European Delights
When Erin and I were at the paper ephemera sale on Friday, I left thinking I might be back the next day with Adam. Sure enough, when I showed him some of the pictures, he got really excited. He thought the saw some vintage typewriter that played music when you hit the keys in one of the pictures. I can’t remember what it was called. Anyway, it ended up not being what he was thinking it was, but he still found a lot of treasures. Also weird is that, just like at the House of Horrors sale, we had to stand outside in line on the second day. What up with that? It was freezing!
This time around, I got an old plywood puzzle (might sell it on eBay), two awesome vintage Sesame Street postcards, and a pack of old Cuban postcards:
The next sale we stopped at was the home of a U of M Literature professor, and it was just so sad, because there were books all over her home, many which were marked with loads of post-it notes. It was obvious that she had been teaching right up until her death. One of the rooms was just a reading room that was floor to ceiling shelving, mostly filled with canonical literature. The house and its contents were beautiful, but most of what was for sale was really pricey because it was all gorgeous and antique. I bought a few books and Adam bought an old wooden box for $2. I thought it was weird that I bought 7 books, all of which were $2, and the woman used a calculator to determine my total. Wut?
We went to a dud sale after that, where I bought some tissue paper (WTF is wrong with me?), and spotted this odd item:
A porcelain bunny with chest hair.
We went to the last sale of the day after that, and that’s where we found some cool stuff. Adam wanted me to purchase this, but I opted to just take a picture of it. It was a matted fold-out of four 8x10 photographs of this handsome man:
I also found about a dozen vintage 45s from Spain and France that look like they might be worth some cash! A few of them are Spanish versions of songs by Joan Manuel Serrat, about whom I knew nothing when I decided to purchase the records. They just looked cool. Here’s some pictures of them:
Before I try to sell them on eBay, I’ve been told by Adam that I need to take new pictures, because a wrinkly white background looks too “dirty and messy.” I was trying to show these weird record people that I’m being careful with their goods. Anyway, I hope they sell, because the actual records themselves are in perfect shape. Some don’t even look like they were ever played. Hopefully one day they will have their own entries on here as Moneymakers.
I also discovered this giant pile of vintage art journals, which seem to be part of a series of publications created by a group of Dutch art museums, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. I got the entire lot (I probably have 40 of them), but it’s hard to tell if they’re worth anything. There is one issue on eBay right now and it’s listed for $50 for one issue… so I’m not sure what I should do. Try to sell them individually or as a lot?
At this sale, I also found some very cute vintage Dutch postcards with kitties on them, some cool buttons, and the funniest valentine I’ve ever seen.
Burned by Larry! Dang!
Adam hit the motherload, though. I spied a box of really old Legos under this table. The guy wanted to $40 for them and Adam said fine right away. Anyway, it turns out that some really old (possibly the first ever) Lego boxes were inside the box, as well as some Lego CARS–apparently, before there were Lego guys, there were Lego cars. Anyway, Adam was really pumped.
See?
Tonight we figured out that they might be even more rare, because they might also be Dutch.
-Sarah