Last Tuesday I noticed that there was a rogue estate sale happening about a mile from my house.  The listing said it was the home of a former antique dealer so I figured I better go check it out.  I don’t know what the deal is lately with lines, but here again I was stuck in a long one.  

I chatted a bit with some old men behind me and then noticed that Sarah’s mom had herself arrived at the sale.  I joked that I was going to steal all of her treasures before she could make it in there.  Maybe I cursed myself by doing that, because when I got inside, there were actually very few treasures to be had.

There was a lot of nice Christmas stuff, but everything was priced high.  This one case was filled with all old milk glass bulbs, which are super cute.  I would want a whole bucket of these things though to decorate with, and at $6-$8 each, that wasn’t going to happen.

Here is a picture I pulled off ebay to show you just how cute these things are:

Can’t you just see like a whole big basket of these on a table as decoration?  Too cute.

I did find a set of nesting bowls that had a knockoff Spode design.  They were priced $25 for the set which is outrageous.  One of the women working the sale told me that the set with Spode, hence the high price, and I kindly told her that I didn’t think it actually was Spode.  She then changed the price of the set to $8 and I bought it.

I also bought some salt and pepper shakers to replace the turkey ones I ruined last week.  I think one of these birds is a turkey, but I am not sure what that other one is doing.  Is he a puffer bird or holding an egg?  Not sure, but I liked these a lot. 

I was about to leave when I saw this small box tucked under table.  It was filled with paper items and old Victorian Christmas cards.  Zach loves him some old-timey Santa images, so I started to rummage.  Behind all of the cards I found some old Canadian and Bahamian money.  In my head I thought, “Oh hey wouldn’t it be SO COOL if there was like a bunch of Confederate money up in here?!”  

I joke often about finding a Confederate money jackpot (along with Princess Diana beanie babies and solid gold bars), but I have never actually seen Confederate money in person.  Yet sure enough, as I rummage a little further, there are TWO Confederate bills.  I about died.  I thought FOR SURE I would never be able to walk up to the register and buy these for a reasonable amount, so I tried not to get too excited.

I took a stack of cards and the money up to the register and asked the woman how much everything was in that box I had just looked through.  She said $1 each and then proceeded to count my stack of items, including the Confederate bills.  A total of 9 items from the box meant $9.  I was thrilled.

You would have thought that my Powerball numbers had come in or something.  I was about to call up my boss and quit my job.  I was sure I was so rich.

So after some research, this money is in fact real.  But it turns out that Confederate money is actually not THAT valuable.  Some is, but the two bills I have are about $40-$50 each.  Definitely worth the $2 investment, but I won’t be retiring any time soon.

At least I can now say though that I did stumble upon some of this money, and one day hopefully the Princess Diana and gold bar stash too.

-Erin