Dig This Treasure!

A few weeks ago, my dad (AKA ZZ Popps) mentioned that he had a bunch of things he wanted to sell on eBay, and that if I did that for him, he’d split the profits with me. Of course, I jumped on this opportunity. It was a win-win for me: he has a bunch of things to sell that I know nothing about, and I like learning about new things to look out for at sales. And more importantly, as my brother would say is my motto, “If it’s free, it’s for me!” Especially free money.

So I went over my parents’ house to take a look at the stuff he has that he wants me to try to sell, and one of the first things he showed me was this box of vintage “slot cars” that were his toys in the ‘60s. Out of all the stuff he had, I told him, without knowing anything at all, that I thought that the cars were probably going to bring in the most money. Later that night, I took a look and sure enough, lots of slot cars from this time period sell for quite a bit of money. His lot also included lots of loose parts, rather than just the car bodies themselves, which seemed to make things more desirable. Here’s a picture of the whole lot:

So first off, I want to say that I was reluctant to sell these because they seem so sentimental. I feel bad selling my dad’s old toys. But my dad was having none of that–he said he wanted cash money! So I listed the lot on a Saturday afternoon and less than five minutes after they went up, someone bid on them. Over the course of the week, I got progressively more excited because the number of people watching these cars was insane. Yes, I have been accused on more than one occasion of “counting my chickens before they hatch”–and I was most definitely doing that in this case too. Some lots of this stuff seemed to go for $400 or $500 and I was convinced that my dad’s lot would sell for that much since people were already bidding each other up on it.

But then, on Thursday night, my dreams were crushed. I received this question about the lot:

Q: hi can you tell me if the wheel wells on the green car w/black top, the 2 vettes and the blue firebird or camaro are cut or altered. sometimes guys would enlarge the wheel wells to add large back wheels. many thanks for your time.

I took a look at the cars and sure enough, about half of them had enlarged wheel wells. GOOD JOB, DAD! Way to go and ruin all your old cars in the 1960s so that your future daughter selling them 50 years later would make less money! Just kidding. (Sort of.)

Anyway, in the back of my mind I knew this was a sign that they would not sell for as much as I had expected. It also made me really nervous that other watchers would not notice this (even though I posted the question and answer in the listing) and then get mad when they received the lot.

Despite that realization, though, by the following Saturday afternoon, there were SIXTY watchers on those cars:

I still figured that with that many watchers, they were surely going to sell for a few hundred dollars. However, they ended and sold for the price you see in that screen shot: $103.50. That left me with a profit of $50, which is not too shabby.

I’ve since learned that when sales have slot cars listed, there are usually a line of old men waiting during the first day to purchase them, so it would be unlikely that you’d find these at a sale. But if you do, and they’re decently priced, snatch them up! For example, look at the insane amount of money old guys are willing to pay for a single piece of plastic:

-Sarah

It’s time again for a “Hard to Resist” post, featuring all sorts of great items we just had to leave behind while out at sales.  First up is this box of arguably racist Halloween masks:

You can be an Asian person, a gypsy lady, or a…um, not sure what that is…Native American wrestler?  Anyway, we passed on these because I already found a Charles Manson/Rob Zombie mask at a previous sale.

Need a place to keep all of your valuable jewels?  What about a bag that is clearly labeled “jewels”???

Oh wait, you think it might be totally irresponsible and risky to keep your jewels in a bag labeled “jewels”??  Yeah, maybe you are right.  What I do know for sure though, is you can’t stop the cake machine…

Don’t even try to stop the cake machine.

-Erin

For once we were able to get started early on a Friday. I arrived at Erin’s at 10:45 and we departed shortly after. The first sale on our list was located really close to Erin’s house. As soon as we walked in, we recognized the woman running the sale as the same one we met at the beauty salon sale. We thought this was a good sign, but as it turns out, it wasn’t. I’ll get to that in a minute. 

So, this house seemed to have some treasures in it if you dug enough. Erin certainly found some that I’m sure she’ll write about in her update. I found a couple of cool things, but nothing crazy. There was a HUGE collection of Playboys, but they had them all grouped together and were trying to sell them as a lot for $175!!! WTF? They were all newer, too. No vintage as far as I could tell at all. 

