Last Thursday, Sarah was going to come over and help clean up my garage after our big sale the previous week. She mentioned that there was an awesome-looking sale out near Commerce that we should go to while she was over, but I felt overwhelmed with other work I had to do that day.
Somehow Sarah convinced me to ignore my other obligations and go with her to this sale. GOOD THING because it turned out to be the best sale we have EVER gone to. The house was on a lake and in a super nice area, but at the same time looked kind of plain and normal. The garage indicated some serious hoarding, but was only a mere hint at what we would encounter later.
A giant dumpster near the garage was packed full of empty boxes, so I was eager to get in the house and see what treasures had previously been stored in them. Sarah stayed in the garage, finding unopened Playmobil toys and old books.
Sure enough, the house was PACKED. And even better, literally every item was high-quality and the type of wares that Sarah and I both collect. A wonderful mix of kitschy antiques and newer collectible brands (Spode, Lenox, Pendleton, etc.)
The first thing I noticed were some antique chocolate/candy molds. I’m aware that these are super collectible, as we see them constantly at antique malls. Large molds can sell for $300-$400 each! I held one of the molds up to Sarah (it was priced $125) and I said to her, “Gosh, just ONCE I want to stumble upon one of these molds for a cheap price and finally buy one.” I had no idea that my wish would very soon come true…
Before the amazing chocolate mold story though, I will mention the other things I found. This lady was OBSESSED with Christmas, and the overwhelming majority of her items were Xmas themed. She happened to collect Waechtersbach German Christmas plates that I also collect. My mother-in-law got me hooked on these a couple years ago when she started giving me a few pieces of the set every Christmas.
I ended up buying a huge box of dinner plates, dessert plates, and various platters, all for $2 a piece.
All of the plates still had their original price stickers on the bottom, most priced at $25 each! I was happy to know I had gotten a huge bargain on these.
I also found a large ornament set by Jim Shore, an artist who made my wedding cake topper. I love Jim Shore and his designs, and this ornament set was completely unopened and unused.
I bought this set for $15 and planned to keep it for myself, until I realized how much it sells for on ebay. The set originally sold in stores for $130, but now apparently sells for more:
Ok, so now for the best part of the day. The basement and upstairs of this house were all boxes, completely unsorted. I love when this happens because it leads to really fantastic discoveries.
In an upstairs closet, I found a large unmarked box shoved behind a bunch of other stuff. I opened it up and found a huge collection of the antique chocolate molds I mentioned earlier. All of the molds were Santas, and some dated back to the 1890s. I was THRILLED. At the same time though, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I knew that when I brought these downstairs, chances were that they would price them well over $100 each.
By some stroke of crazy luck though, the man running the sale charged me $10 each for the molds! He charged me $30 for a really large one, but then mentioned that it was worth “hundreds”. I didn’t know if that was true, but I did know I had gotten a really amazing deal. Here is me cradling the large mold on our way home. I was in love.
These molds ended up being an even more amazing story once I listed them on ebay, so I’m going to devote a whole other post to them. Stay tuned for that!
Sarah and I left the sale with a giant cart of items. I spent the most amount of money I had EVER spent at a sale, but I knew that the Jim Shore ornaments alone would pay it back. The other items would be a super large cherry on top.
To celebrate, we headed to CJ’s Brewery, where I proceeded to order the beer sampler. I won’t say that I got drunk, because it was like 4pm, but I will say that this beer assortment should not be called a “sampler”.
-Erin
Update from Sarah: Unfortunately, because I’m out of town I can’t post pictures of all of the amazing things I got at this sale. However, let me just say that it was my dream come true. The owner of this home was an elementary teacher of some sort, so the sale was basically overflowing with all of the things I look out for: Vintage greeting cards (all unused, many unopened), vintage and first edition children’s books, and a PLETHORA of Joan Walsh Anglund items. This woman was seriously me in 40 years (without the actual hoards, I hope). She had SO MANY items and many of the books were signed. She had been collecting this stuff for years, because I even found two calendars from 1969.
I wasn’t sure how they were pricing but I figured that the more stuff I piled up, the more likely it was that I’d get a deal. And it turns out I was right about that. When I was finally ready to check out, the guy looked at my stuff with pity for himself–he did not want to go through all of it and price it out. I was prepared to at least owe $100. He said, “how about $40 for everything?” Uhm are you kidding me?! HELL YEAH. I also had a ticket from outside for $27 and a box in the garage for $25 so I ended up paying about what I expected anyway, but that was a STEAL for the quantity of stuff I got at the sale.
We were so pumped that we decided we had to go back the second day. I couldn’t think about anything else all night and I woke up super early in the morning because I was so excited. It was like Christmas when I was a kid. Stay tuned for the update about round two of this sale–it did not disappoint!