Dig This Treasure!

Erin and I went out sale-ing today (Thursday) with her dad, Timmy, who has been featured on our blog in the past. Her dad loves treasure hunting too–he’s a pro. Anyway, I was charged with making our list of sales as usual, and unfortunately I served us up with some real duds. 

We decided to start in Detroit (almost to GrossePointe) at a house that was advertised as having a lot of nautical themed items, because it was on the water. Unfortunately, it didn’t really have a whole lot going on. I came out of there with this big bag of overpriced vintage cards, but I didn’t mind too much because I enjoy going through them. However, when I asked the younger kid working the sale if he’d go lower on the price, he said no and that that was a “great price” for what it was. Uhm, no it’s not. 

After paying too much money for those cards, we stopped by a weird sale being held at what I think was a vintage resale shop closing down, called Little Vera. Sounds like the same girl who runs Good Girls Go to Paris Crepes was a partner in this store–their original location was next door to the shop. 

I found a few cool looking comic books for Adam to look at and then me to resell, along with a first edition Nightmare Before Christmas book… not sure if either of these things are worth anything, but I figured they’d be fun to look at regardless. 

Then we went to a house where I came out with nothing except two free cookies (I know–weird but good.) Here is something that I did not buy, but that Erin and I laughed and laughed about: 

After leaving this dud, we went to lunch and had some delicious food. The last sale on our list was in West Bloomfield, and it looked like a “man sale”–meaning, there were a lot of electronics in the pictures. However, I convinced Erin and her dad that this would be a good sale to go to because of the sheer quantity of items. Turns out I was wrong about that, but I did find some crazy stuff. First, an x-rated puzzle: 

I also found a bunch of records for Adam. I told him that I just looked for the weirdest looking ones and bought those. 

I also bought this record, and it turns out not only does Adam already own it, but so does Zach. Anyone else dying to take this off my hands?

Here are some items at this last sale that I did not purchase: 

Even though there weren’t a lot of treasures to be found, it was still a fun day! 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: “Dig this Dud” was a joke from my dad, who kept saying that we should change the name of the blog.  He only found 2 treasures yesterday and calling them “treasures” is quite a stretch.  He got a box of old paintbrushes (that he can use “for glue”) and an old San Francisco bank because he is going there in September.

I was equally empty handed.  My only good find was a pair of vintage Clubmaster Ray Ban sunglasses that I got for $5.  Unfortunately, they have prescription lenses, so I have to get those replaced before I can sell them.  They sell for quite a bit, but I might also keep them because they are adorable and fancy.

I am kind of glad we went to the first sale even though it was a letdown.  The house, as Sarah mentioned, was on the water.  This was the coolest.  Waterfront property in Detroit?  So cool.  The house itself was for sale, at a mere $92,000.  Here is the backyard with water access and a boathouse:

And as for the last sale, I’m not sure if Sarah captured its essence well enough.  Every room was literally boxes and boxes of broken electronics pieces, other junk, and records. They only had a portion of the house open for this weekend’s sale and it was so packed that I can’t imagine what’s waiting in the other rooms. Also, the homemade video tapes that Sarah showed were in full effect.  We’re talking hundreds of tapes.  This is just a sample:

All of the boxes on the left were tapes, just FYI.  Anyway, I didn’t buy any of these because I don’t actually know what a VHS tape is.  I only watch my programs on giant laser discs.  

There were also thousands of cassette tapes for sale.  Again, I don’t know what a cassette tape is, but they were selling them for $2 EACH, which seems slightly unreasonable.

Update from Sarah: Turns out that the x-rated puzzle was missing pieces so it wound up in the trash. Adam still managed to put together part of the woman side, though. Can you guess which part? Also, when he was sorting the pieces, he exclaimed, “Found a testicle!" 

We were lucky enough to have TWO days of sale-ing this past week since Sarah was off on winter break from work.  Thursday morning we headed out to a pretty promising Detroit sale.  I say promising because it was advertised as being in Boston Edison neighborhood, which is crazy fancy.  I got to film at a mansion there last Spring and the home was seriously insane.

When we arrived at the sale, we noticed two things.  One, that we were nowhere near the Boston Edison neighborhood, and two, this bumper sticker:

It’s a little worn, but it says “PIMP PRIDE.”  Holla!