When we got to the basement, there were lots of other magazines, and when I started sorting through some of them, I discovered that there was actually another whole stack of Playboys hidden amongst some Golf Magazines. The stack of Playboys I found went up through August of last year, so dude was still gettin’ his porn on until late in life. I couldn’t exactly figure out this man’s steeze but he seemed to like golf, naked ladies, and western wear. Here’s one of the best things I found:

That is a label inside one of his cowboy hats. 

While we were in the basement, I also spied some sealed alcohol. Most of it was champagne, but they also had some old beer. At this point, Erin already had a load of stuff in her arms, and was desperately searching for a box. I emptied one for her; it was sort of large but not deep. She said that was fine, and started loading it up with stuff, including four bottles of the alcohol. A disaster waiting to happen, I know. 

Anyway, I had two breakable items in my hands and then found the stack of Playboys, so I wasn’t much better off. Erin definitely had it worse, though, because in addition to the box of heavy stuff, she had a fold-up chair hanging from her arm, and then two golf clubs in her hands.

So here is where it gets really great. We are waiting in line with all our crap, and there’s one guy in front of us. While that guy is waiting to finish checking out with a credit card, the woman whom Erin “loved” from the beauty salon sale (who is the only person at the table) gets a call on her cell phone and proceeds to talk to this person casually for literally 5 minutes. Important to note: there are probably five people behind Erin and I. The guy shuffles from foot to foot, trying to figure out if he’s done or needs to stay. About two minutes into the conversation, she makes a gesture so he knows he can leave. But that leaves the rest of us standing there, waiting. A woman a few people behind me tells her husband to go find the other woman working the sale, who basically ends up being useless. 

Erin looks at me desperately, because there’s nowhere for her to put her giant box of stuff, and it’s getting too heavy for her. I can’t help much because my arms are also full. The woman just keeps going on and on with her friend on the phone, making plans to meet up “any day but Thursday,” and blah blah blah. It was seriously insane. Finally, she gets off the phone, looks at Erin and says, “WHAT’S UP.” I’ll let Erin debrief you on the exchange, but needless to say, it was also insane. 

Here is a picture of the best treasure I found at this sale. A porcelain beagle made in Japan. Y'all know I can’t resist my beagle statues. 

We finally made our way out of the house and on to the next sale which was only a few miles from that one. They had a bunch of old children’s toys and puzzles, but they weren’t in great shape and they were sort of marked up. I did, however, find something that was NOT marked up, which hopefully will be fruitful. An original Margaret Wise Brown. Damn, Dawg! 

I’ve got it up on eBay now, thanks to a friend who helped me identify it as a first edition. If you know of a collector, send them my way!

I also found Papa Bear.

He’s in good shape and will fit right in on my shelf of stuffed children’s book characters at work. 

On our way to the next sale, we saw an estate sale sign that was not on our list, nor was it online. SECRET SALE! It was weird but ended up being fruitful, as I found these absolutely adorable vintage buddies:

They were in a big ziplock baggie that had a sticker on it that said “VINTAGE KURT ADLER SCROOGE SET”… I couldn’t tell a lot about what Kurt Adler ornaments were at first glance, but after doing some research when I got home, it seems like it’s a company that’s been around for a while, and also like it’s a brand that people collect. Anyway, the set already has some watchers, so I’m hoping for a good outcome. They’re so cute! I honestly don’t really want to sell them but they’re pretty big and we already have too many ornaments (you’re welcome, Adam). 

At this point we were really hungry, and the final sale of the day was really close to Pastries by Ellen again, so I cheered as Erin agreed that we could eat there. We fueled up on delicious food and treats and headed out to the final sale. Now, this sale was run by the kids who seem like they’re squatting in the houses where they have sales. But Erin wanted to go because it was supposedly the home of a collector who had multiple antique booths. Anyway, the house was about as horrific inside as the previous sale they ran that we wrote about, and the items were equally overpriced. Here’s an example, but Erin has more: 

This is a bad picture, but basically, that is a windowsill full of garbagey christmas ornaments priced from anywhere between $3 and $10 each. 

