March 2012
33 posts
Long Overdue eBay Updates...
My mom and others have mentioned that they wish I posted updates about what things ended up selling for on eBay. Erin is pretty good at doing this, but me…not so much. So I’m going to try to remedy this.
The Golden Books I mentioned in one of the first entries did not end up being very fruitful moneymakers. In fact, the Bugs Bunny book is something I tried listing multiple times and...
6 tags
Fave Find: Antique Cigarette Dispenser
So, Adam loves anything old and mechanical. A few weeks ago when we went to the sale that I’ve deemed the European Delights sale, he left with a pile of stuff, but I didn’t pay much attention. Later that night, I saw him fiddling with this little box. He explained to me that it was a mechanical card shuffler. I nodded and acted interested, but in my head, I was like, “There is no...
Christmas Explosion and Girl Scout Trunk Sale
On Friday, Erin and I hit about four or five sales. The first was a sale that had a bunch of old Life Magazines as soon as we walked in the front door. Now, if you see old Life Magazines at a sale, be careful. Many of them are not valuable. However, if you’re a Life Magazine expert like me, you can find the diamonds in the rough. They were priced at $1.50 each, and I probably bought 12 or...
Rules of the Road: Buy Low, Sell High, Duh
In this installment of ROTR, I’ll explain the age-old tip of buying low and selling high. It sounds really simple, mostly because it is really simple.
The things we sell on ebay are not all antiques or rare collectibles. Sometimes they are common household items or newer trinkets/collectibles. We buy and resell such items because they are usually pretty expensive to buy new, and...
4 tags
Ryan Matthew kind of hates Christmas, and other...
As mentioned, I was lucky enough to get in contact with Ryan Matthew Cohn from SCIENCE’s cult-hit Oddities. I was hoping he would humor our little blog with a mere email correspondence, but instead, he was kind enough to chat with me on the phone last week. So if you’re wondering what a real child’s skeleton might cost you these days, or you have questions about bejeweled human...
8 tags
After the Bomb
Wow, it’s already Wednesday and we still haven’t updated you about the rest of our experience on Saturday, post-Re-Purpose-Blowout.
We hinted at the fact that there was some cool stuff at that sale. I guess you have to go through battle to get to the good stuff. Like this:
Pretty gross to find this at a grandma’s estate sale but grandma gotta get hers too, I guess.
Ok, in...
7 tags
Well that's odd.
So this entry is a teaser for a SERIOUSLY AWESOME entry that will launch on Friday. If you are not familiar with the TV show, Oddities, then you should check it out. It airs on SCIENCE, and the second-half of the third season picks back up in June.
Oddities explores the fascinating world of scientific artifacts—taxidermy, quack medical devices, preserved specimens, and so on. The show is...
Dolls, Sweat, and Cupcakes
This past Friday I wasn’t going to go sale-ing with Erin, and I’ll finally be honest about why. I am terrified of norovirus and was convinced I’d get it from her, even though it was like, 9 days later. Anyway, I had a meeting at work in the morning, and went out to her house after that because I realized I was being stupid. It was also a beautiful day to go to sales. We only made...
3 tags
The End of an Era
We want to be totally upfront. Erin and I have spent the last couple of days mulling over whether or not to write about this. We know that this could be perceived as adding fuel to an already out of control forest fire. But in the end, we decided we needed to document this experience, because it is just too crazy not to.
If you’ve read the blog for a while, you’ll have noticed that...
Fave Find: Bathing Beauty Bank
I don’t remember where I picked up this vintage resin bank of a woman relaxing in a bubble bath, but it’s pretty cute isn’t it? What I like most is that the soap is labelled. If I remember correctly, it was obscenely overpriced at $10, but I got it for $8.
It sits on my nightstand and I put any change from my pockets in it each night. Then, once it starts feeling heavy, I...
TTFYHO: Drugged Vintage Reindeer
This installment of Things That Freak Your Husband Out features these two little dudes:
They’re so cute!
I’m sad that Adam does not approve, but I can understand why. They look like they’ve had a little too much Christmas eggnog or wacky tabbacky. Anyway, I told Adam I’m selling them on etsy or eBay but I think they might just get “lost” in our spare bedroom...
