What it’s actually like
Every resort town eventually becomes a resale town. The winter houses fill with the good china, the crystal, the silver service for twelve, and a generation later the heirs do not want any of it. Over the Top Consignment Shoppe, at 7074 East Fifth Avenue near the Marshall Way corner, is where a great deal of that Scottsdale tableware goes next. The shop says it was established in 2011, and its stock is precisely what its name promises: the world’s better brands of crystal and porcelain, designer fine jewelry, sterling silver flatware and works by listed artists.
The pitch is price. Everything is sold at 35 to 75 percent off retail, which for a boxed crystal figure or a porcelain service is the difference between an indulgence and a reasonable purchase. Lalique and Herend turn up regularly among the shop’s online listings, and the room itself is dense with glass and gilt, the sort of place where you move carefully and look at every shelf twice.
It is not a thrift store and it is not an antiques mall. The shop publishes a list of accepted consignment brands, which tells you how selective it is, and it sells through eBay as well as the store; the shop is clear that the full inventory and the best discounts are on Fifth Avenue. For collectors filling out a pattern, or for anyone who has always wanted one serious piece of crystal and never wanted to pay boutique prices for it, it is one of the more useful doors on the street.
What to buy
Crystal. The heart of the room. Figures, vases and stemware from the major houses, ideally with the original box.
Porcelain. Hand-painted pieces and partial services, the kind of thing that costs a small fortune new and arrives here one estate at a time.
Sterling flatware and fine jewelry. The quieter cases, and the place where patience pays best.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The shop sits on the western stretch of Fifth Avenue, a short walk from the Bronze Horse Fountain at Marshall Way. Use the public garage on the Fifth Avenue side near the canal or the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard; street spaces on Fifth are scarce. The Old Town on foot note covers the walk and the Downtown & 5th Ave guide covers the district.
Check the hours before you go. In summer the shop has kept short hours, Wednesday through Saturday from 10:30 to 5:30 and closed Sunday through Tuesday. The cool season, January through April especially, is when the most consignments arrive and the most buyers are in town.
Plan the trip home. Crystal and porcelain do not travel well in a carry-on. Ask how a piece should be packed, and if you are flying, decide before you buy whether you are shipping it.
Pair it with the other resale rooms. Vintage by Misty, a few doors west at 7050, handles designer fashion and handbags; the Antique Trove handles furniture and the larger pieces.
Eat while you’re there
Herb Box at 7051 East Fifth, a few doors west, is the long, light lunch, and Berdena’s at the same address is the coffee beforehand. Citizen Public House on Fifth is the gastropub, and FnB in Craftsman Court is the dinner worth dressing for.
How it got here
Fifth Avenue was cut in 1950 by craftsmen burned out of the Arizona Craftsmen building on Main Street, and through the 1950s it sold handmade goods to the winter visitors who were turning Scottsdale into a resort town. Those visitors built houses, and the houses filled with the trappings of the era: crystal from Europe, porcelain services, sterling for formal dinners. For decades Scottsdale was a place where that kind of household was assembled.
By the 2010s the arithmetic had reversed. The generation that bought formal tableware was downsizing, and the generation inheriting it ate off everyday plates and did not want the silver to polish. Across the country, consignment and estate resale became the market for exactly these goods, and in a town with Scottsdale’s concentration of second homes and retirees, the supply was deep.
Over the Top Consignment Shoppe, established in 2011, is built on that supply. It took the high end of the category, crystal, porcelain, designer jewelry and sterling, and put it in a Fifth Avenue storefront at a fraction of retail, with eBay to reach collectors beyond the Valley. Its address is a few steps from the Bronze Horse Fountain, which has marked the Fifth Avenue and Marshall Way corner since 1989.
There is a pleasing symmetry in where it ended up. The street was founded to sell fine handmade things to people furnishing winter homes. Seventy years on, one of its shops sells many of the same kinds of things back again, to a new set of buyers, for less.