Dig This Treasure!

Gosh, last Friday seems like it was so long ago. Erin and I have been spending so much time prepping for this garage sale that I can’t even remember much about the day. 

I do remember we started in Farmington Hills, where there was a sale with no pictures. Now, these are incredibly hit or miss. But sometimes they’re great because all it means is that there are some older people running the sale who have no idea about technology and they have a ton of treasures in their home. But the serious collectors don’t come, because if they can’t see pictures in advance, it’s not worth their while. I can remember a couple of sales that lacked pictures where I found some seriously cool stuff.

Unfortunately, this sale was not of that variety. Instead it was this little old lady and her daughter, selling a bunch of household items that were generic and cheap. The woman had clearly been moved into assisted living or was in the process of doing so. However, this sad tale is not without its highlight: When we were in the basement, Erin made a friend. This crazy woman was talking to us NONSTOP about whether we had been to any other sales that day, if we found anything good, etc. Then she picked up a pair of exfoliating gloves and proceeded to tell us about how she loves finding them at sales because she uses them to clean her body, and then throws them in the wash, and then uses them to clean her house—especially the bathtub. We escaped as quickly as possible. 

I am racking my brain to try to remember where we went next…I have no idea. I have this picture as proof, though, so it wasn’t good:

Anyway, onto the more memorable moments: At some point, we ended up at a sale that was in a sort of bougie house that contained some cool items. There was a lot of modern/mid-century art, books, and records. But it was abundantly clear that the guy running the sale was a tool and a half. He was wheelin’ and dealin’ the whole time, and his phone kept going off and he would say things like, “This thing’s gonna sell no matter what, so it might as well be YOU who gets it.” Anyway, I found some Stevie Wonder albums, a Disney picture disc, and some books that looked interesting, but absolutely nothing in the home was priced except the artwork and furniture. Speaking of which, here are some pics: 

For some reason I was really interested in that head statue but I think it was marked something crazy like $300. Ugh. 

Anyway, I got to the front of the line after some waiting and had approximately 6 records and 5 books. While in line, Erin and I were guessing how much he was going to ask for all that crap. $30? $60? And we were also guessing what I’d actually agree to pay. Anyway, he looked at my stack of stuff and was sort of distracted because he was talking to a long lost chum that he ran into. So he said, “Fifteen bucks.” I said ok right away and then he started backpedaling, saying he didn’t see the records. He went on to tell me that the records were $5 a piece. I just looked at him and said, “But…they’re not worth that,” and he told me that people had been telling him that all day. HA! Anyway, he said $30 for all of it and I said no, but that I’d pay $20. He said $25 and I just kept saying no… so he finally agreed! Score! The worst part is that none of what I bought was worth anything, but I did get a couple of cool things that I’ll hang on to, including an illustrated copy of Jane Eyre. Which I’ve never read, and I was an English major. Whoops. 

The next sale we hit up was run by the same company, and as soon as we walked in, we saw our favorite phone talker. Greeaaaaat. Just like the last sale run by this company, nothing was priced except big ticket items. Right away, I saw an adorable old teddy bear. I was shocked that Erin didn’t spot him right away. I also found some pretty cool stuff in the basement of this sale, including a few old children’s books that might be worth a few bucks (and had their Detroit Hudson’s price tags still attached—so frickin’ cool!) and some knee huggers! 

When we were ready to check out, the woman did the same thing as last time: “What’s up?” Uhm isn’t it obvious that I want to buy these items? Anyway, first thing she looked at was the teddy bear. She scrutinized him and said, “40 dollars” because he might be “worth $300.” Uhm, that raggedy ass teddy is not worth $300. Trust me. I told her that was fine—I didn’t want him for that much. At some point she actually looked these bears up on her iPad, even though I was insisting that I was not buying him to resell. Eventually I made it out of there with all of my finds (including Mr. Tedders) for a total of $55, which seemed reasonable to me.

Once we got out of this sale, we were starving (shocker), so we looked for the closest place. Erin refused to eat fast food so we stopped at some place called McVee’s. It ended up being a typical bar/grill, filled with barflies in the middle of the day, and the menu sounded better than the food tasted. When I’m really hungry, I often can’t make up my mind, so I order everything I might possibly want. In this case it was waffle fries, a Chicago dog, and mac & cheese:

Oh, and a beer. Totally not excessive. Also, for the record, I only ate about 1/3 of this food. Worth noting: Erin was totally reasonable and got a beer and a BLT:

And now she’s blonde. Clearly trying to slowly become me.

We also indulged in a crappy dessert that looked excellent on the menu, and Erin wasted some money playing Keno. Actually, she may have made two dollars.

The last stop of the day was a sale in Detroit that looked like it was really packed. I’m not sure how they did not capture the fact that this was a true hoarder sale in the pictures, but they managed to fool us. The only thing I can say about this house is that it was insanely depressing and gross. It was obviously an older Russian or Czechoslovakian woman living there, and she liked to keep stuff. Lots of it:

This is actually the attic, which, because it was 95 degrees out on Friday, was about 110. I could only stand up there for about five seconds.

When I showed Erin this picture, she almost cried:

The basement was, by far, the worst:

I did find a little bin filled with vintage cards down there, so I purchased that. Another fun fact about this sale was that there was a full human poop floating in the toilet in the bathroom.

After this depressing and horrifying sale, we called it a day as far as sale-ing goes. We stopped at a nursery I needed to go to to pick up some hydrangeas, and then lost some money at the casino.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: There are so many things I love about Sarah’s description.  First of all, I can’t believe she hasn’t read Jane Eyre.  That is my favorite book of all time.  Second, Sarah scoffs at paying $300 for original art and yet she will pay $15 for a Sesame Street cookie jar…BEST.

While phone lady was busy trying to charge Sarah $40 for a bear, I was busy paying a mere $8 total for some vintage Chanel No. 5 and a Tigers World Series newspaper from 1968.

Both are currently blowing up the ebays.  

