So you heard all about our best sale ever experience, which was SO GOOD that we actually went back to that same sale the following day. Sarah and I both knew that we had left behind a lot of uncovered treasures.
I started day two in the basement, where I uncovered an entire box of silver-plated Wallace sleigh bells. I figured these were probably pretty collectible, and at the very least, the silver must be worth something. I also found some art glass ornaments that were really pretty and handmade. I wasn’t sure if these were collectible either, but I know that “art glass” is a thing we see advertised often at sales. These things aren’t up on ebay yet, but I’ll keep you all posted.
I bought two big items not to resell. The first was a Pendleton blanket STILL WITH THE TAGS ON IT. Zach and I have been wanting one of these blankets forever. The blanket was marked $75 which was totally fair, so I threw it in my pile (more about this price later…).
Here it is being all gorgeous on our couch at home.
The other thing I bought for keeps was a large cast iron “Stock Farm”. I got this for Zach’s mom because she collects all things cast iron. It is pretty unique, and I haven’t ever seen anything like it.
I kept debating if I should buy this little barn or not, because it was marked $45 and it was super heavy–not to mention it had those little spider egg balls inside.
I was sold on it when it came time to get all of my items priced, though. I’ll let Sarah tell the full story on this, but basically in the end I ended up paying $60 for all of my items (INCLUDING THE PENDLETON BLANKET AND THIS BARN!) Such an amazing deal! This sale was truly the best ever, and the people running it were nice and fair. I’ll be talking about this sale for a long time!
-Erin
Update from Sarah: I am still fantasizing about this sale, wishing that I was able to go back in for a third time. I’m not kidding. I woke up early on Friday morning because I was so excited to go back. I kept feeling nervous that others had gotten to the treasures that I could SEE in my head that I knew I left behind. It was sort of insane.
When Adam saw the day before that I had found sealed Playmobil sets and also knew how much I paid for the quantity I purchased, he told me to go wild the next day. I know he now regrets telling me that, but I don’t regret following his suggestion.
When we got there, I did a second run through the garage and found a vintage Fisher Price Little People swing set. One just recently sold on eBay for about $30. Sweet! I then went on to find Erin in the basement, but when I got down there she was on her way up. I couldn’t believe how quickly she tore through that basement. I proceeded to spend no less than an hour down there, and uncovered many treasures, including more Joan Walsh Anglund items! Here’s a picture of all of the books I ended up with, minus a few that are in the other room that I’m too lazy to get:
I’m selling most of them, and some of them are signed by the author. Crazy!
The other room I spent a lot of time in was a room full of children’s books. I purchased an insane number of these, and I think some of them might be worth a little cash!
Toward the end of our second day of treasure hunting, we found a bunch of photographs shoved in a drawer with a bunch of unused greeting cards. We think this is a picture of the homeowner:
Finding this was very cool, but also very sad. She looks so happy, and the house was basically just like this when we went through. (Sidenote: I wanted that print on the wall to the left, but Erin told me it was ugly. Oh well.)
Another cool picture from the bunch seems like something that would have made the owner very happy–a bunch of children reading a Christmas book together!
I wish I knew more about who these kids are!
We were finally ready to check out after being there for about three hours. Our pile of stuff took up about 9 square feet… maybe even more. Our strategy for day two was to combine everything and then worry about who owed what later, in hopes that we’d get the best deal possible. When my friend from the day before (the deal-giver) saw me enter the room, he tried to hide behind his receipt pad! He said, “$50 for all of it” (this was INCLUDING Erin’s two things that alone totaled $120!) and evidently, I did a dance once I heard this. However, as soon as he gave us this insane deal, the owner of the company came in and said, “I need to price these girls out."
I’ll admit I was a little confused. Hadn’t we just been "priced out” by our friend? Anyway, we went along with it and agreed, but I did say, “He just told us $50 for everything.” Homeboy was not going to have that. He said, “Not possible. There is no way.” I didn’t disagree out loud, but the fact of the matter is that it WAS possible. All we’d have to do is hand the man $50 and it would be done. Anyway, he basically just wanted to make sure that we weren’t trying to smuggle diamonds out in the many boxes we had. Once he realized this, he said he’d take $125 for all of it. DEAL! So Erin and I split this.
I’ll admit that when I got home, I was pretty overwhelmed by the quantity of stuff in my car. I also had to pack for my trip, so I was a little freaked out. But I spent a few hours organizing it all and putting it away, and while I’ve been on vacation, I’ve periodically gotten really excited when I remember just how many treasures are waiting for me back at home!
