Photo Bomb

A few Fridays ago, Erin and I hit up a handful of good sales that were spread out across town. The first that we stopped at was a sale that looked very granny-ish, but was PACKED, so I insisted that treasures could be found. Turns out I was sorta right!

When we walked up, we discovered that the sale was 50% off, and prices were very reasonable to begin with. There were some cool old things in and around the garage area:

I liked this cart but decided I didn’t need it.

(Erin took a picture of that dolly so I think she must have thought it was cool.)

I thought this Census box was really cool but Erin convinced me that I had no need for it. In retrospect, I should have ignored her and purchased it. It’s cool!

Inside, it was quickly apparent that this was the owner’s motto:

And I’m cool with this, because it meant that there was a lot of stuff to sift through.

The basement was overflowing with stuff–most of it pretty useless. But we did find a lot of cool old party supplies and wrapping paper. Here are two of my finds:

Y'all know I can’t resist old Holly Hobbie.

A lot of the basement looked like this:

Lots and lots of patterns all over the place. While we were down there, we ran into our #1 Groupie. This lady was following us all over, asking, “Where did you find that?” and told us that she had been in the basement for two hours. Well, if you’ve been in the basement for two hours, how did you possibly not notice this dumb felt ornament kits that I saw sitting out in the open?

One very cool thing we saw in the basement, but had no use for:

That is one sweet children’s table and chairs. I think it was really reasonably priced, and at half off it would have been a steal. I honestly have no idea how it was still there.

I spent a hot minute or two being convinced that I needed this terry cloth cape:

Erin’s voice of reason actually came in handy this time.

The upstairs of this house also contained a few treasures. When I noticed how much crap this woman had, I kept thinking, “Where are the greeting cards???” Well, at the top of the stairs to the upstairs/attic, I found them! Two huge boxes. I haven’t finished sorting, but they’re not fabulous. But the woman charged me $20 for all of them, which is an excellent price.

It was at this sale where Erin was reunited with her snowmen. As you can see, this woman loved her some googly eyes and crafts:

The face Erin was going for here was “spooky” but I’m not sure she succeeded. You be the judge.

While we were checking out, #1 Groupie stood behind us and once again, kept asking “Where did you find that? Oh that’s a lot of greeting cards, what are you going to do with them?!” I have a hard time lying to people and Erin does not, so I just said, “If they’re old enough they sell online.” Erin said she just kept thinking to herself, “Say scrapbooking, Sarah. Say scrapbooking.” Oh well! I’m an honest lady.

We high-tailed it outta there and made our way to a sale that was super far, but looked to be filled with TONS of photographs. It was here that I found those amazing pictures of dogs that NOBODY IS BIDDING ON on eBay right now and that I decided to have end on THE FOURTH OF JULY because I’m an idiot.

Here’s an action shot of me hyperventilating over the awesome pictures:

Here’s more picture shots:

Midway through exploring this sale, the woman running it came out of the bathroom, swearing up a storm. She proceeded to let us know that she allowed a shopper to use the bathroom and the woman “sh*t all over the place.” Cool, lady. Now we both want to barf.

Ok, back to the pictures. All of the photo albums (there were TONS) were priced extremely high ($60, $75, $100, etc.), and all of the 8x10 pictures were either $2 each or had prices on the back. Considering the extreme number of pictures remaining on the second to last day of this sale, I figured that there was no question that she’d negotiate with me. My plan was to just gather everything I wanted and ask her to give me a flat price. However, she proceeded to tell him that they would have to count all of the pictures in the basket. Here they are, doing just that:

I tried to reason with this woman, but she was not having it. I said, “The reason I’m willing to just pay you a set amount for all of this is because I DON’T want to go through this box of pictures here in this house. If you’re going to charge me for each one individually, I don’t want all of them.” She told me, “I can’t give these away for free.” Did I ask for anything for free?!

So here’s the deal: I had at least 20 8x10 photographs (so that means $40+), I had an album marked $25 and an album marked $40, and then she said that the pictures in the basket added up to at least $200.

I was super annoyed and finally said, “I was going to just offer you $100 for everything here.” She looked at me and said, “You were? Well you should have just said that!” and proceeded to take my $100 like Tiny Tim snatching up a new pair of crutches. We ran outta there as fast as possible and just stared at each other in awe. I said, “Does she not know how to do math?” Erin was like, “I don’t think so. But you handled that like a BOSS.” So basically, I got $300 worth of priced photos for $100. Woo!

The last trip of the day was back to the DJ sale in West Bloomfield. They had opened the basement, which I thought would mean lots of treasures, but it didn’t. I did get a good deal on a glass head and a sealed Kool-Aid Dixie Cup dispenser.

Both to resell, of course!

I don’t think Erin bought much this day, but I’ll let her tell you all about it.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Yes, that’s my spooky face. Get over it.

The first sale, let me just say, was so fairly priced that I wanted to shake all of the workers’ hands. They were going to clear out that house so quickly and still make a super fair profit. Kudos. The photo sale lady should learn from this because even after Sarah bought all those pics, there were still literally THOUSANDS left in the house. And probably about 20 albums packed full too. They are never going to sell if you price every photo at $2-$5 each.

Anyway, at the first sale, I got the cutest party decorations. I am putting these away for future child’s birthday. Zach was super skeptical that I was actually going to remember in a year that I had bought these decorations, but I informed him that I actually have a box in the basement labeled “PARTY SUPPLIES.” I consult this box on every single birthday occasion, so these supplies will NOT go unused.

At the photo sale, all I found was this tiny ship figurine. It had no price on it, so I was pretty leery after watching Sarah haggle so hard over the photos. The women running the sale said, “This might be silver. I have to be sure this isn’t silver.” I said “OK” but I was really thinking, “There is NO WAY this is silver.” It has no markings on it and is light as a feather. It isn’t tarnished like silver. At the very least, it’s pewter. It is, however, most likely brass or tin. After scrutinizing it, she charged me $2. Phew.