Dig This Treasure!

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch on a Saturday night (thrilling I know), and stumbled on a listing for the Midland Flea Market and Antique Show happening that weekend.  Zach and I decided that we HAD to wake up early the next day and make the 2 hour trek to it.  The listing said that the show was on 80 acres of property, which is insane and alluring.

I don’t know much about Midland, MI but I can say now that it is cold there (and windy) and they like cars.  Most of the 80 acres was filled with rusty car parts and a car racing arena.  The remaining half acre or so was antiques.  Luckily they were good antiques!

My first find was this large wooden figure (knight? religious man?) that opens up for storing clandestine adult drinks.

I paid $15 for him which I think was pretty fair.  I’m not sure if he’s even old, or if he came from Pier One or something, but I love him.

I was really on the hunt for some nice porcelain, but came up short.  There were 2 booths that had Herend stuff, but they were priced crazy high.  I did find this booth selling porcelain and ceramic housewares.  Isn’t this the coolest idea?  So cute.

My two favorite finds of the day were farm related and both made out of tin.  The first is another egg scale for my collection, and the second is an old chicken toy that poops out a little egg when you press on its head.  I know “poops out”  isn’t the correct biological term here, but you get the idea.

Zach got these neat old books, one of which has some seriously spooky illustrations.  Also, for the record, Sarah’s nickname in high school was “Jumbo Crusoe.”  (And you all thought it was “Pleasure Chest”…)

Here’s a book that Zach decided not to buy:

-Erin

I think I have officially made my best estate sale score ever.  You might remember my mini Tigers nodder that sold for $429.  That was awesome, but I had to make a pretty hefty upfront investment on that little guy.  Recently though, I bought an old handcarved duck decoy for a mere $10.  

I knew that old decoys were valuable, but I had NO CLUE how valuable.  Here’s how it all went down:

$400 for a wood duck?  Incredible.

Turns out that I had a good eye on this one, but also a bit of dumb luck.  The maker of this duck is a renowned Michigan carver, and jacked the price up considerably.  After the auction ended, I contacted the  buyer to ask him a bit more about the duck.  Here is his response:

Hi Erin, That decoy was by a recognized carver who made his decoys in the “Detroit” style of carving. That school (style) of carving was done by quite a few people in and around the Detroit, MI area. It is recognized by alot of wing and feather carving. Neil Smith was not a real well known decoy maker from the area, however the bird was in very nice original condition, with no bad dings, chips, original paint with no repairs, etc. In other words, the decoy was in excellent condition and in a style that is desirable to alot of Michigan decoy collectors. I was surprised that it took off to that amount myself, however, the price was fair for a bird of that condition. I am looking forward to getting it, and already have a spot on my shelf picked out where it will sit.

Very cool.  I particularly love that he had a spot picked out for the duck.  When I buy stuff, I always imagine first where I can display it.

So keep your eyes out for old duck decoys everyone!

-Erin

If you frequent garage and estate sales, you’ve probably seen piles of Life Magazines on multiple occasions. I have an ongoing joke with Erin about my inability to resist these piles, but these days I seem to do much better. I’ve learned my lesson. The truth about Life Magazine is that very few issues are valuable. They’re also a complete pain in the tookus to ship.

The Marilyn Monroe issue seems to be the top seller. I’ve never found one of those, but I have found multiple copies of the various Beatles issues, and I’ve found multiple copies of the Charles Manson issue: 

Copies of this issue sell between $15 and $40 depending on the condition and how many others like it are up at any given time. The article about the Manson family is also pretty lengthy and interesting, so I can see why people want it. Anyway, the first time I sold one of these, someone offered me $20 for it. I quickly accepted, because old issues of Life should only cost you a dollar or two at estate sales (and in this case that was true), so this is a decent profit. 

This time around, I listed the issue for $23.99 and had no takers, so I relisted it a day or two ago for $17.99. Last night, I received an alert that I had a best offer of $14.50. This seemed fair, so I logged into eBay and in that short time span, discovered a new message: 

First, I had absolutely no idea that you could do this. That just seems wrong! Second, if you DO decide to do this, you must give a reason. This person’s reason was “entered wrong amount.” Uhm, no you didn’t bro, because since then, you haven’t entered ANY amount. Or maybe he meant that the “right” amount was zero dollars? 

