Dig This Treasure!

Hey, remember a few weeks ago when Erin got into a fight with an auctioneer over some dirty old moccasins? Well, we’re going back there tonight so she can get them because they’re going to be back up on the auction block!

Last night Erin texted me to find out when I’d be at her house, and you would have thought we were going across the border to obtain some solid bars of gold with the way she was acting. I have to teach today until almost 5, so I let her know that there was nothing I could do to get there faster. At one point she asked me if I’d just meet her there because she was so worried about missing them. I’m a little worried about what might happen if she doesn’t actually win them. It will be a tearful ride home. I’m sure she’ll keep you posted.

-Sarah

I visited the Faberge exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts a few weeks ago, and it was there I had a revelation.  With my Herend porcelain collection growing so slowly, why am I not starting a NEW collection of adorable miniature boxes?!  I’ve always liked little things, and the little thing/storage box combo is even better.  Plus, there are so many trinket boxes in the world, that they will be MUCH easier to collect than high-priced ceramics.

Before I talk about my new collection though, let me say that if you have a chance to see the Faberge exhibit, then do it.  Go like right now.  It is so good.  

The House of Faberge is obviously the master of gorgeous little things.  I would probably cut off my right arm to own a piece of it.  I first became obsessed with Faberge after an episode of Antiques Roadshow, when some lady bought a piece of Faberge at auction for $15,000.  It turned out to be fake.

You can watch the video of this lady on the show here.  Such a bummer.

Luckily for me, I am not investing thousands into my new collection.  So far, I’ve spent about $20.  My first find was this little rabbit box, which I found at an estate sale last year for $3.

This box is metal (maybe brass) with enamel over top (kind of like Faberge on a way cheaper scale).  You can’t tell here but the top is not flat.  Areas are raised to make the rabbit more 3D.  

I love this box so much, and I figured there must be more out there like it.  There is no maker’s mark on the box, so I went through a slew of ebay searches (and hundreds of results) until I found this:

I won him for a mere $10.

There are two more of these guys on ebay now, but I haven’t bid yet.

If anyone has a clue who makes these, or leads on where I can find more, PLEASE let me know.

I should also mention that collecting little boxes runs in my family, so I am basically bred to be good at it.  My Aunt Cathy (Timmy’s sister) has an enormous collection of trinket boxes.  She sent me photos of her two favorites:

I actually bought her this one above, so she probably said it was her favorite just to woo me.

This second box she got from Timmy.  And I am saying RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW that I want this willed to me.  That box is the cutest of all time.  That little bro looks like he is wearing high heels (like a boss).

Aunt Cathy also collects other little things, in true Faberge spirit.  Here is her collection of miniature chairs:

I KNOW RIGHT?!?!  Incredible.

I’ll be sure to update you all on my box collection, so please don’t worry.

-Erin

Erin has mentioned getting some freebies at auctions in the past. Usually these are things that people end up getting in lots but don’t really want. I’ve been known to leave behind some stuff that I didn’t want at auctions too. Hey man, one person’s trash is another’s treasure!

I forgot to mention this in the entry about our adventures at the Tecumseh auction a few weeks ago. The people who run that joint are always willing to let you tell them what to put up next. I had eyed this adorable planter amid some gross rubble. It was dirty as heck but it didn’t have any chips or cracks or anything like that. 

I went to the front of the auction and grabbed it, and took it over to one of the homies working there. He asked where I found it and I gestured over to the table and he said, “Oh all that stuff has already been bought!” I felt like a giant ass, and then he said, “Those people are the ones who bought it all.” I looked at the couple and they kept making a “take it” gesture. I mouthed, “Are you sure?!” and the woman looked at me like I was crazy–like who in the heck would want that dirty sheep? Anyway, awesome for me because not only did I get my treasure but I got it for free! 

It cleaned up so beautifully and I have it up on eBay now. Seriously, I wish I had documented how filthy this thing was before I cleaned it up. Here it is now: 

Are you dying from the cuteness? I sure am. 

It seems like sometimes these things can go for crazy amounts of money, but so far none of the Relpo planters I’ve sold have gone for a whole lot. Then again, I’ve only sold one other. It was also adorable but it only sold for $10. I mean look at this one.

 It’s cute but is it worth $262?!

Apparently so! 

Anyway, if anyone has any idea about what makes some of these guys more valuable than others, let us know!

