First find of the day! In Erin’s dining room.
So full disclosure, Sarah and I were famous estate sale-ers way before this blog. Back in October we were featured on the “hit” (debatable) HGTV show Cash & Cari. The premise of the show is that treasure broker Cari Cucksley runs estate sales and viewers watch as she sells off goods to weirdos like us.
By chance, Sarah and I rolled up to a sale in which Cash & Cari was filming. The house was jam-packed with knick-knacks, but nothing that interesting or collectible. Originally, we left the house (me empty-handed) having avoided the cameras.
Before we left, I checked ebay quickly to get the prices on antique taxidermy. The basement of the sale had several vintage animal mounts, all priced pretty low. I worked at a natural history museum in the past and knew that old taxidermy could be really collectible. (It can also contain high levels of arsenic, so there is a trade off.) Seeing that I could make a good profit on an antique fox mount, I convinced Sarah that we had to go back into the sale.
Here is a photo of me grabbing the fox mount, and Sarah running away in absolute horror. She kept yelling that I had to put the fox in the trunk, which I thought might damage it.
As soon as I grabbed this fox, the cameras were on us. I am sure the producers on set were thinking “what the hell is this girl going to do with that fox?” In fact, I know they were thinking this because they eventually asked me. I put on some charade about thinking it was cool and putting in my house, all because I felt bad about admitting that I was going to resell it. Sarah, of course, hoed me out…on camera.
Cari and her crew were cool with me reselling the fox. They were also cool with making me look like a true freak on camera. I was positioned in the sunlight outside, posed with the fox on my lap, and asked to stroke the fox’s fur whilst smiling at the camera. I was totally down with this.
So after my interview and foxy photoshoot, Sarah and I left, cracked up for awhile in the car, and headed off for more treasure hunting. Here’s where things get good…
So we’re driving, and probably arguing about where to eat lunch, when we pass some creepfest flea market. We decide to stop. I say to Sarah, “Hey wouldn’t that be crazy if we walk in and there is like a taxidermy man and all he has been pining for is a fox mount?”
And lemme say, it was as though Jiminy Cricket himself was waiting for me to say this, and at that moment, we walk in and see a GIANT taxidermy hut. I approach the man, tell him about the fox in my backseat, and he is out the door to the parking lot. Peering into my car, he pulls out a wad of cash, hands me $60 and says he’ll take the fox.
I was kind of shocked at how fast I owned the fox and then didn’t own the fox. I wasn’t sure if I got the best price I could, so I started getting cold feet. The man told me to walk around the market with his $60, think about it, and then tell him if I changed my mind about selling the mount.
I decided to not change my mind. I had cold hard cash, got rid of a possibly arsenic-tainted animal, and was going to be on HGTV. Here is the dude who bought the fox:
And yes, that man is holding a little plastic Sumo man. I did not sell it to him.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: That was such a fun day. That man had the fakest chompers I’ve ever seen.
Sarah and I see Beanie Babies at nearly every sale we attend, and I always give them a good look-through. Here’s the thing though…you know that percentage on anti-bacterial hand soap? 99.999% or whatever? That’s exactly the chance you have of NEVER finding a valuable Beanie Baby.
How do I know? Well, for one thing, this is me:
(Let me say here that if I was a kid now, I would have bullied myself.)
So yeah, I know a little bit about Beanie Babies. Also, it is a good rule of thumb for any estate sale buying that if something was mass produced or marketed as “collectible” then it really never was or will be valuable. Holiday Barbies? Eh. Santa Bears? Eh.
The most collectible things are rare, either because only a few were made or because people never thought to keep them.
So back to the bean bags…
You can tell a collectible Beanie Baby instantly by its tag. If it has the half-fold tag with a poem inside and a yellow star on the front, then move on. These are the Beanie Babies that my fellow youth and I collected. They’re everywhere.
If you find a Beanie Baby with a hang-tag that is only one single piece of cardboard, but printed on both sides, then you are onto something. These are first generation Beanies, released well before the collecting craze began. If you can buy these first gens for a couple bucks, then they can be well-worth the investment.
