Dig This Treasure!

Last Tuesday, I had the day off because of doctor’s appointment mid-day, and I was really pleased because there was a crazy looking sale that started that day. Sales typically do not begin that early in the week, but there are a few boneheaded companies that do such a thing. The pictures of this sale reflected that it was: 1) very dirty and 2) full of old things–especially from the ‘80s. I am cool with both of those conditions, so I was excited to have the chance to go check out this sale. I was right on both fronts. Here is evidence in both regards: 

1) Mega dirty:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dirtier Sesame Street toy. 

2) Lots of '80s stuff: 

What you see here are boxes of cereal from the 1980s that are in plastic bags. They were each marked $10, I believe. Quite a steal. 

First things first–this sale was being run by our old friend, THAT GUY. That guy is a total scammer, and has no idea what he’s talking about. So half the stuff at this sale was overpriced and the other half was underpriced. In the end, it all worked out. And even though this sale was totally, disgustingly filthy, I found some cool stuff. Both to laugh about and to purchase. 

On my way upstairs, I spotted this box of naked Ken dolls. I don’t know why, but it really made me crack up. 

Once upstairs, I made my way into a room filled with possibly the most stuffed animals and dolls I have ever seen in such a small space. 

This doesn’t really do it justice. When I was in this room, a woman came in and asked me, “Do you think this is all one person’s?” How sad that this was probably her first estate sale experience. I told her yes, that this was one person’s stuff. She looked horrified. 

Most of the dolls and stuffed animals in these boxes were in sorta gross shape, but I still was excited about the quantity, because really… there are so many possibilities for treasures. It turns out that I DID find a treasure in one of these boxes. 

Tee hee, just kidding. I found an adorable Rushton mouse, who was in really great shape!

Like I mentioned–half of the stuff at this sale was overpriced, and the other half was underpriced. That mouse was priced the same as Chucky up above! 

Here’s some other stuff I laughed about: 

Look at that dummy! 

If anyone ever wanted to start a collection of California Raisins… here was a perfect opportunity. 

Huggabunch…what up?! Just in case you were wondering, his name was Hugsy. 

In the end, I found some cute things, including another Joan Walsh Anglund doll. She has heart patches on her knees!

I also found two GIANT boxes of photographs.They were marked $75 (for both), and the guy would NOT budge, so I decided to take a risk. As it turns out, there were over 1,000 pictures in the boxes and some of them were bulge photos, so I think I’ll have an update about the outcome of that find, sometime in the future! 

-Sarah

Last Friday, Erin and I were pretty excited because there were two sales that seemed sort of promising…FINALLY. We ventured out a little late, as Erin mentioned, but got on our way shortly after noon and headed to Fraser, which is really far away. 

When we got to the house, we had to park in a parking lot behind it, and walk through a very, very muddy backyard to get inside. The house was on a main road, so I realize that this makes sense, but what does not make sense is not laying down some cardboard or something so that people didn’t have to track mud into the house. Turns out that it didn’t really matter if mud got tracked through the house, because it was in pretty rough shape. Here are a few examples: 

That is a ceiling, if you can’t tell. Lookin’ good. Here’s what that wall looked like from afar: 

That is no environment for newborns! 

This sale looked enticing because there were a lot of old toys and dolls, but they were outrageously priced. For example, I really liked these guys: 

But guess how much they cost, each? If you guessed $20 you are wrong. They were each marked $375. Crazy times. There was an employee in each room of dolls, monitoring the situation. There were no thieves in these rooms–just crazy old ladies speaking to the dolls. At one point, I did find an exact replica of Baby Erin. This doll manufacturer must have obtained some photographs from her parents of her as an infant–it’s just so spot on. 

Not tired of looking at dolls yet? Ok! 

Shortly after we took this picture, a lady holding a different doll turned around and exclaimed to us, “This baby has a penis!” Ok, awesome.

How many people do you think this baby has killed?  

There was even a man doll playing air guitar. 

And some terrifying baby masks that I tried to convince Erin were “sort of cute." 

As you can see by my arms, I found a bunch of records at this sale. They were all children’s records, and I asked if I could just buy two whole cases of them because I’m always too lazy to sort. Many of them were Peter Pan records from the ‘50s and '60s, which ended up being super awesome. The coolest ones in the bunch, though, were these picture discs: 

Overall, the sale wasn’t fabulous, but it was definitely an interesting house with some crazy stuff inside. And I was happy with my purchases.

