Dig This Treasure!

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

A few weeks ago, Adam and I were driving to get some breakfast in Ann Arbor, when we spotted a sign for an estate sale. We did the “Secret Sale!” chant, but decided we were too hungry to stop, and that we’d hit it on the way back home instead. Since this blog often mixes food and treasure hunting, I’ll just say that this was a great day as far as both of these things go.

First, the food. It was the day I discovered that Afternoon Delight offers something called “The Berry Patch” on their menu, which consists of frozen yogurt and fresh fruit. No, this isn’t something special and mind-blowing but I have never seen this on a brunch menu, and let me tell you–it’s good. The only thing that was not good was the line we had to wait in to get served, and this man behind us got so close that his iPhone was literally rubbing against me so often that I had to move and make Adam receive the phone rubdown instead. Proof:

He’s so close you can see the dirt under his fingernails! UGH!

Before going back to the sale, we hit up the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library’s bookshop. If you’re from the area and don’t know about this hidden treasure, you should. In the basement of the main library on 5th, the library’s Friends organization runs a resale shop that consists of book donations and withdrawn stuff from the collection. It’s insanely awesome and most used books are between 1 and 2 bucks. Maybe I’ll feature it another day. Anyway, we found some treasures there and went on with our day.

The secret sale actually wasn’t secret–I just hadn’t noticed it in the listings that weekend. It was the home of an artist, and there was SO MUCH of this woman’s artwork in the house, it was unreal.

That last piece was so awesome, but it was huge, and was marked $475 I think. Fair for a piece of original art, but not in my price range! I wish I could have captured more of the quantity of artwork there, because there was just so much of it. It was all priced very reasonably.

One of the first things I noticed when I went inside was this little box of dudes.

The Santas weren’t in the box–I stuck them in there… but it wasn’t until I bought these that I realized that it’s a nativity scene. They really looked like something Erin would like, and as it turns out I guessed correctly. Am I a nice friend or what? These are bread dough figurines made in Calderon, Ecuador, which apparently is known for its bread dough figurines.

She also had two dolls that were really interesting, and looked vaguely familiar to me. I can’t remember what they were priced, but I remember thinking it was too much for me to pay.

Here in the US, people often call them “puta dolls,” but apparently that’s a misnomer. It translates into “whore dolls.” These are Mexican paper mache dolls that are called munecas de carton. I found a really interesting article about them, and about how people buy them in Mexico for really cheap and then resell them here for about 5x that amount. Ugh. That’s sad. Anyway, I thought they were really cool but you could tell they made Adam want to die.

I left the sale with some cool shirts that I forgot to take pictures of, a few books, the coolest of which is this one,

and some vintage Automobile Association stuff:

I have no idea if it’s worth anything, but it will be cool to sort through.

I also got this little printed cloth.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it but it sure is cute!

Adam didn’t buy anything but he did shell out a whole bunch of eye rolls.

-Sarah