I ended up finding a couple of cool things. First, this old wooden Vernor’s carrier: 

If you don’t like Vernor’s, you’re crazy. If you don’t know what Vernor’s is, you’re not from Michigan. 

I also found these two weird prints of EMU from… the ‘50s or '60s if I had to guess. 

They are both by a person named Ralph Avery, and were both marked $5. I sort of felt obligated to buy them, but also liked the '50s looking people walking around campus. 

Finally, Erin found some vintage LEGOs on a table. So of course, I had to call Adam. One set was marked $75 because it was sealed, but it actually seemed pretty cool–the red double-decker London bus.

I gathered all of my stuff and went outside to check out. Adam told me to ask the guy if he’d take $40 for it and it seemed unlikely to me, but I figured I’d ask. The guy said he’d take $50, so I just said, “Ok, what would you want for all of this stuff?” The Vernor’s box was marked $25, the two prints were marked $5 each, and the bus was marked $75. He said I could have it all for $70 and so I went ahead and got it all because that’s a $40 discount. SWEET!

To top things off, when we were about to leave, one of his employees went out to their scary looking “company” van and grabbed a Coors Light. The guy running the sale looked at me, rolled his eyes and said, “Apparently it’s party time. Fuckin’ A.”

Okay, then.

-Sarah 

Update from Erin: So yeah, I almost passed out at that first sale.  Here is what I had in my hands while the seller lady chatted away on the phone for 5 minutes: 2 CRAZY HEAVY cast iron skillets, 2 FULL bottles of champagne, 2 FULL collectible bottles of beer, an old metal wind chime, a wooden fold-out PGA chair, and 2 golf clubs.

I was sweating so bad trying to hold this stuff in line, and there was literally no where to set it down.  My arms started shaking and I kept looking at Sarah in desperation, mouthing “It’s so heavy! It’s so heavy.”  Like Sarah mentioned, the lady finally got off the phone and then asked me, “WHAT UP?”

I looked at her in disbelief and said, “Uh, I’d like to buy all of these things.”  Of course, nothing was priced, and the seller started slowly glancing over my items.  Things quickly devolved into total chaos as she quoted me $60 for just the skillets and alcohol.  Um, no.  She then said that the golf clubs were $20 EACH.  Um, no.

We negotiated back and forth and it became clear that she was getting confused by what prices she had already quoted me.  We settled on $20 for the skillets, German wind chime, and the PGA chair.  Fair enough, especially since one of the skillets was Griswold.  I left the alcohol and golf clubs behind.  Here is the wind chime that I plan to put on my back deck:

Here is the staircase to the attic from the second sale:

Not dangerous at all.

Also not dangerous at all was the attic itself.  The floorboards were super flimsy and I was sure we were going to plummet through the floor at any moment.  At one point, I found an odd looking bundle wrapped in newspaper and tied shut with string.  I started to open it and was chanting, “bag of money! bag of money!”  I was so sure I was about to make it rain up in there.

The bundle ended up being a bunch of old baby gowns and clothes from the 1950s.  All in great shape and super fancy.  I am going to list them soon on ebay, but if they don’t sell, I will tuck them away for a future mini-Erin baby.

The last sale was a nightmare.  The house had no heat and this day was a super windy 40 degrees, so we were walking around the sale shivering.  I could tell that we were both getting cranky from the cold and the insane prices at this sale, because we didn’t try to whisper our commentary.  At one point, I openly noted that Sarah would have to dip into her 401K early to buy some of the things for sale.  For example, here are some drinking and wine glasses:

They are marked $15.  They weren’t signed and they clearly aren’t solid gold, so I was pretty stumped on this one.

We moved through the sale pretty quickly, which was made easier by the giant holes in the walls that we stepped right through.

I ended up buying a heavy wool jacket from the United States Military Academy at West Point.  I found it in a box of clothing that had a sign directly above saying, “All Clothing $2.”  There was a lot of other jackets, sweaters, etc. but the only indication for pricing was that sign.  I handed one guy the $2, but then another dude started insinuating that I should give them more money.  Oh boy.  The issue was dropped once the guys decided to go outside and drink beer instead.  Anyway, here I am in the coat.  I planned to sell it, but think it might make cute and super warm winter wear.  We’ll see!