-Sarah

Sarah and I didn’t sale last Friday because there was supposed to be a snowpocalypse.  It snowed some, but the worst part was really how icy the roads seemed to be.  Anyway, I hit a sale on Saturday to make up for our loss.  The sale was right nearby and looked to have LOTS of cute things.

And, turns out, it did!

The problem was that everything was so expensive!  The tiered serving thing above was $30!  All of those cookie jars and vintage pitchers were $20+.

When I saw this old wicker baby scale for $50, I started to get annoyed.  That is a really neat item, but no one is going to pay $50 for it at an estate sale.  In fact, I didn’t see anyone at this sale buying much of anything, which is sad because there were a lot of nice things.

When I got in the basement there was this adorable, retro stove.

It’s too bad this thing was so heavy or else I probably would have considered buying it.  

I did find some old greeting cards for Sarah, and ending up making a deal on the whole lot for $20.  There were some really cute cards in here, all from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, so I feel like it was a good deal.

And amazingly, I found a vintage laundry cart.  I just cleaned up our basement laundry area and was telling Zach that I wanted some sort of vintage laundry holder/basket thing.  This little wheely guy was just the thing I needed!

Right now he is holding all of our clean socks:

I also found this tiered, wire fruit basket thing.  It reminds me of an old-timey supermarket or a 1950s kitchen item.  I’m also using this in our laundry area, although I haven’t figured out what to put in it yet.

I got both my laundry items for $10.  

-Erin

While I recover from the fact that Erin neglected to buy me one of those ADORABLE carvings last weekend, I want to tell you about another Fave Find. Erin is actually the person who found this item (at the house where I found those Michigan shaped cork coasters) and then let me buy it, so I’ll forgive her a little for the carving situation. 

Look at how cute that bear is. Someone loved the sh*t outta that bear. When I was taking his picture last night, I noticed how large the ear on the right was compared to the one on the left. Then I looked closer and noticed it was sewn on. I’m not sure what happened there, but it makes him even cuter. He is a jointed bear and seems to have some sort of noise maker inside because when you shake him around, he makes a quiet moany sort of sound. I love him. 

-Sarah

The same day that Zach and I scored those Briggs treasures, we swung by another sale and bought two items that are now  “fave finds” of mine.

When we arrived at the sale, I instantly noticed all of these wood carvings.  They were ADORABLE.  The woman running the sale informed me that the deceased owner of the estate had been quite the woodworker.  He made all of these figures and sold them throughout his life.  

I was immediately happy that I was going to be able to buy some of these, but also MEGA SAD that the family of this man didn’t want to keep these.  I started to stress out that all of these figures would be thrown in the trash when the sale ended.  

Unfortunately I couldn’t buy all of these guys because they were kind of pricey!  Originally they were $15-20 each!  Since it was Sunday, and the last day of the sale, they were all around $5-10.  

The first guy I found was this skiing rabbit:

If there are two things I love, they are skiing and rabbits.

Next I found this country singer lady:

Look at that little cowboy hat she is holding!  This is truly the greatest thing of all time.

Here is another view:

These carvings make me so happy.  They are funny and cute…important characteristics of any fave find.

What’s funny is I was writing this post and dropping it in our queue about the same time that our friend over at Monkeybox Blog was writing this great post about her own folk art collection.  I’m glad to see some fellow admiration for the effort that goes into woodcarving.  Very cool.

Ok, so last thing.  This is too hilarious not to mention.  When Zach and I left this sale, we noticed this yard:

And then this crazy guy ACROSS THE STREET AND IN A DITCH:

Penguin on the run!

Ok and for good measure, here is an old photo of me with a real penguin:

-Erin

After my strikeout the day before, Zach and I decided to stop by a nearby estate sale last Sunday after we went out for breakfast.  The pictures of the sale looked good, but when we arrived, the signs told us that the sale was in the basement only.  I figured that this meant there wouldn’t be very much for sale, and since we were there on the last day, that everything would be picked over.  

The sale was in fact small, but there was still a lot to look at.  Because of the confined space, I didn’t take any photos.  Here are our great finds though:

I found two giant foam fingers (Tigers and Red Wings) for my dad.  These aren’t particularly valuable, but they make great display pieces in a collection.  In time, these will look “vintage” and will be a nice nostalgic reminder of going to the games.

You can also see there are two pieces of Brigg Stadium memorabilia.  Zach noticed these in a display case at the sale, and I completely overlooked them.  They were already priced reasonably, but the seller said he would reduce the prices even more because it was the last day of the sale.

