Dig This Treasure!

A month or so ago, Erin and I were out on a Friday and I came across this very adorable diary: 

Five dollars seemed a little steep but I thought it would probably have some cool stuff inside. Then I opened it and wanted to cry: 

I thought to myself, “Oh… that’s so sad but also so cute…” but then it just got worse: 

Then I thought, “Well.. maybe January was just a boring month…”… But every day was exactly like this:

I was glad to see that by that point, she had added a few more words and started referring to the diary by name. 

Finally, in early September, TWO YEARS LATER, something happened: 

She got an infection in her ovaries (whaaaaa?!) and her teacher wanted her to try out for speech. Finally, some action!

Elsewhere in the house, I found this picture, and I like to think that it’s the diary’s author: 

-Sarah

A few Saturdays ago, Erin and I headed to Howell for an auction. You may have heard of Howell, due to it’s lovely history. Adam actually tagged along this time because they were selling a guitar and a really old Victrola. 

When we arrived at the auction, we could tell it was going to be interesting. There was a trailer with windows (sort of like the thing you see at carnivals where they sell elephant ears) right outside the venue, and I honestly got excited because I thought that’s where they were selling concessions. Turns out that was where you got your number and paid at the end of the auction. We got inside the place where the auction was happening and discovered that it was even weirder:

They were doing a slideshow of the items for sale and if you wanted to see them in person, you had to go to the actual estate. We got there right when the auction began, so we had to haul ass to try to get to the house, look at stuff, and then get back in time to bid on it. They gave us a list, thankfully, so we knew the order of things. We both took note of the fact that it was a VERY long list.  

The neighborhood where this house was located was really cute and full of historic looking homes. When we got inside, we were sort of blown away. Everything in the house was high-end and in good shape. And they had some really cool stuff. We did a pretty bad job of taking pictures of the cool stuff, but here is the guitar that Adam was interested in, next to a real carousel horse:

The house was really large, and full of so many beautiful things–especially furniture. 

Do you see that Tiffany floor lamp on the left? Remember it because I’m going to refer to it a little later… 

The house had a huge kitchen with tons of beautiful serving sets and glassware.

I felt really overwhelmed by the quantity of stuff to look at and try to find on the list of items. There was also a huge upstairs with lots of rooms. One room was filled with old (I mean OLD) dolls and bears. I cannot explain to you how badly I wanted some of them. 

That’s a bad picture–there were a ton of other bears and dolls on a shelf adjacent to those guys. I wanted that third bear in SO BADLY. 

There was also this little log cabin behind the house. It looked like something that Snow White and her dwarfs would live in. I’m not sure what purpose it served but it was cool looking. We found out that they were also auctioning the house, so whoever won it was really lucky!

There I am, going to see what awaits me in the magic cabin. 

Both Erin and I were pretty overwhelmed, so we decided to just head back. When we arrived, we discovered that the auctioneers hadn’t even made it through half of the first page! This was a bad sign because there were at least four double-sided pages of items. They were also accepting bids online, which slowed down the process and increased prices. It was also really hard to understand the auctioneer, because he would say like 3 different prices in one “badda badda badda” thing that he did, and so you were constantly like, “WHAT PRICE AM I AGREEING TO?!” in your mind. It was so bad that at one point, Erin almost bid TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS on that Tiffany lamp I mentioned earlier. She thought she was bidding $25! CLOSE CALL. 

I got more and more irritated the longer we were there, because they were just taking so long to sell things, everything was being sold for a lot of money, and my beloved bears were pages and pages away. It took awhile, but eventually I came to terms with the fact that there was no chance we’d be able to stay until those bears went up. I was super bummed. 

I don’t understand why people were paying so much for the stuff… they didn’t really look like people who had Benjamins to throw around… There were a lot of grey ponytails and a lot of embroidered denim. 

