Dig This Treasure!

Ooowee do we have a tale for you.  This is quite a crazy one.  A few weeks ago, my mom won some old light fixtures for really cheap at the secret auction. She put a few of them up on eBay, and a few days later, was contacted by a woman who lived close to her who was very interested in one of them: 

My mom said that once they agreed to let her come take a look in person, the woman got to their house in record time–like she was hiding in the f*cking bushes or something. On her way there, she called my mom and told her it would probably be a good idea to take the chandelier off eBay, since she was surely going to make a fair offer. So my mom went ahead and did so. She figured she’d make a decent profit and not have to bother with shipping something so fragile. Worth noting: My mom also made a point to tell me that she kept hearing me in the back of her head saying, “Don’t be greedy, don’t be greedy” so apparently I am partially responsible for this as well. 

The woman offered her $80 for the fixture, and my mom accepted. She told my mom she was THRILLED to have it because it would fit in beautifully with her dining room decor. She told my mom she was recently divorced and was fixing up her new place. She also expressed interest in another light fixture my mom had, but my mom got a weird vibe and told her she wanted to leave that one up on eBay. 

Two weeks later, my mom received a message from another eBay user who had been watching that same light fixture, noticed it was taken down, and then noticed that a very similar fixture was posted by another user that was geographically close to my mom. He sent her the listing number: 

There is no question that this is the chandelier that my mom sold to the “poor divorced woman.” She cleaned it up, rewired it, and stuck it back up online. Yes, this increases the value of the piece. But by 800+ dollars? That b*tch! At the very least, she could have told my mom what it was and offered a fair price. If it’s really worth $950… fair to me would have been $200-400. People are often very kind on eBay. We have all had experiences where people contact us and share information about an item to help us get more views. 

I know all is fair in the world of flipping… but to me this was just such an amoral move. And a stupid one at that! The eBay user who messaged my dad is different from thomaslights (current seller), but the cell phone number the woman gave to my parents is the same number on the Thomas Lights Facebook page! My mom says she will never do something like this again. 

My mom is pretty over it, but Erin and I are OUTRAGED. I did message thomaslights and ask where they found such a rare chandelier. But no response yet. I also thought about doing a best offer of $80 and putting a note in that says, “Isn’t this what you paid for it?” It is also really entertaining to me how outraged Erin is by this injustice. 

We’re not really sure how to handle this whole thing, but it would be great for this woman to know how totally awful it is that she did this.  Seriously, so immoral.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: This situation has my blood boiling so badly.  I understand that sometimes you get a crazy deal on something because an ignorant seller didn’t take the time to do their homework.  But Sarah’s mom specifically put this on ebay as an AUCTION so that the item’s true value would be realized as people bid it up.  To ask someone to take down an auction because you will give them a “fair price” and then do the EXACT OPPOSITE is outrageous.  Like Sarah said, a fair price would have been a couple hundred dollars.  This lady would have a clean conscience and still make a profit.

Anyway, what do you guys think?  Maybe we are being too sensitive, but I think not, especially since the lady came up with a crazy lie about the whole thing.  She knows she was wrong.  Also, to have TWO EBAY ACCOUNTS so you can swindle people is a sign of the devil’s work.

Pardon me, but what a true ho.

You may have noticed that we aren’t posting as much as we used to. Some of that is due to this lil’ man existing. 

But some of it is because I’ve been crazy focused on selling rather than buying these days. 

So exactly a month ago, Adam challenged me to a month-long eBay battle for the holiday season (in case you missed it, we’re trying to pay the $2,000 in medical bills that our cat racked up after eating cellophane). This was the challenge: we both sell as much as possible and the person who makes the lesser sum of money pays the person who makes the greater sum of money $100 when it’s all said and done. I’m not sure I’ve ever turned down a bet that I have a decent shot at, so I was game!

I recognized that Adam was really just trying to motivate me to purge, but I was fine with that. I thought I was clearly going to win, because little did Adam know, I had a stockpile of Christmas goods, just waiting to be listed. 