This is not to say that NONE of the newer Beanies (with fold-tag) are collectible. A couple of them are, but only because of SUPER RARE manufacturing flaws. There’s “Peanut” the elephant who was released in small quantity as a royal blue color (instead of baby blue), and “Spot” the dog who in some cases is missing his spot.
You can check out some other Beanie Baby variations here.
My favorite Beanie Baby hands-down is the Princess Diana commemorative Beanie. When I find one at a sale, I like to pretend that it is super valuable. I usually hold it up and say loudly, “YES! The holy grail!” In truth, it is worth about $5. I just love that someone had the audacity to propose the creation of this thing and make mad cash off it.
Here is one that someone put a mini crown on, because apparently the bear alone wasn’t tacky enough:
-Erin
Update from Sarah: Erin also used to make outfits for her beanie babies. I know this because at a garage sale she and her sister were having a few years ago, she let me have some of them that were wearing her creations. I used to make “homes” for my smaller stuffed animals out of shoe boxes that included moveable furniture made of cardboard and construction paper. Just another thing among many that I learned about her that affirmed the reason we are BFFs.
One difference between she and I–I would have never left a tag on any toy I owned. EVER. To this day, I threaten to remove the tags or take things out of boxes that Adam has that are collectible. Those tag “protectors” are especially rage-inducing for me.
(BTW, Adam was thrilled about my securing some new beanies, as I’m sure you figured.)
[video]
I’ll admit it. I bought this costume. And I don’t have a baby or a toddler.
This was a hard one to explain when I got home.
Erin and I saw this costume at a sale right after she and Zach bought their home. They were in the market for busts, and as soon as we walked in, she spotted a Mozart bust which will probably be featured as a Fave Find one day. Anyway, this was buried amongst some Burger King Alf Puppets that I actually carried around with me for a while. Can you believe I thought they might be valuable? Well, I did. Give me a big, fat break.
So, Erin is sometimes obsessed with my unborn children, and while we stood contemplating the costume together, she exclaimed, “You need to buy that for your baby!” I reminded her I do not have a baby, but she told me I should buy it for my future baby. I then screwed myself by admitting to her that my mother had made the exact same costume (different fabric and pom-poms) when I was a toddler. Seeing the costume reminded me of some good times, and Erin was starting to really convince me that buying it wasn’t crazy. There was no turning back after that!
Here are some pics of me rocking the costume while gathering some Halloween loot when I was two:
I wish my mom saved some of her clothes from back then. I’d totally wear that coat now.
I do have one question, though. My brother is five years older than me. Why did my parents think it was a good idea for him to wear a toddler’s Halloween costume the next year?
Anyway, when I came home that night, I did have a lot of explaining to do. But it was all worth the look on Adam’s face.
I realize it seems like I’m obsessed with clowns, since the first edition of Things That Freak Your Husband Out (TTFYHO) was also about them, but I’m really not.
-Sarah
[video]
So if you’ve been keeping up with the House of Horrors story, you know that, thanks to the amazing Internet, Erin and I were able to track down the creator of all of the artwork in the home. I personally have been absolutely stoked by this. Now, some may argue that it might have been more exciting and interesting to make up a history about the items and their creator’s background and leave it at that. But I’m really glad we decided to push on and see if we could gather answers to some of our questions. Doing so has led us to discover more than we could have hoped for, and we’ve also had the privilege of (virtually) meeting two of the sweetest people ever.
We first tracked down Becky Alice, who is the wife of “James,” or Organ, as he’ll now be called. Nowadays, you might even see him comment on our blog–we are that tight. For the record, he’s just a harmless, old-school alias-using guy when it comes to the Internet. It’s actually not that difficult to figure out his real name, and he told us we could use it, but isn’t it more fun to keep him just a little mysterious? Anyway, Becky was immediately & incredibly nice to us, and let us know that she’d talk to Organ and see if he’d be willing to answer some of our questions. The next day, we heard from him, and he let us know he’d be happy to answer some questions. In the meantime, Becky shared with me the amazing picture of Ethel in her bumblebee costume.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, we received Organ’s interview answers. I happened to be awake because I’ve had Erin’s illness from last week, and was up coughing my brains out. I read the answers in bed, and then couldn’t fall back asleep because I was so excited and touched! You’ll notice that some of what we were curious about had to do with the art, but we also wanted to know about Organ himself, Ethel, and the process and emotion involved in being in charge of liquidating an estate, since we really only know the process well as buyers.