In the end, I won the contents of a china cabinet and two HUGE lots of books. Erin won a lot of two horse statues. One of them was cast iron and very old looking. She’s going to do a separate post on that guy because, as usual, she’s a lucky b*tch.

Back to me. Let’s start with the books. Somehow, I had missed an entire library in the house. However, when they put the slides up for the book lots, the books looked OLD so of course I wanted them. I figured that if these people owned that many nice, valuable things, their books must also be worth money.

I did not realize until arriving at the house to pick up my items just how many books I had won. While I was trying to box up the contents of the china cabinet, someone took Adam into the book room to start gathering my books. When I got inside there, I received a death look like no other. Here is my trunk after all of the books were packed inside: 

Note that there are three bags in the back that are filled, besides all of the loose ones there. I could tell Erin was loving the book situation. Adam is a very patient man.

Anyway, I started listing them on eBay and some of them are really neat! 

I was a little nervous on the ride home. Adam was in the back seat, simultaneously whining about how insane I was for buying that many books and looking up some of the things I won in the china cabinet. Here he is, showing Erin what he thinks of the painted white fruit I won:

The results of his searches seemed pretty dismal, but the one thing in the china cabinet that seemed like it might save me (AKA help me make my money back) was a heavy cut crystal decanter. 

From what he and Erin could tell, those seemed to sell and so I thought I might end up even. Well, turns out I’m also a lucky b. When I went to list the decanter, I tried to look at other cut crystal decanters and started noticing a few that looked identical to mine listed as Waterford. But as far as I could tell, there were no markings on the one I had. Then I looked closer and saw this: 

When I saw that marking, I wanted to do a whole cheer routine! Whoop Whoop! Sold that sucker for $94 last night. 

Oh also, when we were leaving the auction, Adam spotted this in the parking lot: 

Yes, those are someone’s granny panties on the blacktop. 

-Sarah

I know you all have been pining for a porcelain update.  I have heard your cries, and here now, is the current status of my porcelain collection.

I’ve been exclusively buying Herend porcelain, and more exclusively, porcelain in the Herend “fishnet” pattern.  Back in September, I caught wind of a special Herend event happening in Troy, at Nieman Marcus.  The event was at the end of October, so I counted the days with a reminder calendar on our fridge.  

The day arrived, and I hiked out (despite having a cough & cold), to buy me some high-priced ceramics.  The event featured a Herend artist, direct from Hungary!  She was handpainting figurines right there in the store!

This woman did not speak English, but I proceeded to tell her that I admired her work and loved Herend and blah blah.  

There were a lot of figurines to choose from, and I was so excited because this was the first time I had ever been in the presence of more than one Herend piece available for purchase.  Up until this point, I had only bought Herend at an auction, and on ebay.

I wanted to buy a piece in the lavender fishnet pattern because it is a newer released color.  Here is what I chose:

I even had the artist write “Herend Event 2012” on the bottom, and sign her name!

So my collection now stands at 4 pieces of Herend fishnet figurines.  I had a giant cat too, but I am selling him on ebay right now because I want to buy a cuter piece to replace him. Also, I’m aware of the rabbit to non-rabbit ratio here, and don’t worry, I hope to remedy that in the future.

But wait, there’s more!

So a few weeks after the Herend event, I randomly stopped at an estate sale while out buying dog food.  And lo and behold, they had a piece of Herend!  Priced at $10!  It’s not fishnet pattern, but it is still super pretty.  He is displayed on the shelf below the fishnet pieces.

Again, if you/your mom/your grandma/your neighbor/your anybody has some Herend porcelain they are looking to sell, let me know!  I have 100% positive feedback on ebay, so you know I’m legit. 

-Erin

So remember that time I got lured to an “estate sale” and instead ended up at a commune where they were spray-painting indoors?  I should have learned my lesson then about going off the grid, but apparently I didn’t.

