Dig This Treasure!

This past Friday I wasn’t going to go sale-ing with Erin, and I’ll finally be honest about why. I am terrified of norovirus and was convinced I’d get it from her, even though it was like, 9 days later. Anyway, I had a meeting at work in the morning, and went out to her house after that because I realized I was being stupid. It was also a beautiful day to go to sales. We only made it to two and both were in Royal Oak. 

The first sale looked to have some interesting stuff, judging by the pictures. It looked like a mix of antique furniture, sports memorabilia, quilts, etc. It ended up being priced a little on the high side, but I still purchased an old quilt for $40, which seemed like a good deal until I got it home and looked more closely at it. It has a big tear in one part that’s letting some of the stuffing out, and it’s pretty “aged” looking. Whatever, maybe I’ll try to resell it on eBay. 

One of the rooms of this sale was filled with some of the kids’ toys/stuff you’d find at a garage sale, but it was nicely organized. It made me wonder if that was their stash for when grandchildren came to visit. Anyway, among the carnage in there, I found Hagrid, who you may have already seen pimping out the passenger seat of my car. He was only $5, and he’s made by Gund. I discovered today that he was made in 2001, so right around the time of the first movie I think. One of my friends at work brought up a good question–I wonder if Gund made any of the other characters. Turns out you can find used versions of Fluffy, Scabbers (I want him!!!), Mrs. Norris, Hedwig, Baby Norbert, the Golden Snitch (ew), DOBBY!, and then Harry, Ron and Hermoine. I’m sure there are others. Turns out these dudes are all really collectible, but I wouldn’t ever sell Hagrid. He’s too cute and he’s one of my favorite characters. 

I’m thinking of bidding on the Dobby, Scabbers, Mrs. Norris lot. Yes, I just admitted that on the Information Superhighway. 

Anyway, this was a pretty cool find because I’m finally in the process of reading the books (I have a master’s degree in children’s literature and have never read all seven books) and I’m really liking them. I just finished the 5th about a month ago. I need to take a HP break for a while but I’ll get back into them soon. 

The next sale we went to was better than the pictures made it out to be. It had a lot of different stuff, including an entire room filled with dolls that I almost completely missed, because one of the employees had the door closed while she was rearranging. I heard a really ballsy, forward old man out in the hallway say, “What’s in this room? The door is closed but there’s nothing blocking it” as he pushed the door open. The door opened to a Secret World of Dolls. That dude was disappointed but I was thrilled! There were SO many dolls but they were all different–not the “in the box valuable” sort. So the coolest thing I found in the room is this large Kamar knee hugger doll/Christmas ornament. I think it might be valuable because it’s not an elf, and it’s a girl? I don’t know. I’m going to list it and see what happens. It was only $2 & they tend to sell for between $20 and $50 dollars. 

She’s creepy but also pretty. She was made in 1965. 

I also found this adorable tiny doll. I couldn’t figure out why it had no legs but had saggy little tights, and it turns out it’s a finger puppet! Her name is Betty Ballerina, and she was made by a company called Remco in 1969. She’s pretty cute! 

The best thing was that this woman actually had two dolls for sale that looked like me and Erin. Erin wanted me to buy this lady so bad, but I couldn’t do it. She kept telling me it could be a Things That Freak Your Husband Out post. The part of the outfit that seals the deal and proves that it’s me is the animal slippers (not the red spandex pants).  I honestly sort of regret not buying her. She’s so dang cute. 

Erin also found the doll version of herself. 

The hair is what seals the deal on that one. 

I also got two wooden Polish dolls, a bunch of records, and a vintage Fisher Price Mini Bus. It had some crud on it and I cleaned it up so it looks like new. Glad Erin told me about the power of the magic eraser. 

See? Good as new!

The woman who owned the company running this sale was so adorable. She was probably a little older than my mom and very nice. The person who rang us up was really high strung, though. Erin asked for a bag and you would have thought she had asked her to do some long division in her head. She was so flustered. 