P.S. By the looks of this photo, I definitely wasn’t out until 2am the previous night at a martini bar.  Wait, yes I was.

Yesterday I decided to venture out on my own to some nearby sales.  The first sale I went to was in Dearborn, and was pretty uneventful, except for the Hitler parade photo I uncovered.  Looks like I can sell the picture on ebay after all, but with some stipulations.  I can say “WWII” and “Germany” and “Hilter” but I definitely cannot say “Nazi.”  I may also have to blur out the swastika in the photo.  In addition to ebay restrictions, I am having my own moral dilemma with this one…similar (but arguably worse) than our contemplation of selling “bulge photos” online.  Not sure if I want to be that person making money off of Hitler pics…

Anyway, the second sale I visited was in Inkster.  I knew right away that this sale was going to be weird and gross.

Yeah, that is a real dried out wasp nest that they were selling for $30.  The man running the sale tried convincing me that I could easily resell this wasp nest for $100 on ebay.  I told him that I wouldn’t have any idea how to ship it, and his reply was, “Well, in a box I suppose.”  Yeah no kidding, but, 1. this will break and 2. what do I say when the post office man asks if I am shipping anything potentially hazardous?

P.S. Imagine the look on my husband’s face should I walk in the door with a GIANT WASP NEST.

The house was clearly a hoarder, but one with some sense of organization.  Here is the living room:

Lots of animal statues, but also lots of oversized silverware decorations:

Too big?  How about this size:

The last thing I will mention about this sale is the garage.  It was packed with a lot of dirty and broken things, but in the back was this table full of old McDonald’s toys.  We mentioned before that McDonald’s toys are pretty much valueless, even if they are unopened.  The toys at this sale though were all opened and all real dirty.  I almost died when I saw that they wanted 75 cents EACH for these!!!  Unreal.  These were suitable for one of two things: a “free box” or a garbage can.

I did buy one cool thing at this sale, but it will be featured soon in its own entry.  And for the record, it is a sexy item, so I can no longer blame Sarah for all of our racy entries.

-Erin

Since Friday was sort of a bust, Sarah and I decided to wake up bright and early to hit more sales on Saturday.  Actually, that is only half-true.  I wokeup bright and early thinking that Sarah did too, and that she was picking me up at 10am as promised.  We got rolling around 11:30.  ANYWAY…

The sales were awful.  We rolled up to the first house and instantly panicked.  It was the SAME HOUSE as the one where our Cash & Cari blowout went down.  We were so confused at first, thinking that maybe we were just delusional.  Sure enough though, this was the same house.  Another estate sale company had been brought in to try and sell more of the items that were left after the first sale.  

I felt like I had PTSD the whole time I was at this sale.  I got nervous stomach as soon as we walked it.  It was hilarious and absurd.  In the end, I didn’t find any treasures.  In fact, I only found sad things…like the following:

I also found a bunch of old wedding photos, dirtied and shoved under a bunch of boxes, as well as a crumpled marriage license.  Such a bummer finding those types of things.  

Since I mentioned it, I’ll say that Sarah and I did find disguises should we ever have to attend another RePurpose sale.  We picked these up at a garage sale Saturday for 50 cents.  The man who sold them to us was super drunk and kept calling us “ladies,” as well as constantly apologizing to us for every move he made around the garage.

We saw a rummage sale sign after visiting this garage sale, and despite Sarah’s objections, we stopped.

The sale was in the clubhouse of some neighborhood development, and all clothes and shoes were $5 per bag.  I was excited about this, but I could tell that Sarah was less than enthused.  She busied herself with the book table while I dug through the clothes.

I ended up with some surprisingly nice scores…Ralph Lauren corduroys, a Pendleton blazer (that Sarah found and kindly gave to me), some unworn Mossimo shoes in my size, and two Banana Republic sweaters.  I also found this old pair of Nikes that may turn out to be quite lucrative.  They are from the 80s and similar pairs sell for anywhere between 80-100 dollars.  I already have one bid on them and have had 3 people message me asking for more details.  Very exciting!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Ask Erin how late she is to my house any time she has to be at it.

