[video]
This is going to be a really brief Hard to Resist post, because it’s pretty basic.
Not quite in the market for a normal sized basket? How about a really small one?
In the market to create a Thanksgiving cornucopia for your family, as well as for your Calico Critters? Look no further!
Also important to note–both of these items were found at the same sale, so this person was clearly obsessed with tiny things inside big ones.
-Sarah
The other day, Sarah and I were talking about all of the insane ebay messages we get, and it made us realize that some of these messages are amazing blog fodder. You might remember Sarah’s whole “yellow suit” ordeal. Lemme tell ya, that’s just the beginning.
I’ll first say though, that most interactions I’ve had on ebay are great. A lot of people will message me with information helpful to my listing. Like this nice lady:
I had said in my listing that I couldn’t read the little logo on the mold. When this lady messaged me with that info, I took the opportunity to ask her more about the mold. She kindly replied:
NICEST PERSON EVER.
Sometimes things don’t go this well though on the ol’ electronic bay. Sometimes you get insane messages from nuts people. Like this one I received after an auction of mine ended.
So let me break down the whole situation here. This dude bid on my lot of Apple Newtons at 1pm. The auction did not end until 6pm. At 1pm when he bid, he was the high bidder, so he got an email saying so. But then right before the auction ended, someone else swooped in and bought the item. Which is how an auction works.
So now that that’s clear, here’s how things proceeded. Here’s my response:
And then he wrote back:
Better get things straight with ebay? Um, ok. Hello ebay, I had an auction. Someone bid and got outbid. That person is obviously furious now (and crazy).
Anyway, here is my final response:
My only regret here is my typo in the final message. "Budding" instead of “bidding”?!?! I’m a fool.
-Erin
Alright, so, as mentioned, Sarah and I hit one more sale last Friday. I believe this one was in Trenton. When we arrived at the sale, it was immediately clear that this person was rich, and that they had a lot of time to buy rich people things.
The first room was filled with these elaborate dollhouses. They were all pretty remarkable.
What’s interesting about these type of dollhouses is that you never actually see little miniature dolls inside of them. What’s up with that?
Upstairs at this sale was a room completely full of designer purses, all of which still had the tags on them. At first I was sure they must be fake or something, because who buys $400 purses and doesn’t use them? All of the tags though had Macy’s stickers on them, so certainly they were real.
I think Sarah and I both would have loved to buy some of these. There were at least 100 to choose from. All of the bags were priced pretty close to retail, so we had to pass.
Back in the dollhouse room, I found a Muffy Vanderbear. When I was a child, my Aunt Cathy (who comments on this blog often and also publicly called my blonde hair “FRIGHTENING”) gave me Muffy bears and accessories every Christmas. They were by far my favorite childhood toys, even beating out Beanie Babies. I still have all of my Muffys and hope that one day I will have a daughter to play with them.
Anyway, this particular Muffy was one I already had in my collection, but it was in PERFECT condition, so I decided to buy it. I was carrying it around, and kept thinking, “Hm, I don’t remember my original Muffy having this gold necklace on it.”
Looking closer at the necklace, it was pretty clear that it was REAL gold. Someone had put a REAL GOLD chain on Muffy.
Knowing that gold is like crazy valuable right now, Sarah and I started speculating what it could be worth. I looked online and it said 14K gold was worth around $18 per gram. I then speculated that a gram was like one paper clip. However, neither of us could figure out how many imaginary paper clips might make up the necklace I had.
On our way to lunch we spotted one of those “Cash for Gold” places. When I say “spotted” I actually mean that we drove down the street specifically looking for any place that might buy gold. We were just way too excited.
So we got buzzed into the store, had the necklace weighed, and ended up selling it for $44! That price actually covered all of the purchases I had made that day, including lunch! Pretty exciting!
The lesson here people is not to store your gold jewelry on teddy bears, and then sell those bears. The other lesson here is that if someone does store their gold jewelry on a teddy bear, then totally buy that teddy bear.
-Erin
My last “Holy Grail” post was about items I could probably never afford, but today’s entry is a bit different. I REALLY want a vintage egg scale (hence, “holy grail”), and technically I could afford one. The thing is though, I prefer to find one of these at a sale. I’ve NEVER seen one in person and I think the thrill of discovery would be half the fun as owning one.
