Dig This Treasure!

A few weekends ago, Erin and I saw a listing for a really baller looking auction at an auction house that’s just a mile or two down the street from where I live. I had never gone but always wanted to, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Erin arrived first and warned me it was very, very crowded. It was even more crowded than I expected. While waiting in line for a number, I heard people saying that there was some other antique market that weekend, and there were probably a lot of out of town dealers there. Makes sense. The stuff for sale was all very high quality, and there were tons of gorgeous quilts, woven coverlets, and lots and lots of antiques and primitive items. I was sort of overwhelmed. 

Seats were a very hot commodity at this place, and Erin smartly and quickly grabbed two in the back. The auction started and here was our view. 

Right when the auction started, I said to Erin, “I think that’s ______ _______ (name of annoying auctioneer from previous post.)” He was dressed so differently and had such a different way about him this time, that Erin was in denial at first. But it was indeed him. They were doing this crazy thing (because there was so much stuff there!) where as soon as one auctioneer ended, the other would start on the next item. It made things move incredibly fast. 

I had my eye on a few items, but based on how high things were selling, I didn’t think I’d end up with them. One of them I was right about. 

I mean how freakin’ cool is that thing? Anyway, it sort of reminded me of the card catalog type thing I spotted at a garage sale in Charlevoix. Anyway, this sold for $600+. I did, however, score an old post office shelf that someone repainted a beautiful green color. 

I think I might set it long ways on top of my big desk in eBay World. Not sure yet. Right now it’s still in my garage. I paid $75, which seemed fair to me. 

It was a really long night with so much stuff… a lot of things that seemed interesting or bid-worthy just went so high so fast that we didn’t get a chance to even bid! I had seen an old folk art dog carving that I was determined to go home with. They ended up putting him up with a taxidermy mini horse toy like the one Erin had appraised at Antiques Roadshow. I will not even admit what I paid for these two guys but I did go home with both of them. The horse is terrifying looking and will be listed on eBay shortly. 

Awesome doggy! 

Freaky horse!

On my way up to the check out counter, I did spot a paper doll of Erin: 

Isn’t she darling? 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: The items in this auction were all from the same owner, a collector named Irene Marinovich, who clearly had good taste and lots of scratch.  You can look at all the items for sale here, although I don’t know how much longer that link will be up. Googling Irene, it looks as though she was an artist and jewelry maker who unfortunately passed away in March.

I saw several items that I was interested in, the first being this weird mosaic frog.  I think it’s a frog anyway.  It was made of cement and super heavy, so I figured it was some sort of lawn ornament.  

I think maybe it was art and not a lawn ornament because it sold for like $80.  That was one of the cheapest prices we had seen all night.  

This cool face was some sort of weird resin/wood blend.  I was kind of obsessed with it because the eyes were super real looking.  I thought this would be nice above a door frame in our house, but it sold for over $100.  

I was starting to feel like Sarah at the last auction we attended, when she kept getting shut out from buying things.  Hours into the auction I had only bid one or two times and came nowhere near winning anything.  The only success I had had was buying snacks for Sarah and I all night long.  Here’s how it looked around my seat at the end of the auction:

To be fair, I think one of those chip bags wasn’t ours.  It just snuck in with ours to make me look bad.

Ok, so here we are.  I am getting kind of bored and antsy.  Sarah has had success but it has come at a price (literally, not figuratively).  There was one more item I was interested in.  It was this weird art bowl thing from some artist in the 80s.  I just liked the design.

The auctioneer had stuck this bowl in a box with a bunch of other pottery, so I was bummed because I figured that would make the price jump up.  So the whole lot goes up for sale and the price starts at $50.  No one bids.  He drops down to $25 and I throw my hand up (that was the lowest price he was dropping to all night).  

And then, like a true miracle, NO ONE ELSE BID.  The lot was mine, for a mere $25.  I was shocked.  

When I got the box, I saw that mixed in with my bowl were three pieces of Pre-Columbian pottery.  I am not particularly interested in stuff like this, but it was pretty neat looking.  I thought Zach might want it, but he encouraged me to put it on ebay instead.

I was hoping on ebay that I could just make my initial investment of $25 back.  Turns out though that this stuff is Jalisco pottery, from that region in Western Mexico.  I instantly had over 10 watchers in the first hour, and two bids soon thereafter.

There are five hours left on the auction and I have nearly doubled my money.  SO COOL.  I have no clue what this will sell for, so I will have to keep you posted.  I do know that I have had a bunch of people message me about it, so I have my fingers crossed.  One dude asked me to end the auction and let him buy the pieces outright.  No way man.

So after all, totally worth going to this place, even if our not-so-favorite auctioneer was there.  Oh, and I almost forgot, look at this doll of Sarah I saw there:

She has on her “fancy” dress.

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!

The sales last Friday didn’t look all that spectacular, but we still decided to venture out. The first sale that we went to was actually the sale in Redford that Erin hit with her sister and dad the day before. It was packed with stuff and they were discounting, so I wanted to check it out. 

