Erin and I ventured out rather late last Friday, as I had a bunch of stuff going on at work in the morning and then had to take Betsy back to the vet. There were only three sales that looked remotely good, and they were all in opposite corners of town. One of them was in Flat Rock, one in Dearborn, and the other was in Troy–round two of the Valley of the Dolls sale from a few weeks back.
We started out in Flat Rock, which is not close. The sale looked good and packed online, but when we got there, we realized that a lot of it was sort of junky.
We probably should have been prepared for a letdown considering the sign that greeted us:
I’m not sure the purpose of this sign… was it to tell us where all of the goods were? If so, not really necessary, bro. That’s generally where things are at estate sales. Or maybe there was a “side house” on the premises that was storing all of the good items. If so, we never found it.
HOWEVER, I cannot complain too much. I found an insanely good lot of old greeting cards (we are talking HUGE lot) from primarily the ‘30s and '40s that the woman running the sale sold to me for $40. Total steal, since part of the lot (not even half of it) is currently on eBay and is already at $41 with 4 days left. I will do a separate post about these cards at some point, because it’s the coolest lot of cards I’ve ever found, period. Here is a sneak peak:
Anyway, we did not find many treasures at this sale, but here is one item that Erin decided to pass on, after lots of deliberation.
The only other thing I remember about this sale was that the basement was filthy and smelled weird. It was the sort of smell that makes you think, “I should get out of here."
After leaving this sale, we decided that we really only had time to hit the Valley of the Dolls sale, and the third sale would have to fall off the radar. Turns out I went to that Dearborn sale the next day with Adam, but that’s a story for another time.
Oh I also forgot to mention that Friday was Erin’s birthday, and I told her I’d take her out to lunch and to pick whatever she wanted. She picked National Coney Island. OBVIOUSLY I am rubbing off on her in all of the wrong ways. (For those unfamiliar with the way that chili cheese fries define me, I once chose coney island for my Valentine’s Day dinner.) Because Erin is such a good friend, while we were eating our lunches, she exclaimed, "Your hair is all grey and white underneath!” and proceeded to capture this on my phone.
What is she even talking about? (OH MY GOD. HELP.)
So finally we arrived back in Troy at the scary doll house and man, was that a mistake. The incentive was that they had opened the garage and basement, and the pictures did look pretty good. The basement in particular seemed like it might be hiding some extreme treasures. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The basement was filled with plaster of Paris sculptures made out of those molds you could buy at Frank’s Nursery (before the days of Michael’s), and then lots and lots of these:
Or these…
OR… these (please no nightmares):
Whatever. There is no way that these last two dolls do not have violent histories/criminal records.
Everything in the house, particularly in the basement, was covered with a layer of grimy, semi-moist feeling filth. I don’t know what we were thinking going back, considering the state of Erin’s face after leaving the last time. Let me refresh in case you’ve forgotten:
The silver lining is that Erin got to pose with yet another Santa:
And we also found a one-of-a-kind collector’s item, tucked away in a closet:
I left this sale with nothing more than about 40 extra miles on my car, and very, very dirty hands.
-Sarah
Update from Erin: Sarah shouldn’t be so sad about going grey. My hair started turning grey about 4 years ago and I’m like half Sarah’s age. Plus, she is blonde, so you only really notice the greys when they are under the truly unflattering lights of National Coney Island.
Anyway, the first sale was disappointing. The pictures looked so good! But then we showed up and they had stuff like this:
My favorite part of this sale though was walking upstairs and Sarah immediately yelling, “OMG WHAT IS THAT?!?!” She pointed to this thing on the floor:
I informed her that “that” was a coconut. She asked me why it looked like that and I told her because it’s a coconut.
I didn’t buy much at this sale. One thing I did find was this old felt piece with an American flag design. I am using it as a little doily:
Returning to the doll sale was truly a mistake. It smelled really odd in there this time around. Not totally awful smelling, but it felt hard to breathe in there.
I found this large Rempel squeaky giraffe. Rempel squeakers are usually pretty collectible. I took a chance on this guy for $1. Looking back, I don’t think he will actually sell. His squeaker is broken and he is covered in dirt and sadness.
Whomp whomp.
-Erin