I’ve been meaning to write about this insane adventure for awhile now, but haven’t had the chance.  So now, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story, “The Tale of the Bone Collector.” [Throws magic dust into the fire.]

P.S. If you don’t get that Midnight Society joke, get outta here (or google it).

Ok, so a few months ago, I was driving through Redford and noticed this weird little hut on the side of the road.  It was small, and junky, and said “Antiques.”  Perfect! I love antiques!

This man greeted me, and he seemed nice enough.  A little strange but nice.  As I chatted with him more though, I got that feeling in my stomach that Oprah used to talk about–the one where you are supposed to drop whatever you are doing and run.  At one point, the man said, “Where do you live?”  And I told him “Livonia.”  And then he said, “No no, what’s your address?”

My address?  Hmm, this man didn’t appear to work for the post office, so the request was questionable to say the least.  I laughed the question off, and went inside to look at the “antiques.”

Things were weirder inside.  And dirty.  Like really super crazy dirty.

The floor for all I know was 2 feet below me.  I was walking on compounded debris. And there were bones everywhere.  I am not making this up.  Here is a bucket of bones.

Which is cool.  I like bones.  I like taxidermy.  In this context though, things felt real spooky.

Ok, and see that muscle man photo in the ziploc?  Here, I’ll zoom in:

That muscle man runs the place.  I forget his name, but here he is now:

Well, the back of him anyway.  This guy told me he was 88, but he didn’t look a day past 75.  I liked him.  He was nice.  A little messy, but nice.  I started asking him about his place, and about antiques.  And he told me about when he was a muscle man.  Things were good, 15 minutes passed.

Then he pulled out this binder, and told me he was going to show me something.  Something he doesn’t show many people.  I had that Oprah run-for-your-life feeling again, but I stayed.  What if he wanted to show me (and give me) a bunch of gold bars?  Or maybe he had photographic evidence of UFOs or solid proof of a JFK assassination conspiracy.  I had to know what was in the binder.

So what was in the binder?  See for yourself:

Alright…baseball pics.  Cool…

Look at the pen writing on the leg of that player.  Every photo had commentary like this.

If you can’t read that pen writing, it says, “THIS IS SAD FOR BASEBALL.  IF YOU ARE A TEAM, DRESS LIKE A TEAM,” and, “IS THIS WHAT BASEBALL IS COMING TOO?  PAJAMAS?”  And there are arrows pointing to all of the players ankles.  

As it turns out, this man is single-handedly on a crusade against the length of modern-day baseball pants.  And I think he has a point here.  Those pants look sloppy!

He explained to me that he collects this binder of photos, writes his commentary on them, and then mails an example every month to Mike Ilitch, the owner of the Detroit Tigers.  He then told me that he hasn’t heard back from Ilitch, so he’s been sending examples to the newspapers and local TV news stations.  

I didn’t really know what to tell him except to keep up his crusade and that he was, “Fighting the good fight,” which I really think he is.  Pull up your pants you dummies!

I didn’t buy any antiques, but I did leave with an asthma attack, and with a new realization that you really can collect anything.  Sarah collects gross porcelain, and I collect nice porcelain, and this man, well, he collects an arsenal of scribbled on baseball pics.

-Erin

So, I’ve written in the past about how the most rewarding part of finding things at estate sales and reselling them on eBay (besides sometimes hitting big) is how much new stuff I learn about old things, and how cool it feels to connect someone to something they end up cherishing. I never used to consider myself a person who got excited about really old stuff–I’ve never liked historical fiction and I’ve never gotten excited about seeing old historical documents in person. History just seems boring when you grow up learning about it through textbooks.

But obviously that’s changed over the years, and one thing I’ve always loved are photographs, I guess because they capture a REAL moment in time in a way that no other medium can. So I’ve written about a few different types of photographs I’ve found and discovered are valuable by accident. My favorite photos to find are ones of people with their pets, just because I’m an animal lover. I’m thinking of starting a recurring type of entry that features those pictures.