ANYWAY…When we were walking down the street from our car to the first sale, I said, “Something about this walk reminds me of the last Cash & Cari sale.” We hadn’t even gotten to the house yet! Damn, I’ve got a good memory. Anyway, it wasn’t another company that came in to sell the rest of the stuff there–it was family. I only know this because I overheard the main woman running the sale telling a buyer that these large pictures in the house were her ancestors. I think the owner of the house was the woman’s aunt. ANYWAY… somehow I ended up spending almost $40 at this sale but I’m too lazy to take pictures of what I spent it on. I do know that I purchased a Beavis and Butthead book. 

Erin left out a horrible sale between the first and the neighborhood rummage sale. It was horrible, and was sort of the “third strike” for me with this particular company. Who shall remain nameless because they’re not on TV. Anyway, the guy who runs these sales is crazy and overprices literal junk. There wasn’t a single thing in this home worth purchasing. Also, he had a “Cash for Gold” sign outside the house. Where he was supposed to be SELLING things. Not buying them. But the worst part was that the house had a hot tub in the basement which is about the grossest thing ever. I’d rather find guano in a barn than a hot tub in a basement. At least I learned officially that from now on even if pictures look ok, this dude’s sales aren’t worth going to. 

At the rummage sale, I found a huge stack of ‘80s ARTnews magazines for $2. I actually don’t think they’ll sell but they’ll be cool to go through. One of them featured Cindy Sherman so why not? Also, while I was walking around with them in my arms, one of the women running the sale came up to me and said, “What books did you find?” I showed her and she said, “Oh I think I know what house these came from. The woman was a wonderful artist. She’s in heaven now.” I’d like to know how she confirmed this information. 

Erin left out the best part of the day, which was going to Pastries by Ellen, which, if you’re ever in Sylvan Lake before 4 p.m., you should hit up. They had macarons and I asked for a lemon one even though they were $2 each, which is simply outrageous. But to my delight, when I opened the box I discovered that the guy at the pastry counter had given me THREE: a lemon, a strawberry and a chocolate. Dude ruled.

Sorry for the lack of pictures of the delicious treats. Eating them was top priority. 

We do have a post about our trip on Saturday but I’ll save that for tomorrow and surprise Erin with this one tonight. I am so incredibly mad right now, I need to just get this off my chest. 

So the vintage zodiac suit (the one that accidentally led us to the dark world of “bulge” photos) ended up selling last week, and I was pretty excited, just because it was a cool suit and I figured it found a good home.

I thought everything was fine and dandy until I received this message this morning: 

Ok, so let’s take a look at the original listing, shall we? 

That’s right, the description of the fabric is: “white with blue and black zodiac symbols all over it." 

So, in fairness, I respond in this way. And for the record, at this point I’m perfectly happy to refund his money for the suit: 

This is the truth– and maybe it’s because I’m used to looking at the suit INSIDE MY HOME, but uhm…the pictures of it are how it looks. And again, it’s described as "white.” And it’s about 40 years old–so yeah, the white is a little yellowed. Apparently just not to his liking. 

So homeboy writes back again, and says this: 

“I did read the discription but usually a picture is worth thousand words.  If you use flash you get realistic results on colors.  Esp. important when selling clothes.   I’m have to see what my wife says .  This was purchase for a 70’s style family portrait and I wanted Quin to match the yellows in my shirt.”

Glad I’m on a first name basis with his son. Also particularly thankful for the words of wisdom. Anyway, after consulting with Adam, my resident eBay expert, this is what I write back: 

“If the suit had been yellow, it would have been listed as a yellow suit, not a white suit. Using a flash on clothing washes it out, which is also problematic in representing an item accurately. This is not, by any means, the first time I have sold clothing on here. In the future, I’d just like to reiterate that colors can often appear inexact in images, and if you’re at all concerned, you should ask in advance of purchase. Especially if the color in a description looks different to you than the color in an image. To me, that picture is just clearly taken in indoor lighting. The suit does not look yellow. I am happy to refund the cost of the suit if you’d like to send it back to me, but I will not refund shipping. At this point, I am primarily concerned about feedback. I don’t think this is an error on my part, but I do not want to receive negative feedback from you. Let me know if you’d like me to go ahead with the refund.”