My dad was so happy about the pin on the left.  He said it is really rare, and he doesn’t even have one in his collection (he has a HUGE collection of Brigg Stadium stuff).  The item on the right is a pen topper, which isn’t as rare, but still very cool.  

I found this great lead alligator:

He is currently living on our kitchen windowsill, guarding my bisque chickens.

So when we went to check out, Zach and I realized that it was a cash only sale.  The guy running it told us $20 for everything in our pile and we started counting our money.  We had $14.  I was about to ask the guy what I should take out of the pile when he said, “Good enough. It’s all yours.”  How nice is that?!  We were thrilled.

And then, as we are about to leave, the seller guy says, “Oh hey, have fun hunting for TREASURE this summer.”  First off, I have never seen this guy before, so I don’t know how he knows I go to estate sales in the summer (or ever).  This could have been my very first estate sale for all he knew.  Second, he used the word “treasure!”  This leads me to believe he is a secret reader of this blog, which is AWESOME if true.  

So hey mystery man, if you are in fact reading this blog…HELLO!  And thanks for the mega deals!

-Erin 

Last Saturday, I noticed an advertisement for an antique/flea market in Monroe, MI.  I had no plans so I decided to take the 45 minute drive there and check it out.  I invited Sarah along, but she was busy.  Good thing she didn’t come because the trip was a major bust.

When I arrived at the “market” my first realization was that it was way smaller than I had envisioned it was going to be.  I was thinking more “Taylor Town Trade Center” and less “VFW Hall.”  Oh well, you can still fit lots of treasures in small spaces, right?

I LOVE that it says “FLEE” Market.  I think this was a secret signal telling people that they should turn around and run.  

Also of note here is the “No Animals Allowed” sign, which obviously means this is a reoccurring problem.

My next observation was that someone was playing fast and loose with the term “antiques.”  If this was an “antique market” then I am George Washington.

Ok so on to some “hard to resist” items:

See those patches in the case?  Can someone please explain to me what D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. means?  I’m all for long abbreviations (TTFYHO, anyone?) but I am not familiar with that one.  Dilligaf sounds like the name of a Pokemon.

That neon-colored thing is a bedazzled possum skull, surrounded by various other animal parts.  

I ended up buying some of these maple nut candy things and then hightailed it out of there.  I was so bummed that I had driven so far for nothing that I decided to search for antique stores in the area.  I found this:

Turns out they were open, as indicated by this window paint that says, “WE OPEN.”

When I went inside, I noticed again that in Monroe, MI there is some confusion over the word “antique.”

“Completely Up To Date!”

This entire set of hot sauces was $12, which is actually a great deal.  I don’t eat hot sauce though because even ground pepper is too spicy for me.  

I left here empty handed and made the sad 45 minute drive back to Livonia.  I stopped at the thrift store in a last ditch attempt at finding a treasure.  I bought this IZOD shirt:

I wore it for about two days before I realized it was not very cute.  And when I asked Zach if he agreed, he politely informed me that it wasn’t my best fashion choice.

Man! I just couldn’t win.  Even at that night’s Plymouth auction, here is what greeted me:

OK, that is TOTALLY a snake case.  I have never seen a more snake case-looking snake case in my life.

-Erin

P.S. I left the Plymouth auction after about 10 minutes, empty-handed.  Whomp whomp.

Back in August, Adam and I had found three old Kik-Steps at that sale with all of the Letterpress gear. These are pretty pricey brand new, so we were excited to buy each of them for between $6 and $8. They were in pretty grungy shape, but over Christmas break, Adam began fixing them up. He says that all he had to do was order $24 worth of supplies from The Library Store, and he was in business. Here’s one of the newly improved Kik-Steps in our kitchen (the red one in the background is one that he got for me a few years ago, new): 

Adam spent countless hours sitting in front of the TV, cleaning these suckers and watching bad action movies or documentaries about pinball. I appreciate his hard work, but I will admit that I did make fun of him quite a bit during the process. 

The coolest thing was that on two of them, he was able to salvage the old Kik-Step rubber logo on top, which is way cooler than the new one: 

  Thanks, Adam!

-Sarah

We’ve been having a lot of luck at auctions lately, but estate sales as of late, especially for me, have been disappointing.  Last Friday, I was hoping this would all change.  There were tons of sales, and some looked pretty decent.  We set out first to Huntington Woods because the house looked packed with old stuff.  