Once we left these sales, we were starving (that’s one of the Rules of the Road we haven’t written much about yet…you have to push on if you’re hungry but there is a sale close by) and really sweaty since the temperature in Michigan has been running 30 degrees warmer than normal at this time of year. Since we were in Royal Oak, we got to eat at Zumba, one of my favorite Mexican joints. After that, we went and used a Google Deal I had to a place called cup.cake, also in Royal Oak. All of the treats I purchased (which was a lot–I had to spend $13 and Erin was all “I just want this cookie,” ugh) were delicious. I actually ate a “blueberry pancake” cupcake for breakfast just this morning. It was so good. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  This sale day was kind of a blur for me because I had gone sale-ing by myself the day before, and because we ended up also sale-ing on Saturday (you know how that turned out).  

I didn’t buy much at the first sale we hit.  I did buy these old plastic horses and then immediately regretted it.  They are on ebay now and got a bid, but then the woman wrote me and asked to retract her bid.  Ugh.  There are 9 watchers on these guys though, so maybe I can at least make my money back.

The second sale was pretty awesome, like Sarah said.  There was a lot to look through, and the doll collection was seriously awesome.  I have never had much of an interest in dolls, but this collection was so diverse that it was a lot of fun to rummage through.  I even bought a doll, which is UNHEARD OF.

Is she not the cutest?!  She was kind of expensive, but that’s because she is a composition doll from the 30s or 40s.  I don’t know what it is about her, but I am totally smitten.  Zach, on the other hand, was totally horrified.  Really, this doll should be in a separate TTFYHO entry.  To be fair, I don’t think my doll is as horrifying as that kneehugger Sarah bought.  That thing is clearly made of felt, plastic, and a bunch of evil spirits.

The basement at this sale was pretty packed and not entirely organized, which I love.  I started moving stuff around and looking for hidden treasures.  I came upon a giant cardboard box that was pushed under the basement stairs.  As I dug through it, I realized that I was digging through garbage.  Literally.  This giant box was being used in place of a real garbage can.  

Whoops.  As expected, I didn’t find any treasures in there.

I did find this guy though, who is hilarious.  He is a little rhino that someone drew a creepy red marker smile onto.  He kind of looks like Heath Ledger as the Joker in Batman.

$2?! No way.  Here is what I did pay $2 for though:

This is some sort of kewpie/cupie doll that is ceramic and unpainted.  I’m going to put it on ebay, but it is most likely something from those places you take children to paint ceramic dogs and stuff.  You know, like Plaster Playhouse?  Anyway, I know people collect kewpies, so I took a chance.  If it doesn’t sell, I am going to hide those little creepy arms somewhere in Sarah’s house.

-Erin

We want to be totally upfront. Erin and I have spent the last couple of days mulling over whether or not to write about this. We know that this could be perceived as adding fuel to an already out of control forest fire. But in the end, we decided we needed to document this experience, because it is just too crazy not to.

If you’ve read the blog for a while, you’ll have noticed that because we live in southeast Michigan, we’ve gone to sales put on by RePurpose, which is the company featured on Cash & Cari. We don’t go to these because we’re weird groupies or superfans. We go to them because they’re just one among many companies in the area that run sales. The last time we went to one of their sales, we wrote it up as a letdown for a number of reasons. 

Despite that last experience, we started the day by going to one of their sales. (We go to plenty of disappointing sales and then back to another by that same company the next week.) Less than two minutes after being inside, we were approached by Cari and another woman who works for her. Cari let us know that she saw our blog, and that she was disappointed, and that our entry was mean. Erin quickly asked them if they had read any of the other entries, as we tend to be pretty sarcastic. Cari said no, and let us know that HGTV had found the entry and notified them about it. (Sidenote: Turns out we ARE world famous bloggers after all!!!)

They went on to inform us that the owner of all of the stuff at the “letdown” sale had been mentally retarded, which began their process of insinuating that a) this matters and b) we were making fun of the items for sale because of the man’s mental retardation. Neither of these things is true–we couldn’t have known anything about the seller (and we’ve written about this in the past), and we aren’t evil. They also seemed to be offended by our commentary on the way items were priced, but the fact that prices at their sales have gone up is true, and we aren’t the only ones who are saying so. Erin smiled and reiterated that the sale was overpriced. 