The best part of this experience was that when we left the sale, we went to CJ’s Brewery for the second day in a row, and Erin got the beer sampler again. This time around, there were 8 samples–not 7.
Don’t worry, she didn’t drink all of them.
Instead, she saved room for the moose knuckle sandwich (extremely unfortunate name for something so delicious):
Just kidding–we shared the thing above it.
Stay tuned for some more details about the things we bought and sold from this sale–it’s really too much even for two posts!
Last Thursday, Sarah was going to come over and help clean up my garage after our big sale the previous week. She mentioned that there was an awesome-looking sale out near Commerce that we should go to while she was over, but I felt overwhelmed with other work I had to do that day.
Somehow Sarah convinced me to ignore my other obligations and go with her to this sale. GOOD THING because it turned out to be the best sale we have EVER gone to. The house was on a lake and in a super nice area, but at the same time looked kind of plain and normal. The garage indicated some serious hoarding, but was only a mere hint at what we would encounter later.
A giant dumpster near the garage was packed full of empty boxes, so I was eager to get in the house and see what treasures had previously been stored in them. Sarah stayed in the garage, finding unopened Playmobil toys and old books.
Sure enough, the house was PACKED. And even better, literally every item was high-quality and the type of wares that Sarah and I both collect. A wonderful mix of kitschy antiques and newer collectible brands (Spode, Lenox, Pendleton, etc.)
The first thing I noticed were some antique chocolate/candy molds. I’m aware that these are super collectible, as we see them constantly at antique malls. Large molds can sell for $300-$400 each! I held one of the molds up to Sarah (it was priced $125) and I said to her, “Gosh, just ONCE I want to stumble upon one of these molds for a cheap price and finally buy one.” I had no idea that my wish would very soon come true…
Before the amazing chocolate mold story though, I will mention the other things I found. This lady was OBSESSED with Christmas, and the overwhelming majority of her items were Xmas themed. She happened to collect Waechtersbach German Christmas plates that I also collect. My mother-in-law got me hooked on these a couple years ago when she started giving me a few pieces of the set every Christmas.
I ended up buying a huge box of dinner plates, dessert plates, and various platters, all for $2 a piece.
All of the plates still had their original price stickers on the bottom, most priced at $25 each! I was happy to know I had gotten a huge bargain on these.
I also found a large ornament set by Jim Shore, an artist who made my wedding cake topper. I love Jim Shore and his designs, and this ornament set was completely unopened and unused.
I bought this set for $15 and planned to keep it for myself, until I realized how much it sells for on ebay. The set originally sold in stores for $130, but now apparently sells for more:
Ok, so now for the best part of the day. The basement and upstairs of this house were all boxes, completely unsorted. I love when this happens because it leads to really fantastic discoveries.
In an upstairs closet, I found a large unmarked box shoved behind a bunch of other stuff. I opened it up and found a huge collection of the antique chocolate molds I mentioned earlier. All of the molds were Santas, and some dated back to the 1890s. I was THRILLED. At the same time though, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I knew that when I brought these downstairs, chances were that they would price them well over $100 each.
By some stroke of crazy luck though, the man running the sale charged me $10 each for the molds! He charged me $30 for a really large one, but then mentioned that it was worth “hundreds”. I didn’t know if that was true, but I did know I had gotten a really amazing deal. Here is me cradling the large mold on our way home. I was in love.
These molds ended up being an even more amazing story once I listed them on ebay, so I’m going to devote a whole other post to them. Stay tuned for that!
Sarah and I left the sale with a giant cart of items. I spent the most amount of money I had EVER spent at a sale, but I knew that the Jim Shore ornaments alone would pay it back. The other items would be a super large cherry on top.
To celebrate, we headed to CJ’s Brewery, where I proceeded to order the beer sampler. I won’t say that I got drunk, because it was like 4pm, but I will say that this beer assortment should not be called a “sampler”.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: Unfortunately, because I’m out of town I can’t post pictures of all of the amazing things I got at this sale. However, let me just say that it was my dream come true. The owner of this home was an elementary teacher of some sort, so the sale was basically overflowing with all of the things I look out for: Vintage greeting cards (all unused, many unopened), vintage and first edition children’s books, and a PLETHORA of Joan Walsh Anglund items. This woman was seriously me in 40 years (without the actual hoards, I hope). She had SO MANY items and many of the books were signed. She had been collecting this stuff for years, because I even found two calendars from 1969.
