Dig This Treasure!

Sometimes estate sales are a blast not because you find a bunch of great treasures to buy, but just because they are fun to browse through.  I recently went to a sale like this, and even though I only bought a couple things, it was a really nice experience.  The whole house was like a time capsule.

Better yet, it was a time capsule of only adorable things!  That Holt Howard rooster set used to be very collectible, although prices on it have dropped recently.  If the prices were a little lower at this sale, I would have still tried to flip it on ebay.  I hope this found a good home though because it is so cute.

It is hard to tell in the photo but this faux fireplace was pretty big.  It was made of styrofoam and was obviously really cute, but we don’t really have a place to put it.  I hope someone bought it!

Continuing on with the trend of large holiday decorations I do not need, let me present you this Easter tree:

I was kind of obsessed with this.  It was a perfect mix of hideous, intriguing, and adorable.  I should have bought it and left it on Sarah’s porch.  Or saved it for a white elephant gift exchange.  I am not sure what those brown ball things are near the bottom but I assume they are representative of Easter bunny turds.

There were several wind up toys from the 80s and 90s that I thought about buying, but each one was priced around $10-$15.  Had they been $5 I probably would have bought all of them.  Everett would have loved them dearly, although I would be spending the rest of my days constantly winding them up for him.

The Musical Munching Bunny was a steal at $2 but I still didn’t buy him.  I’m being very disciplined with my purchases lately.

I did buy one wind up toy, which was this seal for the bathtub.  Everett is crazy about him and yells, “SEAL! SEAL!” as he swims around.

I also bought this amazing cat poster from the 70s, which I promptly sold on ebay.  It was $1. 

My last purchase turned out to be a lame one, but it was only a $1 investment.  This stuffed bear is supposedly collectible, according to ebay, but so far it hasn’t sold!  I don’t know what the deal is.  He is a Clifford Berryman bear.

I mean, he is definitely cuter than this thing that I left behind at the sale:

-Erin

I broke Erin out of Baby Jail on Friday while Granny Sandy watched lil’ E. We were both thrilled to see each other–while I love that baby, it’s just not as fun to estate sale without Erin there to harass me the whole time. 

We started out afternoon off right–by eating some garbage at Daly’s. Be sure to click that link if you want to see the jankiest website ever created. When it was time to get moving, we kept it close, just in case there was a baby emergency, and stopped by three sales in Livonia. The first was pretty grubby.

I stumbled upon this award winning title but decided to pass.  

Basically, everything was yucky.

I did find one treasure–a 1943 Esquire Vargas pin-up calendar, that’s complete and in good shape. I spent $40 which seems like a good investment. 

While in the basement, I started hearing some commotion above me on the main floor. The old lady running the sale had a really loud smoker’s voice. She yelled downstairs like a lunatic, “RALPH! HAVE YOU SEEN THE CALENDAR?????!!!!” as if some crazy ninja had come through the house and stolen it. I meekly let Ralph know that I had the calendar in my hand and planned on buying it. Ay yi yi.

Next up on our agenda was a sale that was at the home of an antiques dealer, who seemed to specialize in linens. Neither of us collect fancy linens but it seemed worth stopping at. 

That’s the linen room, and there I am, lookin’ like a big dummy (but sporting my cute buffalo plaid coat from last winter.) Shockingly, I have sunglasses on my head. I swear, one day I’m going to just do a post of all of the pictures of me on this blog with sunglasses on my head. It could be pouring rain and I think the picture would still have me with sunglasses on my head. 

Right away, I spotted these adorable Holt Howard Santa mugs inside a china cabinet. I bought them, so here they are. 

Are they not the most adorable? Anyway, as I was carefully removing these from the cabinet, I somehow knocked a tiny port wine glass off the shelf and it shattered all over the floor. It’s amazing how much attention you can attract by breaking glass inside a stranger’s house. (Note: I immediately offered to pay for the broken glass but the woman running the sale was very nice and told me not to worry about it.) 

The sale contained a mix of modern and antique goods…with some general garbage mixed in. 

Those were some awesome masks–but the set was marked $25 and it was too steep. They were made on really heavy boards, but still…too risky. 

I found a few other items at this sale but that was mainly when I went back the next day to pick up something that I’ll feature another day as a Fave Find. When we went back, I realized I hadn’t gone into the garage at this house and out there, I found a handful of very cute little dudes to put in my mini holder. 

