Dig This Treasure!

First of all, HOLY SH*T.  Thanks to all of the new followers and to the Tumblr staff for featuring us.  We are glad that you are all here and hope you enjoy our adventures!  If you do, then like us on Facebook.  And if you don’t, well then, don’t.  

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Last Friday, Erin and I had a lot of sales on our list of prospects. There were actually quite a few near her house, but only one looked good. Erin really wanted to go because she spotted a Selmer saxophone in the pictures online. If you remember, we once saw a Selmer sax sell at auction for over $6,000, so I can see why she was excited. 

When we arrived, however, the Selmer was gone. The guy running the sale said it went for $3,000 and the guy who bought it was first in line, waiting at 5 a.m. 

There were some other instruments but none that seemed as valuable, I don’t think. So Erin passed on the rest. 

This house was a typical “old person” house with not a lot of fabulous things, but some treasures here and there. I came away with a few of my own to both resell and keep. To keep, I found this cute strawberry bowl (my kitchen is green and red) for two bucks.  

To sell, I found this adorable Holt Howard kitty pin box with a tape measure for a tongue! 

I only bought this because it was $1 and super adorable, and I had never seen anything like it. I didn’t know that Holt Howard was a collectible brand but it appears that it really is! 

The thing that I have is from his “cozy cats” line, but it looks like what sells best are his “pixieware” pieces, like the one above. Here’s a closer look at the pixieware: 

Pretty cute! I can see why people collect these things. But they’re probably Erin’s worst nightmare because they’re so Mid Century/Retro looking. 

Next up on our list was a sale in Dearborn that looked pretty good. I found some old Christmas cards right away, and Erin prevented me from buying this shirt: 

I told her that it was so cute because it looked like something an elementary school art teacher would wear but she reminded me that that isn’t what I do for a living. 

Erin spotted this portrait of me wearing my brown wig…

Right after that, she found that picture of herself that we posted on Friday. 

I discovered these cool antique weights, but they had them marked $40 for the set: 

I found some cool old records, including Disney’s Peter and the Wolf, which terrified me as a child. One of my earliest memories is of climbing out of my crib because the shotgun sounds on the record scared the sh*t out of me (I think my parents must have been listening to it with my brother, who is 5 years older than me.) 

After we left this sale, it was lunch time, and Erin surprised me by having a craving for Mexican food. Let me tell you, ever since Erin’s had morning sickness, our food options on our adventures have been greatly limited. Normally, she only wants to eat somewhere if it has “family dining” in the name. We had some delicious food at Frida in downtown Dearborn, and then treated ourselves to some Yogurt Town. Here’s an action shot of me, delightfully planning my yogurt creation: 

It did not disappoint. 

Next up was a sale in Wyandotte, and on the way there were found ourselves at a completely different sale, which was where I found that Dave Grossman statue that Adam hates. To give you an idea of how these people overprice things, check out these book prices: 

I’m not sure where a Reader’s Digest book is worth $15, but it’s not in this galaxy. 

In the end, I also found some cute Christmas items at this sale, including a few knee hugger type guys, and a brand new vintage Holly Hobbie apron! 

For the record, the woman tried to charge me $5 for each of those knee huggers. It didn’t work. 

The last sale we hit was a doozie. These people had priced everything in the house as if it was a brand new item at a store, at 100% retail. They had a bunch of Jim Shore stuff that is Erin’s jam and not mine, but I did buy this beagle ornament because it was pretty cute. 

Here’s a shot of all of it: 

Nice stuff for sure, but not worth buying at an estate sale at its original retail price! 

The only other thing I found here was a Zingerman’s book that was in great shape.

When I brought it up the lady looked super annoyed and/or confused. I said, “It’s supposed to be a dollar.” She said she knew, and then it occurred to me that she was probably upset because she thought she could get more than a dollar for it. COME ON! 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: At the first sale, they were trying to sell opened food products, which is always so strange to me.  I’ve come all the way to this estate sale, and ah yes, wonderful, a half used bag of sugar!  Also, don’t any of you DARE touch the cake pop mix because it clearly belongs to Martina.