I wasn’t sure how they were pricing but I figured that the more stuff I piled up, the more likely it was that I’d get a deal. And it turns out I was right about that. When I was finally ready to check out, the guy looked at my stuff with pity for himself–he did not want to go through all of it and price it out. I was prepared to at least owe $100. He said, “how about $40 for everything?” Uhm are you kidding me?! HELL YEAH. I also had a ticket from outside for $27 and a box in the garage for $25 so I ended up paying about what I expected anyway, but that was a STEAL for the quantity of stuff I got at the sale.
We were so pumped that we decided we had to go back the second day. I couldn’t think about anything else all night and I woke up super early in the morning because I was so excited. It was like Christmas when I was a kid. Stay tuned for the update about round two of this sale–it did not disappoint!
Here’s how I’m spending my DTT vacation. Zach and I got an otterhound from the shelter. We named him George. I don’t really know how to take care of dogs, so I just keep trying to give him things. Want a bone? A toy? A bath? Here, have these all natural dog treats made with real blueberries. Whew, dog ownership is exhausting. See you all next week!
-Erin
DTT is going to be on vacation for the next week, so there will be no updates. I know you’re all devastated. I’m actually on vacation (in real life, visiting family), and Erin is on vacation in her mind. While we’re taking this well-deserved break, we are going to work on updating our content. But let me just say up front that Erin and I did something together this past Thursday and Friday that we’ve never done in the history of sale-ing together: We went to the same sale two days in a row and spent multiple hours there. Here is a picture of Erin pulling our load of stuff on Thursday.
On Friday there was so much that it didn’t all fit in the garden cart…
Anyway, enjoy the week ahead, and let me close with a true story. Moments ago, I was talking to my 11-year-old niece and 7-year-old nephew, while watching Pawn Stars and discussing that show and also American Pickers. I’ve never seen a whole episode of either, and they and my brother were telling me I should watch them because I’d really like them because I’m sort of like a hoarder. I denied this accusation and my niece said, “You’re not a hoarder but you like going to tag sales and stuff like that.” My nephew summed this up by saying, “You’re a half hoarder."
-Sarah
In our “Holy Grail” posts, we’ll be discussing some treasures that we, as of now, only dream of owning. My first desired item is any type of antique “woolie,” typically made by British sailors before WWI. These adorable, folky wool pictures were made by sailors trying to pass their time at sea. Some are crazy intricate and well-made, and others are kind of crummy and hilarious. All, however, are super fascinating and cool.
I first heard of woolies on Antiques Roadshow and instantly started researching them online. It looks like most woolies go for a few thousand dollars each.
I’m hoping that there was a real lazy sailor who made a real small woolie that maybe I can afford. I checked ebay, but so far no luck. If you’ve got one of these in your basement, let me know and we can make a deal.
I like this one because it is extra crazy. Look at that wool smoke. Very impressive.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: I think this variety of post will only be Erin’s jam, because I can’t at the moment think of anything that expensive that I’d find and want to actually keep.
Zach and I had been looking for awhile to find some nice artwork for our dining room. I had chosen quite the ornate pattern of wallpaper for that room, so appropriate decor was proving difficult to find. I randomly drove past an estate sale while out running errands, and stopped. Good thing, because I found some beautifully framed ship prints that matched our wallpaper exactly.
From what I can gather, these are reprints of older paintings, but they seem to be hand-colored prints. I bought them both for $45, which is a steal because they are huge and nice.
We added some columns and statues from our local concrete statuary (where the dude was super apprehensive to part with the lady bust because he had a special bond with her). We also added an antique cabinet that I found at a sale, and which holds our little composer buddies.
-Erin
P.S. Zach and I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out a more appropriate name for these vessels other than “ships.” We still have no clue what kind of ships these are or what they are up to on the high seas.
reddawnmatador-deactivated20121 asked: Was the flea market you went to at Greenmead in Livonia? I was in Midland for the Antique and Collectible Festival and couldn't go to both.
It was! I couldn’t believe how huge it was. I had never been to Greenmead, but it’s definitely perfect for an antique market. -Erin
Somehow after the epic garage sale this weekend, I was still in the mood for more junk. So on Sunday, Zach and I headed to a huge outdoor flea market just a couple miles away. First of all, let me say, that when I hear the word “flea market”, I inevitably have this song stuck in my head for the next 3 days:
Our flea market was less “mini mall” and more junkyard mecca. Here’s a bunch of people making their pilgrimage.
Here is a cool, weird mini tire display thing. I liked it a lot but it was $100.
