Dig This Treasure!

Hi folks! Here’s my attempt at crowdsourcing! I’m going to the Charleston, SC area for five days starting this Saturday and would love to hear any recommendations for places to hit up. My parents are renting a house down there for February and March, and I’m going to spend a few days with them in the warmer weather. Since we love treasure hunting we need your help! I’m already planning on going here because my parents checked it out and said it was cray:

But I need more good recommendations! 

Also good would be recommendations for the best SC TREATS. And anything else fun to do! Thanks! 

-Sarah

Hope you enjoy this week’s note from our favorite principal’s collection… 

I can’t imagine thinking that leaving a note would be a speedy way to get results for something like this. 

-Sarah

Two Saturdays ago, Sarah and I ventured out to two sales that looked kind of alright.  The first one turned out to be just plain weird.

(I cannot GET OVER how weird this cross stitch is.) 

I’m not sure what the deal was with these people.  They seemed kind of churchy.  I think Sarah mentioned that the man of the house was a principal or something.  Anyway, they didn’t really have much for us to buy.  I kind of wanted this spaceship pinata, but it was stained:

I also don’t really like outer space.  Anyway, I didn’t buy anything here, although I am sure Sarah did.  I’ll let her indulge you.

As for the second sale, it was much better.  There was definitely stuff to buy.  The problem was, we couldn’t really get to any of it.  IT WAS SO CROWDED.  They seriously let like my entire high school graduating class into this house.  It was insane.  I couldn’t move at all.

The other issue was that there was a staff of people working this sale hell bent on rearranging and organizing things as this hoard of people was trying to shop.  So you’d finally get a chance to look at a shelf of things, and suddenly a worker bee grandma would step in front of you to tidy up the porcelain figurines. 

Sarah was in heaven because there were tons of books and paper items.  Note the sunglasses AGAIN on her head.  Seriously, if Sarah had a dollar for every photo she did NOT have sunglasses on her head, she would be broke.

I bought one thing at this sale.  A tiny trinket box featuring a sheepdog.  It is in my trinket box collection now.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Out of all the weird pictures we took of that first sale, I cannot believe Erin left this one out.

Why didn’t one of us buy this to save as a white elephant gift?!

Also, Erin spotted this guy and said it looked like something I would want. Turns out I already own that exact dude, so her Sarah-dar is totally on point.

Anyway, this sale was a major bust but I did buy that awesome folder full of notes, as well as the following: 

What you’re looking at there, friends, is a JUKEBOX TISSUE HOLDER. Fits in with my existing collection of plastic canvas needlepoint goods. AND I didn’t realize this until this past weekend but there’s a built-in button on the back that plays a little tune when you press it! Stellar craftsmanship. 

At the second sale, I felt incredibly overwhelmed. There was some cool stuff, but… it’s all relative. The sales lately have truly been BAD, both because of the contents but also because there aren’t that many, so everyone who goes saleing ends up at the same 5 sales and has to elbow their way around. I got really excited when we got into the attic of the house, because there were boxes and boxes of paper.

But it ended up being a bunch of high school drama club stuff, which I’m not into. It was a real letdown. 

Because she’s a good friend, Erin gave me this envelope of negatives. 

I also found some photographs and books, but nothing worth writing home about. The real highlight of the day came when we ate Mexican food with a bunch of babies. 

That is a picture of me holding Everett, while he gazes lovingly at this girlfriend, Emily. She’s the daughter of our friend Jen who did our Cash & Cari dirty work last month. No sunglasses on my dome in that shot! Erin does owe me a dollar after all. Also, look how big that baby is now! 

This is, hands down, one of my favorite ever greeting card finds. These fold-out cards seem to have been popular in the 1950s. I found a ton of them from “Jim” to his “honey” (AKA Goldie) and vice versa, back when I unearthed that giant lot of greeting cards a very long time ago. They were all kept in envelopes so that’s why they’re in such good shape. 

Even though it’s sexist and all, I still love it. It captures the time period perfectly, and I just adore the design style that was popular during this time period. I also love that almost all cards to and from adults contained cartoon animals in clothes. 

-Sarah

We are working on a post from this past Saturday. In the meantime, I’m going to share something awesome that I found while we were out. We went to two sales and the first was a real dud, but when we were in the basement, I spotted a bunch of file folders containing lots of paper–news clippings, notes, etc. This caught my eye: 

Mom’s poems sounded like they were worth investigating. I bought this envelope of poems, along with a file folder full of clippings, with this note at the top: 

As it turns out, Mom’s poems are super boring. They’re all about God. HOWEVER, the other file folder did not disappoint. It contained clippings and notes belonging to a retired elementary school principal, and the “amusing school notes” he saved are incredible. So I think for a while, I’m going to post a note or two from his collection, for your enjoyment. First up is this little note: 

-Sarah

We’ve written about interesting interactions with people on eBay quite a few times, but one of Adam’s most recent experiences as a seller really takes the cake.