The cutest is that teeny tiny kewpie. 

I also bought these cool Duralex mugs (set of 6) to resell. One of them had some very prehistoric dead bugs inside. 

Anyway, while I was trying to check out, the woman from the estate sale company kept talking to me about how I had a “great eye” and kept talking my ear off about it. I just thanked her and nodded politely because I got the impression she thought I had never been to an estate sale. 

The last sale ended up being the most fruitful, and it was a total accident! When we first got there, we had to walk down this super long driveway to get to the house, because it was in the middle of some woods. Here’s the first thing that caught my eye. I wanted Erin to buy it because she wears pins a lot, but she didn’t. 

The house backed up to a gorgeous wooded area with a little stream running through it. 

That picture doesn’t even really do it justice. It was so beautiful. 

I made my way upstairs and found a room of old children’s books, toys, etc. I noticed a box of old films right away and asked how much they were. The guy there said $5 for the whole box. I was super excited but didn’t want to lose my cool. I then noticed this packet of stuff that was marked $15. Inside, I noticed these old brochures about the Detroit Free Press, but then I saw that there was a record inside. 

WHOAAAAAA! You can listen to both of these things here. 

Anyway, while I was looking around, the guy in that room asked me what sorts of things I normally look for, and I told him paper, photographs, books, etc. He said, “Slides?” and I about leaped with excitement. I told him yes and he said he was going to check to see if there were any left. I expected him to bring down a little box of slides but when I turned to look for him, I saw him coming down the stairs with an enormous stack of carousels. 

I felt a little overwhelmed because, as he was walking, I could hear another guy asking him how much he was charging for the slides. The estate sale guy was pretty good at reinforcing that he was bringing them for me to look at, but the other guy was just relentless. As soon as he put the slides down, the guy zoomed over to me and was literally ON TOP OF ME, breathing down my neck. I don’t do well with people invading my personal space to that degree–especially when they seem to be interested in stealing my amazing merch–so I was not very friendly. He proceeded to grill me about what I was going to do with them, where I sell them, and how he could find my listings! WTF?! I asked if he wanted the slides and he said that he didn’t–he just knew the guy who lived at the house. It came out that he was just a neighbor, and in the end, all I could picture was a peeping tom, staring in this poor old man’s windows.

In the end, I was successful in buying ALL of the slides. 

And the man charged me ONE DOLLAR per carousel. Yeaahhhh! 

The only other thing I purchased at this sale worth mentioning was this awesome photograph of a girl and her great dane. 

I can’t reiterate how fun it was to get out with my homegirl. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder! And for all you baby crazed folks, here’s a current picture of Everett, chilling in his Mamaroo. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I really did feel like I was breaking out of Baby Jail.  I felt like I was a wanted felon on the run and at any moment I would be picked up and escorted back to my house.  This was seriously like the third time I had been out in public during the last month.  It was amazing.

I didn’t buy anything at the first sale because it was indeed yucky.  At the second sale, it was the best ever when Sarah broke that wine glass.  I heard a huge crash in the kitchen area and immediately exclaimed, “Rut Row!”  (You know, like the Scooby Doo version of “Uh oh!”)  I then thought to myself, “Oh man, Sarah is right in the middle of that melee.” Then I realized that Sarah WAS the melee.  So good.  You could tell she was mortified.  

I did buy an amazing treasure at this second sale, but I will detail it in a “fave find” entry.  At the third sale, guess who was there to greet me:

Can you believe it?!  Those same g*ddamn snowmen came out to welcome me back to sale-ing! 

This last sale was seriously fun.  The house was like a weird dollhouse with a million tiny rooms.  There were also multiple levels of the house all separated by tiny half staircases.  And some rooms were too small to even stand up in.

I ended up buying two old, framed photographs.  I am going to display these at Easter.  They bring me such joy.  

I also found one of those old Detroit Zoo scrapbooks as shown in this entry.  I paid $1 for it and my sister said I could resell it easily.  It is in perfect shape.

All in all a great day!

Last Friday (Good Friday) honestly didn’t seem that promising. Because of the holiday, there weren’t very many sales. But it ended up being such an awesome day that we’re going to have to split the adventure into multiple posts! 