The hoarder sale was the worst.  So heartbreaking.  We breezed through it pretty quickly because it was actually sort of dangerous.  I got hit on the head with a box while rummaging around in the basement.  I did end up buying a gold Raymond Weil watch for $20 because I thought Zach might want it.  It’s a little small for him, but it looks like we can sell it easily:

On Saturday night, Zach and I decided to head to an auction in Plymouth.  This particular auction happens EVERY Saturday in Plymouth and is similar to waiting around to bid on items that you could buy at any thrift store.  Once and awhile though they have some interesting things, as evidenced by this boar head we bought there last year:

When we first walked into the auction, they were busy selling some Hawaiian shirts.   Then they moved on to this giant box of silverware:

We passed on the silverware, but were definitely interested in another item.  You can see it there in the background of the above photo.  Ok, here’s a close-up:

This is a human skeleton that a local family LITERALLY KEPT IN THEIR CLOSET since 1919.  Zach and I aren’t normally in the market for such items, but we knew that antique skeletons were pretty valuable.  We consulted ebay and saw that a similar skeleton (namely with brass fittings) had sold for $1500.

We decided that we would bid to at least $300.  This seemed reasonable to us because we once got two antique wardrobes for $30 total at this place.

Turns out we were totally wrong about getting the skeleton for an equally cheap price, because as soon as the bidding started, it sailed right past our $300 limit.  It eventually sold to some hairy man for $1300.

We left the auction empty handed which was probably for the best.  We don’t have any closets that can fit a human skeleton.

-Erin

On Thursday last week, Timmy came over to help me set up a new glider we got for the backyard. I should say here that he was none too pleased that I mentioned on this blog how he wears ankle socks with loafers. He insists that he only did this “one time”, but I am still refusing to issue a retraction.

Anyway, after setting up the glider, we headed out to a sale in Taylor. It turned out that the sale was inside the Taylor Trade Center which is a flea market disguised as an antique mall. I was a little wary at first when I saw the list of upcoming events to be held here:

TWO reptile expos? Also, what is “clash wrestling”???

If that wasn’t my cue to make a run for it, these things should have been:

You’re selling photos of high school girls? Alright, that’s not totally creepy and/or possibly illegal. Cute pom pom shoes though.

We found the estate sale inside this place and it was basically a bunch of tables with random things all over, most stuff was still inside boxes or wrapped up. Here’s Timmy doing his thing:

I actually found some shockingly good treasures here, mostly these old ass dolls from Germany and Japan. I have no clue what they are, but they’re all stamped.

I also got this hand turned wood bowl from Vermont, and a cool little box of mini perfumes from France:

I also got a giant box of baby doll clothes from the 1950s and some old welding/steampunk goggles to sell. For all of this stuff I paid $20 total, which is AMAZING.

And don’t worry about Tim, he got an old baseball pin from 1937 and was as happy as a clam.

-Erin

I wasn’t going to go sale-ing on Friday because, as I mentioned, I still had tons to do for my charity relay on Saturday.  I am SO glad I decided to go though!  We headed out to a house in Royal Oak that was formerly home to a professor.  The house was gorgeous, and packed full of really interesting things.

I wanted this chair so bad:

You can’t really tell, but that chair was HUGE.  It would never fit in my car or our house really.  Here is what I did take home though:

This bell jar is really large and heavy.  I found it hidden under some stuff in the basement of the sale and the guy working down there told me it was $6.  At the time, it had some old coral in it, but I later found a giant Abalone shell to put in it.  The shell was $2 I believe, which is a steal.  I love both of these items so much and am happily displaying them in our living room.

I also found some weird old glass photo plate.  It seems like an old negative but on glass.  This is probably a super common thing that I am just uneducated about.  Anyway, it is from 1905 and has some sailors on it.

And by “sailors” I guess I really mean fishermen.  

The last item I will mention had some drama attached to it.  It is a little brass bust of George Washington.  I figured Zach would want it, so I asked a lady at the sale how much it was.  She said $5.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to pay that so I set little Washy back down.  As soon as he hit the table, the woman exhaled really loud and frustratedly, like I was totally wasting her time.  I ignored it and moved on to look at a desk and as soon as I touched it, the woman snapped at me, “THAT’S SOLD!”  I apologized and said that I didn’t see any sort of SOLD sticker on it, and she informed me that that was because there was no sold sticker on it.  Uh, ok.

I had made an enemy.  Not sure how, but I did.  By the time this lady rung me up later, I had picked back up the little Washington.  As she was writing down my items, she wrote,  ”Jewelry $5.”  Now, I hadn’t bought any jewelry so I thought maybe this was a mistake, and I asked her about it.  She exhaled her hatred for me again and then announced that the “jewelry” was the little Washington statue that she had CLEARLY ALREADY GIVEN ME THE $5 PRICE ON.  I apologized to her, even though I think it is totally fair to assume a brass statue is NOT jewelry.

-Erin 

Update from Sarah: Erin has a terrible memory. Worse than mine, which I didn’t even think was possible. The professor sale was the second sale we went to, unless she found something out that I didn’t know. She didn’t even mention the second sale!

The first sale was cool, though. And don’t you think it’s obvious that the woman just wanted Erin to wear that bust around her neck, Flava Flav style? Anyway, these people had a lot of very old, nice things. They also had a lot of very old, not as nice things. Once again, the whole basement was covered in books and they were all pretty damp. Not a great idea. Especially since all of the books were either older or actually antique. I did, however, find some good treasures in the basement. I found a stack of memorabilia from the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. At first, I put all that stuff back where I found it, but then I looked on eBay and Mission Inn memorabilia seemed like it might be collectible.

Also, while I was in the basement I noticed this woman sorting through an enormous stack of cards. I just sort of hung around the area for a while because I couldn’t tell which ones she was keeping and which ones she wasn’t. After a few minutes of just lumbering around, I decided to act like a human and actually ask her if any of the cards were ones she didn’t want. Turns out the big stack were ones she didn’t want! Score. Here are some of them:

I also found a cool wooden box that I forgot to take a picture of, and two really nice quilts for our couches. Here’s one of them after one of my dogs “made her bed” on it:

After this sale, we hit up a garage sale run by four women who were a little older than us. They had some cute stuff for sale but after leaving, I was shocked by the fact that I had spent $12 there. I guess ultimately it was worth it, though, because I found this: 

Felted Mr. Toad Christmas ornament?!! Heck yeah. I bought him even though he was $2. 