I guess I should not be surprised that this happened, considering the probable eBay market for this item. After all, if you asked yourself, “WWCMD?” (What Would Charles Manson Do?), he would probably retract bids on eBay too. 

-Sarah

What might be worse than beanie babies, you ask? Trolls, that’s what. And know why? Because most of them are worthless. But like beanies, some aren’t! 

I scored a pretty good one (maybe?) a few weeks ago at the Valley of the Dolls sale. Here she is: 

Ok, let’s face it. She’s terrifying. But she’s by Uneeda, the company that made “Wishnik” trolls, starting in 1966, which were some of the first trolls on the block! I was just doing a little research, looking for other trolls by Uneeda (in cheerleader outfits and otherwise), and I discovered two crazy things I’d like to share. 

First, these insane looking trolls with huge heads of hair are worth some bank: 

That troll is only TWO AND A HALF INCHES TALL and sold for that much money. It looks like their mohair manes are what make them so desirable. And, of course, the fact that they are so beautiful. 

And the other fun discovery I’ll share with you is this… 

Two-headed trolls, whaaaaat?! I guess siamese twins need toys too. I KID. 

When I found that one, Adam heard me say, “WHOA. DOUBLE HEADED TROLL,” out loud. 

-Sarah

I’m almost scared to write again about the Plymouth auction that Zach and I frequent on Saturdays.  I don’t want all of you marching up in there and bidding on my goods.  So far, this place has been like my own personal ATM machine, only it is linked to someone else’s bank account.  Buying and reselling from this auction has seriously been a goldmine.  Last Saturday was no different.

When we arrived at the auction, it was so packed.  The seats were all taken and you could barely stand anywhere without having to bear hug someone next to you.  We decided to stay though because the items looked pretty good.

My first bid was on this illustration from 1968, which I bought for Timmy because it was Tigers and World Series related.  This is original art, not a copy, although probably not worth a TON of money.  It was just too cool to pass up.

Zach won an amazing cast iron bank for $17, when others go for upwards of $150 on ebay.  It is really neat and living on our bookshelf.

I then won the quilt squares that were mentioned here on the blog a few days ago.  I panicked that I had made a bad buy on these ($20) but they already have bids over that on ebay, so I am relieved.  

At this point, I noticed an old charm bracelet in one of the display cases at the front.  It was LOADED with charms, and when I looked closely, most of them were marked as sterling silver.  The rest were also silver but not as pure (marked 800).  My sister started me a vintage charm bracelet a few years ago, and I learned from her that sterling silver charms alone can sell for $20-50 each!  Sometimes more.  A whole bracelet full of them had to be super valuable.

I told Zach that I wanted to stick around for this bracelet, and so we waited and waited and waited.  During that time, people bid crazy amounts on crazy items.  $30 for a Superhero poster that you could get at Toys R Us, $50 on an old stereo receiver that no one knew if it even worked.  It is seriously unpredictable what people will pay for things.

I told Zach that my limit for the charm bracelet was $100.  I was hoping I would only have to spend about $50.  Finally, it came up on the auction block.  The charm bracelet was placed in a lot with a bunch of other bracelets, so I assumed that would kick the price up pretty high.  But then the auction started at $5 and it was only me and one other woman bidding!  When the price got to $18, the lady backed out.  EIGHTEEN DOLLARS.  

I went up to collect my bracelet lot and was shocked to see that not only had I just won the charm bracelet, but THREE other vintage sterling silver bracelets.

I will probably scrap these 3, which should pay for my $18 investment.  As for the charm bracelet, you can follow its progress now on ebay.  

Zach and I sat at the auction for a few more minutes because I was all sweaty and flush. I had gotten so worked up about the score I just made, and when I get excited, I turn into a beet.  A sweaty beet.

-Erin

Just in case you were worried, Erin and I are once again officially BFFs and made up after our Jerry Springer style argument in her driveway last week. We started our adventure in Warren at a sale run by the same woman who ran the sale from last week that I speculated was actually held at her house. Erin had some mad love for that lady when leaving the sale last week but the tables turned this time around. Erin has a habit of fluctuating between feelings of love and hate toward the people who run these sales, while I’m usually more ambivalent (except for my favorite guy ever–the guy who tried to hook us up hard at the Best Sale Ever.)

Anyway, this sale was the worst but we did find some funny things. This is the best of the bunch: 

If you’re struggling to determine what those are, they’re two handmade refrigerator magnets. The one on the left is a pig that says (in little alphabet noodles glued on), “Porky are you eating again?” The one on the right is a cow that says, “Holy cow are you eating again?” I had to buy the cow. 