We were both really shocked by what was happening, and sort of stunned into silence for a while. Erin went into another room, and I kept looking at the cute things on the table in front of me–there was a lot of cool, reasonably priced stuff at the sale! But I could tell Erin was really upset–she does not like confrontation. I found her in a bedroom around the corner, and she expressed that she wanted to leave. I reminded her that a) we said nothing untrue and b) they were just upset that someone was criticizing them and c) HGTV was probably upset that someone called them unprofessional. 

A few minutes into looking around in the bedroom, the woman who was with Cari approached us again and asked why we were there. Now, once again, I think it goes without pointing out, particularly if they’ve found our blog, that we were there because we go to estate sales every weekend. If they had taken a moment to actually look at any of the other 70+ entries, they’d have realized that only TWO relate to a sale run by them. But after listening to this woman rant for a while, it became clear that they were under the impression that the sole purpose of us going to their sales was to sabotage their reputation. This is actually hilarious–they must think we have a lot of free time on our hands. Good God.

The woman was so agitated that it was nearly impossible to respond to her questions or say anything at all really. She went on and on about the fairness of the Barbie prices (as if I wanted to buy them all), that they had been priced at “fair market value” and they ended up selling them for much less (shocking!) She also repeatedly tried to bring up the fact that the owner of the items at that sale was mentally retarded, as if it had some sort of impact on what is or is not amusing to us. I interrupted her and explained that it was ridiculous to even suggest that.

Despite anything either of us tried to say, she went on and on with her defense, explaining how stressful that sale was for the company, and that they had been busy ALL DAY and was it really so bad that they took a couple of minutes to laugh at a funny video on the Internet? (The best part is that if they had read that entry closely, they would have seen that I specifically said watching a video of popping a giant blackhead is SOMETHING I WOULD DO MYSELF.) I was getting so tired of hearing her loud, angry defense that I finally just looked at her and asked, “What is it that you want us to do? Do you want us to take down the entry?” She told me no, but then didn’t seem to have an answer about what action we could take to make them happy. She just wanted to yell at us. 

The icing on the cake is that while Erin and I were being scolded, an older woman had come into the room and was observing what was going on with a concerned look on her face. I was facing her and getting more and more uncomfortable because I could tell she was really uncomfortable. Finally, she asked what was going on, and expressed that she did not want to be in the middle of a fight on television (no, they weren’t recording us.) Finally, the woman who was confronting us left the room.

We went through the rest of the house, each bought some cool stuff, and high-tailed it outta there. Erin and I spent the rest of the afternoon going to other sales and reflecting on how insane our morning had been. As this is part of her personality, Erin was searching for ways that maybe we had messed up. We could come up with nothing, besides the fact that it wasn’t necessary to mention the zit video. Even that was a stretch–it was obviously a joke. Also, just in case anyone’s keeping tabs, I think we can all agree that it is unprofessional to watch an exploding zit video while customers are shopping at your estate sale. 

The more I think about this whole experience, the more flabbergasted I am. We write a blog about estate sales, and we wrote about our experience. We also made some jokes. This is what we do in every entry. Combined, Erin and I have spent literally hundreds of dollars at Cari’s sales. How anyone at a company featured on a national television show thought that this was a reasonable way to address online criticism is beyond me. But I’ve gotta say, it is pretty damn beautifully ironic that Cari and her assistant found it appropriate to publicly chastise two people for writing on a blog about the company’s lack of professionalism at a previous sale. 

We will have to post another update about the rest of the sales we went to on Saturday (not to mention Friday). In conclusion, the best part of this whole experience was that Erin found an original Bob Dylan poster in the basement of Cari’s sale. She bought it for $5 and it has sold in the past for as much as $200. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  Sarah is right, I did immediately try to find reasons why this was all our fault and we needed to apologize.  The more we talked though, the more I realized that this whole situation was ridiculous and overblown.  