After this sale, we hit up Treat Dreams in Ferndale. I was really excited for this because I was fiending for something delicious to eat, but was then sadly disappointed by my choices. It’s my own fault. I really wanted something fruity and got salted caramel and lemon olive oil as my two flavors. I was so annoyed with myself that Erin finally convinced me to go back up and get the sorbet. I got some coconut lime sorbet that was so terrible. It was like… pure ice with coconut flakes in it. It tasted like nothing. Anyway, next time… if there is a next time… I will go with my gut and get something good. 

The last sale of the day (the one that was in a professor’s home) was a sale in Palmer Woods. Erin was shocked by this neighborhood. It is fairly strange—a gorgeous old neighborhood in the heart of a very not so great area. I bought some books, a piggy bank, and a couple more quilts. Here is an obese cat sitting on one of them: 

So, after we finished the multi-hour process of going through the sale run by THAT guy, we were starving. I wanted to eat at Zumba but Erin wasn’t having it. So we drove by this restaurant that seemed questionable, called Camelia’s. After looking it up on Yelp, we decided that it would be an acceptable choice. The music that plays when you go to their website gives you a good impression of what it felt like to be there. I mainly wanted to talk about this dining experience to show you all a picture of the menu. 

KEEPIN IT REAL. The food was mediocre but did the job. 

The next sale we went to ended up being pretty bad, but I did find one treasure there: 

She is a vintage Sarco Mop-Pet from the ’60s. She’s SO INCREDIBLY ADORABLE. I hesitated for a minute and almost didn’t sell her but she’s up on eBay now. Special thanks to Becky for helping me with some important keywords (I had no idea what Bradley was before she suggested it.) I also got a nice fall wreath for $4. A steal!

Next up, we hit up not one but TWO places for some delicious treats. First, we stopped at Taste Love, which is a cupcake shop that apparently won Cupcake Wars because of a CARAMEL AND SALMON cupcake. That makes me have throw-up spit. The cupcakes (normal flavors, people) were delicious and overpriced. Also hilarious is that Erin and I are idiots, and proceeded to order our cupcakes through this glass case: 

That was before we realized that if you went around the corner, you could talk to a human being who could actually hear and understand you. 

After this, we stopped at Astoria Bakery because I love their cookies. Erin tried to play like she had enough treats but was sucked into buying a mini key lime pie. There is no such thing as too many treats. 

So the next sale looked really good and was just a few miles away. As soon as we walked in, though, we realized that it was pretty overpriced. We both still ended up with some treasures, but here are some examples of the insane prices: 

FIVE DOLLARS per pattern or MORE? I’m shocked that there are so many left!

Next up is a perfect example of something that drives me totally insane: 

Hey… your sh*tty, scary wooden doctor statue is not worth $20 just because it is “vintage.” 

This, however, is probably the best: 

Only three dollars for that ravaged bear? What a deal! Erin also died laughing when she saw this picture—they seem to have tried to place the price tag to keep you from noticing that he is missing an eye. Not very successful, guys. 

Anyway, I found some good stuff here and they priced it decently for me. I found a huge pile of Ranger Rick magazines that seem to sell on eBay (I contend that it is a bunch of homeschoolers who buy these for their children), as well as some vintage Cricket Magazines. The guy sold both of those lots to me for $5. I also found some more Life Magazines, which I’ve vowed to stop buying but haven’t yet. I only bought a few and one of them is this one: 

Some other cool things I found: 

Some buddies made of wool and rabbit fur…

some vintage Kim Casali glasses… 

And some vintage Holly Hobbie dolls (they’re smaller than they appear here), that the woman ringing me up tried to charge me $5 a piece for. I told her no and finally haggled her down to $2 a piece. 

I’m going to let Erin tell you all about the final sale of the day, which did disappoint as far as treasures go, but did not disappoint as far as stories go. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: First of all, let me apologize for this post going up so late tonight.  I’m sure you were all refreshing the page constantly waiting for today’s update.  I was at the salon today for 6 hours having my hair bleached.

Sarah mentioned the crazy overpriced sale, and I actually found some cool treasures there.  They turned out to be moneymakers though, so I will hold off on them for now.  I will however, show you this baby:

His little tag says “Creepy $50”, which is TRULY HILARIOUS and accurate.

After this, we hit our final sale of the day.  I knew we were in for some treasures when I saw the sign:

Ok cool, you’ve got some tools and toys and…wait, what?  You’re selling an Asian?!?

Along with selling an “Asian”, the sale had some dolls.  Lots of dolls.

Including this doll that looks like Sarah:

JUST KIDDING…It only kind of looks like Sarah.

Alright, one more doll thing.  Here is me with a doll that has three faces, which is not terrifying at all.

I had Thursday and Friday off this week, so Erin and I had maximum fun times. We got started bright and early on Thursday morning, and the first sale we hit ended up being a story on its own. So today’s entry will just be about this sale. 

The pictures of this sale looked amazing—it was incredibly full and looked fairly disorganized which is always a plus (more chance of finding a hidden treasure). The sale was out in Royal Oak, and as soon as we pulled up and started walking into the backyard, we noticed this guy that we’ve written about before—most descriptively in the Goonies Poster entry. We both groaned and said something along the lines of, “Oh God… THAT guy…” but it wasn’t until we got back into the garage and started browsing around that we realized that he wasn’t a shopper—he was running the sale. I wasn’t really sure if that was going to end up being a good or bad thing, and at first, I wasn’t sure if it was his house of treasures that he was selling or what. After a few minutes, I realized that he was actually liquidating someone else’s estate (he kept referring to this person as an antique collector but she seemed to be a cross between that and a garage sale junky.) Here’s an example: 

Anyway, first thing that caught my eye in this monstrosity of a garage was a giant bin full of pins (shocking, I know). Here are my finds from that: 

I really love “no teeny weenies”… What is that even from?! I also love the two pins about French.