To set the stage, Organ has agreed to let us use these picture of him, during his early years as an artist, adding, “…the Han Solo style outfit was intentional. Though I wasn’t aware at the time that the hair style was called a ‘mullet.’”
Aren’t they amazing?
Throughout the interview, there are various links to pictures and videos. Some have been provided by Organ and Becky. Others are just things that provide some context.
One note of seriousness–We have a ton of gratitude and respect for Organ for taking us seriously and responding so thoughtfully.
On to the interview…
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Did you go to public school? Did you go to art school? We heard a rumor that you went to a “fancy” one:
Yes and Yes. I have a BFA from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. It was fancy (i.e. competitive tuition pricing… “expensive”) but we were lower income middle class. I was lucky enough to be awarded a couple grants.
What is the story behind the Iron Man looking mask (head prosthesis)?
My influences were masks, armor and inventions. When I was attending the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, I was asked by a fellow classmate to share my first memories of fear. Something that always scared the pants off me was a film I saw on Sir Graves Ghastly called The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959). Decapitation and head hunters. The “head prosthesis” was the cure for the loss of a head. Most of that work was a marketing campaign to get a head prosthesis in every home. Ironically, when I was courting my wife Becky, I found that she had a similar fascination with the guillotine. When it was time to decide on her married name I think I sold her on mine when I said, “You realize you can sign your name B. Head right?”
When I told my mom about the bondage drawing, she said, “Do you think he had a model?!” Did you?
Yes. The school provided models for figure drawing class. I was having a hard time with the face on that drawing. It was getting overworked so I rescued it from the trash by putting the iron hood on him. An example of early prosthesis-ing.
When did you create the sculptures, and who are the characters? I gather the one we have named “Pterodactyl” is Howard. The other large one is named “Cheese Head” by us. What’s his real name? What are the little pink babies with no heads? Are they waiting for their head prostheses?
The one that’s short and smiling is the Headless Boy…
…He was to be my Weekly World News “BatBoy”. Never managed to get the children’s story for him nailed down.
The tall wedge headed fella is Howard as in Howard Hughes. At that time my interest in Howard Hughes came from the story about the bra he had made for Jane Russell to wear in the film The Outlaw. My Howard was “Vegas Mysophobia Howard” holding a walker that had a curtain attached to it so he could be reclusive and mobile at the same time. I had to add the tissue boxes on his feet because It was also something I did as a child, shuffling around the house in two empty tissue boxes. I have a lot of sketches and ideas for figures that have geometric bird-like features similar to Howard, he became a prototype for a series of creatures called the Insomniacs. Howard was one of a two part sculpture. “Jane” was a sculpture made of carpet padding that I hand cut, stuffed and stitched together with yarn. I had lots of blisters after that project. She ended up very ample and pa-POW. A big soft Venus of Willendorf. Howard would have peering through the curtains at Jane from across the room. Don’t know if she sold or not but she was in the room with the comics.
(Sidenote: We did see Jane, but had no idea what she was! The day I went back to the sale with Adam, Erin kept reminding me to get a picture of “that monstrosity” in the comic room that was blocking people from moving around. She found it hilarious that the people running the sale didn’t think to move it somewhere else, out of the way because the room was so small. Here it is as it was at the sale… We had no idea that it was actually a curvy babe!)
“Cheese Head” was actually called “Popped and Buttered”. He had a box I crafted, painted and filled with packing peanuts that was held resting on his crotch. He was a head prosthesis recipient who was inviting you to enjoy his freshly popped corn. This may or may not have anything to do with that sculpture but… In the film Diner, Mickey Rourke plays a character who wins a bet by tricking his date into touching his junk via a box of popcorn.
The babies. They were to be the future. They were born with head prostheses. “Headless Babies” was the title for that.
(For a more complete gallery of Organ’s school art, check out this album.)
You seem to have really liked Elvira. Why is that?
Boobs!I recently I scored the Tonner Halloween exclusive Elvira doll from a collector on Ebay who had an extra one to sell. I also brought home my Elvira cardboard cutouts. That wall mural in the bedroom was designed by a fellow classmate at CCS that was a big fan of Patrick Nagel.
