Erin and I were really looking forward to a sale a few weeks ago, but for the life of us, we could not figure out how the company running the sale was able to score it. I regularly refer to the two guys who run this company as The Ragamuffins. Historically, The Ragamuffins have gotten crazy hoarder houses and the guys look like they’re about 19 years old, but it appears that they’ve stepped up their game. The sale was at the home of an advertising collector, and it looked packed. Adam met us there and was there for over an hour before we got there, and left at the same time as us–just to give you an idea of how packed it was!
The whole house was pretty much like this–but each room had something different. The first room you got to had a lot of metal signs and other advertising memorabilia. All of it was priced pretty high but it was the second day of a four-day sale, so that wasn’t surprising.
A slot-type machine where the prize is ciggies. Pretty awesome.
So the really weird thing was that some rooms had really cool, old memorabilia (one room was filled with paper) and others were totally filled with newer toys, many of which seemed like things that you’d get by sending away for them in the mail, or from a fast food restaurant.
The basement was filled with two kinds of things: fast food toys and car parts. LOTS of car parts.
I found a few things at this sale, but the coolest was a small group of old photographs of buildings in Detroit (and other snapshots) and a big box of old postcards. I bought all of this paper for $120 which is a little pricey, but I am fairly certain that the postcards will sell for a decent amount of money and I was willing to risk it. Most of them are of cities–buildings, etc.
There were also some cool ones of Detroit.
And then here are the pictures:
I found some other really cool photographs in the group that I bought but I’ll post those another day.
Nothing too crazy or scandalous happened at this sale–pretty straightforward, and it was way more organized and reasonable in price than other sales that they’ve run. I can only imagine what it looked like in that place on Sunday–everything was half off then.
The second sale we went to was in Dearborn, and it looked like it might have some treasures. When we pulled up, we discovered that it was in a condo complex and two condos next to each other had stuff for sale. We never quite figured out why that was, but ok. The first condo we went in was super gross and smelled like 40 dogs and zero people lived there. But the dogs who lived there had great taste in books! I bought a couple.
I think this must be a picture of a room upstairs that Erin checked out on her own.
Thank god I didn’t make the trek. Here’s a picture of the carpet on the main floor. It appears that the dogs figured out how to put down deodorizing powder, but failed to finish the job.
EEEEEEEEEEEE!
The other condo was in much better shape, and was filled with stuff, but you sort of had to dig for treasures. I found these cute little wooden apples that open up:
And a very nice quilted tree skirt.
Scout is going to be so pumped this Christmas. He loves sitting under the tree. I tried to find a picture of Scout sitting under the tree during a past Christmas season, but all I found was this old picture of Zach and Erin when I first met her. We were at a wedding.
I also found some very cute, tiny handmade dolls. One is a cat and one is a bunny. The cat is cuter.
I also don’t want to admit this but I bought this little Rose O'Neill style kewpie doll. Erin had taken a picture of it for a Hard to Resist post so when she saw it in my bag when I walked outside, she almost died.
Finally, I found these two waechtersbach bowls at the last minute. I thought they’d be cute for Scout’s food but it turns out they sell, so I’ll probably sell them.
I’ll let Erin tell you all about her treasures, and also about a coat she prevented me from buying for myself. In retrospect, now that I’ve seen the picture, I should have gotten it. It’s cute in an ‘80s way!
-Sarah
Update from Erin: That kewpie doll that Sarah found at the second sale is seriously horrifying. I DIED when I saw she had bought it. I’m sure it will be in next year’s garage sale for anyone interested.
Here is the coat that I talked Sarah out of buying. First of all, it is WAY too big on her. Also, it looks like those coats cosmetic counter ladies wear. Seriously, this coat was so gnarly I thought Sarah was messing with me when she wanted to buy it.
Those sleeves are rolled up like six times because the coat is so huge.
Anyway, at the first sale, I found a great treasure. It is this old Blatz beer statue thing of some beer bottle men playing baseball. Timmy actually has this statue already, so I knew from him that it is valuable. Here is just how valuable:
So I will be listing mine on the ol’ electronic bay soon.
So here is the thing about the ragamuffins running this sale…they for some reason are intimidated by or really like Sarah and I. I’d like to assume it is our feminine wiles, except that I currently have a huge melon belly and Sarah was still wearing a boot on her broken toe. But seriously, every time I have asked them for a price on something, they act all nervous and then give me some crazy low price. And yet, despite the low price, they act like they’ve just given me a super high price and are ashamed of it.