After we got out of Doll Land, I convinced Erin that we needed to pick up some cupcakes, since we were near my favorite cupcake place in Michigan. Just a word to the wise–lemon yogurt cupcakes ARE good. Next, we hit up a sale that Erin was excited about but based on the pictures, I was not. I ended up buying a children’s book and a small vintage piggy bank. I don’t think Erin bought anything at all. Whoomp Whoomp. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: The first house had some cool stuff, but it was all just so filthy.  It made me sad, and annoyed to be honest.  A man working the sale told me that some of the dolls they had there were worth up to $2,000 each, so I can’t understand why you wouldn’t try to take care of them.  Oh well, things happen.  

Sarah didn’t mention that the house also had a Doo-Wop motif, which was interesting.  Look at that plastic diner food in the corner.  

I unearthed a great treasure pretty early.  It was hiding in a box under a table, or else it surely would have sold before we got there.  At the time, I didn’t know if this was a Rushton bear or not, but really hoped it was.

I put this guy up on ebay and explained that I didn’t know the maker.  Silly me, it said "The Rushton Co” RIGHT ON HIS CHIN.  I didn’t even see it.

This guy is doing amazing on ebay right now, currently selling for $74.99.  And he has 34 watchers!  The auction ends tomorrow, so I will keep you all posted.  I only paid $3 for him!!

I should also note here, that while doing some rubber face animal research, I found the best blog all about them.  Everyone should check out Grubby Rubbers.  This girl’s collection is seriously incredible.  She has about 500 old rubber toys in her collection.

Ok, so back to the sale.  At one point, we were in the basement, and it was just a nightmare.

You could hardly move, and everything was so dusty.  I started to feel all asthma-y. And then I got MEGA thirsty.  Just then, I looked over and saw this hiding among all the treasures:

A giant bottle of Coke!  I laughed mightily to myself when I saw that.  Also, how did that man get back there?  A true mystery.

Later in the house I found Mrs. Beasley.  Remember her?  Sarah and I were fools for not buying her the last time we came across her.  This time, when I found her, I scooped her up immediately.  I will have her up on ebay shortly, but in the meantime, I am trying to get her hair in order.

Her hair was sticking straight up, so I wet it down and then made that little Beasley-bonnet.  Hopefully her hair will stay down when the bonnet comes off so that I can sell her.  

The last item I found was for keeps.  This stuffed Santa is hilarious and adorable.  He was pretty grody, but I washed him.  He was $3.

His hands move up and down, so he kind of looks like he is raising the roof when they’re up.

I didn’t buy anything else.  Not even this baby doll that looked exactly like Sarah:

Those eyebrows are spot on.

The second sale, like Sarah mentioned, was a total bust.  They were trying to sell this old washing machine, which was cool, but useless.  And totally huge.

They were also selling this “Merry Christmas” garland that only had the letters “M-E-R-R-Y C-H-R.”  I wanted to take this up to the people running the sale and say, “Excuse me, but you are literally selling a piece of garbage at this sale.  This piece of garbage literally has a price tag on it.”  Astounding.

They were also selling this:

Although, I shouldn’t be too hard on this one.  All you need is a really giant button and that doll is as good as new.

-Erin

I was fully prepared to return to the Mega Porn Sale once I realized all those paperbacks could be worth a hot dollar. I also knew I could convince Erin to come because the person who lived there seemed to have a ton of sports-related paper memorabilia and Timmy has trained Erin in the art of spotting when it is or isn’t valuable.  

We got a late start but finally returned. I advised Erin to start in the back yard where all of the papers were. I went back down to the basement and much to my dismay, a fellow porn-seeker had nabbed all of the paperbacks (except for the ones in super rough shape.) Still, I hung out in the room of porn and entertainment mags and ended up finding an issue of Life with Manson on the cover, and some old People and Time magazines about the Star Wars movies. I also found an issue of Hustler that seemed too weird to pass up. Erin snapped a picture of me sorting through the mess: 

The first day of the sale, there was a person in the room at all times, making sure no kids entered. On the second day, this wasn’t the case. So at one point, I see two little boys walk in and think, “Oh man… what am I supposed to do here?” because I’ve heard horror stories from other people when they’ve tried to “parent” a stranger’s kids. After a solid minute or two of no parents in sight, I asked them if their mom was nearby and said that this room wasn’t for kids. They left, thankfully.

It took Erin forever to get inside the house, which seemed like a good sign, and it was. But I’ll let her inform you about her finds. A few minutes after she got into the porn room, an older guy came in and the two boys were back again! Apparently he was their grandpa and they were showing him some toy they found. He told them they had to leave the room and then shouted out to them, “…And don’t touch anything in this house!” Erin and I both started cracking up, as did the grandpa. 