Egg scales were used on farms to “grade” eggs (since eggs are sold by weight). You just plop an egg on the little scale and it immediately tells you if the egg is Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large…you get the idea. All that really matters here is that these scales are no longer in use, and that they are totally adorable:
They are also surprisingly expensive. Here are some completed listings on ebay:
Those are some pricey little egg scales! Also, check out the 1% battery life on my iPhone. I dropped it in the toilet so now it perpetually says 1%, which is sad and disappointing.
Anyway, I really think the day will come that I find one of these in a sale. If someone out there has a lead on one though, I’d be happy to strike up a deal. One of these scales would fit in perfectly with my collection:
-Erin
Sarah and I headed out on Friday a little disorganized. Neither of us had really looked at the sales for the day, so we haphazardly chose a route based on which sales were closest. I’ll probably screw up the order in which we actually went to the following sales, but you’ll get the idea.
We started out at a sale in Livonia that could only be described as a bunch of “stuff”. I can’t think of a single item I even considered buying. Everything seemed kind of sad and unloved, stored improperly and dirty. The basement had a pantry with expired food for sale.
I didn’t buy anything at this sale, and Sarah probably bought some things that she now regrets. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, what about all those magazines?! You guys love old magazines! Those magazines were sticky and gross, although I think Sarah did buy a couple of them.
After this sale, we stopped at some garage sales. One was advertised as “HUGE SALE” so of course we were interested. When we arrived, there wasn’t much in our style, and also, nothing was priced. I did however find some small dessert plates I liked. When I asked the price, the lady informed me that the sale was a fundraiser for a mission trip to Africa, and that all reasonable donations were accepted. I offered her $2 for the plates, and she looked at me with horror. She then said, “Oh no, I’d have to get at least $5 for those.”
So here’s the deal, that’s TOTALLY fine. This is your sale. The plates could be $100 if you wanted. But here’s what happened next: I told her “oh ok, no thank you then” and she looked at me with absolute disgust, a look of wrath that made us hightail it out of there. Let me just say, that if the fundraiser was for the Otterhounds of America charity, or A Hugga Bunch for Every Child charity, then I would have gladly paid $5. I’m just not sold on the idea of mission trips to Africa. Too bad, because I liked those plates!
I have no clue where the next sale was at, but it had some pretty nice things. A little overpriced, but not terrible. I got this adorable old mail scale to add to my scale collection:
I also found this cool, old sterling silver necklace. I bought it to keep or to give as a gift at some point, but after doing some research, I put it on ebay. The necklace turned out to be from Shipton & Co. in England, and was made around 1935.
At first I refused to believe that jewelry from the 1930s had lobster claw clasps, but turns out that it did! I suppose since we had cars and planes back then, surely someone could have invented the lobster claw clasp too.
Alright, I’m going to stop here, but GET READY because after this sale, we went to another one, and what happened there turned out to be the best. As a teaser, I will say that gold sells for about $20 per gram, which pretty much means nothing when neither Sarah or I can figure out what a gram is.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: I don’t have much to add here. Erin documented all of this fairly well. One thing that I found at one of the garage sales that she missed was this set of Josef Originals. Normally she sells these, but I found them first, and they aren’t something I’d consider HERS, unlike things like Wagner Cast Iron, sports memorabilia, etc. Anyway, it’s a koala family:
Pretty cute!
At this same sale, I found a pair of suede bowling shoes in my size for $3. Another great score!
Anyway, she’s right that the first sale was incredibly dirty and dismal as far as offerings go. But you’re in luck because I did purchase some of those magazines. Just three of them. But allow me to show you a picture of one that I did not purchase:
I also did not purchase this issue of Life, which I sort of wanted:
I also did not buy this shirt by a super cool brand:
I did purchase a few things at the sale where Erin found that scale, but the best of these items will be saved for a Fave Find entry.
Here’s our latest installment of items we found pretty hard to resist!
The craftsmanship on this cottonball bunny is pretty remarkable. I couldn’t find a maker’s mark on it, but I’m sure the artist was professionally trained.
I mean, look at that whisker placement! Spot on!
P.S. I thought about asking Sarah how much she would pay me to eat one of those jelly beans, but then I realized that if I did that, I would feel obligated to buy this cottonball bunny. You can’t eat pieces off an item you haven’t purchased. I then realized that if I bought this cottonball bunny, I would want to throw it in the trash, which would make me feel guilty and sad.
Moving on, here are some body doubles from the movie “Children of the Corn”:
These guys were$10 each, which is half of the price I would need to be paid to take them home.
