Lake Michigan
A few weeks ago, Sarah and I vacationed together in South Haven, MI. It was glorious. Lake Michigan was not only surprisingly warm, but super clear. I’m down with being a lake person, but you bet your ass that I wear water shoes. In Lake Michigan, I didn’t even need to! It wasn’t gross at all! Yay nature!
We spent a lot of time swimming and lounging, but also made time to go antiquing. The go-to strategy among dealers here seemed to be setting up shop on your front lawn. We saw a lot of antiques just laying in people’s yards, with little explanation to how they survive the elements or if any effort is even made to protect them from rain or theft.
It looked like American Pickers, where the dudes just drive around and look for people with junk outside. They call it “freestylin” on the show, but because I am a disgusting and juvenile person, I kept telling Sarah we were “freeballin.” We just drove around until we found places to stop.
And boy did we find a place…
The place we found was called something like “Junktiques” which was a fair and honest assessment. It turned out to also be some dude’s life work of creating arguably insane art. In true Sarah fashion, she told the guy that his sculptures made her laugh, which the guy reacted to with a blank stare.
TBH, the sculptures were funny and also totally delightful. I would put one in my backyard in a heartbeat.
All I bought from this bro were some cookie cutters for Everett to use with Play-Dough. I did not buy this life-size wood carving of Sarah.
Also did not buy this hilarious elephant.
And I did not buy this mask, even though I looked great in it.
We also stopped at a nice little shop inside a house, which was clearly geared towards shabby chic moms (me, basically).
I wanted to buy that big metal ball and put Christmas lights in it, but decided not to because the woman revealed it was from a wholesale gardening place. I figured I could find one cheaper online since that was the case.
I did end up buying some cool wooden slats that I plan to put in my garden.
And I got this neat old egg carton to put up by my egg scales. It was so darn cute and only $8!
Zach and Adam went out shopping too, without us. Zach bought this giant painting of a dude yelling? crying? who knows…
If someone can identify this man, that would be awesome. I want to know so badly who he is and what he is doing. He lives in our living room now.
I am lol’ing hard at the amount of bags I have hanging on the dining room chairs. Apparently I need two purses, a gym bag, and a backpack to exist in life.
And just for a little life update, here are our dudes! Everett will be 3 in October! Arden will be 2 in November!
Cheers!
-Erin
I was in Ontario, Canada with my family last week and we came across the most insane antique collector/picker/hoarder/health violation I’ve EVER seen. The property was huge and just full of outbarns. Each one was filled to the brim. There were also dozens of abandoned vehicles and campers (all also full of treasures/garbage).
We didn’t buy anything here because we didn’t want to get tetanus. It also seemed like the seller didn’t really want to part with anything. Shocking I know.
Of interest was the fact that the owner of this place mentioned that the “American Pickers” had filmed there. I did some research and turns out it was the “Canadian Pickers.” Nice try buddy.
-Erin
Recording
I’ve always stayed away from buying vinyl records because they seem notoriously worthless on the resale market. Most sell for only $1 each, and even if you have a more valuable one, the record grading scale is super subjective and finicky. On top of that, they’re also impractical to listen to nowadays, so you’re only selling to true collectors (who, like mentioned, are annoying and finicky).
Recently though, my interest in records has peaked. The first thing that changed my mind about these otherwise frisbees was friend Organtitus selling a Misfits record he bought in the 80s…FOR OVER $600.
AND IT WAS IN BAD CONDITION. Wow.
Then, Zach went to Dixieland Flea Market to shop for old watches and stumbled on this:
And this:
Both of these albums are super rare. The first is The 13th Floor Elevators debut album in Mono, which is apparently important to collectors. This record in mint condition sells for over $1,000. Zach’s copy had definitely seen better days, but for $20, it was worth buying for sure.
What’s funny is that Zach looked right over this record because he wasn’t expecting to see it. When looking at record collections, you expect to see the usual 3 Dog Night, Pat Benatar, and Wings albums. You don’t expect to see a super rare and valuable album…especially not at Dixieland.
The second album is the Silver Apples self-titled debut album. While not particularly valuable, it is MEGA rare. Again, this isn’t in great shape, but it was $2.
Zach ended up selling The 13th Floor Elevators album for $100, even though the jacket was taped and the album had scratches. Amazing.
And get this, the other day I was watching American Pickers and Mike Wolfe bought a copy of the Beatles’ “Yesterday and Today” album with the rare “butcher cover.” The album was pulled for its controversial cover, but supposedly 100 copies still float around in existence today.
Mike paid $500 for his copy because it was pretty beat up, but this record can be worth as much as $15,000.
So what is the most rare record? Or perhaps the most valuable? Well, in 1999, a copy of John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s “Double Fantasy” sold for over $400,000 at auction. The reason? It was autographed by Lennon just hours before his death. And who did he sign it for? None other than this eventual murderer, Mark David Chapman.
Ok, so one last record thing. Check out this super corny deleted scene from High Fidelity. It features most of the rarest records out there. It also features the corniest content of a movie scene possibly ever.
-Erin