Dig This Treasure!

On Saturday night, Zach and I ventured out with Timmy and my sister, Lindsay.  Our plan was to attend our favorite honey hole–the Plymouth auction.  When we showed up though, things looked less than appealing:

It was pretty much all militaria, which none of us collect or know anything about.  Plus, military collectibles always sell for high prices, whether they are really worth it or not.  

There were also the usual garbage-y items, like this hilarious dinner tray:

There were a few cool items at the auction, but none worth sticking around for.  I’ll share them here though:

This soap box derby trophy from the 1950s was so cool and would look neat in our house.  We don’t have much room though, and I have no real attachment to soap box derbies.  

I bet this Captain Kangaroo tent would be an easy resell on ebay.  I figured it would sell for a high price though at the auction because it is so darn cute. 

Have you ever seen a Teddy bear with sleepy eyes?  I haven’t!  

It was in rough shape though, which makes sense because I think it was crazy old.

So we left the auction before it even started and decided to get dinner instead.  My sister ordered this meat and potato sandwich that was bigger than Everett’s head:

While at dinner, my dad remembered that there was another auction this night in Redford, only a few miles away.  It was being held at a comic book shop, but the auction apparently had other items too.  We raced over there.

I was shocked at how empty the place was!  And how amazing the items looked!  There was a mix of old Detroit Tigers items, comics, pin-up girl memorabilia, Confederate money, and photographs.  

What was nice was that the store itself was still open, so you could shop all of their merchandise while watching the auction.  Zach ended up buying a bunch of records.

Timmy ended up buying a whole boatload of Detroit Tigers items.  Everything was selling for less than $20, so this auction was true heaven.  Total, my dad spent less than $100 and had a whole armful of items to show for it.  

Here he is watching the auction and wearing a camouflage shirt.  I don’t know when my dad started wearing camouflage, but it is certainly a recent development. He’s not a hunter, but maybe this is a new Fall fashion trend?

Anyway, here are some things Timmy bought:

My sister by far got the best item of the night.  It was this little animal book with a bunch of fold out pieces inside.  It is seriously adorable.

I didn’t end up buying anything, even though they did have this giant cardboard cutout of me there:

I’m looking good, I know.

-Erin

You’ve seen a lot of Sarah’s and my “fave finds”, but recently I visited my sister’s house and realized she had a whole treasure trove of amazing collectibles.  Lindsay has been mentioned on this blog before, and if you don’t remember, she is the penguin keeper at the Detroit Zoo.  Her vintage and antique collection is centered mainly on old Detroit Zoo memorabilia, and also general zoo related items.  I hadn’t been to her house in awhile, and was super impressed by the way she displayed all of her finds.

This old library cabinet is the perfect way to display all of her zoology books and collectibles.  Sarah and I see these cabinets all the time at sales and they are usually around $300-$400.  Lindsay lucked out and got this for free when she found it thrown out in the trash.  She painted it the white color I believe.

This shadow box has an old Detroit Zoo charm bracelet and vintage pins.  It also has old “zoo keys.”

“Zoo keys,” I believe, are from the 1960s or 70s and were given to children to use around the zoo in “talking storybooks.”  These “storybooks” were basically signs that played audio when a key was inserted.  Very cool and very cute!

Old programs are fun to collect but often hard to display.  They usually end up in stacks on a bookshelf or in a drawer.  Timmy displays old baseball programs in a table with a glass top so you can see all of the program covers.  Lindsay, as you can see, framed her programs.  

So what is Lindsay’s ultimate fave find?

This old scrapbook was put out by the Detroit Free Press.  It came empty, and each week children were encouraged to cut out different zoo photos from the Sunday paper to fill it.  Lindsay was lucky to find a copy of this in which some diligent child filled the entire thing!

I love this scrapbook because it is so indicative of a bygone era.  I imagine a little kid waiting for the paperboy to swing by so they could collect their next zoo photo.  Adorable.

Again, if you have a “fave find,” we want to hear about it!  Visit us on our Facebook page and post a photo!

-Erin

Two Saturdays ago, I noticed a listing on Auction Zip for a “Farm Fest” in Ann Arbor.  Here’s the flyer:

Community garage sale, you say?  Flea Market?  And an auction?  Sign me up!  The cherry on top was the petting farm.  If I didn’t find any treasures to buy, at least I could pet a sheep or something!

I arrived to Ann Arbor pretty early because the auction was happening first.  When I walked into the auction barn, things were already in action.

People were buying these giant Barbies for $60 each.  

In fact, Barbies were the hot commodity.  There were hundreds of them, all being sold in giant box lots.  A box of about 7-10 sealed Barbies would sell for $100.  I was clearly in the company of some Barbie-loving high rollers.

Some of the other goods included Care Bears, Cabbage Patch dolls, Madame Alexanders, and Littlest Pet Shop Critters.

Did this all come out of one house?  Please tell me this didn’t all come out of one house.  

Anyway, so I’m looking through the aisles of goods, and…what’s this?  A WHOLE BOX OF SASHA DOLLS?!  Someone pinch me. 

Sarah and I had a frantic text exchange about these dolls.  You would have thought we were setting up a drug deal.

