Porn Trek
Shortly after Everett was born, there was a sale being put on by our favorite Ragamuffins, but it was really far away, so Erin passed on the opportunity and I went alone. It was a former antiques dealer, according to the ad, so I was prepared to find some cool stuff!
I ran into my parents there, and they were in the market for “guy stuff”–so this sale did not disappoint. They bought some of those very trucks pictured above.
The guy on the left is my dad, checking out some high quality items.
My only complaint really, was that there was cool stuff–but it was all priced super high. We’ve had this problem with the ragamuffins in the past. The good thing was that there wasn’t anything I was dying to buy that was overpriced. If there was, I would have been really annoyed. For example, look at how some of this vintage Christmas stuff was priced:
That flocked Santa is marked $25!! Now, if those were a bunch of knee huggers or Joan Walsh Anglund Christmas items, I would have been ticked.
Another example: Playboy puzzles marked $20 each. No.
Actually, I shouldn’t say I wasn’t disappointed because I was. This person had a ton of books, but they were priced so outrageously that I didn’t get any.
Promising room:
Disappointing reality:
Oh well!
I also spotted these cuties but they were a little too dirty for me.
I did end up finding some deals because the basement was filled with boxes and boxes of vintage Playboys–which I have admittedly vowed to stop purchasing. However, they were selling them for $1 each, and if you had patience, you could find some cool super old ones. So that’s what I did. While I was down there, this guy told me that if I put together a big box, they’d give me an even better deal. So I did that.
You can see both the deal maker and some of the boxes of Playboys in the picture above. One thing I learned during this trip–a big cardboard box of Playboys is hella heavy!
The ragamuffins ended up charging me $50 for everything in my box, and I made that up quickly by selling the two “Coca Cola” issues that I found. If you ever stumble across one of these and it’s priced cheaply (meaning less than $5 and it’s in good shape), snatch it up.
I sold each copy of this for $35. I have a ton more old issues to sell, but the first lot did pretty well. It included issues from 1959-1962 and sold for $30.
Cha-Ching!
-Sarah
Book Porn
A few weeks ago, I saw a listing for a sale in Ann Arbor that started on a Saturday. Adam and I hit it up BEFORE breakfast, which is pretty unheard of, but I needed to get there early. It looked like it was a retired professor’s home, and there were TONS of books. As mentioned in the past, I love me a sale with a lot of books. (Remember that store in Montague?!) I’ve also been known to make a killing on books that people don’t realize are valuable.
We arrived and man, were there books.
Nearly every single room I entered looked like this one. It was so overwhelming and so awesome. The non-awesome thing was the pricing on these books. I was pretty disappointed by this because we have been to other sales run by this company, and their pricing was really reasonable. At this sale, hardcovers were $4 each, no matter what. Softcovers were $3. Oversized books were $6. Little paperbacks were $2. I’m sorry but if you have THAT MANY books in a house, you’re gonna want to make those prices a little lower. I grabbed a bunch of books but put a lot of them back once I saw the pricing list and the quantity throughout the rest of the house.
Adam quickly moved through the house and I could tell he wanted to cry because he knew it would be a long visit. It was also hot as hell in the house because there was no AC and it was during a heat wave.
There were a lot of vintage Heritage Press copies of classics, which can sell for a decent amount of money on eBay, especially if you get them for cheap (meaning, not $4 each). I ended up with just two–a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and a copy of The Moon and Sixpence.
The Austen book sold right away–for $28. Woo! The Maugham didn’t sell, and I’m sort of surprised because it’s got some beautiful illustrations. Oh well.
Even the basement was filled with books on every available surface.
The other cool thing that I saw in the main room (first picture) were these old wood carvings/molds that were hung on the wall. There were a few very large ones and then a bunch of small ones. The small ones were all marked $20 a piece, which seemed reasonable. I was interested because I know that primitive butter molds can be very valuable. If you ever seen something like this, and it’s cheap, BUY IT.
These things can sell for A LOT of money.
I asked the people running the sale what they knew about the carvings. The company is a couple and their daughter who is a little younger than me, and the daughter immediately said, “I think they’re printing press blocks.” Adam and I just looked at each other because they clearly were not blocks used to print a design onto a flat surface–the pattern was cut into the wood–not sticking out from the wood. I tried explaining this to Erin in the car the other day and she lost her mind. YES, in both cases the design is carved INTO the wood. But the actual design of a stamp/press block sticks OUT from the rest of the wood, and in a mold, the design goes down INTO the wood. In other words, you put a stamp ON something to see the design, and with a mold, you put things INTO it, in order to get the design. This is simple to me, but Erin’s brain did not get it for about 20 minutes.
Anyway, the dad interrupted and said, “No, I think they’re just decorative carvings from somewhere in Europe. I know they bought the whole lot at auction at Schmidt’s.” This made me more intrigued, because Schmidt’s is a fairly high-end auction house down the street from me. I ended up taking a risk and bought two of the molds, so we’ll see if they’re worth anything.
The first says “PIG” in chalk on the back, and the second says “CHICKENS.” You have to use your imagination to see either of these animals in the wood. They’re up on eBay now, so we’ll see what happens!
-Sarah