7 tags
Cockatoo
So last week I had norovirus and Sarah had to roll solo. I was SO BUMMED because the sales I missed looked great. Anyway, I decided to go hit some sales today. The first one was in Farmington and was advertised as having tons of antiques. It had antiques but wasn’t a very “packed” sale. There was nothing to really dig through.
I immediately found this old record cabinet and...
9 tags
Money Maker: British Museum Brontosaurus
I hinted previously that a plastic toy brontosaurus I had bought might end up being part of our “money maker” series, and indeed it did.
When I first picked this guy up, I took a chance on him for a couple reasons. First, he was stamped on the bottom with all sorts of info. If he was just a cheapie dino from China he wouldn’t have so many stats.
I also took a chance on...
Ridin' Dirty
So if Friday’s theme was Ridin’ Solo, then Saturday’s theme was Ridin’ Dirty. And not just because of the “adult content” I uncovered…
The first sale Adam and I went to was at a house in Dearborn. The pictures looked good but had I been paying attention to the company name on the listing, I would have never stopped there. It was being run by the same...
3 tags
Ridin' Solo
So, as previously mentioned, Friday was a solo mission. There were a lot of really good looking sales, which made it even worse. Just because it’s SO much more fun going with someone—especially Erin.
All of the sales I went to were all the way out in Warren. The first was advertised at the home of a woman with “a lot of collections.” When I arrived, I discovered that the...
Rules of the Road: DIG!
In our “Rules of the Road” entries (ROTR) we will discuss some of our estate sale strategies. Full disclosure though, these are tips that we totally made up, and work for us like 63% of the time.
Fancy treasures are usually scooped up pretty quickly by dealers who are early to a sale. If you are like me and work in the mornings, you can’t be the first person in line. If you...
Winter Break, Day Two
I had been looking forward to the fact that I’d have two entire days to go sale-ing with Erin for about a month. TWO WHOLE DAYS!!! Unfortunately, the sales last week were all sort of duds. It always works out that way, doesn’t it? I mean, don’t get me wrong. The home of the apocalypse preparer was definitely unique and entertaining, but while we found lots to write home about, we...
7 tags
Survival of the Fittest
We were lucky enough to have TWO days of sale-ing this past week since Sarah was off on winter break from work. Thursday morning we headed out to a pretty promising Detroit sale. I say promising because it was advertised as being in Boston Edison neighborhood, which is crazy fancy. I got to film at a mansion there last Spring and the home was seriously insane.
When we arrived at the sale, we...
3 tags
Fave Find: Carved Knights Liquor Cabinet
When I expressed interest in buying this liquor cabinet, the look on Sarah’s face was priceless. So it’s a little gaudy, but that is why it is the best liquor cabinet of all time.
The price tag on this puppy was $200 which is crazy because no one could tell if it was even an antique. For all we knew, it was purchased at Pier One like last week. That said, I loved it and wanted...
Fave Find: Joan Walsh Anglund anything
My favorite books when I was very little were these, written and illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund, and I still own them:
My copies are falling apart because I read and re-read them so often as a kid. They’re worth a lot of money now, but of course not my copies, because of the condition they’re in, but I wouldn’t sell them anyway.
Two of my favorite things from sales are...
Money Maker: WWII Omega Pocket Watch
A pretty clear trend on some of our “Money Makers” is that we had no clue an item we bought would be so valuable. In our big scores thus far it has been all dumb luck. This edition is a sort-of exception to that rule.
My husband Zach had been perusing ebay and found a lot of old vintage stopwatches and one pocket watch. The listing was pretty non-descript, but when Zach looked...
TTFYHO: Bag O' Santas
OK, so I finally did it. I bought something so wacked out that it qualified for a Things That Freak Your Husband Out (TTFYHO) post. I don’t even know what I was thinking…
I found this bag of random vintage Santas in someone’s garage. I remember when I first started sale-ing that someone told me vintage X-MAS stuff was super collectible. I suppose this is probably true if you...