Are we sarcastic?  Yes.  Did we need to say all the stuff we did about that particular Cari sale? No. But we don’t really need to say much of anything we post on here.  We could simply post photos every week of our finds and leave out the commentary, but instead we choose to include all of the things that run through our heads while out at these sales.  It is more interesting to us, and I assume to our (20 or so) readers.

So in that respect, we take responsibility for what we post. We write what we write for some laughs and to shed light on a hobby. And in doing so, I think we just assume that everyone will take this all in stride. Maybe this is a mistake on our part. But Becky and Lance from the “House of Horrors” posts are perfect examples.  I was super hesitant to have Sarah contact them because the things we wrote could come off as offensive. We were light and jokey about that sale, but not everyone is light and jokey.  Becky and Lance thankfully turned out to have a great sense of humor (and also be awesome.) 

It’s not fair for us to ask that anyone and everyone just “take a joke.”  But it is also not fair to go all grizzly bear on two women in public. The amount of yelling that was happening on Saturday was absurd and embarrassing. I got so freaked out that I was physically shaking, which is SO CRAZY. This is a blog with a pretty limited readership, as far as we know.  This isn’t some sort of New York Times-whistleblower-inside source-Wikileaks type shit.

Whew.  I could go on and on.  This whole situation was a giant bummer for Sarah and I. I don’t think we will be sale-ing at RePurpose sales anymore. There will be one more post in the future about my dad being on the show, but I’ll try to keep it glowingly positive.  Which, for the record, I felt like our first Cash & Cari post was.

I don’t remember where I picked up this vintage resin bank of a woman relaxing in a bubble bath, but it’s pretty cute isn’t it? What I like most is that the soap is labelled. If I remember correctly, it was obscenely overpriced at $10, but I got it for $8.

It sits on my nightstand and I put any change from my pockets in it each night. Then, once it starts feeling heavy, I empty it, take it to the Coinstar at Meijer, and get an Amazon gift certificate. Then I buy books for my Kindle. TRUE STORY.

Erin, on the other hand, throws pennies in the garbage.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: It’s true. When I’m cleaning and find pennies, I throw them away.

This installment of Things That Freak Your Husband Out features these two little dudes:

They’re so cute!

I’m sad that Adam does not approve, but I can understand why. They look like they’ve had a little too much Christmas eggnog or wacky tabbacky. Anyway, I told Adam I’m selling them on etsy or eBay but I think they might just get “lost” in our spare bedroom and reappear next Christmas. They were each $3. Or two for $3. I can’t remember. Either way, good deal.

If you missed the other installments of Things That Freak Your Husband Out, you can find them here, here, here, and here. 

-Sarah

So last week I had norovirus and Sarah had to roll solo.  I was SO BUMMED because the sales I missed looked great.  Anyway, I decided to go hit some sales today.  The first one was in Farmington and was advertised as having tons of antiques.  It had antiques but wasn’t a very “packed” sale.  There was nothing to really dig through.

I immediately found this old record cabinet and the price on it could not be beat.  It needs to be cleaned for sure, as well as stained and/or polished. $20.

There is a weird piece of carpet sitting on top of it in this photo which is not a part of it.  So if you were worried about that, don’t be.

In the basement of this house I found a little box and inside were these mini liquor bottles.  It seems like I have a habit of buying old-ass liquor at sales, but I really don’t.  I just thought these were really cool looking.  Some of them are still sealed, which can sell pretty well on ebay.

I got all of them for $5.

I also found a bunch of old 78s.  At one point, Zach told me about old records made of heavier vinyl, and how jazz ones or something can be collectable.  I know nothing about records at all, but all of these were $10 so I took a chance.  We’ll see if they end up being valuable, and if they don’t, I will give them to Sarah because she CLEARLY buys records at every sale we go to.  