I was so nervous waiting for these dolls to go up for auction.  Sarah and I want these so badly!  You’ve all had to read about our Sasha doll obsession a few times now.  And yet, these dolls keep eluding us!  We especially wanted two of the dolls at this particular auction because they looked like us:

Here is mine:

And here is Sarah’s:

Oh whoops, sorry.  That’s another doll that looked like Sarah.  Ok, here is the Sasha doll that looked like Sarah:

So how did things turn out?  Well, terrible actually.  Heartbreakingly terrible.  When the auctioneer got to the box of Sasha dolls, he decided to sell them as a lot!  He really should have separated them out.  I bet they would have gotten at least $100 per doll.  

The whole box sold to a phone bidder for over $500.  I couldn’t justify spending that much on a giant box of dolls, even if I could have sold them all on ebay.  Imagine my husband’s face had I purchased these.  Sarah, however, thought I was a fool for not splurging on them.

After that devastating loss, I headed over to the “community garage sale” and “flea market.”

It was disappointing to say the least.  

I was definitely striking out.  At least there were some animals awaiting me.  I set out to find the petting farm area.  On the way, I watched some guys pull tractors across a field of dirt.

Here’s my tractor:

Just kidding.  I don’t have a tractor.

So as it turns out, the “petting farm” was just false advertising.  The cow buddy above was the only animal at the place.  Whomp whomp.

Despite the letdowns, I actually did have fun at the Farm Fest.  It was a beautiful day outside.  And I did end up with one treasure…some vinegar fries and root beer!

-Erin

On Saturday night, Sarah and I decided to hit up my favorite local hotspot–the Plymouth auction.  Our friend Lisa was also in attendance, and we were all excited because the items this night looked really good.  Spoiler alert: we all got some GOOD stuff.

I bid on and won the first item up for auction.  It is this framed Harper’s Bazaar print featuring an old baseball team.  (Sorry for the glare on the glass in this photo.)

I got this for Timmy, the #1 baseball fanatic himself.  It was $10.

There was a lot of really nice furniture this night, but none of us needed any furniture.  It all of course went obscenely cheap.  I was particularly obsessed with this seemingly simple table, which opened up to reveal a baller writing desk.  It sold for something like $50.

Lisa and I loved this chair below, and Sarah thought we were crazy.  It just needed some new upholstery.  

And then there was this crazy thing, which I saw and instantly thought, “Who the HELL is going to buy that?!”  Sure enough, this knitting machine (?) sold for $800!  Everyone clapped and cheered when it sold because that is some serious bank to drop on that thing.

I can only assume this thing is used to make these pony sweaters:

Lisa ended up getting two of the best items at the auction.  First was this horn; “horn” here being used in two ways: an animal horn and a musical horn.  

I’m not entirely sure what she is going to do with this, but it was definitely the most badass purchase made that night.  Also, look at that frowny lady in the background!

Lisa also bought this AMAZING carved wooden screen.  It has all sorts of animals on it.  If I had a place for this in our house, I would have fought her over it.  Probably the best buy of the night.

Lisa and I also split a lot of Pewabic pottery, which I have just now realized I still need to pay her for.  My piece in the lot was this little bear tile:

My best score of the evening was a gorgeous stained glass lamp.  We have needed a new living room lamp for awhile now, but I had yet to find one I really loved.  Our old lamp was broken and made a weird sizzling noise which I am sure meant our death in a fire was imminent.  Luckily, I bid on and won this:

I love the pattern so much.  It’s floral but not super femme-y.

I’ll let Sarah fill you in on her purchases, but I will say that at one point she bought this old plastic puzzle.  It came with another item she wanted, so she had no choice but to buy it.  When she got it, we realized it was all chewed on and gross.  I can’t believe this was even an auction item.  She ended up leaving it behind because as far as we knew, it was a biohazard.  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I was expecting a lot more awesome treasures at this auction, but I did come away with some cool stuff. As Erin mentioned, Lisa came away with some of the coolest items–especially that horn!

In the end, I did come away with some cool stuff. One of the first things I noticed at this auction was an old metal Peanuts tray. I knew as soon as I saw it that I would pay a decent amount of money for it, because both Adam and I love the Peanuts. I won it for a whopping $13, and it came with that ugly ass puzzle that Erin posted above, and some expired astronaut food.

Anyone know any hungry astronauts?

Very adorable.

I also purchased this semi-creepy but also cute old woodblock print. Lisa was the first to notice it and bid on it. I hadn’t seen it but once I got a closer looked, I wanted it.

One thing that I did not end up winning was a HUGE lot of Grateful Dead beanie babies. I didn’t even know that such a thing existed until I took a closer look at the pile of beanies on one of the tables. Apparently there are people in the world who want to own Grateful Dead beanie babies, so the reselling potential was there.

One hilarious thing about these bears was that the person putting them up on the auction block called them WALKING Dead dolls, instead of GRATEFUL Dead dolls.

I didn’t think anyone on earth would be interested in them, but apparently people did their research. I think they ended up selling for something like $60, which was too much for me to pay, but then again, maybe there were some really obscure bears up in there. 

Also, in case you were wondering you can buy a plush Jerry Garcia.

You’re welcome.