There was so much stuff at this house, I was really going crazy with joy. After being there for a few minutes, I said to Erin, “This is my favorite sale.” She said, “I noticed.” I already had quite the armload of items, including this adorable Michigan-themed cross-stitch: 

After perusing the junk in the backyard and garage, I went into the screened-in porch that led to the interior of the home. I was filled with glee when I discovered that almost the entire porch was filled with vintage glasses—another thing that I have way too many of. Anyway, I only bought a few, and the coolest thing was that some of these Detroit News glasses that Adam and I have at home. I’ve never seen them at another sale. It only made sense to increase our numbers there. 

I also found this glass for my father-in-law, who is always leaving notes around his house, reminding himself to take pills: 

Can’t get any weirder, or more perfect than that. 

Another great thing that was in the screened-in porch: 

So the porch actually led right to the stairs to the basement, which sadly, neither of us photographed. But we should have. It was jam-packed with stuff. Mainly books and magazines, some of which just seemed sort of…damp. Someone needs to contact all of the collectors of the world and let them know that basements are bad places to store paper material.

Anyway, I quickly snatched up some vintage scouting magazines (not sure if they’re worth anything but thought I’d check)… but then noticed a sign that said that magazines were $3 per issue. WTF?!!!! I put those magazines down. I kept walking around and noticed an ENORMOUS box of vintage Playboy Magazines. At first, I just figured it was a lost cause since a) they were so pricey and b) the man running the sale is sort of crazy. But then I figured I’d go out and ask if they’d take a flat price for the whole lot. I went outside and asked the guy’s poor wife if they’d take a flat price and of course, she had to check with him. I also mentioned that they weren’t worth $3 per issue. The guy said that there should have been a price of $75 on the box. I just stared at him. Then he said, “For you, I’d take $50.” Sold, crazy man! 

Anyway, here is a picture of just SOME of them… Notice that there are also piles on our liquor stand. 

I hope the pervs come out in full-force and snatch these suckers up! Turns out they’re mostly from the mid ’70s to early ’80s but I did find one issue from 1958 up in there. And, based on yesterday’s entry, they will provide us with hours of amusement, if nothing else. 

Inside the house, the guy had two women working a cash register, and outside, his wife was (wo)manning another. In retrospect, I should have done all of my checking out with those ladies inside, because they were giving deals left and right. It was like they knew that the guy was being unreasonable about some prices, and they would just sort of wink and give you deals without asking. They did give me deals on a bunch of vintage (we’re talking ’80s) earrings—I absolutely love finding tiny earrings at sales. Some of the best here include the ducks and the corn: 

Anyway, the inside of the house was just as packed as that picture of the garage, and even though it was sort of chaotic, either the woman who lived there or the sale guy had arranged everything into different themed rooms. Here’s Erin digging through a room filled with books: 

When we were in that room, I almost had a panic attack because I’m sure there are a ton of valuable things in there…but how in the world do you find them? 

Here’s another themed room—the stuffed animal and toy room: 

In this room, I found some adorable vintage budddies: 

I also found this terrifying monkey that reminded me of one just like it that I had as a child. I believe I got mine the one and only time I went to the circus. I think the fur on it is rabbit fur: 

Don’t worry—I didn’t buy him. But does anyone else remember these scary monkeys? 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: This sale was definitely Sarah’s favorite.  It had the perfect storm of smut magazines, stuffed animals, and pins that Sarah might or might not ever wear.  Speaking of pins, not sure why she passed on this one:

I’ll say up front that I was super distracted last week while we were sale-ing.  I had tons to do for a Relay for Life event happening on Saturday.  My mind kept rehashing all the things that awaited my responsibility, so my energy for digging through this sale was low.  By the time we got to the living room, Sarah had two full boxes of stuff and I had literally nothing.

Then magically, I was rewarded for my total laziness.  Sitting right on a table in the middle of the living room was a vintage Detroit Red Wings hockey puck.  I knew instantly that it was super valuable.  My dad taught me when I was younger and we would go to sales, that I should always look out for the infamous “orange octagon pucks.”  These pucks were made in the early 1960s for game use by the NHL.  They are super rare.  Here is a glimpse at some recently sold on ebay:

I grabbed the puck immediately and called Timmy.  He couldn’t believe it.  He kept saying “DON’T SET IT DOWN.”

I went to ask THAT GUY how much he wanted for the puck, bracing myself to be ripped off.  He told me that the puck was supposed to go with some street hockey stick so I need to go look for that.  I told him I didn’t want the stick but he made me look anyway.  After casually glancing around and finding no such stick, he agreed to sell me the puck for $2.  DEAL.

My next interaction with this guy was not such a deal though.  As we were leaving, I saw this gravestone rubbing kit—essentially some giant paper and a block of wax to capture artwork off of old graves.  I asked one of the women working how much it was and she said that it was bundled in with two framed pieces of “rubbing art” for $75.  

Now here’s the deal, I am all about bundles, but this one made NO SENSE.  The “rubbing art” was not gravestone related but instead two dancing Japanese ladies.  And they were silkscreened, not rubbings.  The woman agreed with me and said we could go ask THAT GUY for a price on just the rubbing kit.

He refused to separate out the items, even after the woman helping me said he was being ridiculous.  When I went to leave though, he offered me the kit for $25.  I politely said no thank you but he really wanted to argue with my apparently.  I said I could find it online and under his breath he said, “Good luck paying the outrageous shipping charges.”  Anyway, here is the EXACT same rubbing kit on Amazon…with free shipping.

We’re working on updates from this past weekend, but in the meantime, it’s time for a sexy post, thanks to my husband.  