I bought all of Elvira’s calendars for 5 or 6 years. One time on my quest for Elvira/Coors promotional items a young man from the local liquor store was nice enough to give me a life-size poster of her. He rolled up the poster, looked me in the eye and said “Now you have her… Take care of her.” And I have to this day. And to this day it’s still the boobs.
(Sidenote…that last link is totally NSFW but I had to add it. Also worth noting, Adam said, “I can’t believe you asked him about Elvira. It’s because she has huge boobs!” Shows you how much I know about Elvira.)
What was your favorite comic to collect? Did comics influence your early art?
The Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Later it was Grendel. The older I get the more I see the head prosthesis face. It’s an archetypal image. I’m sure that original Iron Man costume is in there as well as Kachina dolls. On the way home from Michigan I bought a book that identifies the different Hopi Kachina dolls. Vampira comics may have influenced my love of Elvira. There go those boobs again.
Your interests, judging from the content of the house when we were in it, seemed to involve art, comics, and music. Are those still your interests? Any others?
Pretty much the same interests but with more naked women, sausage, kaiju and Kappa pose dolls. Been trying to do more digital art. I don’t purchase new comics any longer. I need the room for the vintage men’s magazines. But I did take nearly half of my comics and record albums. So double what you saw. But I get most of my musical exposure from college radio and Internet radio. I’m probably less interested in martial arts and serial killer novels than I used to be. And my yearning to be a warrior of the apocalypse has evolved into a domestic happiness that can only be sated by “staying in.”
I have an accordion I purchased several years ago I would like to learn how to play.
What type of person do you imagine buying your art at this sale, or hoped bought your art?
I’d heard there was a father who was considering buying the sculptures as Halloween decorations for their yard. That was pretty cool. I’m a fan of Jenny's Yard Sale Bloodbath and I could only hope that someone like her could appreciate what I was leaving behind. And as fate would have it, you won!
(Another side note: Organ figured out that he heard that from reading it here, but I forgot to add something that Adam overheard when we were upstairs looking at the sculptures with that family. I told them the little bit of info I knew at the time–that they were created by the woman’s son, who went to art school–and one of the little girls said, “A BOY made these?!?!?!”)
Can you tell us about the sale process and some of your emotions towards it? Your mother had a beautiful home and fascinating collections. What were some of her favorite items, and yours?
My mother passed unexpectedly. This was not supposed to happen for years. I was faced with the job of having to jettison my childhood home and dismantle my mothers belongings. I had to achieve this in only a few weeks and get back home on the other side of the country to manage it remotely. It’s heartbreak on top of heartbreak and you’re the custodian with a mop bucket full of tears. My mother and aunt took on the task of liquidating my grandparents’ house and estate and it went on for a couple years. We weren’t in a position to do that. The lady Becky found to handle the estate sale and clean up has been efficient and fantastic. All I had to do was decide what I wanted to take with me.
My mother loved going to garage sales and flea markets. She had quite a large collection of Canadian maple leaf pins. She was buying them when they were still a bargain back in the '70s and early '80s. That was my favorite. Her favorite items were handbags. Though it may be that she never found the perfect one. She had about 80 of them.
Can you tell us more about what your mom was like and what her interests were?
My mother hardly ever missed a church service and always did her best to raise me in a healthy happy home. Mom loved to laugh and she loved her baby. That would be me. No matter how big or old I got, I was still her baby. My mom also kept every toy, object or piece of ephemera that had to do with me or my progress through life. She also loved my wife Becky like a daughter. At the funeral home, Becky was floored by the amount of people she’d never met who knew all the names of our pets. Mom took a lot of pictures and showed them to everyone she knew. Mother would get so excited when she was coming to California to see us and she tried to do it at least twice a year. No matter where we took her she was happy and having fun.
After my parents got divorced in the '80s mom started ice skating for many years. She made long lasting friendships and was quite a fetching lady in a bee costume. She was a big Red Wings fan. She had a grand niece that called her “Aunt Hockey.” She LIVED to garden. She worked in her garden as well as the city cultural center garden (she’s second from left).