Anyway, I’ve periodically come across photographs that seem really old and are mounted on hard, round edged, smooth cardstock. They’re always priced a little higher than other cards, which is why I’ve never bought very many. Well, last week Erin and I hit a sale where there was tons of old paper, including a huge box of dirty (as in not clean) antique photographs. I grabbed the whole thing. There were lots of different kinds of pictures but many of them were like these:

After doing some research, I discovered that these are called cabinet cards. There’s actually a really helpful Wikipedia entry about cabinet cards and provides some info that can help you date them. In general, they were the popular style of portrait photographs between 1870 and the 1890s. There were 22 of these in the lot I found, but unfortunately, because they were stored in bad conditions, they aren’t in super great shape. Here’s a picture of most of them: 

I have them up on eBay now, if you’re interested.

The other cool thing is that along with these photographs, I found lots of other ephemera (letters, cards, etc.), including the wedding invite for that baby in the lower right corner! The back of that picture said “Beulah” and in an envelope in a stack of papers, I found this:

Sort of sad, but also sort of cool!

So the other thing I learned about cabinet cards is that the most valuable ones are either post-mortem pictures of children, or pictures of Civil War era soldiers. Speaking of post-mortem photos, here’s an update on mine from a week or so ago:

So yes, there are lots of individuals out there who like to collect antique pictures of dead people, and they’ll pay you a lot of money for them.

One last thing–even more valuable are carte de visite (CDV) photographs, which are from the era before cabinet cards became popular. So keep your eyes peeled for those!

-Sarah

After visiting the Southfield Antique Expo last weekend, I went home and took a brief nap, then met up with my parents to go to my favorite Plymouth auction.  My parents had never been to this auction, but they were used to my endless chatter about it being quite the honeyhole.  Sarah was planning to join us this evening, but when I arrived and saw the items for sale, I texted her and told her not to come.  Everything was REALLY lame.

I was bummed out because I knew how excited my parents were to score some treasures, and it really didn’t look like that was going to happen.

But then Timmy started unrolling some old posters, and realized they were some pretty rare hockey and baseball ones.  One poster in particular, of Gordie Howe, was something my dad had only seen one other time.  That one, had been all ripped up, and still sold for about $50.  The one here at the auction was in mint condition.  I knew that we were all in for a long night, and that Timmy was NOT leaving without those posters.

In the meantime, I bid on and won some old glass pharmacy bottles.  I paid $5 for all of them, and ended up selling them on ebay a few days later for $20.

Usually at this auction, an item goes up for bidding, and no one wants it.  The auctioneers then throw in another item, and so on and so forth, until someone finally bids.  At one point, someone ended up buying about 6 huge boxes of glassware for $5. They picked what they wanted out of it, and then announced that anyone who wanted to could come take stuff for free.

I grabbed a nice marble cheese plate, two Pyrex casserole dishes with lids, and this old cookie jar that looks like an orange.

I sold this thing for $14 on ebay already, which isn’t bad for something I got free.

I should also mention that Zach’s parents were at the auction, and his aunt and uncle.  Aunt Sue scored some nice dishes out of the free stuff pile, and Zach’s mom bought some nice antique silverplate pieces.  Zach’s dad was the winner by far, buying a cool old sword for a mere $40.

But then Timmy’s items came up for bidding, and it was clear he was going to be the night’s champion.  He bought a huge lot of the baseball posters for $13 first.  Then, the auctioneer tried selling 3 boxes of old hockey video games, VHS tapes, and ephemera.  Nobody bid on it, so the auctioneer threw in the Gordie Howe poster.  My dad started bidding against another guy, and I thought that the price was going to skyrocket.  The other guy bowed out at $16 and it was true happiness for Tim.  Here is a sample of the goods, including the desirable poster (far right):

He also got a huge folder with old war papers and documents.  Super cool.  And in the VHS tapes, he found a film about old Olympia Stadium and its official closing in 1979.  He is having it transferred to DVD and keeping it for his collection.