A few hours later, I get this response:

“‘To me, that picture is just clearly taken in indoor lighting’. This statement is funny to me cuz all there is to compare your color points to is wood table(which can be stained any color), I have to trump you there cuz I am a professional photographer and there is nothing clear in this photo pointing to indoor lighting.

There are off whites that look yellowish. I can go into a paint store and see yellow looking whites all day, therefore the term "white” can be up for interpretation- that being said ebayers will always look to the photo to clearify. I own a photo studio for a full time living and am very familiar with camera settings- most cameras have an indoor mode to set white balance to correct the problem. OR you can put a piece of white paper over the flash to diffuse it. OR put on photo up washed out to show real color and another to show detail. OR take the photo outside under natural light instead of yellow house bulbs. OR in the auction say “I know the photo looks yellow BUT”… OR put “white” in the TITLE knowing it is represented as yellow. Most importantly for your ease of mind I will NOT require a refund. I am just disappointed (less cuz of money, more cuz I planned on shooting this weekend). another note: I took the tone your reply as that you are speaking as an expert seller and I as a novice buyer that would need tips from you, but I also must point out that I have score of 922 and alot more purchases than that. I have bought roughly $400,000 dollars in items on ebay in the last 12 years. No matter how you explain the auction- that you were in the “right” and I was wrong, The auction was still unclear and misleading(unintentional of course).

I am corresponding to you NOT for money off or a refund, but on principle. So if you would simply admit to me in response that the auction could have been more clear and apologize. I will not leave bad feedback.“

This just threw me over the edge. I couldn’t handle it. I mean, this is the sort of argument reserved strictly for husbands/wives and/or close friends and family (AKA "Just admit that I’m right and we’ll drop it”), NOT STRANGERS ON EBAY!!! Adam said, “This guy’s insane, he’s going to leave you negative feedback no matter what. Keep his money! He just has buyer’s remorse!”

Instead, I went ahead and refunded his money, and sent him the following message:

“Wow, you have a lot of time to argue with people on here.

I in no way suggested that I am an expert seller, nor did I suggest that you’re a novice buyer. All I did was reiterate that if you are that concerned about the color of an item being exact and perfect, you ask before purchasing. I’ve offered you a refund; you’ve refused. I apologize for your experience but I do not apologize for the listing. I’m not a professional photographer–I use my iPhone to take pictures of items I post, as do *many* individuals on here. My listings explicitly state to ask any questions before purchase, and the listing stated that the suit was white. Not off white, not yellowish white, but white. The suit is white. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my description of the item.

It’s not my job to get into arguments with buyers–it’s my job to solve a problem that a buyer has. The problem I can solve is refunding your money. You appear to just want to bully me into making a statement that I don’t agree with, which is both odd and a waste of my time. If you want to start coaching sellers on how to more accurately represent colors in eBay listings, maybe you should start a side business.

I’ve refunded your money completely, so maybe you can take that sum and purchase some Rit dye to get the color just right on your son’s suit.”

Fin. (Probably not, actually. I’ll update y'all with my tainted 100% positive feedback when it comes.)

-Sarah

Sarah and I decided to head out for an adventure on Friday, our sights set on two sales in Grand Blanc, which is just past Lansing.  We were excited because both sales looked pretty good.  Spoiler alert: they weren’t.

On the way to Grand Blanc though, we stopped in Whitmore Lake, and good thing because we found lots of treasures.  I picked up this cool ceramic pitcher for Zach.  It was some sort of promotional item for Cutty Sark scotch.  I liked it because it looks really New England-y, and knew he would dig it.  

I also got Zach this little box of old flags, but turns out that he wasn’t that interested.  I might try to sell them on ebay, but I am not even sure what they are or how to list them.

Cute right?  I might just leave them on the bookshelf like this as decoration.  Anyway, the best part of this sale is that everything was priced SUPER reasonably.  And despite it being the first day, the sellers were really fair on reducing prices for us since we ended up buying a lot.  I love sales like this, obviously.