Back when Adam and I started our Christmas eBay Battle (he won, by the way), he listed an old TOKYObay watch that nobody seemed to want. 

Finally, a few weeks ago, someone purchased it. And a few days after shipping, Adam woke up to a case opened against him from a clearly insane person. 

He also discovered that this crazy person had left him negative feedback: 

Adam messaged the person and let him know that the listing did in fact state that the watch needed a battery, and that if he replaced the battery, the watch would work fine. The person responded, saying, 

All fine and good, right? Wrong. Because when someone opens a case against you and does not close it after it’s resolved, the amount that they paid for that item is “held” in PayPal, which means that you don’t have access to that money. In this case, it was only $35, but I’ve had people do this to me for items that cost well over $100.

Anyway, Adam kept asking the guy if he would close the case, and the guy just didn’t respond. The other problem was that even though the buyer seemed satisfied, he had already left negative feedback. Adam prides himself on his “over one thousand positive feedbacks” (NERD) and so this was really grating on him. (Fun eBay fact: The feedback percentage that shows up is calculated based on the last 12 months. So even though he had one bad apple, it was calculating as 98.2% positive feedback, which, if you do any buying or selling on eBay, you know is pretty freakin’ bad!)

I asked Adam if he had ever followed up with eBay to get the case closed and feedback removed and he hadn’t, so one day I logged into his account and decided to try to take care of it myself–I figured I would just tell them that we share the account.

Just in case any of you ever wondered about actually talking to a human at eBay–you can! Here’s how: 

So I did this and they immediately told me that I had to officially be added to the account to do anything related to it. I hung up and thought about how I could go around this. Since much of their customer support is outsourced, I decided to just call back and say my name was Adam Kempa. Would they really know that it can’t be a woman’s name? So devious, I know. 

Well, it turns out that NO they don’t know that Adam is a man’s name. Because when I called back and told them my name was Adam, the customer service rep didn’t even flinch. The best part about it was that the woman kept referring to me as Adam, which I was loving. She told me that the best solution was to have them contact the buyer to get them to close the case. I reiterated that I was also concerned about the negative feedback and this is where the story gets INSANELY GOOD. The woman could tell how upset I was about the negative feedback, and provided me with some words of wisdom.

I immediately called Erin and we both died laughing. 

We thought this was the best part of the story, until a few days later, Adam found the following message from eBay: 

Now that we know that I was conversing with a Disney Princess, it all makes sense. 

-Sarah 

I briefly mentioned a purchase I made at this sale, but promised a full rundown.  So here it is…

If you remember, I had planned to return to this sale on its last day and hopefully score some deals on Herend porcelain.  When I saw that the Herend was all sold, I had to come up with a new plan.  I was prepared to spend around $200 on Herend, so I figured, what the hell, might as well take a chance on something else.  Except I didn’t want to take a $200 risk on something non-Herend…

I ended up taking a $90 risk on this piece of Moorcroft pottery:

The photos don’t even do this justice.  It is handpainted and crazy beautiful.  The shiny glaze makes it look extra fancy.

Before this sale I had never even heard of Moorcroft pottery.  I did some brief research on it after the first day when Sarah and I visited the sale.  From what I can gather, Moorcroft started in England around the turn of the century.  Early pieces are crazy valuable because they are made by the founder William Moorcroft.  Later pieces are made by William’s son Walter and are still collectible, just not as pricey.  From what I can tell, Moorcroft is still made today.

Here’s what we’re dealing with people:

That’s some expensive-ass pottery.  $90 certainly seemed like a good investment.

I decided to buy this particular piece because it was the pomegranate design and I read that that style was highly desirable.  I also bought this piece because as I was looking at it, this dude started hovering near me.  He was staring at the bowl like it was a giant glass of water and he was in the Sahara.  Finally he said to me, “Are you going to buy that?"  I said I wasn’t sure and he asked to look at the bowl.  He explained that he was a Moorcroft collector and this was an excellent piece except that it looked like it had been repaired.  Really?  There were absolutely NO signs of this.  Not one line or discoloration that suggested the piece had ever been chipped or cracked. 

I walked around for awhile with the bowl and saw the guy staring at me and following me.  Then another guy, who had seen our interaction, came up and said, "I hope you know that that guy wants you to put that down.  He’s trying to convince you not to buy it so that he can."  So that was the final straw.  Of course, when you know someone wants something you have, it makes you want it more.

I did actually start to fall more and more in love with this bowl and even considered keeping it.  It was like a repeat of Little Dummy, where I decided I might be too in love with something to sell it, even though I knew I was probably going to make a lot of money.

In the end, I did sell the bowl, and I did make money:

Turns out though that the bowl might have once had a lid, which was now missing.  Two separate people messaged me to say that.  If it had a lid, the piece would have sold for twice as much.  Whomp whomp.

Overall though, still a good investment and return.  So keep an eye out everyone!

-Erin