Dig This Treasure!

A few Saturdays ago, Erin and I headed to Howell for an auction. You may have heard of Howell, due to it’s lovely history. Adam actually tagged along this time because they were selling a guitar and a really old Victrola. 

When we arrived at the auction, we could tell it was going to be interesting. There was a trailer with windows (sort of like the thing you see at carnivals where they sell elephant ears) right outside the venue, and I honestly got excited because I thought that’s where they were selling concessions. Turns out that was where you got your number and paid at the end of the auction. We got inside the place where the auction was happening and discovered that it was even weirder:

They were doing a slideshow of the items for sale and if you wanted to see them in person, you had to go to the actual estate. We got there right when the auction began, so we had to haul ass to try to get to the house, look at stuff, and then get back in time to bid on it. They gave us a list, thankfully, so we knew the order of things. We both took note of the fact that it was a VERY long list.  

The neighborhood where this house was located was really cute and full of historic looking homes. When we got inside, we were sort of blown away. Everything in the house was high-end and in good shape. And they had some really cool stuff. We did a pretty bad job of taking pictures of the cool stuff, but here is the guitar that Adam was interested in, next to a real carousel horse:

The house was really large, and full of so many beautiful things–especially furniture. 

Do you see that Tiffany floor lamp on the left? Remember it because I’m going to refer to it a little later… 

The house had a huge kitchen with tons of beautiful serving sets and glassware.

I felt really overwhelmed by the quantity of stuff to look at and try to find on the list of items. There was also a huge upstairs with lots of rooms. One room was filled with old (I mean OLD) dolls and bears. I cannot explain to you how badly I wanted some of them. 

That’s a bad picture–there were a ton of other bears and dolls on a shelf adjacent to those guys. I wanted that third bear in SO BADLY. 

There was also this little log cabin behind the house. It looked like something that Snow White and her dwarfs would live in. I’m not sure what purpose it served but it was cool looking. We found out that they were also auctioning the house, so whoever won it was really lucky!

There I am, going to see what awaits me in the magic cabin. 

Both Erin and I were pretty overwhelmed, so we decided to just head back. When we arrived, we discovered that the auctioneers hadn’t even made it through half of the first page! This was a bad sign because there were at least four double-sided pages of items. They were also accepting bids online, which slowed down the process and increased prices. It was also really hard to understand the auctioneer, because he would say like 3 different prices in one “badda badda badda” thing that he did, and so you were constantly like, “WHAT PRICE AM I AGREEING TO?!” in your mind. It was so bad that at one point, Erin almost bid TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS on that Tiffany lamp I mentioned earlier. She thought she was bidding $25! CLOSE CALL. 

I got more and more irritated the longer we were there, because they were just taking so long to sell things, everything was being sold for a lot of money, and my beloved bears were pages and pages away. It took awhile, but eventually I came to terms with the fact that there was no chance we’d be able to stay until those bears went up. I was super bummed. 

I don’t understand why people were paying so much for the stuff… they didn’t really look like people who had Benjamins to throw around… There were a lot of grey ponytails and a lot of embroidered denim. 

In the end, I won the contents of a china cabinet and two HUGE lots of books. Erin won a lot of two horse statues. One of them was cast iron and very old looking. She’s going to do a separate post on that guy because, as usual, she’s a lucky b*tch.

Back to me. Let’s start with the books. Somehow, I had missed an entire library in the house. However, when they put the slides up for the book lots, the books looked OLD so of course I wanted them. I figured that if these people owned that many nice, valuable things, their books must also be worth money.

I did not realize until arriving at the house to pick up my items just how many books I had won. While I was trying to box up the contents of the china cabinet, someone took Adam into the book room to start gathering my books. When I got inside there, I received a death look like no other. Here is my trunk after all of the books were packed inside: 

Note that there are three bags in the back that are filled, besides all of the loose ones there. I could tell Erin was loving the book situation. Adam is a very patient man.

Anyway, I started listing them on eBay and some of them are really neat! 

I was a little nervous on the ride home. Adam was in the back seat, simultaneously whining about how insane I was for buying that many books and looking up some of the things I won in the china cabinet. Here he is, showing Erin what he thinks of the painted white fruit I won:

The results of his searches seemed pretty dismal, but the one thing in the china cabinet that seemed like it might save me (AKA help me make my money back) was a heavy cut crystal decanter. 

From what he and Erin could tell, those seemed to sell and so I thought I might end up even. Well, turns out I’m also a lucky b. When I went to list the decanter, I tried to look at other cut crystal decanters and started noticing a few that looked identical to mine listed as Waterford. But as far as I could tell, there were no markings on the one I had. Then I looked closer and saw this: 

When I saw that marking, I wanted to do a whole cheer routine! Whoop Whoop! Sold that sucker for $94 last night. 

Oh also, when we were leaving the auction, Adam spotted this in the parking lot: 

Yes, those are someone’s granny panties on the blacktop. 

-Sarah