This morning when I went downstairs to make coffee, I discovered this note that Adam had left me, noting that his letter “got printed”… 

I was still half asleep, but quickly realized that he was not serious. (Or was he?…)

Here’s what the letter says in closer detail: 

I bought a really large lot of vintage Playboy and Penthouse magazines on Thursday, and left the really ragged issues without covers for him to peruse. He’s definitely found some gems in them, but this is the best so far. It’s from the letters page of an issue of Penthouse from the late ’70s. 

-Sarah 

Sarah messaged this morning to alert me to a secret message hidden in a sale listing for today.  

“COME DIG FOR A TREASURE”….alright Edmund Frank & Associates LLC, we’re onto you.  You want to lure us to your sale?  We’ll bite this time, as it appears that you have an assortment of desirable items that I assume will all be reasonably priced.

Here is the exchange Sarah and I had after I looked at the secret message:

Wish us luck today on our sales!  And if you don’t know who BTK is, then read this truly terrifying Wikipedia article.

-Erin

We’ve mentioned a couple of times before that there are certain items we feel weird about reselling, either because the items are arguably creepy or culturally sensitive.  I recently found myself in another one of these situations…

A local record store bought an abandoned storage unit (a la Storage Wars) that was filled with thousands of vinyl records.  The purchase was seemingly unremarkable, as this is a common way for record stores to bulk up their inventory at a low upfront cost.  Turns out, though, that these records comprised the personal collection of legendary hip hop producer J. Dilla, who was best known for his work with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Common.  Dilla died in 2006 at the age of 32 from suspected lupus.

The record store began sorting through the records and placing them in small quantities on their shelves.  They marked the records with stickers indicating which ones had belonged to Dilla.  In a matter of days, the store was inundated with calls and social media commentary from Dilla fans, many of whom were outraged that the store was selling the records without tracking down Dilla’s family first.  As fast as they appeared, the records were pulled off the shelves.    

As it turns out, Zach had bought a couple of these records for his own collection.  Our curiosity got to us pretty quickly and we decided to list one of the records on ebay just to see what it would sell for.  We started the auction at $14.99, the price Zach paid for it.  Here’s how things ended up:

We definitely were NOT expecting that.  The auction blew up in the final minute, jumping from $60 to $180.  

So since Zach is saving up for a super baller watch, we decided to list more of the records.  It went pretty well.

The key here is that we were the beneficiaries of dumb luck.  Zach happened to buy some of these records before they were pulled off the shelves, and for whatever reason, we were the only ones who thought to put them on ebay.  At some point, the records will be re-released by the record store, and since there are 8,000 records in total, there is no way they will garner such high prices again.  Totally right place, right time.

-Erin

Saturday turned out to be extra special because Sarah and I went sale-ing with Adam and Zach, the first time we have all sale-d together!  We headed out to Royal Oak for some pretty promising sales.

I don’t remember much of anything about the first sale because I am not entirely convinced that they had anything for sale at all.  Oh, except this:

Story of my life little ape man, story of my life.

Also, what company makes SAD animal plaques?  So weird.

The second sale we hit will be forever memorable.  I knew we were in for some total insanity when I saw the signage at the door.

Did these people really install security cameras at an estate sale?  Or were we just under the surveillance of the Sharpie marker cameras they drew on these flyers?  

Also insane was the long-ass line out the door to this sale.  It was 2:30 on a Saturday (the last day of the sale) and there was a line.  This is unprecedented.  They must have so many treasures that the sale is endlessly packed with visitors.  Spoiler alert: not true.

The “Gatekeeper” as she will be called, monitored the flow of shoppers with an eagle eye.  We waited at least 10 minutes before Adam and Sarah were allowed to pass the holy gates into the sale.  Zach and I stood there another 5 minutes before we spoke up. We had now been standing there for 15 minutes and had not seen ONE person shopping inside the house.

Yep, that is the Gatekeeper herself blocking a completely empty room.  I told her that I felt SUPER CONFIDENT that I could navigate that room without bumping into anyone or anything.  She didn’t believe me.  We watched that empty room for a few more minutes as the line grew behind us.  Finally we were allowed to enter, and we got to see the precious treasures that the Gatekeeper had been protecting.

Wait, what?  You threatened us with hand-drawn video surveillance systems for this?  

I ended up buying a vintage Basketville basket and a gold-plated Christmas ornament of the White House.  Total investment: $1 and lots of frustration.

The last sale was in Birmingham and we were pretty skeptical because it was run by those teenage vagabonds we mentioned previously.  Things turned out pretty good though.  I found some really excellent treasures and the boys running the sale gave me some deals.  

I picked up this tiny Reuge music box.  It was originally priced at $35 but I got it for $10.  It already has some bids on ebay.

This sale had a lot of legitimate Native American art, and I found this really nice handmade basket.  It was a total steal at $2.

And by far the best purchase of the day was this set of Le Creuset cookware.  I got the whole set for $25 and look how it’s doing on ebay so far:

Hooray!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I’ll take full responsibility for choosing some real duds (on my end)… There were SO MANY sales last weekend but I picked some pretty bad ones on Saturday. It was fun anyway, but I wish I had found more treasures. Also worth noting was that Saturday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Erin and Zach’s was on Monday. Hooray for all of us. 

First, Erin is wrong—she didn’t even find that ornament at the sale that made her so mad. She found it at the first sale. So I’m not even sure she bought anything at the sale that made her so angry. I’m trying to remember if I even purchased anything worth mentioning at the first sale. I did find a really nice vintage velvet clutch for $1. 

The surveillance sale truly was insane. Also insane was seeing Erin get so aggro with the people manning the door. Usually it’s my job to yell at people. Anyway, she was real mad. Adam and I got in first so I had some fun walking by her and Zach, saying, “We’re taking all the treasures.” They were so engaged in arguing with the woman at the door that they didn’t even hear me, but obviously, there were no treasures. 

