First of all, HOLY SH*T. Thanks to all of the new followers and to the Tumblr staff for featuring us. We are glad that you are all here and hope you enjoy our adventures! If you do, then like us on Facebook. And if you don’t, well then, don’t.
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Last Friday, Erin and I had a lot of sales on our list of prospects. There were actually quite a few near her house, but only one looked good. Erin really wanted to go because she spotted a Selmer saxophone in the pictures online. If you remember, we once saw a Selmer sax sell at auction for over $6,000, so I can see why she was excited.
When we arrived, however, the Selmer was gone. The guy running the sale said it went for $3,000 and the guy who bought it was first in line, waiting at 5 a.m.
There were some other instruments but none that seemed as valuable, I don’t think. So Erin passed on the rest.
This house was a typical “old person” house with not a lot of fabulous things, but some treasures here and there. I came away with a few of my own to both resell and keep. To keep, I found this cute strawberry bowl (my kitchen is green and red) for two bucks.
To sell, I found this adorable Holt Howard kitty pin box with a tape measure for a tongue!
I only bought this because it was $1 and super adorable, and I had never seen anything like it. I didn’t know that Holt Howard was a collectible brand but it appears that it really is!
The thing that I have is from his “cozy cats” line, but it looks like what sells best are his “pixieware” pieces, like the one above. Here’s a closer look at the pixieware:
Pretty cute! I can see why people collect these things. But they’re probably Erin’s worst nightmare because they’re so Mid Century/Retro looking.
Next up on our list was a sale in Dearborn that looked pretty good. I found some old Christmas cards right away, and Erin prevented me from buying this shirt:
I told her that it was so cute because it looked like something an elementary school art teacher would wear but she reminded me that that isn’t what I do for a living.
Erin spotted this portrait of me wearing my brown wig…
Right after that, she found that picture of herself that we posted on Friday.
I discovered these cool antique weights, but they had them marked $40 for the set:
I found some cool old records, including Disney’s Peter and the Wolf, which terrified me as a child. One of my earliest memories is of climbing out of my crib because the shotgun sounds on the record scared the sh*t out of me (I think my parents must have been listening to it with my brother, who is 5 years older than me.)
After we left this sale, it was lunch time, and Erin surprised me by having a craving for Mexican food. Let me tell you, ever since Erin’s had morning sickness, our food options on our adventures have been greatly limited. Normally, she only wants to eat somewhere if it has “family dining” in the name. We had some delicious food at Frida in downtown Dearborn, and then treated ourselves to some Yogurt Town. Here’s an action shot of me, delightfully planning my yogurt creation:
It did not disappoint.
Next up was a sale in Wyandotte, and on the way there were found ourselves at a completely different sale, which was where I found that Dave Grossman statue that Adam hates. To give you an idea of how these people overprice things, check out these book prices:
I’m not sure where a Reader’s Digest book is worth $15, but it’s not in this galaxy.
In the end, I also found some cute Christmas items at this sale, including a few knee hugger type guys, and a brand new vintage Holly Hobbie apron!
For the record, the woman tried to charge me $5 for each of those knee huggers. It didn’t work.
The last sale we hit was a doozie. These people had priced everything in the house as if it was a brand new item at a store, at 100% retail. They had a bunch of Jim Shore stuff that is Erin’s jam and not mine, but I did buy this beagle ornament because it was pretty cute.
Here’s a shot of all of it:
Nice stuff for sure, but not worth buying at an estate sale at its original retail price!
The only other thing I found here was a Zingerman’s book that was in great shape.
When I brought it up the lady looked super annoyed and/or confused. I said, “It’s supposed to be a dollar.” She said she knew, and then it occurred to me that she was probably upset because she thought she could get more than a dollar for it. COME ON!
-Sarah
Update from Erin: At the first sale, they were trying to sell opened food products, which is always so strange to me. I’ve come all the way to this estate sale, and ah yes, wonderful, a half used bag of sugar! Also, don’t any of you DARE touch the cake pop mix because it clearly belongs to Martina.
Look at that! THE SPAGHETTI BOX IS TAPED SHUT.
Anyway, at least there were some cute, non-edible items at the sale.
I found these little moccasins. One day I will force my baby to wear them, but for now I will just stare at them in admiration.
I also found this little trinket tray for $2. I gave it to Zach’s mom as part of her Mother’s Day present because she loves all things Mexico. This is from Juarez.
The second sale was kind of grody. I didn’t buy anything. You know what was NOT grody though? Yogurttown. I give a full endorsement to Yogurttown in Dearborn, MI. Hear that Yogurttown? If you are reading, I want some free froyo. And a t-shirt. Preferably one that says froYOLO.
After our froyo excursion, we hit a secret sale that happened to be really overpriced. I saw this rubber face reindeer as soon as we walked in:
Now, I previously sold a similar one of these guys on ebay for a hefty profit. I asked the guy how much this one was, and he started talking about how they are selling on ebay for $75, and how he’s not really sure, and on and on.
I wanted to say to him, “Are we on ebay right now? Is this ebay?” Seriously, we hear this all the time… “Well on ebay that’s sellin’ for blah and blah.” Cool. THEN SELL IT ON EBAY. I would have no problem if people running estate sales pulled the best stuff ahead of time and sold it on ebay for the best price. But once an item is in a sale, let’s be realistic.
In the end, we settled on $15 for this guy. And yes, I will be selling him on ebay.
Here is something I didn’t buy. Mostly because it has wings on the FRONT of its body, and a soulless face.
I wish I could have bought some of the Jim Shore stuff at the last sale, but it was all priced sooo high. I’m talking $25-$50 per piece. Here is one piece I took notice of. It appears to be Santa praying over the body of a dead child. Am I right? The child has a halo! Not Jim’s best work…
I did enjoy shopping this sale though because it was one of those times where peeking into someone’s house turns out super interesting. Usually we see messy hoarders, but this was the complete opposite. This person was so neat and clean that they kept all of the tags and plastic on the house lamps!