So I ask one of them how much this Blatz figure is–mind you, the whole sale is overpriced. The dude gets all nervous and then says $15, which made me SO HAPPY. I am hoping to make a decent profit on this.
I also bought this cool porcelain lady. I thought she would resell well because “bathing beauty” figurines are really collectible. I paid $20 but it only sold on ebay for $26. Whomp whomp.
Saw this on the wall at a local junk shop. Looks exactly like Erin when she overheats at estate sales.
-Sarah
A couple of Fridays ago, we were out and about again. The sales looked just alright, but actually turned out to be pretty good. I was determined to find some stuff to sell on ebay because I have had quite the dry spell. I can’t remember where the first sale was, but I’m thinking it was Dearborn or something. It had lots of cutesy vintage stuff.
There were a ton of these placemats made from pieced-together magazine clippings. Super cute.
Anyone know what these weird old glasses are? The clear glass parts separate out from the colored metal bottoms. But the glass parts cannot stand alone, so I am not sure why they separate out. They look to be from the 1950s or 60s.
Guns guns guns. These were cool but really pricey…I think like $40 each.
Here’s something interesting I learned about selling cap guns on ebay. Remember last week when I bought one to resell? I listed it on ebay in the vintage toy section and clearly labeled it as a cap gun. However, ebay instantly pulled down the listing because it looked too much like a real gun. To sell a cap gun on ebay, you have to attach an orange tip to the barrel, so that it is obviously a toy. I don’t know where to buy such a tip, so I am thinking of photoshopping my photos so it looks like my gun has the orange tip on it. Blargh.
Anyway, Sarah found this cute apron thing to wear when she cooks, except that she doesn’t cook…so maybe she will wear it while sorting through vintage photos and slides (more on this later).
My first find were these tiny gold spoons, perfect for feeding a baby. I texted Zach and asked if we needed gold plated baby spoons and he responded with a “YESSSS.” At $15, these were a little steep, although they are real gold plate. Only the best for future baby I guess.
I also found this Captain Hook marionette to resell. I thought he was just so cute. However, when looking him up on ebay, I couldn’t find anything similar. Turns out, I was searching for “Captain Cook” instead of “Captain Hook.” Some lady walked by me and said, “Oh cute! Captain Hook from Peter Pan!” and that made me realize my mistake. I saw that these could sell for decent money on ebay, so I snatched him up for $10.
When I got home, I realized he was missing his hook!! Oy! I am hoping he still sells.
Also to resell are these Ohio State glasses from the 1960s. They were $3 each so definitely worth the risk.
So I check out and am ready to book it out of this place because it is getting increasingly hot and crowded. I see Sarah and it looks like she only has a couple of things to pay for, so I figure our time here is almost done. Sarah then informs me that she has just decided to purchase a serious megaload of old photo slides, and that said slides are IN THE BASEMENT. For pete’s sake.
Sarah’s still wearing a boot from her broken toe and I am a giant melon belly, so carrying slides up stairs (and doing so in multiple trips) sounds like a real sad time to me. I immediately started sulking.
Luckily, the people running the sale helped us, so we each only had to take two trips up and down the stairs. Maybe Sarah made more…I just know I made two and then gave up on helping. YOLO.
That’s the backseat of Sarah’s car packed to the brim with slides. At some point, she said to me, “I don’t know how I’m going to get these in the house without Adam seeing.” I wished her luck on that, as she would surely need help from a magician or magic elf or strong sedatives to use on Adam.
We hit one other sale that was in a cute farmhouse, but I don’t think I bought anything. It was pretty picked over.
That blue stool caught my eye, but I realized I don’t have a place for it. When I got home though, I remembered that I specifically want a stool to use in “Ebay World” where I photograph and list all my ebay stuff. Ebay World has a high counter I usually stand at, but since I hate standing now, I could really use a nice stool. Darn!
After this sale, we went to a Middle Eastern bakery that is pretty famous in Dearborn. Sarah can fill you in on the name because I don’t remember. All I do remember is that we stood in line for 45 minutes because it was so crowded. Worth it though, because the treats were pretty fly.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: For the record, I never even asked Erin to help me with the slides. I just told her she was going to kill me because there were so many and it was going to take a while to get them out of the house. You saw the backseat–there were a lot. No lying there. The reason I warned her is that when it gets over 70 degrees and she has to wait somewhere, Erin acts as if she’s in the Sahara wearing a snow suit, without water. Also, she was wearing LONG SLEEVES AND JEANS that day. I know we had quite the cool spell in MI but come on! Anyway, here’s what she looks like when she’s too hot:
I found some cool stuff at this sale and actually went back the next day. The guy was a retired math professor and had all sorts of math-y sh*t in his house, so I knew Adam would be totally down with it. I did buy him a few things–the coolest of which were these Ford Motor educational posters.