Look at that!  THE SPAGHETTI BOX IS TAPED SHUT.  

Anyway, at least there were some cute, non-edible items at the sale.

I found these little moccasins.  One day I will force my baby to wear them, but for now I will just stare at them in admiration.

I also found this little trinket tray for $2.  I gave it to Zach’s mom as part of her Mother’s Day present because she loves all things Mexico.  This is from Juarez.

The second sale was kind of grody.  I didn’t buy anything.  You know what was NOT grody though?  Yogurttown.  I give a full endorsement to Yogurttown in Dearborn, MI.  Hear that Yogurttown?  If you are reading, I want some free froyo.  And a t-shirt.  Preferably one that says froYOLO.

After our froyo excursion, we hit a secret sale that happened to be really overpriced.  I saw this rubber face reindeer as soon as we walked in:

Now, I previously sold a similar one of these guys on ebay for a hefty profit.  I asked the guy how much this one was, and he started talking about how they are selling on ebay for $75, and how he’s not really sure, and on and on.  

I wanted to say to him, “Are we on ebay right now?  Is this ebay?”  Seriously, we hear this all the time… “Well on ebay that’s sellin’ for blah and blah.”  Cool.  THEN SELL IT ON EBAY.  I would have no problem if people running estate sales pulled the best stuff ahead of time and sold it on ebay for the best price.  But once an item is in a sale, let’s be realistic.  

In the end, we settled on $15 for this guy.  And yes, I will be selling him on ebay.

Here is something I didn’t buy.  Mostly because it has wings on the FRONT of its body, and a soulless face.

I wish I could have bought some of the Jim Shore stuff at the last sale, but it was all priced sooo high.  I’m talking $25-$50 per piece. Here is one piece I took notice of.  It appears to be Santa praying over the body of a dead child.  Am I right?  The child has a halo!  Not Jim’s best work…

I did enjoy shopping this sale though because it was one of those times where peeking into someone’s house turns out super interesting.  Usually we see messy hoarders, but this was the complete opposite.  This person was so neat and clean that they kept all of the tags and plastic on the house lamps!

A few Fridays ago, there were a few sales that looked good, so Sarah and I were eager to head out.  At the first sale, Sarah had her eye on an old stuffed cat, which I will let her tell you about.  Here are some animals she passed on:

These guys are all like, “All I do is win win win, no matter what.  Got money on my mind, I can never get enough.  And every time I step up in the building…

EVERYBODY’S HANDS GO UP.  AND THEY STAY THERE. AND THEY SAY YEAH.”

OK OK, so I’ve made that DJ Khaled joke before, but seriously, how many stuffed animals and dolls need to be made with their hands up in the air?

Sarah was interested in this stuffed animal, but I talked her out of it because he was mega grody.

I didn’t buy anything at this sale because the whole house was pretty much like this:

A lot of household stuff, but nothing really collectible or unique.  The next sale was slightly better, and had a cool array of art:

There were some antiquities too, like this old medical unit:

I almost bought this rug, but I have no place to put it.  It was only $30 though, which seemed like a good deal.  It was really old.

Sarah found two sweaters she liked, and I have included them here to get everyone’s opinions on them.  I contend that the sweater on the right, with the adorable racing horses, is THE BEST.  The other sweater looks weird and sad.  I think Sarah still bought it, and so if you see her, be sure to tell her how weird and sad she looks.

Speaking of weird and sad, here is me wearing a plastic hat that makes it look like you have a mohawk.  I should have tucked my hair in, but it was too much effort.

When I pulled that off my giant head, it made a suction noise…just FYI.

So again, I didn’t buy anything at this sale, so I was bumming.  But then we arrived at our final stop, and things looked really promising.  The house was super interesting looking and everything seemed old and expensive.  