She enjoyed nature, when nature wasn’t digging up her flower bulbs. She also collected Micky Mouse stuff. Mom adored her two kittens. She would line the deck with bird cages so they could sit in the window and watch. Cocoa and Cheddar. She named them that because her beloved Becky has pets named after food items. They’re both about a year old. We’ve taken them in and given them a home with our two cats and two dogs.
Is there anything else you want to tell us?
Today Becky is my inspiration and art patron. If she isn’t keeping me busy making things for her dolls she’s got me working on the living sculpture that is our home. She’s got vision and a eye for design. She is a very talented artist as well. though I often steal her advice and pretend it was my idea all along. But I love her very much and Becky loved my mom like she was her own. It’s only through her strength and support that I was able to get through this.
My mother would would have been very happy about the estate sale turnout and how many people were there buying stuff. She would have been delighted that folks were buying my artwork and if she’d been around to see your blog she’d have printed it out and taken it to all her friends to show. Thank you for your humor, enthusiasm, kindness and sincerity.
Love your momz and fill your house full of stuff …but keep it tidy.
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I’ve gotta say, this has been such a rewarding experience, and if you have some time, I strongly suggest taking a look at how interesting and gorgeous Becky and Organ’s home and its contents really are. They have some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. One of my favorite pictures is this one of their fireplace mantle this past Christmas:
It is so strange that, as it turns out, the people behind the mystery are also enthused about very similar things as Erin and I–flea markets, estate sales, thrift stores… Erin and I have very different tastes sometimes (as I’m sure you’ve noticed), but we (and our husbands) both appreciate a balance of old and new, and the way we decorate our homes reflects this. In my opinion, Becky and Organ do this same thing quite masterfully, and with some really drool-worthy stuff.
We are both so grateful for how open, honest, and warm both Becky and Organ have been. I guess this is no surprise since we’ve uncovered some really personal stuff, but I truly feel like I’ve made two new friends.
When we first started attempting to track Organ down, some people suggested it might be “too soon,” or that we might be playing with fire since he and his wife were total strangers, and he made some seemingly creepy art. But I’m glad I trusted my gut and went for it, because it seems to have been a positive, fun experience on both ends. After I responded to express my extreme glee when I received Organ’s interview answers, he wrote Erin and I back and said, “You and Erin are super! Happy pixies, spreading a soapy froth of celebration and laughter onto a cupcake of gloomy human trial…Thank you for the opportunity to bare my soul. Your joy and enthusiasm has really softened the blow of this saddest and grand loss. It’s been therapeutic and happy making."
Whee! Happiness all around! We couldn’t ask for anything more than that.
If we ever get famous from this blog, it will probably be thanks to this story, and not our documentation of Goonies posters or donkey planters.
-Sarah
Update from Erin: Big applause to Sarah who spearheaded this convo with our beloved "James.” I was mega sick all week and only helped out by initially tracking down contact info for the two of them. Boy, what the Internet and a little Vicodin cough syrup gets you. That said, I feel a kindredness towards Organ and Becky, particularly because I too love true crime serial killer books… although I still read them exclusively.
P.S. I called Jane a “foam carcass” not a “monstrosity” as Sarah wrote.
So we headed out on Friday, full of promise, eagerly awaiting a repeat of the success we had found the week before. The first sale we hit was pretty packed, with both stuff and people. It was the type of sale where people use one arm to sort through items, and their other arm to block you from getting anywhere near the stuff they are looking at. With a house full of people all doing this, it gets annoying pretty fast. I’ve gotten good at muscling around in these types of situations, but it is still real stressful.
My first find was a bunch of vintage plastic toys. I had been researching these on ebay last week for an art project I’m working on and found that they can be surprisingly valuable. There is a good mix of cowboys, indians, horses, spacemen, pirates, knights, and more. The woman running the sale mentioned that many of the pieces are by Marx, which I guess is one of the more collectible brands.
I also bought some vintage jello/baking molds since I had had previous success in selling them.
Here is some of our loot while we were standing in line to check out. The line was the slowest ever, as the sellers were having to phone in every credit card transaction. At some point, Sarah contemplated leaving the line to go back for a huge ceramic dog she had saw. I encouraged her to at least take a photo of it so we can document all the questionable items she considers buying. She ended up just buying it, which I am sure Adam is thrilled about. Hopefully it will make an appearance soon in TTFYHO.