HOWEVER. The guy who lived at this home had worked at Jacobson’s which some of you might remember. Evidently, he worked in the greeting card department (ok, probably the Holiday Dept.) because he had TONS of greeting cards all over the house. They were all modern—no vintage cards to speak of—but they were selling them for 4 for $1. I cannot explain the quantity we are talking about. And I don’t know what happens to me but when I see greeting cards, I want them. Because I’ve found some really crazy ones. And there were just so many, I knew I wouldn’t have time to look through them. So I decided to ask if they’d sell them all to me for a set price. Anyway, as a sidebar, let me say that their “surveillance system” consisted of staffing each room with a middle-aged woman who looked like she listened to the Moody Blues and toked the reefer who followed you around like you were trying to steal junk. There were no cameras. Because, uhm, that would be crazy. So anyway, I asked the woman who had been watching me like a hawk if she worked there. Of course she said yes. I then asked if they’d sell the cards as a lot and she told me I’d have to talk to “Angel.” 

I went upstairs to find this person and she was on the phone. When she got off the phone, she and another of her employees went downstairs to assess how many cards we were talking about. When she saw the quantity, she started acting like there was no way she could think of a price for all of them. I said, “Well, I’m just assuming you want to get rid of these.” She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Well, yes we do but they’ve been really popular.” Now, this was the LAST DAY of the sale, at about 3 p.m. You’re gonna tell me that in the next hour, you’re going to get a rush of crazy scrapbookers who want your gross ’90s cards? C’mon now. Anyway, she said that I could have this one medium sized group of them for $10 and I said, “No—I mean all of the cards.” You would have thought I had asked her to recite pi. Finally I said, “I was going to offer you $40 for all of them.” Needless to say, she was pleased with that figure and they quickly helped me to gather all of the cards together. On my way out, I said, “Thanks for agreeing to let me take all of these!” and she said, “Oh you’re welcome, I’m happy to get rid of them.” Uhm excuse me? Two seconds ago you were acting like I was trying to rob you!!! 

Since purchasing these cards, I’ve realized that they were not a wise investment, but I’m hoping to offload them at our upcoming garage sale, which is just a few weeks away!

At the last sale, I found nothing worth mentioning, but I’m glad that Erin was the ultimate treasure winner. Adam found nothing at any of the sales and was very saddened by this. Boo f’in hoo. I made it up to him by giving him a fancy nerd watch later that evening for our anniversary. 

I was unable to go sale-ing on Friday, so Erin and I decided to go on Thursday instead. There were tons of sales, but I had to work until the early afternoon, so we only made it to a few. I started off the morning in an awesome way—working from Erin’s house & cuddling with her usually shy cat. Proof that Sebastian loves me the most: 

We were able to get rolling as soon as I was finished working, and we started off at a sale located pretty close to Erin’s house. It didn’t look too promising from the pictures, but they had listed that they had a bunch of HO slot cars, so I was interested in stopping by. 

When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a bunch of jewelry, and I scored by finding some pretty cool cat earrings (but not cat lady cat earrings—they’re cute), along with a baggie of various pins. I don’t know what my deal is with pins. I cannot resist them and I need to start resisting, because the quantity I now have is out of control. Anyway, this is one of the cuter ones in the bag—an Idaho potato! Get it? 

It’s hard to tell how big that is from the picture, but it’s pretty tiny. Also, Erin kept talking about this pin so maybe I’ll give it to her one day. She even asked about it when I saw her again on Saturday. Get a room with the potato pin, Erin. 

A little while later, I watched on as Erin riffled through the slot car stuff—they had two boxes of stuff and it was all sort of crappy and they had it marked $300 for the two boxes! WTF?! Anyway, Erin didn’t notice that sign and started tearing through the boxes. After watching her and laughing to myself for a few moments, I let her know that she should probably stop doing that since it was being sold as a lot. 

The person who lived at this house loved cats, and had many cat-themed items. I will admit that I purchased some of these items, but I am too ashamed to show our dear readers what those items were.

The only other real item of note that I found that I’m pretty pleased about was this: 

Original Gizmo!!! He looks a little rough in the picture but he really just needs a good run through the gentle cycle. 

Besides many cat items, the person who owned this home also had a lot of old computer stuff, including the following, which I’m mainly posting for my brother, whose first computer was a C-64 if I’m remembering correctly: 

Snokie? Who dat? 

I also somehow managed to spend about $40 at this sale—probably because everything was overpriced and I cannot resist original items from the ’80s. 

On the way to the next sale, Erin asked me what took me so long, and then started grilling me about what I had purchased. I mentioned that I found “vintage Harry Potter wrapping paper” and then we both started cracking up. What I meant was that it was old—probably from around when the first book came out… but that was 1997. Which definitely does not make it vintage. 

I’m having a hard time remembering where we went next, but I know it was in Warren. There were multiple sales in Warren, which always excites me because it means we can stop at Tringali’s. 

So I think the next sale was what I’ll call “The Tacky Sale” because everything in the home was tacky. 

I think that’s supposed to give the illusion of a horse in a stable. 

You can’t really tell the scale here, but that is a gigantic cocktail glass that says “I BET YOU CAN’T.”

Here are some authentic, hand-crafted Native American items. 

What any classy lady needs: A Wal-Mart Shopping Fund jar. 

If these items were not enough to convince you that it was the tackiest sale ever, hopefully this will: 

Still not convinced?…

Nothing like some old lady’s panties for $.50 a piece. 

The worst part of this sale was that there was a young woman, probably my age, walking around the sale and excitedly pointing out every item in a loud, southern drawl. You would have thought she was taking a tour of the Queen of England’s home, she was so impressed by all of these items. She was most excited about this book. I’m not joking. 

Anyway, I left this sale with a vintage Stroh’s beer stein and some weird thing for Adam that’s not even worth trying to explain. Erin left with some extremely overpriced tissue paper that I’m sure she’ll say more about in her update. 

The last sale we went to was the most interesting of the day, by far. It was at the home of the former President of the Scarab Club. Turns out she was the president back in the late ’70s, and was quite the artist in her day. I purchased some pretty cool stuff a this sale, including a Masonic Bible in its original box, some vintage National Wildlife magazines that seem like they might sell, and some adorable K-Mart wall art from the ’60s. 