We started out our day by visiting two sales on the east side of town. The pictures of the first one looked promising, but it ended up being packed full of junk. We knew this was going to be the case when we saw people DUMPSTER DIVING in the driveway. 

For a minute I thought this was a good sign, but it really was not. 

Inside, the place was full of old stuff, but they had a lot of it priced really high, and then the rest was sort of dirty or just cheap and junky. I did find a few cool things. An inflatable birthday cake (don’t worry, it’s never been opened). 

Who wouldn’t want this ultimate birthday gift? 

I also found some old Fantasia postcards…

…And I honestly can’t remember what else I bought at this sale except for an old flip book for Adam. They were selling a bunch of vintage Disney flip books and the I thought the lady running the sale was full of it when she kept telling us they were valuable, but it turns out she was right! Oh well! 

Here is an overview of what you missed out on if you skipped this sale: 

Looking through some show tunes on vinyl.. busted! 

That is one among many paper box tops filled with Agatha Christie mysteries. 

The house was FILLED with these SelectaVision VideoDiscs, which Adam just told me are called CEDs and were the precursors to laser discs. You may recall Erin saying that she only watches movies on laser disc, so I’m shocked that she did not jump on this rare opportunity to enhance her collection. 

On the way out, Erin actually made friends with some of the dumpster divers. 

I asked the guy on the right if he found anything good in there. He started talking about how he found some stuff for movie sets and that he’s in the video production business, so Erin started chatting him up. She asked if he needed any editing work and ended up with his business card. So all of you job seekers out there… check the dumpsters! 

We checked the listings for sales nearby since we had no plan. We found a sale that was described as being at the home of a former gift shop owner and Erin and I both got pretty pumped. It was only about 20 minutes away, so we hit the road. As soon as we walked in, we were transported to A Whole New World. 

Yes, you are in fact looking at a life-size plush carousel. It seriously only got worse. 

Those bears are on bikes, and they were $10 each. 

Now I’m no expert but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if you have MASS QUANTITIES of Easter goods overflowing your counter space two days before Easter, it would in fact be the PERFECT time to make those exact items half off. 

The den was filled with dirty old plastic toys and “DVDs”…although I’d argue that this woman was fairly confused about what DVD means. 

I would also like to know where on Earth a VHS tape is worth $4. Probably the same place where a dirty, ratty old paperback is also worth $4. I’ll get to that in a minute. 

We headed to the basement and that’s where Erin found Beanie Baby Heaven. When we got down there, it became clear that this was some sort of weird “I’m selling all of my possessions” sale because the woman’s teenage daughter was down there and talked to us for a while. She told us that “everything except the beanie babies” was half off. Right away, I found some vintage teen paperbacks that I thought a friend might like, a couple of records, and an old Pucci doll.

I was about to pay when we realized that there was also an upstairs. Of course we had to check it out. It was the worst of the worst. 

You are reading that correctly. TWELVE DOLLARS for a gross old used men’s sweatshirt. I’m not sure a new sweatshirt costs that much at like, Target.

I also found this totally bodacious one-piece suit. 

To top off our visit, we found this stain. Clearly a biohazard. 

Right after I walked in and saw this, Erin walked in and made a priceless face. I’ve captured it here for your enjoyment.

One more time. 

At this point, it was clearly time to check out and the lady told me my total was $16.50. I almost just took out a $20 but then reality hit me and I had no idea how a couple records, books, and a tiny stuffed animal could cost that much. I asked how much the books were and she said, “Four dollars… so they’re two dollars today.” I still felt confused and then realized that she meant EACH ONE was that much. I said, “…oh…that’s A LOT.” The lady seemed shocked by this, and Erin reiterated that $4 for a paperback that cost 25 cents in the 1950s was insane. Then the woman told me, “oh… well I’ve been selling them like crazy for the last four weeks.” I’m not sure why we did not ask this but… WHY HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING AN ESTATE SALE FOR FOUR WEEKS?! 

Anyway, I paid for everything besides the books and we high-tailed it out of there. In part two of this Friday update, we’ll tell you all about we heard some gossip about this very sale at our next stop! 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: At that first sale, I did in fact call all those weird CEDS “laser discs.”  Some guy heard this and later hunted Sarah and I down to tell us that these were NOT laser discs.  He didn’t know their proper name (thanks Adam) but knew FOR SURE that these IN NO WAY were laser discs.  Thanks man, but I’m still not buying them.