So here I am, in the zone, walking around this cool house.  When all of a sudden, I hear the loudest crash.  It sounded like the world was ending.  And then I hear, “HELP ME!! HEEELLLLPPPP ME!  MY LEGS!!! MY LEGS!!”  

This lady had totally biffed it off a step in the room next to me.  She was laying on her back, all spread out, moaning and screaming.  My first instinct was to barf a little in my mouth out of terror, but then I came to my senses and pulled my phone out to call 911.  A million people surrounded her, and were helping her, but she continued to scream “HELP ME!”  I was asking the surrounding helpers and the woman herself if I should call 911, and the consensus was no.  The lady said she didn’t hit her head and didn’t want an ambulance.  

She did, however, want to keep screaming “HELP ME” over and over, even though by this point, the entire estate sale was helping her.  It was scary and sad, but also increasingly weird and confusing.  A part of me wondered if she was fishing for a lawsuit or something.  I mean, she totally did fall, but the aftermath was just so bizarre.  Even after she was on a couch relaxing, she continued to moan and yell.  And yet, she didn’t want any medical care.  Who knows.

Anyway, I was pretty shaken up after this, and sort of breezed through the sale quickly. I did manage to find some cool things though.  First off, I got this Pimm’s Cup mug for Zach, because he loves him some Pimm’s Cup.

I also got him some old lead soldiers, which they had marked $40, but I got them down to $15 because two were broken.

I also got his amazing carved folk art bear.  He was a little pricey at $12, but I had to have him.  He goes well with my folk art country singer and skiing rabbit.

Lastly, I got this old print of men wearing hats.  I liked the art, and Zach has been talking lately about getting into hats.  He read an article about Optimo Hats in Chicago, and has been obsessed ever since.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Ok, to start off, I am incredibly jealous of that carved wood bear. I loved it. But finders keepers! 

At the first sale, I ended up buying an old stuffed cat for way too much money ($30) but really used, well-loved stuffed animals are irresistible to me. Here he is. Being so cute in awful lighting. 

At the next sale, I did purchase those sweaters, along with this adorable squishy Snowman. Evidently I am 7 years old and only purchased stuffed animals. 

Look, I know the sweater on the left in the picture Erin posted is weird looking in the photograph but it was made in Sweden and is really beautifully constructed and really baggy which comes in handy when you have “booty for days” like I do.

Here is something at that sale that I did not buy, but might need to soon if I don’t stop making fun of Erin and her unborn child: 

The last sale was the coolest by far, and I found some neat stuff. I was in a nearby room when the falling tragedy happened, and all it sounded like from there was some sort of animal crying. I came out and found Erin and asked her what was up, and that was when I realized that an actual human being had taken a spill. 

It was at this sale that I found the awesome book and illustration that I wrote about yesterday, and I also found some other cool books. Here’s one with a cool cover. 

It looks like this one sells on eBay for a decent amount of money, so that’s good!

I also found some clothes at this sale that I love, but forgot to photograph. One final thing that I passed on was this grooming kit that I considered buying for my dad. 

Hardy har har!

Two weeks ago, Sarah emailed me a link to a sale that looked pretty crazy.  The house was packed and it seemed as though the homeowner had several different collections going on.  More importantly though, like I said, it looked packed!  I started having flashbacks to Best Sale Ever.

When we arrived at the house, things were indeed packed inside.

The collections here included stuffed animals (Steiff mostly), dolls, fossils, dinosaur-related things, mini decanter bottles, Native American crafts, and porcelain miniatures.  

Sarah focused in on the Steiff animals first, and boy were they cute.  The prices were probably fair, but higher than we wanted to spend.  The guy running the sale told us though that if we bought a lot of stuff, he would give us a great deal.