The BEST part by far of this sale though, was the live cockatoo that I got to hold.  I turned a corner and there it was, just chilling on some guy’s arm.  I asked if I could pet it, and the bird just straight up climbed onto me.  Turns out that this guy didn’t live at the house, he just takes his pet bird out on the town with him.  This is cool with me because the cockatoo was super nice and snuggling all up on me.  It tried to bite the man when he went to separate us two.  That’s right, birds, like most creatures, are obsessed with me.  Anyway, here is a blurry photo the guy took.

When I left this sale, I headed to another one in Garden City.  As I started getting close, I recognized the neighborhood as one I had been to before.  AND THEN I REALIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING.  THIS WAS A TRICK, and it wasn’t the first time I had fallen for it.

This place is a weird hippie hangout that Zach and I were once lured to.  They often advertise online as being an “estate sale” or an “auction,”  when really they are just the same old creepy warehouse full of hippies selling garbage.  That sounds really mean because it is really mean.  However, it is also true. Since I was there, I went in.

Today, the folks were spray-painting indoors.  The placed smelled like what it smells like when you spray-paint indoors.  Oh, did I forget to mention that this place doesn’t just sell antiques?  It is also an artist collective where you can work on your spray-paint artwork.  And they have music shows there too.  This is the stage.  

And apparently, they also have karaoke.

Here are some Flubbers hanging out on a couch.  I didn’t buy them.

To be fair, I did find one treasure that I am absolutely thrilled over.  IT IS SO CUTE.  It is a mini toy safe from France.  It has tiny little wheels.  I am going to put it in my kitchen next to some other knick-knacks that are similar in style and color. $15, which is steep but so worth it.

The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but believe me, it is REAL cute.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: First, that record cabinet looks like someone threw it out of a moving vehicle a few times. Who are you turning into? Me? Second, I cannot believe you didn’t wait until Saturday to go to the Garden City sale. Look at the ad for it, pasted in its entirety: 

The contents of FOUR seperate estates all in one location.

Home Made Corned Beef & Cabbage Served Saturday ALL DAY!!!

Saturday Night Open Mic Party Doors open at 6pm

I hinted previously that a plastic toy brontosaurus I had bought might end up being part of our “money maker” series, and indeed it did.

When I first picked this guy up, I took a chance on him for a couple reasons.  First, he was stamped on the bottom with all sorts of info.  If he was just a cheapie dino from China he wouldn’t have so many stats.

I also took a chance on him because “Brontosaurus” as a prehistoric creature no longer exists.  I don’t mean that he is extinct (like all his dino pals) but as a type of dinosaur, the “Brontosaurus” is no more.  Some scientists had thought the Apatosaurus and the Brontosaurus were different animals, when they were really the same.  Apatosaurus won out.

Anyway, I put this guy on ebay and he instantly started getting bids.  LIKE A LOT OF BIDS.  So I did a bit of research.  This dino was sold in museum gift shops and was therefore pretty rare to begin with.  He was also made by Invicta Plastics, which was heralded for its high quality dinosaur casts.

So get this, I paid ONE DOLLAR for my Brontosaurus buddy.  And he sold for SIXTY ONE DOLLARS.  Thems good margins.

I messaged the buyer and asked him about the dinosaur and his reason for buying.  Here is what he said: 

Hello! These items are very hard to find!(Almost every invicta plastic dinosaur! Specially in mint condition!)Production line stopped in the early 90’s in the UK!I’ve been wanting these beautifull classic damn plastic dinos since i was a kid maddly!Never did purchase them!Untill these last days!(used! 2-3 items missing!)For enthusiasts like me there pretty collectable! Any info on a Dimetrodon would be great or any Invicta British Museum Of Natural History Plastic Dinosaur!

For the record, this guy is from Greece, which may explain the odd phrasing and abundance of exclamation points.  Anyway, I LOVE his enthusiasm and cannot wait to ship out his dino.  His country may be responsible for the collapse of the Euro, but HELL THEY’VE NOW GOT ONE OF THE RAREST COLLECTIBLE PLASTIC DINOSAURS EVERRRR.  