They were sold as a pair, but I really wanted the one on the right, because it’s just so damn cute. But I am also really interested in/do research on bedroom culture, so I just sort of fell in love with both of them immediately. 

I found one item from my youth (and, as it turns out, Adam’s as well): 

As well as this item—also from Adam’s childhood:  

And finally, a miniature roulette game! To add to my tiny home casino. 

We tried to go to one last sale where I had spotted a Mrs. Beasley doll in the pictures online, but some asshat dropped a bunch of lumber in the middle of the road, so we were delayed and didn’t make it in time. 

But all in all, it was a pretty eventful, interesting trip. We topped it off by stopping at Tringali’s, where Erin and I decided that no matter what it is you’re asking about at an Italian bakery, the answer is always “cannoli cream.” 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: The first sale was pretty unremarkable, except for the outrageous prices.  For awhile, I carried around a Pachinko machine from the 1970s still in the box.  It was an American version though, and made of plastic.  On ebay it only sold for about $15 out of the box.  They were asking $25 for this one, so I dumped it pretty quickly.  I ended up buying a Christmas pin featuring a fuzzy bear on ice skates.

The “tacky sale” as Sarah named it, was really painful.  I am generally a big fan of Native American artwork and jewelry, and I have a good amount of it at home.  However, I have never and will never claim to know a ton about Native American culture, or be one of those white people who claim to have a distant Native grandmother.  There are a lot of white people like this, who say that somewhere down the line they have Indian blood and blah blah.  Then they collect a bunch of things made in China that feature dream catchers and noble Indian warriors and other stuff that is probably sacred and shouldn’t be on a plastic picture frame.  

Like this giant resin wolf marked $100.  Worst.  Also worst was that I went to buy some half-used wrapping paper and a little package of tissue paper.  The seller lady was looking around all frantically for someone to help her because there were no prices on either item.  She finally came up with the price of $3, which is crazy, and I asked if she would take $2, which is still crazy.  These were clearly 50 cent items.  She accepted my offer, but then said, “I’ll probably get in trouble for this.”  Uh, no, you definitely won’t.

Whew, ok. This entry is getting long.  Bear with me because the following is pretty sweet.  At the Scarab Club sale I found a TON of Laurel Burch earrings and bought them for $1/pair.  The earrings have DAYS left on ebay but are already cleaning up:

I’ll keep you posted on what these end up selling for!  

Lastly, it is important to note that I found a super amazing treasure that is not for re-selling.  It is a Pendleton knockabouts coat and it was MADE for me.  Here I am after a nap, modeling said coat:

Only $10!  When I tried it on at the sale, all these ladies were like, “OHHH you have to get that! It’s sooo cute.”  Sarah agreed (which is rare) so I bought it.

Update from Sarah: Just wanted to add two things after reading Erin’s update: First, I hope none of you with Native American blood are offended by Erin’s strong stance on the issue. This includes my sister-in-law, who is actually very white, but does have Native American ancestors. However, she does not keep plastic statues of wolves or canoes in her home to represent that heritage. Second, WHO in God’s name is crazy enough to get into a bidding war over those ugly Laurel Burch earrings and why wasn’t I smart enough to find them? 

While we work on wrapping up our reports from this past weekend (two days of sale-ing what what!!!), we have yet another Hard to Resist post for you. I have to admit, when Erin first suggested we start this feature, I wasn’t on board. But now I am. Because there are so many things that are hard to resist. 

We see a lot of ugly things in the homes we enter, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what would possess anyone to purchase either of these items the first time. Someone’s really going to buy them a second time? 

First up, a simultaneously scary and fancy plastic grandma:  

Now, if that’s an enigma, the next item is the eighth wonder of the world. I found this item at the sale where we had to wait for an hour before being rung up, and I actually forgot about it until the end of the day. I immediately began laughing when I thought of it, and I asked Erin, “Hey did you see that cellulite baby at the first sale?” She also started cracking up, and said no, and so I decided to show her it while she was driving. 

I made sure to wait until the vehicle was stopped, because I knew Erin was going to die.   We were both laughing so hard we were crying. I seriously can’t remember laughing that hard in a long time. Look at that thing! 

For the rest of the day, I addressed Erin as Cellulite Baby. She wasn’t pleased. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Sarah did call me Cellulite Baby all day, but then later that night I got this text from her:

Disclaimer: I wrote this post like a CRAZY LONG TIME AGO.  Long before our tragic break-up with RePurpose sales.  I’m posting this because it is interesting, funny, and involves my dad, who is the best person of all time.

————————————————————-

Cash & Cari has come up a few times on this blog already, mostly because we cannot resist the cameras and the cameras cannot resist us. The cameras also cannot resist my dad, Tim.

After my taxidermy fox purchase on the show, I got a call from one of the producers. He asked what I did with the fox (made mad cash), if I was going to come to future sales (yes), and what types of items I look for at sales (Zuni jewelry, total garbage knick-knacks, and re-sellable odds and ends).

At this point I decided to pitch my dad for a future episode of the show. He’s the total package—a super savvy collector who drives a hard bargain but also wears ankle socks with slip-on loafers. He’s funny, he looks like Santa, he takes iphone lessons at the Apple store, and HE WAS IN THE MOVIE WHIP IT. I could go on and on.

Anyway, my dad DID end up on Cash & Cari. And it turned out to be truly awesome.

I had mentioned to the producer on the phone that my dad collects vintage baseball memorabilia, specifically anything Detroit Tigers. They ended up inviting him to a sale that had a set of seats from the now-defunct Tiger Stadium.

The ensuing interactions between Cash & Cari and my dad were hilariously scripted and kind of awkward. They told him when and where to arrive at the sale and how to “scope out” the Tiger Stadium seats. He made several passes by the seats (on camera) and then was told to wait while a meeting with Cari was orchestrated.

The seats were marked six hundred dollars, which is pretty insane.

