Dig This Treasure!

Less than a week before lil’ Everett arrived, Erin and I went on our last sale-ing excursion for a while. It wasn’t incredibly fruitful, but we did both find a couple of treasures. 

We started off in nearby Redford and hit up a sale that was very old lady-ish, but full of stuff, so that made it fun. 

I believe the woman was involved in community theater because there were some clothes there that seemed more like costumes than regular outfits. The whole attic/upstairs was filled with clothes/costumes. 

I had grabbed a bunch of clothes but when I went to check out, I noticed that a number of them were stained or grosser up close than I had realized, so I ended up putting a lot of it back. Erin grabbed this coat right away and told me it looked like something I’d buy because I love “quilted things”… that girl is right! I do! But this coat was horrid. 

There was a moment where I convinced myself that this coat wasn’t gross. Thank god I came to my senses. 

I really wanted this fabric artwork (the heart, not the elephant) but it had some water stains on it… whomp whomp. 

I thought this booklet was so freakin’ hilarious looking. 

In the end, I came away with these hideous shoes and that gingham shirt. I had to throw the shirt away because it was more stained than I realized (the woman threw it in for free because there were some small stains on the shoulder)… I liked those shoes a lot but now that I look at them… I don’t know! 

Next up on our list was a sale in Farmington that again, had a few cool items. I love these old prints… we see them a lot and sometimes they’re really pricey, and other times just moderately pricey. Who can tell me what they are, exactly? 

There was one at the sale before as well: 

Ahhhh! What are they?! 

Ok, back to the sale–there was a mix of antiques and oddly sexy stuff at this sale. 

That about sums it up. I walked away with a Halloween decoration that I’ll tell you more about on Halloween, and this cool old book. 

I can’t find a record for it anywhere–not even in our special library databases. I did discover that “Brownie Brace” is a nickname for a woman named Elizabeth Hanchett Brace, who appears to have written some other books that are less obscure. The illustrations in this book are super cool and art deco-y. 

Is that even art deco? If I’m wrong, someone correct me. It’s one of my favorite illustration styles so I want to know if I’m wrong! 

We went to two more sales after this, both in Dearborn. This is the only thing I came away with: 

And I’ll let Erin tell you more about the sales. But before she does that, here’s another picture of that adorable baby. Spoiler alert: Still super cute. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I had no clue that this day of sale-ing would be our last for a few weeks.  I thought for sure we had at least one more week of sales before Everett came.  Alas, my water broke a week early and the rest is history.

Somehow I managed to keep it a secret from Sarah that I actually knew the lady whose house the first sale was held at.  She is friends with my 85 year old neighbor and recently moved into assisted living.  Sarah’s sleuthing skills were right on–the lady was in a theatre group.  Zach and I actually go to their plays every few months.

I was in the basement of this sale and saw this:

A pencil sharpener.  Nothing fancy about that.  Except there was a group of three teenage girls walking around and when they saw this pencil sharpener, one of them said, “Was this a school?  It must have been a school down here.”

This totally blew my mind.  Younger generations are apparently only familiar with pencil sharpeners in school settings, so these girls automatically assumed this must have been some sort of educational facility.  Except that it looked like a totally normal basement and was clearly NOT a school.  So insane.

Also totally fascinating was why Sarah didn’t buy this:

First of all, she is OBSESSED with llamas.  And secondly, she loves her some giant wall decor, like that fabric heart thing above.

I bought a Seiko automatic watch at this sale because they usually sell for good money on ebay.  This one is in really rough shape though, but for $4 I figured what the hell.  Zach is a mega watch collector and said that some guys like beat up watches because it gives them a “story.”

At the second sale, I immediately zeroed in on this baseball bank.  I knew Timmy would want it.  It was priced around $30 though, which I knew was crazy.  I decided the best plan would be to call Timmy on my phone where I knew the guy running the sale would hear me.  By hearing my side of the conversation, I hoped the guy would realize that I really wanted to buy this thing, but also that the price was of great concern.

Sure enough, the guy heard me describing the bank to my dad and then also heard my reaction to my dad obviously saying the price was too high.  I acted kind of disappointed and like I was going to put the bank back.  The guy running the sale said, “That’s worth $200 on ebay you know.”  I was super polite but also wanted to be like, “UM NO WAY JOSE.”  He ended up selling it to me for $20, so I was happily victorious.  

At one of the last sales we visited, I picked up this giant stuffed monkey.  He’s from Howdy Doody or something like that.  I forget his name.  He was $15 but I am hoping he will sell for more on ebay because he is gigantic.  Smaller ones seemed to sell for $30-$60.  

I made the mistake of seating this guy at my dining room table when I got home from sale-ing.  In the night I got up to drink some water and he scared the sh*t out of me in the dark.  I thought a really ugly toddler broke into my house and was pulling a Goldilocks or something.