Steiffs above, and below are some cats riding in a car:

I quickly focused in on all of the Native American items in the house.  I found a small collection of birchbark and porcupine quill boxes.  Lots of tribes made boxes like these, so I am not sure whom these are from.  My hope is that these were originally from Michigan, and possibly Anishinabek.

The one I wanted was almost $50, so I told myself that if I didn’t buy anything else, then I would get it.  And I would also see if I could get it for around $35 or $40.

I carried this little guy around for about a minute before I put it back.  I don’t really have a good use for him, he’s just cute:

I think the sled might have been Native American made, and then someone just stuck the dog on there.

There was TONS of Native American stuff I wanted, and it started to become clear that I would have to find just one favorite item and buy that.  I liked these dolls, but most were priced around $60. 

And I loved these little kids’ seal fur boots, but they were $25 I think.  SPOILER ALERT:  I’m pregnant!!  So I seriously considered buying these and making my child wear them.  Then I started to worry that seal fur might be itchy.

Ok, so what was the one high-priced Native American craft that I settled on buying?  This adorable sculpture:

It’s an igloo (obviously) and when you open it up, these little guys are inside cutting up a seal:

It was marked $25, but I got it for $20.  I also bought two other things.  The first is a cast of a dinosaur egg fossil.  I bought it for my friend Jenna who has a dino-loving son.  I used to work at a museum that had a similar cast and kids would go wild for it.  Imagine a baby dinosaur coming out of this thing!

I also bought this bag of Christmas ornaments.  They are little fruits and very adorable. The bag has never been opened, so they are also really clean.  $5 for all of them.

All in all, a fun sale.  Sarah bought lots of things, so I’ll let her tell you all about it.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I was a little worried when we first arrived because things seemed to be priced relatively high. But the seller was willing to negotiate, so that was nice. This sale was especially fun because there was a combo of both cool things to buy and look at, as well as insane things to laugh at. 

For example, check out this senior picture of seals: 

Or how about a DIY lingerie book? 

Speaking of Erin being pregnant (!!!!!), I found this rare photograph of her baby in the womb: 

I did find some treasures at this sale. Here is photographic evidence of me obtaining said treasures: 

I just recently realized that in almost every picture of me on this blog, I have sunglasses on my head. WTF. 

Anyway, there were some cool old books at this sale. I got really excited when I found the first of these two, and then MEGA excited when I found the second: 

Children’s books about our parents, Cindy and Timmy, both of whom have been featured on this blog!

I also found these amazing travel journals that I will write about another day, because there are some amazing quotes inside: 

Here are some other adorable things I purchased: 

Look at that little French guy!!! He’s so small and cute! Oui Oui! 

I also found some adorable old postcards of cats being naughty. This one is what it looks like every time I arrive on Friday to pick Erin up. I’m always looking for num nums and she never has any for me. 

I went back the next day of the sale and bought one of the Steiffs that were left—the Bassett! 

I got him for $15 and he sells for about $50 or more, so I’m not sure if I’ll keep him or sell him. The second day of the sale is also when I purchased my very own llama, which I wrote about yesterday. 

I also found this very scientific drawing. 

When I went back the second day, I was really hoping that this weird thing was still there, but it was gone. :(

I don’t know why I didn’t buy it the first day we were there. It’s a little creature made out of fur and a hoof. I don’t normally like anything made out of animals but this thing was just so weird and different. I’m sure Adam is counting his blessings as he reads this. 

When I was a child, I was obsessed with a clip on Sesame Street about a girl who brings her llama to the dentist. Anyone remember it? I wanted a llama so bad, but my mom told me I could not have one. (I also could not have any other pets because my brother is allergic to any animal that has fur, hair, or feathers.) I cried and cried when she told me this. I cried a lot as a child. I absolutely do not cry a lot as an adult. Not at all.

So imagine my delight when I found my very own llama at a sale a few Fridays ago!