I found my first treasure pretty quickly. It is an old wooden bowl in the shape of a heart. I wasn’t sure I wanted to buy it, but I asked the price on it anyway. The woman told me it cost “whatever price would make you buy it.” I told her $3 and it was mine. I plan on pulling this out around Valentine’s Day and putting some candy in it.
You can’t tell here, but that bowl is actually pretty huge, which means I will need lots of candy to fill it, which also means I get to eat lots of candy.
At one point, I got really excited because I found a Hugglet. Since Sarah and I are trying to collect the whole set, this was a great discovery. I asked the seller man how much the Hugglet was and he said FOUR DOLLARS. FOUR DOLLARS?! WHAT?
See that man in the crazy pants? He’s the one who charges four dollars for a Hugglet. I offered him one dollar and he looked at me like I was the crazy one. I threw the Hugglet in his face and stormed away super disappointed. Actually, that is a total lie. I gently set the Hugglet back on the table and walked away to text Sarah about my sadness.
What I will spend $4 on (actually $5) is this kitchen scale:
They originally had it priced $10, but it was marked down to $5. To be honest, I would have paid $10 because I love it so much.
I also picked up this cow creamer for $2, which I am currently selling on ebay:
And lastly, the best find of the day by far. This giant soup tureen is shaped like a snarling pig head. I thought that Zach was going to hate this, but he actually loves it. We bartered down on the price, paid $20, and now have this on our kitchen counter.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: I was supposed to text Erin in the morning and go with them to this flea market, but I woke on Sunday morning to the sound of Erin texting me for the second time to wake me up. I was too tired to go.
The only things I’ll say are these two things: I like that heart bowl and I cannot believe how horrifying that pig is. I would have nightmares every night if that was in my house.
So as you heard, this past weekend was the big DTT garage sale. I’ve been really busy with work lately, so this was a good chance to relax outside with some beers and meet the neighbors. It was also a good chance for Sarah to sell a million things you’ve seen her buy on this blog.
We were rolling pretty deep with items, but neither of us thought to take a photo at the start of the sale. Here’s a pic though after we sold a whole bunch of things.
The garage was packed full too, mostly with knick-knacks, art, and housewares.
There were definitely some hilarious moments. I had some unopened pepper spray that I bought back when a creepy man was breaking into my apartment in Dexter and moving stuff around. I told everyone ahead of time that I would sell the pepper spray to anyone except teenage boys. Literally five minutes into the sale, a group of teens came up to us with spray in hand. I made the nerds promise that they wouldn’t spray anyone with it (yeah right), and if they did, then to tell everyone they bought the spray at any sale except ours.
That wasn’t the only questionable transaction. Zach gave 2 old ladies some beer to take with them, which they then announced they “would drink in the car.” Um, no. That seems not okay. That’s about as “not okay” as selling pepper spray to teenage boys.
Speaking of Zach, here is a picture of him modeling a sweater vest and scarf at the sale.
At some point, Sarah and I convinced Zach and Adam to watch the sale while we went to shop around at some others in the neighborhood. We weren’t finding any treasures, but we did meet some baby ducks.
Here’s me holding one of these adorable dummies.
Turns out that ducks actually make really good pets. Their owner said that ducks are super loyal and snuggly. After this interaction, I wanted a duck for like the next hour or so, and then I forgot about them and went back to wanting a dog.
The day was not without tragedy though. While out shopping, Sarah tripped on some uneven concrete because she was busy texting and walking. Here she is with the front of her toe ripped off and sitting on the ground trying not to pass out. My parents had gone to get some bandaids from the neighbors, but they were walking slow and probably shopping some sales before they made it back to us 10 minutes later.
Good thing my mom was mysteriously carrying a towel around when this happened, because it stopped Sarah from bleeding out right there.
Alright, here’s the last story I’ll share. At one sale, this little girl was selling popcorn and bottled water. I ordered up a water from her and she opened her little cooler to grab one. She then looked at me and said, “We only have cold ones left. Is that okay?” I told the little minion that a cold one would do, but to never pull that shit on me again in the future. Cold water? What is this? Soviet Russia?
Here is Sarah and I at the end of the sale, celebrating our massive success.
And here is a photo from moments before of Sarah yelling at me for the way I was holding my money wad.
It’s not my fault that I had so much money that it wouldn’t fit properly in my little muffin hands.
-Erin
Update from Sarah:
First clarification I want to make: I was trying to text a picture of those ducks to Adam when I had my toe accident.