Anyway, I can’t make any promises but I am hoping to take a break tomorrow or Friday from raising a tiny human and instead hit a few sales.  Sarah is doing a great job keeping up the blog, but I am hoping to still pull my weight.  Wish me luck!

On Monday night, I called Cindy and zz popps to see if they were going to their secret auction. They were, so I hopped on board! Normally on Monday nights, I get my fitness on (Turbo Kick, WHAT UP?!) but I decided that treasure hunting was going to take priority. 

In case you didn’t read the other entry about this auction, it’s a little different than most. At any given time there are THREE different people auctioning off items, so it’s a little stressful, but in a good way. You might remember that last time, I scored a GIANT lot of Muffy bears and made a small fortune off of those. Well, here’s what I saw when I walked in on Monday: 

I’ll be frank—I was almost trembling with excitement when I saw all those Muffies sitting there, waiting for their new (temporary) home with Mama Sarah. Right away, I ran over to my mom and exclaimed something like, “Awwww sh*t, look what I found!!!!” and showed her that picture on my phone. I mean what’s the likelihood of that happening twice—the only times I’ve ever gone to this auction?! 

There were other cool things up for sale in the other areas—mainly in what my parents called the “guy area.” In the “guy area” there’s an auctioneer who mainly sells old toys, tools, and other collectibles. While I was looking at things in this area, I stopped to check out this thing of marbles: 

Because I’m a dummy, I did not realize that this jar did not have a lid, so I proceeded to knock it over when I grabbed it to take a look. Fortunately, only a few were lost in the abyss. I also saw some other interesting items for sale:

Lots of early ’70s heads up in the mix. 

That buddy knows what’s up. Also, for a while my mom wanted one of these lightening rods for her garden (?! I know!) but thankfully she changed her mind.

After dumping the marbles, I high-tailed it outta there, and headed back over to Muffy-ville. It felt like I had to wait FOREVER for them to put them up for auction and in the meantime, my mom stopped over and won this terrifying thing: 

The funny thing is that my mom sent me this picture and the name of the file is Jiggy, but his name is actually Zippy and apparently he was from Howdy Doody. You’re welcome, mom. Anyway, I think she paid $3 or $5 and it looks like she will definitely make a profit! Also, people would NOT stop commenting on this purchase. 

After getting Zippy, my mom went to another auction area and I was left to stress on my own about the bears. They started with the ones in boxes like this one: 

There were six of those, and I got them for $3 each. I got a little worried because I thought, “Are they going to sell ALL of those Muffies one by one?” I wanted to maximize profit, of course, so I wanted them to be sold in a lot! Well, spoiler alert: In the end, I got that GIANT group of bears for $10. YES YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY!!!!!!!! Here’s the big pile of bears: 

I was seriously so pumped. 

A few minutes later, a guy came up to me and said, “You’re the girl who won all those teddybears. Whachoo gonna do with all those bears?!” I should have been a smartass but I told him they were semi-valuable. He then proceeded to talk my ear off about how one of his friends has a huge collection of Shirley Temple dolls that she’s willing to part with. Cool story, bro. I didn’t bite and then he said, in a very annoyed tone, “I’m trying to give you a hint here.” I said I didn’t get what he was saying (even though I did, I just didn’t want any more dolls after scoring 30+ teddy bears!) and he proceeded to call the woman on the phone and hand me it! WTF?! It was so weird! Thank god the reception in that joint is terrible because the call dropped and I was able to get out of that one. I told him that I really wasn’t interested and he gave me the most “you are a fool” look I’ve ever seen, but then insisted on giving me her number! In retrospect, maybe I should have called her, though:

There are lots of other Shirley Temple dolls that aren’t worth nearly that much, so I’ll just hope THOSE are the kind she owns. 

Right after this wacko encounter, the area with all of the cool older antiques started getting put up for auction and I won this egg scale that I had my eye on. 

My mom won a bunch of other cool things: 

Chalkware! 

Cool old tin toy made in Italy. 

And a tin sign. I am not sure whether or not this is actually old or if it’s a repro. 

My mom also bought some not so great stuff: 

The biscuit tin had potential but I think it’s missing it’s glass window. Still, maybe she’ll resell it. One like it resold for a decent amount but it was complete. 

I think the big winner of the night was zz popps. He bought a Federal Sign & Signal Beacon Ray for $80. Apparently it’s the same emergency light they used on Hawaii 5-0.

There are different models of these beacon emergency lights, but one identical to my dad’s sold a few months ago for $500! We’ll see what happens. 

All in all, a very fun night! The only regret I have is eating Nachos and chocolate cake for dinner. At one point, a lady next to my mom was raving about the homemade frosting on the chocolate cake, so I tried it.

Betty Crocker all the way!!! Still delicious. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. At the end of the evening, they put out all of the hot dogs that did not sell in a paper basket and people can come up and grab one for free with their grubby little fingers. 

Utterly disgusting. And that’s coming from a true hot dog lover. 

-Sarah