There were two other sales nearby that didn’t look that great, but why pass them up? At the first of these, I found two cool rag rugs and a holiday sweater that I will wear proudly and without irony. Here is one thing I did not buy…

…but only ‘cause it was empty! 

I found an old Superman mug and a vintage pasta maker at the next sale, both to sell. 

On the way to the last sale, we got a “snack” of Taco Bell cheesy gordita crunches (don’t judge (I got beans, not meat)) and after that tasty treat, Erin asked if I had a treat, which I often do. I gave her a Lindt truffle and as she was unwrapping it, it occurred to me that it was probably all melted from being in my bag all day. Bottom line: the truffle exploded onto Erin’s lap, so I kept making fun of her poo pants for the rest of the day because I’m a fantastic friend.

That was taken after she tried to clean it up with a taco bell napkin and water. Always a Girl Scout. 

The chocolate explosion occurred right before we were going into the last sale of the day, which was the best by far in terms of interesting things to look at. It was packed with stuff, the prices were fair, and lots of the stuff was really neat. I found some cool vintage wrapping paper and a ton of vintage cards that were bundled into different groups, and priced really reasonably. My favorite lot was this lot of cards from a baby shower in the '50s. 

If these are something you’re interested in purchasing, you’re in luck! 

I found a bunch of cool things at this sale, but this entry is getting long, so I’ll show you the best one: 

That is indeed a hanger with a St. Bernard head. And only $3! 

Right before we were leaving (they let us stay after closing time), I noticed this giant Santa that I had somehow not noticed for the 30 minutes I had been in the basement. It was super cool and old and wood, and marked $20, so I knew one of us had to take it home. I showed it to Erin and we admired it, and then she remembered that her dad really wanted some sort of old timey Santa for his house at Christmastime. We weren’t sure it was going to fit in the car because of its giganticness, but again, because we were both Girl Scouts, we made it work. Here is a picture of us with Santa inside Erin’s parents’ house: 

Don’t ask what I’m wearing. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: As Sarah mentioned, I went straight for the newspaper stacks outside at the “porn sale.”  It was 100 degrees out that day, and there were so many boxes stacked up to sort through.  I am SO BAD in the heat.  One time I threw up in the magical bushes at Disney World because I got heatstroke.  (Fun fact–this was actually the first time I threw up in the magical bushes.  Years later, I choked on a pill and threw up in said bushes again.)

So I am sweating like mad and moving all of these boxes around.  At one point I was sure I was going to pass out.  Lucky for me, this person was pretty organized in their newspaper hoarding, so eventually I figured out a good system to get through the boxes quicker.  Each box was a different year, so I just scanned the top papers in each box until I saw 1968.

I sorted through this box and ended up with a giant stack of Detroit Tigers World Series papers and scorebooks.  I was thrilled!  Timmy went through the stack later that day and estimated that I could make about $200 once everything is sorted and sold.  I paid $5 for all the papers.

That is just a small sampling of the papers I found.  Those Michigan football programs in the stack were found inside the house.  Again, this person was pretty organized.  There was a stack of manila envelopes and a few were labeled “Michigan Ohio State.”  I just grabbed all of those because I knew they would be most collectible.  Inside these programs are ticket stubs from the games too!

At the second sale I found an item that I would previously have considered a “holy grail.”  Zach and I are pretty obsessed with the Zodiac Killer, and both just finished reading a book about the case.  The lead suspect in the case wore a Zodiac brand watch.  I have never seen one of these in person, and we see TONS of watches at every sale.  Lo and behold, I found one.  It was pretty beat up, but it was still so cool to have as a collectible.  It was $5.

After doing some research, Zach and I realized that these watches are pretty collectible! I listed it on ebay and it’s getting a lot of interest.  The watch is rolled gold, and an automatic, which make it even more valuable.  I hope to find another one of these in better condition one day, and keep it.

The last sale had the best items by far.  I bought an old metal Coleco hockey game to sell, some Seiko watches to sell, and this adorable little guy:

Now that I know how collectible old rubber face toys are, I look for them everywhere.  In fact, I found this amazing blog all about these guys.  You can check it out here if you’re a fan of these toys too.

-Erin

P.S. My dad got home really late the night that Sarah and I dropped off Santa at his house.  He said that when he came inside he started screaming and running because he thought that Santa was an intruder.  BEST.