Here’s Tim later that evening, celebrating:

Fun fact is that my dad ONLY drinks Molson Ice beer, which no restaurant has because ANY ice beer is disgusting and embarrassing to order in public.  So in this photo, my dad is sampling a craft beer, which he ended up hating, and not ordering.  Another fact is that my dad once said, “Who drinks craft beer?” while we were AT a craft brewery, where he then proceeded to try and order a Molson Ice.

-Erin

On Sunday morning, I woke up to the sound of Erin texting me about an auction in Tecumseh that afternoon. Tecumseh is about 25 miles west of where I live, so I was thrilled at the prospect of Erin coming to my side of town. Also, the pictures of looked pretty awesome.

When we arrived, the woman who owned the “gallery” where the auction was taking place mentioned that some of the items pictured online might no longer be available. I thought Erin was going to throttle her. After we got our numbers, we walked away and Erin growled, “Is it wrong that I’m really annoyed right now?!?!” I don’t know what she saw online that she thought might be unavailable, but damn girl, calm yourself. 

We walked around and checked everything out. The nice thing about this auction was that they gave everyone a list of items and then went through it in order. This was cool because there were no surprises. You knew when you could go get a snack or go to the bathroom. I didn’t do either of these things but I liked that it was an option. 

We took our seats and got ready for the auction to start. Here was our view:

As you can see, it was not a packed house, which made it even better.

Now, I’ll be honest. When we did our rounds, neither of us saw a whole lot of anything that we HAD to have. But once the bidding began, we quickly realized that the crowd was not willing to pay much for anything there, and there were quite a few valuable items.

One of the first things on the list that I hadn’t noticed displayed was a box of pieces of Bybee Pottery. I know about this pottery because my parents used to collect it. I’ve actually been inside the Bybee store, possibly on more than one occasion. I’ve probably blocked it out of my memory because, as a child, it wasn’t very entertaining to spend hours at a pottery store in Kentucky on a family vacation. Anyway, as an adult I’m thankful for these experiences, because they give me the knowledge I need to make dolla dolla bills, y'all. So yes, Bybee pottery can be valuable, and the people running this auction sort of knew that, but sort of didn’t really. The had the big lot listed as “BB Pottery,” I think because the bottom of Bybee stuff is marked “BB” and they probably found some of those listings on eBay. Anyway, bottom line is–I won a whole moving box of the stuff for $5. I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it or selling it.

The entire auction was very entertaining for a number of reasons. First, Erin and I both had a secret crush (came out on the ride home) on the auctioneer. Second, there were these two women in the front who were serious know-it-alls. They kept chiming in, telling the auctioneer how old things were or what they were used for. It was unreal. But it was also super hilarious.  Everyone would be silent waiting for the auctioneer’s description of an item and then you would just hear this brute woman yell, “THAT’S OVER A HUNDRED YEARS OLD. YES THAT’S VERY NICE.  VERY RARE.” and on and on. Third, it was entertaining because clearly people were SHOCKED that we were willing to pay more than $5 for things that we either wanted or wanted to sell. And finally, the printed list of items gave Erin an opportunity to entertain me with drawings. At one point they were auctioning off a lamp and the auctioneer noticed there was a dead spider on it. The worst know-it-all woman proceeded to jump up and yell, “Don’t touch that, it’s a black widow!” Erin and I could not stop laughing. Here is her illustrated response:

In the end, we came out with so much stuff that Erin’s little Jetta was packed to the gills. I have no idea why or how neither of us captured this photographically, but I assure you that the quantity was insane. I even sent this text to Adam after I got home:

I took some risks on the stuff that I got, but the coolest thing by far was this old Monroe adding machine that still has its original cord and works!

I spent five dollars on it and it varies but they do seem to sell for quite a bit of cash on eBay. We’ll see! 