The yard of the house signaled the treasures that awaited us:

If your guess is that this house holds bounties of jewels and gold, you’re wrong.  If you think it might hold rooms and rooms of garbage, you are spot on.

It also held a crap-ton of mugs.

Here is a photo of Sarah looking through the mugs.  There were a lot of mugs she wanted but couldn’t buy.  For some ASININE reason, the mugs were all chained to each other and to the stand they were on.  Unless you brought your bolt cutters, these mugs were for display only.

Some lady passed by and made a joke about Detroit having a mug shortage and now we know why.  Har har har.

The mugs were only the first example of stockpiled items.  Everything in the house came in bulk.  Stacks of unopened charcoal, cleaning supplies, toaster ovens…

When we made it to the attic things started to make sense.  This person was TOTALLY GEARING UP FOR THE APOCALYPSE.  You need 80 toaster ovens because when the world ends, you can’t count on just one toaster oven.  And you need a LOT of ketchup:

If you don’t have anything to put the ketchup on, at least you have a thousand mugs you can pour ketchup into and drink.

And you can salt the ketchup beverage with all the salt you’ve saved:

I was seriously shocked by this house.  We’ve seen our fair share of crazy houses, but this took the cake thus far.  I started getting creeped out, like I was in an episode of The Walking Dead.  At one point, I was rummaging through a box in the attic and something fell out.  The noise of it hitting the ground scared me so bad that I screamed.

Here are some survival barrels we uncovered.  Government sanctioned of course:

This is not to say that we didn’t find ANY treasures.  I found a little brass turtle box that is crazy adorable.  I put him on ebay but am kind of regretting it.  

He already has 2 bids though, so there is no turning back.

I also found this terra cotta cooker.  I looked it up on ebay and they usually sell for between $20 and $30.  

I have it listed now on ebay. Here’s the thing though, I think I have to take the listing down.  I looked up online how to clean these things because it was all dusty.  I scrubbed it with baking soda and hot water, and then it started releasing this INSANE smell.  The filthiest dirt smell ever.  A smell so bad that Zach woke up from a nap and was like, “WHAT IS THAT???”  Anyway, I put the cooker inside a bag with a box of baking soda for two days.  It still smells.  It is now sitting on our back porch hopefully “airing out.”

I’ll keep you all updated if this thing suddenly starts smelling like roses.

-Erin 

Update from Sarah: Erin’s right. This sale was crazy. The quantity of mugs at it was out of control. I have no idea how, but I was able to get one of the crazy chained ones off one of the racks. I was desperately trying to get one with a confederate flag on it off the same rack, but I was not successful. Erin was really embarrassed that I was trying to get that one off the rack because the sale was being run by an African American family. Come on. I’m sure they’ve watched the Dukes of Hazzard. Also, it’s not like I was going to keep it! 

Anyway, here are the four mugs that I did buy. Adam loves the two old timey ones, and of course the Piston’s one. 

I really don’t need any mugs, but when has that ever stopped me? 

The other thing Erin didn’t mention about this sale was that when we got into the basement, there were even more mugs, along with an overwhelming chemical smell that immediately made both of us worry that we were being poisoned. We quickly left the basement. 

I purchased a couple of other items at this sale, including this silver-plated Snoopy bank from 1958. I thought Adam would like it but in retrospect, I should have realized it was sort of gross.

One other, cuter Peanuts-themed item (we’re big Peanuts fans over here) that I purchased: 

Unfortunately, Adam didn’t really like this that much either, but I think I do. I might put it in my office at work. 

Besides all of the tempting ketchup, salt, and instant coffee, here’s another thing we saw there that we didn’t buy: 

An old wheelchair that looks like something out of a Marilyn Manson video, carrying some broke ass lampshades. 

After this sale, we went to a sale in St. Claire Shores that we were really excited to go to, but it ended up being bad because the people running it thought they knew some secret about how much things were worth, but really it was just a bunch of overpriced junk. I am ashamed to admit it but I bought these for $7.50: 

I had to buy them. What they say is true. 

Sorry about the animal hair in that photo. During my week off, this is what I was dealing with: 

Isn’t she cute? She’s my new dog, Betsy. She deserves a moment of recognition on this world famous blog. 

Erin and I also went to National Coney Island again, where I was able to make her buy me TEN bags of those coney chips because she owed me some money. 

Tomorrow, I’ll update you all with how day two went. The highlight of the day may or may not have been a potato taco Lenten special.