-Erin
I was out of town last week visiting my brother and his family. They live in West Simsbury, CT, which is a lovely place. Lots of rolling hills and mountains and lush greenery, and lots of curvy roads that make me carsick. Turns out that riding in a Jeep with it’s top off makes me even more carsick.
So out on the East Coast, I guess everyone calls garage sales “tag sales.” Doesn’t that just sound so… snooty? Even if the damn sale is in the person’s garage, it’s a “tag sale.” That took some getting used to (all the “tag sale” signs instead of “garage sale” signs) but I got over it quick. I didn’t end up finding any treasures at tag sales, but I did find some treasures.
A few days into my visit, I went with my sister-in-law to a nearby antique store. She needed to buy a gift for someone and I was thrilled to have the chance to search for treasures in foreign territory. We went to a place called Farms Village Antiques that is across from my favorite place to get ice cream out there, Tulmeadow Farms.
Here is a picture of this cute store:
Since it was an antique store, I was ready to face some high prices. One of the first things I spotted was this stack of vintage wrapping paper (of course):
I could not resist purchasing the paper on top–marked a whopping $4 but sort of worth it, since I usually get vintage wrapping paper dirt cheap.
I toyed with the idea of buying a few different pieces of sterling jewelry, but in the end, couldn’t bring myself to pay the amount they were asking.
I was determined to find Erin something in this store, but was coming up empty handed. At the last minute, though, I spied an old scale in the corner. It ended up being an old postage scale, which I thought was pretty cool and different! It, too, was super overpriced, but it’s a good thing I’m such a nice friend. Because I bought it for her.
Pretty cute, huh? Adam actually tried to get me to keep it!
-Sarah
Why didn’t I buy this? It was at the “best sale ever” and I’m still thinking about it. Most likely offensive but still pretty adorable. I keep imagining it on my computer desk. Oh well. -Erin
Update from Sarah: Yeah, why didn’t you buy it? I’m actually surprised, and now that you reminded me about it, I’m sad that you didn’t get it. It’s so offensive and so cute at the same time.
By now you are all well acquainted with the “best sale ever”, and even though I got a million treasures there, the most lucrative by far were the antique metal molds.
Like I mentioned, I’ve known for awhile that antique chocolate molds are collectible, but that’s about all I knew. So here’s what I discovered after buying a bunch of them…
First off, not all old molds are for chocolate. A few of the molds I bought were pewter, and actually meant for ice cream. Fancy rich people in the Victorian era used to have their ice cream molded into festive shapes for parties. Each guest would be served an adorable mini ice cream, all dolled up to look like Santa or a President or even other foods (vegetables mainly). Here is one of the ice cream molds I bought:
The outside of the mold said “E & Co.” which I soon found out meant Eppelsheimer Company, one of the earliest mold manufacturers. This was a good thing, because signed molds are generally more valuable. This Santa dated to 1890!
The chocolate molds I bought were thinner and not made of pewter. Most of them were 2-piece molds. One of the most interesting I found was this tiny Pope mold:
I almost didn’t buy this mold because of the rust on it, but one of the men running the sale mentioned that he had never seen a Pope mold before. I bought it for $5, which turned out to be TOTALLY worth it. This little guy is made by Joh. Fohn, which is apparently pretty rare because I can hardly find anything about that company online. I do know that it is German and pretty darn old.
I had a lot of people asking me questions about the Joh. Fohn mold and whether its sides matched up well. Turns out that this is super important in mold collecting. Molds should close up snugly and all edges should align, otherwise the value decreases drastically.
Another tip in mold collecting is that the larger and heavier a mold is, the more valuable. I found this out with my most favorite mold from this sale. It is a super large Santa that weighs 3 pounds!
The heavy hinge, along with clamps that kept the mold shut tight, made this piece the most collectible. It didn’t even have a maker’s mark, but its size and girth were enough. It also helped that the mold had such impressive detail inside. Reading about molds online made me realize that the more detail, the more desirable.
I bought this mold for $30, which made me nervous at the time. It ended up selling for $177! I could not be more thrilled, obviously. Here’s how all of the mold auctions went:
OK, so before one of you tries breaking into my house and stealing all of the cash I made on these, just know that the proceeds were used to buy George the otterhound.
I also used some of it to get my very first tattoo, a rabbit on my right forearm, which I may or may not be disowned by my parents for.
That’s it in progress. Also, I was totally THAT PERSON who wore a rabbit shirt while getting a rabbit tattoo. UGH.
-Erin