I didn’t find much at this sale, but they did have this snack maker, which Sarah was not shocked to learn I had as a child.  Spoiler alert: I was a fat youth.

I remember this being kind of janky when I was young.  The fry maker would shred a piece of bread into strips and voila, you had fries.  Except not.  I can certainly tell the difference between shredded bread and french fries.

They also had this doormat, which cracked me up immensely:

Someone’s last name was “Chicks” or someone was trying to welcome “the chicks” to this house, in which case, that someone should have cleaned up all the Tron CEDS and McDonald snack makers before said chicks arrived.  

I found one treasure here.  A pennant from the 1950s or 60s, for the St. Louis Cardinals.  When I reported this find to Timmy, he was so thrilled.  Apparently the green background on this is mega rare.  It will be on ebay soon.  I paid $5.

The second sale was held in the fourth circle of hell which, if you don’t remember, is reserved for the hoarders and the spendthrifts. 

Ok, let me explain something about Beanie Babies.  Wait–let me first explain my Beanie Baby credentials.  Early readers of this blog may remember, but this is me:

I know my stuff.  TRUST.

Beanie Babies in 2013 are worth exactly the scrap price of polyester blend fabric and tiny plastic beads, which as it turns out, is $0.00.  That said, at estate sales and garage sales, young children still love them a cheap Beanie.  So here is what you do: sell each Beanie Baby for 25 cents, or even better, let any kid who shows up fill their grubby little arms with as many Beanies as they want–for free.

Instead, the woman at this sale was selling each Beanie for $2.50, which sounds cheap, but isn’t when you have THOUSANDS to sell.

I didn’t find anything to buy here, although chances are I couldn’t afford it anyway.  Case in point:

Yesterday’s sale-ing got off to kind-of slow start.  Sarah showed up at my house around noon or so, but before we could hit the sales, we had to buy our Mega Millions tickets.  The traffic around the 7-11 was INSANE, and I pulled into the wrong driveway, getting us trapped in the parking lot of Daly’s restaurant.  I figured we could just walk over to the 7-11 but it was pouring rain, and they had a chain link fence between the parking lots.  

By the time we actually made it to the 7-11, got our tickets, and then stopped quickly at the post office to ship out ebay stuff, it was after 1pm.  Whoops.

Our first sale was in Troy and was advertised as a “digger.”  It was in a real fancy condo, and before we walked in, I speculated that the sale might be a rich person hoarder.  It was.

The stuff upstairs was pretty high quality and definitely came in bulk.  I was looking at some leather loafers in a back room when I got this text from Sarah.

“Motherload in basement” could not be a more perfect way to describe what I was about to see when I headed downstairs.

The basement was completely packed.  There were little pathways carved out between the tables and all the stuff on the floor.  Most of the things were in boxes which were stacked, so you had to keep opening, rummaging, and then moving stuff out of the way to get to more boxes.  I love this kind of sale because you really don’t know what you will find.  After like 20 minutes though, I kind of hated this sale because I got something really sticky all over my hands and I started having an asthma attack from the dust.  We were finding cool things though, so we pressed on.

I found two large cast iron skillets, one of which literally STILL HAD AN OMELETTE BAKED IN THE BOTTOM OF IT…like a really super old omelette.  I bought the skillet anyway because I knew I could just brillo the hell out of it.  Here is what it looks like now:

Cute huh?  Not really, but I got it for $3 and have it listed on ebay.  I’m hoping that I will have good luck with it, like I did with some other cast iron things in the past.

My favorite things BY FAR from this sale are these two little Koala buddies.  They are from the 1960s and are made out of REAL wallaby fur.  (Everyone keeps asking me what a wallaby is, and from what I can tell, it is a small kangaroo.)  There seems to be a good market for these things, as noted by this informative internet blog about koala toys.

You can’t really tell, but these guys are pretty large…about 12" tall.  It’s no secret that I would actually love to keep them, but Zach was horrified when he saw them.  The cats love them though, and actually sat and groomed the koalas for a good long while.

After leaving this sale, Sarah had a meltdown because she was so hungry, so we stopped quickly at Bruegger’s and got some sandwiches.  Then we raced to one more sale nearby.  It was a really tidy sale and didn’t have too much to offer.  I got some Christmas ornaments and this Josef Original that I put on ebay:

Sarah decided that this puppy was a Beagle and, since she is obsessed with all things Beagle, said that I should give it to her.  The woman running the sale heard us bickering, declared the puppy NOT a beagle, and I ended up buying it.