He’s adorable and handmade and is made with real fur! He actually came with a dorky outfit, but I immediately removed it (leftover habit from childhood—I hated when stuffed animals came with clothes.) I also did some research and this is indeed a llama and not an alpaca, which is very similar.

I was also lucky enough to find a cool vintage book about llamas!

Someone in that house was my soulmate, that’s for sure!

-Sarah

I guess this is technically a “Hard to Resist” post, because all of the following items were really hard for us not to purchase.  You might remember the dumpster-diving sale last week which offered such fine items as McDonald’s snack makers and “not-laser disc” Tron laser discs.  This sale also offered an incredible assortment of aardvark-related items.

I don’t know what makes someone love aardvarks so much, but I really can’t judge because I was obsessed with manatees and pigs growing up.  I was a card-carrying member of the Save the Manatees Club and adopted a manatee named Ariel.  And for Halloween one year, my parents let me dress as a ballerina pig, which is such a SERIOUSLY BAD decision on their part because I was a fat kid.

Before we move on, here are some aardvark facts:

From what I can tell, aardvarks and Sarah have three characteristics in common.  I’ll let you guess which ones.

I didn’t see any tickets from the 2nd or 3rd annual Aardvark convention, which leads me to believe that numero uno didn’t go so well.

Um, no.  I have not hugged an Aardvark today.  I probably would though.

It took Sarah a good 30 seconds of convincing before she put this on.  So worth it though.

This all just goes to show you that you really can collect anything….although there is no guarantee at your eventual estate sale that anyone will buy any of it.  

-Erin 

Update from Sarah: That plastic aardvark nose grossed me out SO BAD. 

It’s time to share some more estate sale items we had a REALLY hard time not buying.  

Why on Earth would you want a fake life-sized child that just creepily hangs out and pretends to play Hide-N-Seek?  I’ve seen enough The Good Son to know how terrifying kids playing Hide-N-Seek are.  Also, when I wake up at night, I have a hard enough time not scaring myself by imagining a demonic child is going to pop up on the side of my bed.  Imagine this thing in the dark.  IT’S THE END OF BLAIR WITCH PEOPLE. 

“Hey Bill, we are going to put you on a shirt.  Yeah, we are using that photo of you staring into space with your mouth wide open.”

This wizard Santa was in a horrible car accident and is still recovering.  Prayers please.

Who am I kidding? I would totally read this book:

They were sold out of the friendly rabbits.  They were also sold out of the rabbits not holding suspicious items between their legs.

For more HTR entries, look here!

-Erin

Last Friday (Good Friday) honestly didn’t seem that promising. Because of the holiday, there weren’t very many sales. But it ended up being such an awesome day that we’re going to have to split the adventure into multiple posts! 

We started out our day by visiting two sales on the east side of town. The pictures of the first one looked promising, but it ended up being packed full of junk. We knew this was going to be the case when we saw people DUMPSTER DIVING in the driveway. 

For a minute I thought this was a good sign, but it really was not. 

Inside, the place was full of old stuff, but they had a lot of it priced really high, and then the rest was sort of dirty or just cheap and junky. I did find a few cool things. An inflatable birthday cake (don’t worry, it’s never been opened). 

Who wouldn’t want this ultimate birthday gift? 

I also found some old Fantasia postcards…

…And I honestly can’t remember what else I bought at this sale except for an old flip book for Adam. They were selling a bunch of vintage Disney flip books and the I thought the lady running the sale was full of it when she kept telling us they were valuable, but it turns out she was right! Oh well! 

Here is an overview of what you missed out on if you skipped this sale: 

Looking through some show tunes on vinyl.. busted! 

That is one among many paper box tops filled with Agatha Christie mysteries. 

The house was FILLED with these SelectaVision VideoDiscs, which Adam just told me are called CEDs and were the precursors to laser discs. You may recall Erin saying that she only watches movies on laser disc, so I’m shocked that she did not jump on this rare opportunity to enhance her collection. 