I also purchased a few things for myself but I’m cleaning out eBay world and can’t find some of them. Good sign, I know. But here’s a very cute cross stitch from the ‘30s that I bought that Adam was super thrilled about.
I want to make a cross stitch wall somewhere in my house. Workin’ on it.
So Erin left out the best part of the day, which was stopping at the Dearborn Farmer’s Market. While we were there we spotted a beignet truck that had a sign out front that they had CRONUTS. Now all you sassy hipsters are probably not impressed by this but we don’t have stuff like this in SE Michigan, and Erin’s been wanting a cronut forev. Here she is, losing her cronut virginity.
My car was covered in powdered sugar by the end of this because we both kept laughing while eating them, which would blow it all over.
At the second sale, I found an old Chorus Line tshirt from the '70s.
As Erin mentioned, we ended the day at Shatila Bakery in Dearborn, which is pretty famous. One of our student assistants at work is from Jordan and he told me to go there. I wasn’t disappointed! Here I am later at night, displaying my treats.
Each of these things only cost $1.50. The only downside is you have to wait for 45 minutes to get them. Also, never had better baklava in my LIFE, yo!
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I just found this at Goodwill. I think Erin might be jealous.
-Sarah
Update from Erin: I LOVE Kanye West and so this shirt should definitely be mine. When I saw that Sarah put this up on the blog, I tried my best to convince her that it belongs to me.
My last living grandparent, my mom’s dad, died last Wednesday. He was 91 and lived a great life, and died very peacefully and quickly. He was a really neat person. I spent almost every Sunday night of my life with him–first going to my grandparents’ house for pizza, and then later when he was in assisted living, going out to dinner with him and my parents and Adam.
He was incredibly proud of serving in the Navy during WWII. Over the weekend, my mom discovered a real treasure. She showed me this little card that she said he always carried in his wallet, but she couldn’t read it because the type was so small. I ended up using a magnifying glass and after a little searching, discovered that it was his card from his line-crossing ceremony. We scanned and blew it up so you can sort of read it. I’m obsessed with it!
Basically, a line-crossing ceremony is an organized hazing to initiate new servicemen–it’s performed the first time they cross the Equator. Uninitiated are called “Pollywogs” and initiated are called “Shellbacks." This short article has a lot of really cool pictures and summarizes the ceremony pretty well! They still take place to this day and if you search for Crossing the line and navy, you’ll see some newer pictures. Here are some pics from WWII.
This was probably a really fun night for him–a great memory amongst others that were not so great. No wonder he hung on to it for so long.
R.I.P., Grandpa. We will really miss you.
-Sarah
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On Monday, I hit up the secret auction with Adam and we met my parents there. As I’ve said in the past, this auction often has a mix of garbage and gems. But that night, basically everything up for auction was hilarious.
Saw these homies right away. They were each about 2 feet tall.
I have a deep love for Beavis and Butthead so this was really hard to resist.
Nothing better than a Tweety Bird needlepoint.
That, my friends, is a HUGE plastic Halloween mask–the eye holes are up in the hat area.
In the end, I came away with a cool set of playing cards with naked ladies on them, and a pile of paper, including this awesome antique invite to a “social hop”!
There were two things that Adam wanted, both of which sold for way too much money. First, there was an Eddie Cantor game amongst these huge piles of old games. Someone ended up buying each stack for between $70 and $40, and the pile with Eddie Cantor went for the most.
But the main thing Adam wanted was this box of NES games in their original packaging. He was most excited about this lot because it contained a Flinstones game, and one of the two NES Flinstones games is worth a boatload.
This box contained the less valuable game, but still probably would have had a high resell value. However, it ended up going for $90. C'mon y'all.
-Sarah
Two Fridays ago, Sarah and I hit a couple sales that looked packed. And even more exciting, packed with good-looking treasures! The first one was obviously the estate of former antique dealers/hoarders.
When we walked in, the person at the front door said we had to give up our purses, and stash them in a big ol’ purse pile behind the cash-out area. This always bugs me. It is true that people steal from estate sales (remember “THAT GUY”), but I know I’m not going to, so I instantly feel offended. It’s like, “We must steal your purse from you, with all of your monies and car keys and lip balm before you are able to steal from us.” Oy.