There were plenty of good things left for Sarah to buy though, so I didn’t feel bad.  Here is a perfectly good makeshift Jesus in a manger:

For some reason, she passed on it.

Here are some other things we didn’t buy at this sale:

Frumpkins?  Yeah, that sounds about right.

This Barbie is clearly a bride doll being disguised as Vanna.  I know Vanna when I see her.

Speaking of brides…

Too bad that both Sarah and I are both already married, this would have been a nice cake topper.  The face appears to be a shrunken apple, which is a craft trend that will never go out of style.

After this sale, we rushed home because I had to help set-up for my neighborhood’s Easter egg hunt.  I was pretty late because we hit so much traffic, but the good news is that all of the eggs were eventually hunted.  And the Easter bunny came!

He’s wearing boots.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin has covered these sales very well, so all I really have to add is my finds. That basement at the first sale was incredible. There were so many things to dig through, and I did find many treasures. Let’s start with the best: 

This is a copy of Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros by “Uncle Shelby” aka Shel Silverstein. Since I’m a librarian, sometimes I can spot books that are valuable. This one was a total fluke–I thought maybe it might be worth $20 or something because it was published in the ‘60s, but turns out, the last copy on eBay sold for $225. WTF?! Pretty awesome. I have two watchers on it now. If you’re a mega book collector, maybe you should buy my copy. They are very rare. 

In addition, I found a boatload of vintage (ish–1974) magazines. This person was reallllly into two main things: Japan and roadrunners (not the Warner Bros. kind), so I found a stack of Orientations magazines and then a stack of Arizona Highways. I knew nothing about these, but I noticed that the former sells pretty easily on eBay. I’ve got them both listed now, so we’ll see. Hidden in this pile of magazines was one lone issue of Hustler from 1976. I hid that amongst my other magazines and hope to sell it, since I’m so into selling porn these days. 

I also found a bunch of other cute stuff–lots of vintage greeting cards to add to the collection, some cute vintage stamps from Japan (I think): 

I have no idea what they say or are supposed to be, but maybe someone will want them. 

I’d have to say the next best thing I found besides the Silverstein book is this package of vintage napkins from 1960, made by the Monogram of California company: 

The epitome of a lady who’d have men beating down her door! 

The really great thing about this sale was that the people running it were super nice and friendly. When I was checking out, the guy asked me what I wanted to pay for my box of stuff. I said $20, he said $22, I said deal, and I thought that was great even before I realized I had a $200 book sitting in that box! 

So Erin is right–I got really hungry while we were at this sale, and started feeling like I might pass out. We were out in Troy on Long Lake Road, where there are seriously zero places to grab food for miles and miles. I started feeling like I was in a real life nightmare. When we found Bruegger’s, I was so excited. Erin accidentally left out the best part of Bruegger’s, besides delicious sandwiches: Right when we pulled up, we saw a very wealthy looking woman who had just gotten a pedicure at the nail salon next door. It was raining pretty hard and one of her cheap flip flops that they give you at those places (not that I know from experience) broke, so she was frantically trying to get into Bruegger’s to seek shelter but walked right by the door. She kept walking around with that dumb flip flop hanging off her foot. So the entire time we were in Bruegger’s eating, we kept hearing this zombie shuffle noise, which was that woman trying to get around because she refused to ruin her “pedi” by putting on her regular shoes. 

At the second sale, I didn’t find much. I bought some knit Christmas ornaments and a side table that is still in my car. This is starting to be a theme with me–buying furniture that sits in my car for a week. 

Also, I didn’t want that little beagle anymore once I realized he was all gross and dirty. Erin said she was going to “gently” magic eraser him. Looks like it did the trick.

The one detail of this trip that Erin forgot to include was our extensive bonding on the drive home about how we both loved stuffed animals as children, but hated ones wearing clothing. I used to strip any stuffed animals I received as gifts that were wearing outfits. Erin just flat out refused to play with them if they wore clothes (she must have gotten over this by the time beanie babies rolled out because as I mentioned previously, she made clothes for hers.) 

Tomorrow, I will post an update about some sales I went to with Adam on Saturday, where I found some cool valuable treasures.