On the way out, Erin actually made friends with some of the dumpster divers. 

I asked the guy on the right if he found anything good in there. He started talking about how he found some stuff for movie sets and that he’s in the video production business, so Erin started chatting him up. She asked if he needed any editing work and ended up with his business card. So all of you job seekers out there… check the dumpsters! 

We checked the listings for sales nearby since we had no plan. We found a sale that was described as being at the home of a former gift shop owner and Erin and I both got pretty pumped. It was only about 20 minutes away, so we hit the road. As soon as we walked in, we were transported to A Whole New World. 

Yes, you are in fact looking at a life-size plush carousel. It seriously only got worse. 

Those bears are on bikes, and they were $10 each. 

Now I’m no expert but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if you have MASS QUANTITIES of Easter goods overflowing your counter space two days before Easter, it would in fact be the PERFECT time to make those exact items half off. 

The den was filled with dirty old plastic toys and “DVDs”…although I’d argue that this woman was fairly confused about what DVD means. 

I would also like to know where on Earth a VHS tape is worth $4. Probably the same place where a dirty, ratty old paperback is also worth $4. I’ll get to that in a minute. 

We headed to the basement and that’s where Erin found Beanie Baby Heaven. When we got down there, it became clear that this was some sort of weird “I’m selling all of my possessions” sale because the woman’s teenage daughter was down there and talked to us for a while. She told us that “everything except the beanie babies” was half off. Right away, I found some vintage teen paperbacks that I thought a friend might like, a couple of records, and an old Pucci doll.

I was about to pay when we realized that there was also an upstairs. Of course we had to check it out. It was the worst of the worst. 

You are reading that correctly. TWELVE DOLLARS for a gross old used men’s sweatshirt. I’m not sure a new sweatshirt costs that much at like, Target.

I also found this totally bodacious one-piece suit. 

To top off our visit, we found this stain. Clearly a biohazard. 

Right after I walked in and saw this, Erin walked in and made a priceless face. I’ve captured it here for your enjoyment.

One more time. 

At this point, it was clearly time to check out and the lady told me my total was $16.50. I almost just took out a $20 but then reality hit me and I had no idea how a couple records, books, and a tiny stuffed animal could cost that much. I asked how much the books were and she said, “Four dollars… so they’re two dollars today.” I still felt confused and then realized that she meant EACH ONE was that much. I said, “…oh…that’s A LOT.” The lady seemed shocked by this, and Erin reiterated that $4 for a paperback that cost 25 cents in the 1950s was insane. Then the woman told me, “oh… well I’ve been selling them like crazy for the last four weeks.” I’m not sure why we did not ask this but… WHY HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING AN ESTATE SALE FOR FOUR WEEKS?! 

Anyway, I paid for everything besides the books and we high-tailed it out of there. In part two of this Friday update, we’ll tell you all about we heard some gossip about this very sale at our next stop! 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: At that first sale, I did in fact call all those weird CEDS “laser discs.”  Some guy heard this and later hunted Sarah and I down to tell us that these were NOT laser discs.  He didn’t know their proper name (thanks Adam) but knew FOR SURE that these IN NO WAY were laser discs.  Thanks man, but I’m still not buying them.

I didn’t find much at this sale, but they did have this snack maker, which Sarah was not shocked to learn I had as a child.  Spoiler alert: I was a fat youth.

I remember this being kind of janky when I was young.  The fry maker would shred a piece of bread into strips and voila, you had fries.  Except not.  I can certainly tell the difference between shredded bread and french fries.

They also had this doormat, which cracked me up immensely:

Someone’s last name was “Chicks” or someone was trying to welcome “the chicks” to this house, in which case, that someone should have cleaned up all the Tron CEDS and McDonald snack makers before said chicks arrived.  