And in the end, I wish this sale actually turned out to have more worth stealing. The photos online had looked so good, but things seemed picked over or too pricey.
If you aren’t familiar with that new rap song on the radio that says, “I WOKE UP IN A NEW BUGGATI,” then that’s ok because it sucks. In other news, this is what a Buggati looks like. Seems practical. Also, $6,000 seems cheap. Is that cheap?
I did find this hilarious magazine that explains 10 ways to make your wife “more useful”:
Seriously, so rude. Someone give me a magazine article that teaches husbands to find ANYTHING in the house without having to ask where it is first. AMIRITE LADIES?
I did buy a couple things. First was this adorable stocking that reminded me of those stalker snowmen I keep seeing at every sale. It will be the baby’s stocking this Christmas.
I bought this old cap gun to resell. It was only $8 and other ones sold for good money on ebay. Mine isn’t in as good of shape, but worth the risk.
At the next sale, there were a lot of knick-knacks and typical household goods. Here is Sarah and her monster broken-toe boot looking at stuff:
I was striking out pretty bad here, until I went in the basement and saw this:
The top part of this chalkboard turns, and there are tons of cool vintage graphics to choose from. At $25, this was a total steal. I snagged it for the baby nursery. Here it is now, after I stenciled on future baby’s name:
The cowboys and Indians scene at the top was my favorite, and perfect for a little boy’s room.
Sarah found some slides at this sale, and due to her recent success with slides, she decided to plop down and check them all out. It was mega hot in this house, but somehow she convinced me to help her. It was torture. All of the slides were of plants and buildings, but Sarah was convinced there were good ones in there.
I stopped helping after probably 30 seconds. Sarah endured another 10 minutes or so and then decided not to buy any of these. Whomp whomp. I’ll let her tell you about all of her other finds this day.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: Erin failed to mention so many important details from this first sale. First, the person who told us we had to give our purses away was no more than 13 years old and they had her manning the door. I’m cool with that, I’m just saying–it’s weird to take orders from a little kid. Second, this sale had three different areas with entrances, and when you were in each place, they made it sound like the next was going to be SO much better. As it turned out, the next was always worse.
I did find some treasures, though–mainly of the paper variety. But before we get to those, check out this awesome pixie Erin snagged for me at the last minute!
She’s not in fabulous shape, but she was only $3, and the more important part of this find was that it led me to discover that there are TONS of these figurines with hair but not all of them are on the phone! Instead, many of them are “pixies” and can be found by searching that way. Totally rad, and I just spent the last hour buying more on the Internet instead of writing this very blog entry. I just made a boatload of cash on eBay, so I can afford more cuties like this.
I also found some very cute mini dogs. My favorite is this one, who really DOES look like my dog, Betsy. It’s head comes off the top so it wobbles. so stinkin’ cool!
One question: Have you ever seen a cuter dog?
Ok on to the paper… there was a ton of it, but they were pricing it all individually, which was sad. I’ve gotten some really good deals buying mass quantities of paper from the people running this sale in the past, so that was a bummer. In the end, I bought a few photographs, some vintage greeting cards, and a couple of postcards.
I had to buy this old illustration. Rock of Ages was (still IS) a record store near where I grew up. True story: I bought a purple Jellyfish t-shirt there when I was 16 and then gave it to Zach when I met him because he was a megafan just like my own husband. Man, where is that thing now?
I had to buy this postcard because IT MAKES NO SENSE.
Ok, so the worst thing about this sale was that no matter where you were at any given time, 4 other people wanted to be in that EXACT PLACE. I was standing near the check out area where they keep more valuable stuff, and there was a box of postcards that I was sorting through. As I am sorting through them, I sh*t you not, this lady comes up behind me and grabs HALF of them, and moves to the side and starts looking through them. I was so stunned that I didn’t say anything but Erin looked like she was going to lose it. Are you kidding me, lady?!
The only thing worth mentioning about the other areas of the sale is that Erin and I bonded over this:
I thought it was bad enough that I was told by a therapist when I was in my early 20s, after confessing my extreme fear of house fires, to purchase one of these. But Erin actually had one under her bed as a child for the same reason, and her dad used to help her take it out and practice using it. People, this is why we’re friends.
It’s true that at the second sale, I left without any slides, but don’t you worry–I’ve already made up for it. Stay tuned!