Basically, everything at this sale was either made by Avon or found at the dollar store. I’m not into either of these things, so I was sad. 

Here are some items that I passed on: 

I can’t even remember what I bought at this sale, besides a little pile of letters that I thought were affair letters, judging by the first few lines of one of them. I haven’t read them in their entirety but Erin read some of them aloud to me in the car and it turns out they’re really depressing letters from a sister to her brother about having cancer. That’s what I get for being nosy! Also insane: I had a tiny stack of cards and the lady told me it was $5. I am talking like, three cards. In this stack was an old brochure about Cedar Point that I wanted to buy for a friend’s kids. She told me, “that brochure alone is worth $3!” Really, lady? ON WHAT PLANET? You should be thanking me for getting rid of the crap that nobody wants! I told her to forget the brochure and I’d give her $2 and she told me she had to recalculate the cost because she was giving me a “bundle deal”… WTF?!

Next stop was a sale in Mt. Clemens. This sale contained a ton of antique furniture, but most of it was in really bad condition. I got a box of really old wrapping paper that was in great shape, and a vintage little girl’s pea coat. Erin got a box that had visible bird poop in it. I wanted this thing until I saw the made in China sticker. I ONLY BUY AMERICAN.

Just kidding. I just didn’t realize it was a reproduction at first. I still don’t know what it was supposed to be, but it reminded me of a card catalog (but real card catalogs have labels on the drawers.) 

The next sale we hit up seemed promising but ended up not being that great either. But it was really weird and time-warp-y and there were the most lawn ornaments I’ve seen in a while. It was also worth going to because the house was arranged really weirdly (it seemed like over half of it was a screened-in porch) and there were lots of funny things to see: 

Again, what is UP with these depressing statues? We see them basically at every sale now. 

Classy lady, classy car. 

Spuds MacKenzie. 

Private parts statue. 

…and… a ladyman with very large penis under her skirt. 

I found a few good things at this sale. First, a real deal garden gnome. I have a handful of lawn ornaments and he will be a good addition. I also got a couple of cute things to sell. Here is one of them: 

Yes, that is a kitten wearing a yellow beret and blue glasses. 

It’s past my bedtime, so I’ll let Erin update you on the Grey Gardens Man sale. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I was disappointed with the seller lady at the first sale because she was being outrageous with her pricing.  Last week she gave me all sorts of deals, even when I didn’t ask for them.  Yet this time, she tried charging me $1 each for a stack of old dirty Christmas magnets.  The magnets were handmade out of felt and had some sequins glued on them.  They were cute obviously, but as a general rule, ANY magnet in the world should be 25 cents.  $1 each?  You’re out of your mind.

The second sale was great.  Sarah thought the furniture was all gross, but she was wrong.  It was like the movie Aladdin, you had to be willing to see the diamond in the rough here.  I bought an old cabinet for my new porcelain pieces.  

After some windex and Lysol, it looks amazing:

As for the “box with visible bird poop” that Sarah mentioned, this was actually an old DRAWER, that I planned to turn into a shelf.  It wasn’t really covered in bird poop, it had drops of old paint on it.  It did however have some mouse poop on it.

All you gotta do is hose that shit off, sand it, and stain it…WHICH I DID.

Look! Room for more porcelain!

At this sale I also got an old Minnie Mouse wind-up watch from the 60s.  It is apparently collectible, and most people start it on ebay at over $100.  I have it up now and it’s doing great.  I paid $10.

The next sale was awful, despite having a million cute sheep lawn ornaments.  

They were selling things like this:

Watch, that doll is probably like CRAZY VALUABLE.  

Ok, this entry is getting so long.  You all need to email us if these jumbo posts are annoying, and we can try condensing…

The last house was in Detroit and was a crazy mansion.  Rooms up on rooms up on rooms.  

Things started out promising, but the further you went in the house, everything got weird and abandoned.

Look at those walls and the ceiling.  They needed me to get up in there and hang some bird poop shelves and fill them with porcelain.

Oh wait, looks like someone already was moved in:

OK, one more Grey Gardens-esque pic…

I bought an old, giant Mae West poster at this sale for $3.  That’s it I think.  I didn’t buy this poster which some perv had drawn all over:

-Erin