Dig This Treasure!

Because I was off of work last week for winter break, Erin and I were able to go treasure hunting for two days in a row. We ventured out on Thursday, ready to hit up a really packed looking sale in Garden City. Don’t let the name fool you–Garden City is not a gorgeous haven. We arrived at the house and it felt like a repeat from a few weeks ago–you had to enter through the back yard and it was a treacherous, icy swamp land.

When we finally made it inside, we were pretty pleased with the offerings right off the bat:

Scary models, lots and lots of junk, 3-dimensional animal artwork, sexy babies… what more can you ask for?

Right away, we saw some cute stuff but it was a little overpriced. For example, these guys were cute but one was stained and the other was marked $25.

There were some other interesting items, but again, a little too pricey and it was the first day, so there was no negotiating.

I would have bought that Pee Wee if it wasn’t so crazy expensive. Adam and I both have a soft spot for Mr. Herman.

There was also a lot of not so great stuff at this sale:

The real interesting collections were down in the basement. I don’t know what it is lately but we sure have run into a lot of beanie babies. This sale was no exception to that recent trend.

These bins alone seem to be holding lots of beanies but they don’t even begin to capture the number that this person had. She also had a lot of other stuffed toys and dolls.

Sexy dress, sexy specs.

Mountains of Barbies. Note that many of them are multiples of the same item.

Lots of Mikhail Gorbachev dolls.

A lot of the dolls (Barbies, etc.) were totally overpriced, but one thing that was not overpriced was a set of Snuggle bears with their original tags, marked $5 for the whole set. This was a steal! And Erin was kind enough to give me them. Here they are, waiting for buyers on eBay:

You’ll notice I also found some talking Taco Bell dogs in their original bags at this sale as well. I’ll take any respectable offers, so please buy them.

Erin and I both bought this snowman “Beanie Buddy” for $1 because it was so friggin’ adorable! Next Christmas he’s gonna be chillin’ (no pun intended) in my living room.

Finally, the best thing I found by far was this music box, featuring breakdancing bears. They dance to the Flashdance theme song.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: That Jesus wall mount looks like a hunting trophy.  When I saw it, I could not stop laughing.  A little deer head Jesus…so weird.

Let me also say here, that if a crazy person buys that large Snuggle bear from Sarah for $70, then she better treat me to lunch.  I don’t know on what planet people buy Snuggle bears for $70, but should it happen, I am a FOOL for finding those bears and giving them away to her.

Like Sarah mentioned, I bought one of those stuffed Christmas snowmen.  It is seriously the softest stuffed animal I have ever felt.  I love him.  

I also bought this Mexican folk art piece for Zach’s mom.  It was her birthday last week, and I knew this would be a perfect gift.  Sandy is Mexican herself, and collects all things south of the border.

A little carousel!  The figures had really worried expressions on their faces, which made this even more cute.

-Erin

We’ve been having a lot of luck at auctions lately, but estate sales as of late, especially for me, have been disappointing.  Last Friday, I was hoping this would all change.  There were tons of sales, and some looked pretty decent.  We set out first to Huntington Woods because the house looked packed with old stuff.  

There was a lot of old stuff, just nothing very exciting.  This thing in the foreground above was a knitting machine, but it looked all broken.  It would be very neat to see it in action though.

Everything at this sale was just “stuff.”  Stuff we didn’t really have a use for, and stuff that we couldn’t resell.  I did see this though:

And a questionable coloring book page:

And this doll that looks like Sarah:

This doll reminds me of every Friday when Sarah says, “Can you tell I didn’t shower?” and then I say, “Yes, yes I can.”

Speaking of Sarah, she found this:

And can you believe she didn’t buy it for me?! RUDE.

I didn’t buy anything at this sale, or at the next sale actually.  This one was in Ferndale, at the same location as the Girl Scout sale a few weeks ago.

Looks like Sarah is holding some porcelain dogs in the photo above (shocking).  I don’t know if she bought them.  Everything else here looked like thrift store overflow.  And to top it off, our favorite jabber jaws (you know, “THAT GUY”)  was here shopping.  I overheard him telling a story about stealing from another sale.  In this story, he explained how his crime was totally justified.  Here was his logic:

“That guy” went to a sale and it was a totally packed “digger” sale.  He rummaged through a bunch of stuff, found something super valuable (I think he said it was something gold or silver), and took it to the register to ask for the price.  They told him a couple hundred dollars.  He then said to the sellers, “This is the last time I work so hard to rummage through stuff for you and find the good stuff you’ve missed.  How dare you try to rip me off with that price.  Next time, I won’t be bringing the item up to you after I find it.”  "That guy" then proceeds to tell his buddy how sure enough at the next sale run by these sellers he dug up a fine, fancy treasure and pocketed it.  

Not okay.  Not even like a little bit ok.

We left this sale and noticed a vintage store nearby.  We stopped in and I lounged on this spaceship chair:

Sarah tripped over a table in this place and knocked it over.  I looked the other way while repeating, “Don’t knock stuff over.”  We scooted out of there right after and headed to our next sale, which I don’t remember the location of.  The house was adorable though:

There were all of these dollhouse room diorama things:

This one reminded me of the style in our house:

Sarah made some good finds at this house, but again, I came up empty handed.  I couldn’t believe it!  I hadn’t bought anything all day!  We had one more house to visit, and when we got there, things didn’t look promising.

Hmm, I don’t need any bullets.  And we all know I hate shells.

I did find two treasures.  They weren’t magnificent, but they were treasures nonetheless.  First up was this set of vintage duck drinking glasses:

I put these up on ebay because I saw that others like them sold for about $30.

I also found this tablecloth, which if I remember correctly is Polish.

I only spent $8 this day, which is nice, but like I said, I am really itching for some better scores!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Even I didn’t spend much on this trip, which is unheard of. At the first sale, I found the two best things in the place, which were this adorable sweater and a Napco planter: 

I could tell Erin was super jealous of this find. She made me promise to give it to her if I didn’t want it anymore. The Napco planter features Mary and Jeezo. It’s so cute! But I’m going to sell it. I guess Jesus was last week’s theme. 

When I parked the car at the second sale, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my mom crossing the street with her friend Joyce. As mentioned before, my mom and her friend have become estate sale junkies ever since my mom first came with us to a few sales in the summer. She had a giant box of stuff in her hands, which is more proof that we are related. I had never met Joyce and wanted to, so Erin and I ran across the (main, busy) road and I began waving my hands wildly to get my mom’s attention. You could tell my mom just thought I was a wild maniac stranger until she opened the car door and got a closer look. In her defense, I did have on a giant puffy coat and huge sunglasses. We actually bumped into them again later in the day, which tells you something about the sale quality–there were only a few good ones.

Anyway, I bought some dog statues and a cool vintage drinking glass featuring “Miss Miracle Mile” from Traverse City. It’s not dated but my guess is 1950s. 

At the cute house, I bought two things but one of them I want to feature separately. Here’s the other: 

Nothing in the house was priced, so when I checked out the woman told me these were $3. That’s pretty outrageous but I paid it because they were brand new in a box and one of my dogs recently chewed apart all of my cork coasters. And these ones are super adorable. 

At the last sale, I found a few cool things. A vintage Diane von Furstenberg plaid flannel shirt, some old colored vinyl children’s records, and some cool wrapping paper. 

I also bought another cool antique wedding portrait with something written in another language (Polish, Swedish, Slovak?) on the back side.

I tried Google Translate with no luck. Anyone know what it says?