Check out that nice kitten postcard in Sarah’s box.
The rest of the day was filled with bummer sales. A lot were overpriced or had nothing of interest. I did find this little buddy, by Josef Original. He is pretty much the cutest.
I first came across Josef Original figures at Christmas, when I found this guy:
So a rather uneventful Friday. No huge scores but still lots of fun. I even ate a cookie for lunch, which is always a fun thing to do. And we ended up going to the casino, although there were no huge scores there either. We’ll get ‘em next time.
-Erin
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Erin is right, the sales weren’t that great. We were also both sort of “off” on Friday. Erin seemed cranky, and I was sick. However, shockingly, I still came home with a carload of items. The first sale was the most fruitful in terms of treasures. I’ll do a separate post about the ceramic dog another day. He’s an Irish Setter and I love him.
I found some cool items at this sale, but they were pretty overpriced. Oh well. (Note: This sale was ALSO by the same people who did the House of Horrors sale and the antique cigar stand sale. They love overpricing things.)
Anyway, I got my brother this vintage Michigan State pennant for his man cave. I think he reads this blog, so I’m ruining a surprise. It’s probably from the '50s…if I had to guess.
I also found this amazing book, called The Crazy Ladies by Joyce Elbert. I’m not familiar with her work, but as you can see from the blurb by Cosmo at the top, it is the first really great dirty book.
I think Cosmo is probably wrong about this claim, but it was still a great find because clearly someone had kept this book just for the sexy parts. I know this because when I opened it, this happened:
It reminded me of the copy of Jackie Collins’ Chances that was in my grandma’s basement when I was a kid. I would go downstairs and pretend I had to use the bathroom down there, and just read the dirty parts. My family probably thought I had extreme bowel problems (I’m neither confirming or denying this.) The book looked just like that by the end of my tween years.
I flipped through it this morning, and didn’t find anything particularly racy. However, the first page is great, and I don’t know how this happened, but it’s like a picture-perfect description of the way I throw parties:
I found some other cool stuff at the sale, most notably these postcards, a Swedish Christmas ornament, and a Greenfield Village pennant, all vintage:
Next, we went to a sale at the home of a woman who was clearly a compulsive shopper, and I scored two purses and three pairs of Naturalizer dress shoes in my size that looked like they’d never been worn. You might say that’s a grandma brand to wear, but I was thrilled because a) the shoes are all cute, b) I hate looking for dress shoes when I have to go to a wedding or something, and c) each pair was only $5.
Related sidenote: I first started hanging out with Erin, we were at this wedding and I complimented her whole ensemble, which was lovely. She then told me that her shoes were NATURE-alizer brand like it was real cool. First, nice pronunciation skills. Second, that’s not something you want to walk around advertising when you’re 22 or 23 (which she was at the time.)
At the last two sales of the day, I scored some decent items, including cool wrapping paper to add to my collection (I remember making things out of fabric that was the same pattern as the paper to the right when I was a kid), an antique shelf, some cool vintage cheese picks for all of the entertaining that I do, and a cat pin with a head that wobbles.
All in all, not the best day, but not the worst either. Until I lost at the casino and had to drive home from Erin’s in the snow, coughing and sneezing my brains out.
-Sarah
I’ve been told by the boss of this blog that I need to save the big gun wrapping paper post for a rainy day, but I’ll give our readers a small taste of my passion for vintage wrapping paper by featuring Holly Hobbie. Now, if you are unfamiliar with Holly and Google her, you will be sad and disappointed. New Holly Hobbie sucks (except for Toot and Puddle)… However, vintage Holly Hobbie items contain some of the cutest illustrations I’ve ever seen.
My favorite by far is the paper with the illustration of the girl photographing the boy. Also, if you’re wondering, I don’t really save this stuff. I use it to wrap presents. But only for those who, as the label notes, deserve “the prettiest packages ever.”
-Sarah
Update from Erin: Gross.
Update from Sarah: That’s cool. You don’t deserve the prettiest packages ever anyway.
I’d like to offer a warm welcome to the newest member of our team of bloggers. We’re working on the whole sleeping on the job thing. Happy Saturday, y'all.