So Cari comes over and my adorable dad is all like, “Yeah, these are cool, but I would have to offer you a lower price on them.” He then goes on to explain that Tiger Stadium had a capacity of over 50,000 people and that all of the seats were auctioned off when it closed. That’s a lot of seats. These ain’t no royal thrones. You get the idea…

In addition, my dad already has Tiger Stadium seats. He got them for $275 at the original auction. He’s totally into having some more for his little baseball cave at home, but $600 would break the bank. He offers Cari $200.

From this point on, my dad is forever branded as a “lowballer.” The narrator even says this on the resulting episode.

Timmy-I-tried-to-rip-off-Cari-on-national-television. That’s my dad.

Cari says no to the offer and my dad goes to leave. The producers intervene and tell my dad to come back to the sale the following day. The storyline will be that my dad cannot resist him some stadium seats. He must have them. He will arrive back at the sale and try to lowball Cari again. This time, though, he will be victorious.

So my dad comes back the next day and haggles on-camera again. Cari shows him an iPad with an ebay listing that is selling similar seats for $499. My dad tells her that the seats in THAT listing are special VIP seats that were available in smaller quantities, hence the higher price. (This whole exchange ends up edited out of the episode).

Then, Cari sells my dad the seats for $225. In the episode that aired, the seats were listed as having an original selling price of $400, NOT $600. I think the producers realized that the original price was way-off and tried to correct how that might look. This is good because my dad looked like a little bit less of a lowballer…still a lowballer though.  Even the narrator called him a lowballer.  

Here is my dad in his purchased seats, throwing an American flag baseball in the air. I wish he was wearing a hat made out of apple pie.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: If you watch this episode, you can see the $600 price tag at one point. 

Some more sale items that we found terribly hard to resist:

Here are some California Raisins for sale…well, 3 Cali Raisins and a giant brown California Turd.  

Here’s a binder with info all about birds.  Adorable for sure, but I’ll stick with a more traditional birdwatching guidebook.  I don’t want my Cowbird looking too much like your run-of-the-mill Robin.

Speaking of guidebooks, is your internet television just too damn confusing?  Look no further…

Lastly, you’ve heard us profess our love for Hugglets before, but we’ve never actually seen the larger Hugga Bunch version at a sale…until now…

Terrifying.  Also, why is her diaper ravaged?  The elastic was all stretched out.  Gross.

-Erin

So I was in Columbus Thursday through Saturday for a nerd conference. The first night we were there, two friends from work and I went to the art museum downtown and on our way back to our hotel, I spotted this sign: 

Needless to say, I was filled with glee. First, I hadn’t expected to be able to do any treasure hunting while I was out of town, but this was just a few blocks from my hotel, so it was totally feasible. Second, that sign makes the sale look pretty awesome. Doesn’t it? 

So Saturday came around, and when I had a few moments to escape, I walked down to the church where the sale appeared to be being held. Now, this sale was going on at the same time as the Columbus Marathon, so traffic around the area was crazy, but there were only a handful of cars parked in the church parking lot. For a minute, I got scared that the sale had been postponed because of the race. To make matters worse, I couldn’t seem to find any indication of where I should enter the church—no signs or directions of any sort besides the sign above, which was pretty far from any entrance to the building. I finally walked around the side of the church and saw a small sign on a door that said, “Rummage Sale, downstairs and to the left.” 

I got inside and very quickly realized that this sale was not going to exceed or even meet my expectations. There were about 10 old women and men there to “run” the tiny sale, and my heart immediately hurt. The first thing I saw was a table full of 1970s cookbooks for individuals with diabetes. From there, it just got worse. (I know what you’re thinking—how is that even possible?)

For example, I could have walked away with this treasure… 

…which actually could have been featured in a Hard to Resist post of its own. 

One question: WHAT IS THAT? 

Or, I could have walked out with this great find: 

Yep, that’s a jean-donning crotch-shaped planter. 

Or, finally, I could have selected from a wide variety of walkers: 

They also had a nice selection of folding canes. 

Anyway, as it turns out, I left with three items for a total of $4. A handmade shoulder/messenger bag (not pictured), and then these two items, which may or may not sell on eBay: 

I thought about keeping the pepper lights but… it’s really not necessary. 

-Sarah

I can’t believe I have waited this long to blog about one of my absolute favorite treasures…my collection of vintage flatware pins.  The history on these pins is fascinating, and their semi-rarity makes them fun to collect.

Flatware pins, most notably “spoon pins”, became popular in the 1940s and 50s.  The pins appealed to new mothers and brides-to-be, and represented an era of celebrated female domesticity.  Spoon pins were given to future brides when they registered for wedding gifts at a department store.  And many of these brides gave spoon pins as gifts to their bridesmaids.  Knives and forks made their jewelry debut once the spoon pins were well-established in popularity.

I first found out about flatware pins in Bust Magazine, in an article about girly collectibles.  When I saw the pins, I knew that I HAD to have them.

My parents found me a set on ebay (shown above) and surprised me at Christmas.  I later found three more spoon pins at antique shows and estate sales. 

You can come across these pins at sales, although ebay is a sure bet if you are looking for one quickly.  Sometimes, you will be lucky enough to find a pin that is stamped with a flatware company’s name on the back.  These pins were made by flatware companies and given to purchasers of their sets.  I have one pin stamped “Towle” and it is all sterling silver.  Definitely one of my favorites.  I also found this rare horsehead pin and paid a mere $10 for it:

-Erin

Last night, I dreamt a fabulous dream. When I woke up, I felt great. That’s because I didn’t realize it was a dream right away. Anyway, I dreamt that one of the things my dad gave me to sell was a vintage Sesame Street figurine of some rare, not very well known characters. I put it on eBay and I looked at the listing the day before it was supposed to end. It was at $10,000!!! I sort of freaked out at first because I worried that whatever I had was not actually what these people thought I had. But then after some further research, I realized that I DID actually have a real version of this highly desirable item. I was filled with glee when I realized that because my dad and I have the arrangement we do (he splits the profits with me), I was going to make FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I woke up before the listing ended, but this dream has taught me a few things: a) I am insane, b) I am greedy, c) I need to find this figurine.

-Sarah