To resell, I bought some old 1950s/1960s sewing patterns which already have a bid on ebay.  As well as a Laurel Burch cat pin that started blowing up with bids the second I listed it!

I am actually a little bummed that the Laurel Burch pin has so many bids.  I told myself that I would happily keep it should it not sell.  I imagined it on my spring coat.  Oh well.  I guess with all the crazy cash it brings in I could buy a pin for my jacket.

As I mentioned, we headed to Lansing after this sale and were in for a whole afternoon of disappointment.  Things seemed promising at first:

I walked down into this basement and was excited by the volume of items before me.  It was a real nice moment.  I was all alone in the basement and Selena was blasting on the radio.  I was sure that good things were about to happen.  Then, Sarah came downstairs, announced that she didn’t know who Selena was, and things got worse from there.

I opened a box and started rummaging, immediately realizing that something was way wrong.  I started screaming in misery as I realized my hand was covered in some sort of ultra sticky goo.  

Yeah, that cup is filled with an ocean of melted candy, clearly decades old.  I assume this candy was one of those chewy old-time candies that rip out the fillings in your teeth.  Bit O’ Honey or something like that.  Whatever it was, it was sticky as hell and ruined the use of my right hand until I could wash it.

I found one thing at this sale, an old Napco salt shaker that I put on ebay.  We’ll see how that goes.

Stay tuned for our update tomorrow, all about some sales we hit on Saturday.  Don’t get too excited, but we did hit up a random rummage sale and I scored some ultra-cool vintage Nikes!  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: First off, sorry this is so late going up. I had a lot of work to do today, and am also getting sick. Anyway, Erin is right. The sales on Friday weren’t that great–especially not for how far we had to travel to get to them. The exception, as she mentioned, was the sale in Whitmore Lake. I just took pictures of all the stuff I bought and I’m horrified with myself in some instances. For example, what was I thinking here? 

There is only one pin here that was necessary to buy, and I think we all know which one that is. 

Besides those great finds, I found some other actually cool things. For example, these two cute dolls: 

The one on the right, I believe is a polish doll that matches two others I found at a sale a while back. I love the one on the left best, though. 

I also found some awesome vintage Peanuts Christmas cards. Here is a picture of me, hoarding the cards so that Erin cannot get at them:

Here is a picture of Erin with yet another Mouse King!

That one didn’t have smaller mice crawling out of its neck. 

When we got to the basement, I found a huge stack of vintage wrapping paper, which is always my favorite thing to find. Here are some of my favorites from the big stack I found: 

Two final items that I had to purchase: 

I wonder if the girl on the bench is as happy as she appears. 

I would like to say that both the wrapping paper and that small, vintage bear-shaped milk bottle pictured above were in a pantry in the basement that Erin had already gone through and told me there was nothing inside. When I got back upstairs and she saw that I had both of these things AFTER she already had first chance at them, she was sad. OH well! Finders Keepers! Plus, she already has a bear-shaped bottle. 

On our way to the first sale in Grand Blanc, we saw the first of a new chain of hotels–Dads Inn (not to be confused with the lesser known Days Inn). 

The next sale on our list was down a very treacherous road. Here is a picture of what it looked like: 

This sale contained a lot of garbage that was not worth the 80 minute drive to dig through. I found a stack of vintage cards, some vintage Tuco puzzles that may or may not be valuable (whatever, they were $.50 each, and then these adorable buddies: 

Finally, at the last sale, I found one cute thing, and then a couple of things to try to resell. This is my one cute thing: 

Probably an ash tray, and clearly needs to be cleaned, but it’s cute! 

I also got a few other things that may or may not be worth anything. First, a bunch of vintage Christmas carol pamphlets (I think they were things that places would hand out when you went caroling?) 

Next up, a vintage money counter. AKA, the Handy Adder: 

Finally, I found this weird pamphlet about Russian education: 

Tomorrow we will update about day two of sale-ing, which wasn’t much better.

P.S. I know who Selena is–I just don’t know her songs when I hear them.

P.P.S. That Laurel Burch pin is fugly.