I found one treasure here.  A pennant from the 1950s or 60s, for the St. Louis Cardinals.  When I reported this find to Timmy, he was so thrilled.  Apparently the green background on this is mega rare.  It will be on ebay soon.  I paid $5.

The second sale was held in the fourth circle of hell which, if you don’t remember, is reserved for the hoarders and the spendthrifts. 

Ok, let me explain something about Beanie Babies.  Wait—let me first explain my Beanie Baby credentials.  Early readers of this blog may remember, but this is me:

I know my stuff.  TRUST.

Beanie Babies in 2013 are worth exactly the scrap price of polyester blend fabric and tiny plastic beads, which as it turns out, is $0.00.  That said, at estate sales and garage sales, young children still love them a cheap Beanie.  So here is what you do: sell each Beanie Baby for 25 cents, or even better, let any kid who shows up fill their grubby little arms with as many Beanies as they want—for free.

Instead, the woman at this sale was selling each Beanie for $2.50, which sounds cheap, but isn’t when you have THOUSANDS to sell.

I didn’t find anything to buy here, although chances are I couldn’t afford it anyway.  Case in point:

A few weeks ago, Adam and I were driving to get some breakfast in Ann Arbor, when we spotted a sign for an estate sale. We did the “Secret Sale!” chant, but decided we were too hungry to stop, and that we’d hit it on the way back home instead. Since this blog often mixes food and treasure hunting, I’ll just say that this was a great day as far as both of these things go.

First, the food. It was the day I discovered that Afternoon Delight offers something called “The Berry Patch” on their menu, which consists of frozen yogurt and fresh fruit. No, this isn’t something special and mind-blowing but I have never seen this on a brunch menu, and let me tell you—it’s good. The only thing that was not good was the line we had to wait in to get served, and this man behind us got so close that his iPhone was literally rubbing against me so often that I had to move and make Adam receive the phone rubdown instead. Proof:

He’s so close you can see the dirt under his fingernails! UGH!

Before going back to the sale, we hit up the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library’s bookshop. If you’re from the area and don’t know about this hidden treasure, you should. In the basement of the main library on 5th, the library’s Friends organization runs a resale shop that consists of book donations and withdrawn stuff from the collection. It’s insanely awesome and most used books are between 1 and 2 bucks. Maybe I’ll feature it another day. Anyway, we found some treasures there and went on with our day.

The secret sale actually wasn’t secret—I just hadn’t noticed it in the listings that weekend. It was the home of an artist, and there was SO MUCH of this woman’s artwork in the house, it was unreal.

That last piece was so awesome, but it was huge, and was marked $475 I think. Fair for a piece of original art, but not in my price range! I wish I could have captured more of the quantity of artwork there, because there was just so much of it. It was all priced very reasonably.

One of the first things I noticed when I went inside was this little box of dudes.

The Santas weren’t in the box—I stuck them in there… but it wasn’t until I bought these that I realized that it’s a nativity scene. They really looked like something Erin would like, and as it turns out I guessed correctly. Am I a nice friend or what? These are bread dough figurines made in Calderon, Ecuador, which apparently is known for its bread dough figurines.

She also had two dolls that were really interesting, and looked vaguely familiar to me. I can’t remember what they were priced, but I remember thinking it was too much for me to pay.

Here in the US, people often call them “puta dolls,” but apparently that’s a misnomer. It translates into “whore dolls.” These are Mexican paper mache dolls that are called munecas de carton. I found a really interesting article about them, and about how people buy them in Mexico for really cheap and then resell them here for about 5x that amount. Ugh. That’s sad. Anyway, I thought they were really cool but you could tell they made Adam want to die.

I left the sale with some cool shirts that I forgot to take pictures of, a few books, the coolest of which is this one,

and some vintage Automobile Association stuff:

I have no idea if it’s worth anything, but it will be cool to sort through.

I also got this little printed cloth.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it but it sure is cute!

Adam didn’t buy anything but he did shell out a whole bunch of eye rolls.

-Sarah