There was a lot of old stuff, just nothing very exciting.  This thing in the foreground above was a knitting machine, but it looked all broken.  It would be very neat to see it in action though.

Everything at this sale was just “stuff.”  Stuff we didn’t really have a use for, and stuff that we couldn’t resell.  I did see this though:

And a questionable coloring book page:

And this doll that looks like Sarah:

This doll reminds me of every Friday when Sarah says, “Can you tell I didn’t shower?” and then I say, “Yes, yes I can.”

Speaking of Sarah, she found this:

And can you believe she didn’t buy it for me?! RUDE.

I didn’t buy anything at this sale, or at the next sale actually.  This one was in Ferndale, at the same location as the Girl Scout sale a few weeks ago.

Looks like Sarah is holding some porcelain dogs in the photo above (shocking).  I don’t know if she bought them.  Everything else here looked like thrift store overflow.  And to top it off, our favorite jabber jaws (you know, “THAT GUY”)  was here shopping.  I overheard him telling a story about stealing from another sale.  In this story, he explained how his crime was totally justified.  Here was his logic:

“That guy” went to a sale and it was a totally packed “digger” sale.  He rummaged through a bunch of stuff, found something super valuable (I think he said it was something gold or silver), and took it to the register to ask for the price.  They told him a couple hundred dollars.  He then said to the sellers, “This is the last time I work so hard to rummage through stuff for you and find the good stuff you’ve missed.  How dare you try to rip me off with that price.  Next time, I won’t be bringing the item up to you after I find it.”  "That guy" then proceeds to tell his buddy how sure enough at the next sale run by these sellers he dug up a fine, fancy treasure and pocketed it.  

Not okay.  Not even like a little bit ok.

We left this sale and noticed a vintage store nearby.  We stopped in and I lounged on this spaceship chair:

Sarah tripped over a table in this place and knocked it over.  I looked the other way while repeating, “Don’t knock stuff over.”  We scooted out of there right after and headed to our next sale, which I don’t remember the location of.  The house was adorable though:

There were all of these dollhouse room diorama things:

This one reminded me of the style in our house:

Sarah made some good finds at this house, but again, I came up empty handed.  I couldn’t believe it!  I hadn’t bought anything all day!  We had one more house to visit, and when we got there, things didn’t look promising.

Hmm, I don’t need any bullets.  And we all know I hate shells.

I did find two treasures.  They weren’t magnificent, but they were treasures nonetheless.  First up was this set of vintage duck drinking glasses:

I put these up on ebay because I saw that others like them sold for about $30.

I also found this tablecloth, which if I remember correctly is Polish.

I only spent $8 this day, which is nice, but like I said, I am really itching for some better scores!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Even I didn’t spend much on this trip, which is unheard of. At the first sale, I found the two best things in the place, which were this adorable sweater and a Napco planter: 

I could tell Erin was super jealous of this find. She made me promise to give it to her if I didn’t want it anymore. The Napco planter features Mary and Jeezo. It’s so cute! But I’m going to sell it. I guess Jesus was last week’s theme. 

When I parked the car at the second sale, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my mom crossing the street with her friend Joyce. As mentioned before, my mom and her friend have become estate sale junkies ever since my mom first came with us to a few sales in the summer. She had a giant box of stuff in her hands, which is more proof that we are related. I had never met Joyce and wanted to, so Erin and I ran across the (main, busy) road and I began waving my hands wildly to get my mom’s attention. You could tell my mom just thought I was a wild maniac stranger until she opened the car door and got a closer look. In her defense, I did have on a giant puffy coat and huge sunglasses. We actually bumped into them again later in the day, which tells you something about the sale quality–there were only a few good ones.

Anyway, I bought some dog statues and a cool vintage drinking glass featuring “Miss Miracle Mile” from Traverse City. It’s not dated but my guess is 1950s. 

At the cute house, I bought two things but one of them I want to feature separately. Here’s the other: 

Nothing in the house was priced, so when I checked out the woman told me these were $3. That’s pretty outrageous but I paid it because they were brand new in a box and one of my dogs recently chewed apart all of my cork coasters. And these ones are super adorable. 

At the last sale, I found a few cool things. A vintage Diane von Furstenberg plaid flannel shirt, some old colored vinyl children’s records, and some cool wrapping paper. 

I also bought another cool antique wedding portrait with something written in another language (Polish, Swedish, Slovak?) on the back side.

I tried Google Translate with no luck. Anyone know what it says?