While we were checking out, Erin said that three different women came up to her and said something along the lines of, “SOOOO…eBay, huh?” in a disapproving manner. Clearly these people were 1) used to being able to come to this place and not pay very much for things they wanted and 2) not happy with some youngins comin’ in and sweepin’ up. So the regulars there were not happy about our presence… but you know what? Too bad, y'all!

-Sarah

Update from Erin: OK, yes I was annoyed when we got there.  You can’t be all like HEY PPL WE ARE HAVING AN AUCTION HERE ARE PICS OF ALL THE STUFF WE ARE GOING TO SELL, and then when people drive over an hour to get there, tell them that you already presold a bunch of stuff.  That is like Auction Etiquette 101.  So rude.

But then I started looking around and things looked pretty cool.  I wanted nearly all of the furniture in the place.

I did buy one piece of furniture actually.  This old, primitive trunk was the perfect size for the end of our bed.  We had another trunk there, but it was too big, so sometimes I crashed into it when walking around in the dark.  Plus, this trunk is just so darn cool looking.

I also bid on some junk I didn’t really need, like some vintage frosted glass sundae cups and a bunch of Barry Goldwater campaign memorabilia.  (George was wearing the hat from this lot on Tuesday.)  Everything was so cheap though, I just figured what the heck.

At one point, I tried to buy a Wendy’s frostie off the guy in front of me.  His friend brought him one, and when I saw, I offered him $10 for it.  He was more than willing to take the deal, but I felt kind of bad about it, so I revoked the offer.

The money I saved on the Frostie bought me some pink Depression plates (on ebay now!) and a silver tea set by Sheffield.  Some Sheffield sets sell for hundreds of dollars!  I was excited when I bought this, but it only ended up selling for $32 (I paid $20 for it).

What I did love about this tea set was that it was BLACK when I bought it.  Just totally covered with tarnish.  I planted myself in front of the tv and used silver polish to clean the hell out of it.  It took a few hours, but I was amazed at how shiny the set really was. I found the process of polishing silver really gratifying, so I hope I get to do it again soon.

Alright, so the last thing to mention was the check out process.  Sarah mentioned this, but I’ll reiterate that at least 4 or 5 people walked up to me and said things like, “eBay, huh?”  or “Sooo…eBay?”  or “Must be an eBayer!”  I don’t know when eBay became such a dirty word, but I felt like I had to respond to these people in a hushed tone.  I told a few of them that we keep most of the things we buy (kind of true), but you could tell they were skeptical and disapproving.  

Next time we go to this auction, we will both be wearing scarlet letters.  Sarah in general already wears like 6 scarlet letters, so her letter for being an eBayer might have to be mini sized.  I’ll be wearing mine like Alvin & the Chipmunks.

This past weekend, our husbands were busy finishing up a record they’ve been working on for over a year, so Erin and I were orphans. Clearly this meant that we had to find more opportunities to blow our money on old sh*t. We succeeded in this mission.

A few weeks ago, I had read about this Antique Expo that was going to be happening in Southfield, so Erin and I decided to check it out on Saturday morning. 

On our way there, Erin had speculated that this event might be a little too baller for us, and she was right. It was a huge event with lots of different dealers and collectors, and things were priced much higher than you’d find at an estate sale.

Luckily, there were a lot of rich people perusing the displays, so the sellers were in luck. Erin and I aren’t rich, but we don’t exactly look like we stepped off the set of Newsies either… 

…so I’m not sure why we were so consistently ignored at the various booths.

I mean, little did they know that one of us will pay some fat cash for the right piece of porcelain. AND we each had to pay $8 to step foot in the joint… so c'mon!

Anyway, we walked around and looked at stuff while people ignored us. There was some really cool stuff at this expo, but unfortunately, my pockets were not deep enough to buy most of the stuff that was interesting to me. Here is a table that I was coveting: 

It looked cooler in person. And that peace sign isn’t part of it. But anyway, it was $500. 

