painted.  It has a coarse, gritty, sandy feel to it.

 It's certainly not a quality piece, but the fact that it had a sticker on the bottom that reads "Hand Crafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam", I decided "why not", after all, it was priced right, for a whopping 50 cents,  and so I purchased it even though I was fully aware that it was not an antique since it had an additional sticker on it with a bar code, although I could not read it due to the small print because I forgot have my eyeglasses which I really need for reading.   As crude and poor quality it is, I decided that I want it simply because it's made in Vietnam.



As I usually do when acquiring new pieces of art or antiques for my collection, I began reviewing the vase with a magnifying glass, to see if it had any kind of signature or maker's markings, etc and that's when I read the additional sticker and saw that the vase was a Dollar-Tree item, which means the vase is 100% definitely made after 1993 up until who knows, maybe even 2013, lol..., so it's not antique, although perhaps some might call it art.

I say "maybe even 2013", because when I did a Google search for "Hand Crafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam", I found an eBay listing for this very same vase, albeit with some subtle differences since it's hand crafted, and it was first listed by the seller in October 2013.   I then I found an additional listing for the same crude vase while browsing the eBay listings for Vietnamese ceramics, again with some minor differences, however, both of these sellers are out of their freaking minds for charging those prices for a modern piece found at a dollar store.  One is asking for approx. $19 + approx $10 shipping, and the other is asking for approx $15.

Here's the two nearly identical Hand Crafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam vases I found listed on eBay

The one on the left does not have the "Hand Crafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam" sticker, but the one on the right does.   Neither of them have the Dollar Tree UPC Barcode sticker.  Mine did, however, I removed it, curious to see if a mark was hidden beneath it.

For reference, here is a photo of a different Handcrafted Ceramics Made in Vietnam vase on eBay that has a Dollar Tree sticker, but unlike the above two sellers, his asking price is only 99cents plus shipping.