Right away I saw all those dolls, but even though they were discounting, they were still pretty overpriced. I found this mug but then decided that I really didn’t need it (you’re welcome, Adam) since it was grungy and I don’t smoke: 

Still, I love the idea of a person in the ‘70s taking a coffee/cig break and then going back to work upon seeing that message at the bottom of the mug. 

The basement of this sale was a Christmas wonderland: 

But nothing was all that fabulous. 

In the end, I came out of the sale with a few cool things, including a really old bakelite View-Master (probably a 1950s version) and a stack of reels. If you’re interested in things like that, I’m selling them online. I already sold the Las Vegas and Mexico reels. I also found a bunch of Dakin Dream Pets that were reissued. Each of these cost me 75 cents and Organ bought one already! I’m selling the others together in a lot. Aren’t they cute? 

I found some other cool stuff at this sale, including a C3PO charm from 1977 that I thought was rare but actually isn’t that rare, and then this pin, which is amazing: 

Apparently people are willing to spend up to $30 on these wizard pins. 

Here is one thing I did not purchase at this sale: 

And here is one thing Erin wanted to purchase for a White Elephant gift, but I talked her out of it (it was priced too high!): 

(Worth noting: In my folder of images right now, this image is named “Mythic Creature.”) 

Erin had an extreme tragedy happen at this sale, but I’ll let her tell that story. 

We only went to one other sale, and it was a major disappointment. Let me show you why: 

1. People getting pervy with Barbies.

2. Weird babies with nylon heads. 

3. Bed covered in cheap stuffed animals and blankets. 

4. Garden sculpture of 1950s Bart Simpson. 

I found a stack of black and white pictures at this sale, including some weird ones of a paraplegic. 

Erin and I went back and forth about possibly going to an auction that was in Stockbridge that night. We decided against it and I was going to meet my mom and her friend there instead. My mom called me when she got there to warn me that it was in the middle of nowhere and you had to drive on lots of dark, dirt roads to get there. Doesn’t sound like my idea of fun on a Friday night, so I passed. In retrospect, I should have gone because my mom found a lot of cool stuff and nobody was willing to bid over $7 for any of it! She got me a box of very cool old cards and I’ll post about those in the future. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  I was so excited to be back at the Redford sale, because there were a few things I saw the previous day and hoped would be discounted.  I immediately grabbed this huge stack of handmade pottery dinnerware and serving pieces.  The set was originally marked $40, but this day it was 50% off, AND the woman running the sale said she would give me another $5 off because I didn’t want the mugs in the set.  If you can’t do math, that’s a total of $15 for a whole bunch of awesome ceramic plates.  I was walking around the rest of the sale fantasizing about what I could make and serve on them at the holidays.

The rest of the house was insanely picked over and I only ended up finding this ceramic Cornucopia in the garage.  

I bought those adorable glass pumpkins on ebay specifically for the purpose you see here.  So fun.

Ok, so the checkout for this sale was set-up in the driveway outside.  Sarah and I head out there, and just as we do, there is a giant gust of wind followed by a HUGE crash.  Like people always say in traumatic events, everything happened so fast.  I was looking around confused at what exactly HAD happened.  Clearly a bunch of breakable stuff had just broke.  

As I am thinking about how bad this sucks for the people running the sale, I hear Sarah say, “OH ERINNNNN!”  in a really distressed and pitiful way.  It took me a second, but I realized that she was saying this because IT WAS MY HANDMADE POTTERY DISHES THAT HAD JUST CRASHED TO THE GROUND.  The woman running the sale had taken them from me while I was shopping, and set them out on a stepstool/ladder thing near the checkout.  When the wind blew, the ladder fell over, and so did my beautiful plates.

This is just a small portion of the damage.  Sarah contends that I proceeded to stand over the crash site wide-eyed with sadness for the next few minutes.  At some point, she told me to back off because clearly I looked like a crazy person.  I was obviously suffering from some serious PTSD.

I will never forget those plates.  Never.

The next sale, like Sarah said, was gross and sad and weird.  And even though Sarah and I love buying us some dolls lately, we passed on all of these:

These dolls were the kind that they sell on QVC in the middle of the day.  The kind of dolls that have elaborate personal histories and personalities.  The kind of dolls that kill people for fun but no one ever catches because, “Hey I’m just a doll! I can’t kill nobody!”

I did buy one thing at this sale, which is this amazing Mexican lawn ornament.  I saw things similar to this when I was in San Antonio last month, but I couldn’t fit them on the plane home.  This guy was also featured in my Halloween post the other day, but I’m going to be keeping him out all year long.

-Erin

In this installment of “Hard to Resist” (HTR), we’ve got some items I encountered while out antiquing in Marshall, MI last weekend.  

First up are these two wizard pins.  Truth is, these actually were kind of hard for me to resist. They were so amazing and hilarious that I considered buying one to wear on my jacket.  They were priced at $25 though, which was way too pricey for a joke.  

Next up is…well, I don’t really know what this is…

I suppose it’s exactly what it says it is–a “tube to blow fire.”  Alright…

The last item that I just had to pass on purchasing is this little Mexican buddy.  He sure is adorable, but the extremely premature mustache was kind of off-putting.  

Cute outfit though.

-Erin