Here is a leather rhino that Erin was coveting: 

He was about $900. [Edit from Erin: The tag clearly says $850.]

In the end, I bought some old overpriced postcards and photographs from this person: 

…as well as some old metal stamps for Adam that I forgot to photograph. 

Some other cool things I saw:

A bird mansion…

and a collection of miniature books. 

Erin ended up purchasing a piece of scrimshaw from a smooth operator. I think it’s illegal to sell ivory or something. Hence, the title of this post. I’ll let her tell you more about it. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: It’s true that people treated us like vagabonds at this sale, which is such a bummer and awkward.  Oh well.

It is also true that the stuff at this show was pretty baller.  The leather rhino that Sarah mentioned earlier is a SUPER RARE piece sold by Abercrombie & Fitch in the 50s/60s. People go mad collecting these, hence the crazy price.  I only knew what this was because Zach has been coveting a similar elephant for forever.  

I was empty handed until the end of this sale, when I noticed a piece of scrimshaw tucked away in a showcase.  This particular piece was a sperm whale tooth with a scrimshaw whale design.  It has been a dream of mine to own some real scrimshaw, but it is really really expensive…not to mention illegal if it’s whale.  Since 1973, it is illegal to sell whale ivory, unless it is an antiquity (over 100 years old).  You still see scrimshaw on elk bone and replica whale teeth, but most authentic whale bone scrimshaw is in museums or personal collections. 

The seller told me that he bought the piece from a zoology professor at MSU downsizing his collection.  There was no price tag on the piece, so he quickly spouted out that he would take $150 for it.  I got him down to $140 and was thrilled.  I think I got a mega deal here, since REPLICA scrimshaw sells for that much on ebay.  

And at a Nantucket scrimshaw gallery, pieces sell for over $1,000.  My piece is definitely not as old as those super high-priced pieces, but I do think that $140 was a steal.

I went home and made a cool wood stand for the tooth and am now displaying it proudly.

Ok, and before anyone gets hot and bothered, I am a Whale Wars fan.  That said, whaling used to be an important necessity, and the culture of whalers is fascinating.  I’m not down with the modern day hunt for endangered whales, but I am SO DOWN WITH THIS OLD SCRIMSHAW.  If you have any, hit me up ASAP.  I’ll pay porcelain prices for that shiz.

-Erin

This is a reallllly delayed post, but better late than never, right?! 

Adam and I travelled out to Connecticut to visit my brother and his family at the end of August. During our visit, my sister-in-law and nieces and nephew had to go back to work/school, so we decided to take some day trips. One of the places Adam had read about was “Pioneer Valley” in Massachusetts. There are a bunch of little college towns in that area all pretty close together, along with the Eric Carle Museum (!!!) and Adam found a few specific places that looked worthy of visiting. One of these was Montague, which is a little town that has a bookstore inside an old gristmill, called the Montague Bookmill. 

Adam and I are both lovers of used books (obviously), and this place did not disappoint: 

Isn’t it dreamy? 

The other cool thing besides these amazing reading areas was that there was an upstairs that had a bunch of little rooms that you had to go up one or two more stairs to get to. Here is a picture of Adam in one of those rooms: 

I found many book treasures at this place, for very reasonable prices. The only disappointment for me was that there weren’t more cool children’s books. 

Also cool were the walls of the bathrooms in this place–they were covered with various pictures and newsclippings, and now I wonder if they are all found “bookmarks” in the books sold there over the years? 

The other very awesome thing about this place was that there was a cafe/bar connected to the end of it, so after you bought your new treasures, you could go enjoy them outdoors with a glass of beer and look at the Sawmill River.

Bottom line: If you find yourself in the middle of Massachusetts, check this place out!

Here is a bonus picture of me at the Eric Carle Museum: 

-Sarah