-Erin

So if Friday’s theme was Ridin’ Solo, then Saturday’s theme was Ridin’ Dirty. And not just because of the “adult content” I uncovered…

The first sale Adam and I went to was at a house in Dearborn. The pictures looked good but had I been paying attention to the company name on the listing, I would have never stopped there. It was being run by the same people who ran the hoarder sale Erin and I went to a few weeks ago. These kids must be in their mid-twenties, and I swear it’s almost as if they find abandoned homes and just go in and sell the contents. The stuff at their sales is so grody and dirty and SO incredibly overpriced. I paid $3 for a box of unused vintage Christmas cards, but they were all dusty and musty. Considering the fact that I got two giant bags of them at a later sale for $4, I should have known better! 

Anyway, the next sale we hit up was decent, but again, stuff was seriously overpriced. At least the stuff at this sale was half off (rather than fifteen percent off!) 

It was sort of picked over but it was an interesting sale. The person had a lot of marionettes and a lot of salt and pepper shakers. I ended up with a set that in retrospect, I wish I had looked more closely at. They’re crappy and nobody is going to want to buy them. (This is one of the reasons going with Erin is better than going with Adam. Erin would have pointed out how crappy they were. Adam didn’t know. However, the benefit of going with Adam will be revealed in the description of the last sale.) 

I found an old Raggedy Ann puppet for $2.50 that might resell, and then this collection of Disney books for $20. If it doesn’t resell, I’ll keep it because it’s pretty dope. 

One of the things I wanted from this sale was an old E.T. that I saw in one of the pictures. Adam found E.T. but he was in rough shape. His weird leathery skin was all cracked. It looked like someone loved the crap outta that thing. Which is good for E.T. But too much lovin’ on an item can make me sort of grossed out. Anyway, I passed on him. Then, on the way home, I caught Adam frantically rubbing his hands on his jeans, and I asked him what the heck he was doing. He said, “I got E.T. on them!” I asked him why–had he been rubbing his hands all over E.T.’s leathery body while I was in another room? He got defensive and said that he had touched E.T. gingerly but E.T. was disintegrating so badly that his alien skin just started coming off immediately. Good thing I didn’t buy him. 

The last sale of the day was all the way out in Shelby Township, which is over an hour from our home. This was the porno sale. I’ve gotta refer to it as that because it will be forever stuck in my mind as such, even though I found plenty of other wholesome items there (including that lot of cards and many vintage children’s records). Anyway, this sale was full of “firsts” for us. The first first was that when we arrived at 3:30 p.m. (it closed at 4), there was a line outside, and you had to go inside and get a number from one of the surly women running the sale. Here is a picture of the front door that I took while highly agitated and freezing my butt off. Way to taunt us with that sign, jerks. 

WTF?! It had started the day before. The line was completely unnecessary! They claimed that it was too crowded inside. We got in there and there were probably 15 people in there. I think they need to toughen up. 

When we finally got inside, we found a lot of cool stuff. Adam scored this gem for me: 

If you know me, you know that I am fairly obsessed with Ernie and Bert. 

And I found this, which I love, because when Erin and I go to the casino, we often play video poker machines (so does my mom): 

Too bad it doesn’t give you money like the ones at the casino do. Actually, they take your money so forget I said that. 

So, finally, let’s talk about porn. I remembered reading in the listing that the sale contained “vintage men’s magazines,” but as I suggested earlier this week, I had no idea what I was in store for. I figured they meant that there were some vintage Playboys, which can actually be sort of valuable sometimes. When we got into the basement, I told Adam to look out for “men’s magazines” and about 15 minutes after being down there, he called me over. There was a large printing paper box filled with various issues of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler from the mid ‘70s to the 2000s. But there was another box that had all of these smaller magazines (about the size of old TV Guides), and man, are they weird. I bought a handful without really looking at them, but part of me sort of wishes I had, because they’re really creepy and I probably wouldn’t have bought them. My mom said to me, “Aren’t you embarrassed buying stuff like that?” I told her no at the time, but considering now that I know what’s in them, the answer is yes. At least they’ve provided Adam and I with some good laughs. 

I’ll leave it at that, but close with another ad from one of them: 

Stanley is actually wrong. 

-Sarah