I don’t have a whole lot to add, but I do wish that we had taken a picture of the sale set up. It was so busy during the “preview” (the neighborhood is invited to come out Friday night between 6:30 and 9 to get first dibs) and all day Saturday, that it didn’t even occur to me. Also it was raining most of the night Friday but people were still extremely compelled to come buy our garbage.
We had many run-ins with cheapskates, but my favorite person was this teenager (I didn’t realize he was a teenager until a little while into his visit). When he got to our sale, he kept telling us how our sign really enticed him and made him come to our sale. At first I didn’t realize he was a sort of awkward kid (he almost seemed like maybe he was homeschooled, but after our extensive conversations with him, we discovered he wasn’t), so I told him that if he knew anyone who wanted some playboys from the ‘70s and '80s to send them my way. He got all weird and quiet and told me he wouldn’t be able to bring those through his front door. Then I realized that he must still live with his parents.
Two hours later he came back and had a very long conversation with Zach and kept hovering around our table. After 45 minutes he said to me, “well, I went home and talk to my sister about THOSE THINGS [my emphasis] you mentioned and she said, 'I thought all boys your age have those’ so I decided to come back and buy some.” But he just kept standing there, not selecting any of my choice '70s porn. Finally, he handed me a $5 bill and said, “I’m going to buy five” and pulled out his own plastic bag!!! I told him to pick some good ones. My friend Matt made a good point yesterday when I was telling him the story. If we really wanted to do that poor kid a favor, we would have given him a free NetZero trial and upgraded his porn for him. He’s going to be so confused the first time he sees a real live naked woman.
So I bring this kid up because he had mentioned that his own garage sale wasn’t that successful so far. When Erin and I started walking around looking at the other sales, I noticed his right away–there were like 14 kids running this sale (see? homeschool!) and I immediately noticed a giant box of Legos. I called Adam and before I could get the words, “big box of Legos for $20” out of my mouth, he said yes. I asked them if they’d take $15. In retrospect, this was a pretty bogus thing to do to kids but all is fair when it comes to Legos.
The best thing is that on Sunday when Adam was sorting through this massive quantity of Legos…
…he found this:
A toof!
Oh one last thing: Turns out that one of Erin’s neighbors was a Playboy Bunny at the Detroit Playboy Club (Mandy)! She gave us her contact info and invited us over to take some pictures of all her old bunny stuff and interview her! SWEET!
We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to get to any sales at all this past weekend due to our huge and awesome garage sale, but we ended up finding a little bit of time to do so.
On Thursday, there was a sale in Dundee which is about 15 miles from where I live, so I stopped by later in the afternoon by myself. The pictures looked intriguing, and Dundee is a sort of working class area. Honestly, those areas of town are the best for sales, just because people seem to have the most old stuff, and it’s usually not overpriced. There were lots of dolls in the pictures, so I figured that if nothing else, it would be fodder for a good story.
When I walked into the house, one of the first things I saw was this scale:
Erin collects these things and keeps them on top of her kitchen cupboards, so I texted her a picture. It was priced a little high, so of course she wanted me to dicker on her behalf. I tried but wasn’t successful because it was the first day of the sale, but I still bought it for her because I’m such a nice friend.
I also found quite a few cool records (mostly children’s and Christmas), but nothing ese too exciting. Until I went into the doll room.
Now, I felt self-conscious because there were two different employees in this room, fixing up all the dolls that were occupying it, so I didn’t take many pictures. But I’m serious when I say that there has been no comparison so far, in terms of houses with dolls that we’ve been to. I took a picture of an 8x10 print that was on the wall next to one of the tables of dolls:
This captures a portion of the homeowner’s collection, but still doesn’t really do the room justice. Anyway, I tried to take a few pictures of some choice items, but again, I was feeling a little odd about documenting this stuff in such a cramped room with so many employees. Here are some highlights:
An apple-head (?)–one of Erin’s favorite kind of dolls.
Here are some dolls made based on Erin’s future children. If they look familiar, it’s because you’ve seen these guys featured before. I don’t know how they made the trek from the east side to the west side. But clearly they’re looking for Erin.
Finally, I found two large Hugga Bunch dolls, but they were each marked something like $6 so I couldn’t bring myself to buy them.
In the end, the only real treasure I ended up with as far as dolls go is this semi-terrifying stuffed kitten with a music box inside it.
He’s a little ravaged but he was only $4 and his music box works perfect. He’s also been extremely well-loved, which makes me happy.
-Sarah