And that’s because… little did I know… Adam had a stockpile of video game systems, rare emo records, magazine back issues, Kickstarter products, Legos, and an iPhone to sell. 

So it sort of goes without saying–Adam is kicking my a$$ right now! If you have a heart and love treasures, please feel free to buy my sh*t. Perhaps your special someone loves The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and needs a new iPad case. Perhaps your BFF loves chihuahuas AND vintage photographs.

Perhaps you love the film adaptation of The Island of the Blue Dolphins. I even pulled out one of my favorite photographs and am willing to sell it for the right price.

Meaning, perhaps what you really want is to pay $150 for an old cabinet card. Hey now–don’t judge–I’m just going based on completed listings like it.

Whatever your taste, I can offer goods that will satisfy.

Our battle ends on Sunday so I’ll be sure to update you on who won on Monday!

-Sarah

Less than a week before lil’ Everett arrived, Erin and I went on our last sale-ing excursion for a while. It wasn’t incredibly fruitful, but we did both find a couple of treasures. 

We started off in nearby Redford and hit up a sale that was very old lady-ish, but full of stuff, so that made it fun. 

I believe the woman was involved in community theater because there were some clothes there that seemed more like costumes than regular outfits. The whole attic/upstairs was filled with clothes/costumes. 

I had grabbed a bunch of clothes but when I went to check out, I noticed that a number of them were stained or grosser up close than I had realized, so I ended up putting a lot of it back. Erin grabbed this coat right away and told me it looked like something I’d buy because I love “quilted things”… that girl is right! I do! But this coat was horrid. 

There was a moment where I convinced myself that this coat wasn’t gross. Thank god I came to my senses. 

I really wanted this fabric artwork (the heart, not the elephant) but it had some water stains on it… whomp whomp. 

I thought this booklet was so freakin’ hilarious looking. 

In the end, I came away with these hideous shoes and that gingham shirt. I had to throw the shirt away because it was more stained than I realized (the woman threw it in for free because there were some small stains on the shoulder)… I liked those shoes a lot but now that I look at them… I don’t know! 

Next up on our list was a sale in Farmington that again, had a few cool items. I love these old prints… we see them a lot and sometimes they’re really pricey, and other times just moderately pricey. Who can tell me what they are, exactly? 

There was one at the sale before as well: 

Ahhhh! What are they?! 

Ok, back to the sale–there was a mix of antiques and oddly sexy stuff at this sale. 

That about sums it up. I walked away with a Halloween decoration that I’ll tell you more about on Halloween, and this cool old book. 

I can’t find a record for it anywhere–not even in our special library databases. I did discover that “Brownie Brace” is a nickname for a woman named Elizabeth Hanchett Brace, who appears to have written some other books that are less obscure. The illustrations in this book are super cool and art deco-y. 

Is that even art deco? If I’m wrong, someone correct me. It’s one of my favorite illustration styles so I want to know if I’m wrong! 

We went to two more sales after this, both in Dearborn. This is the only thing I came away with: 

And I’ll let Erin tell you more about the sales. But before she does that, here’s another picture of that adorable baby. Spoiler alert: Still super cute. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I had no clue that this day of sale-ing would be our last for a few weeks.  I thought for sure we had at least one more week of sales before Everett came.  Alas, my water broke a week early and the rest is history.

Somehow I managed to keep it a secret from Sarah that I actually knew the lady whose house the first sale was held at.  She is friends with my 85 year old neighbor and recently moved into assisted living.  Sarah’s sleuthing skills were right on–the lady was in a theatre group.  Zach and I actually go to their plays every few months.

I was in the basement of this sale and saw this:

A pencil sharpener.  Nothing fancy about that.  Except there was a group of three teenage girls walking around and when they saw this pencil sharpener, one of them said, “Was this a school?  It must have been a school down here.”

This totally blew my mind.  Younger generations are apparently only familiar with pencil sharpeners in school settings, so these girls automatically assumed this must have been some sort of educational facility.  Except that it looked like a totally normal basement and was clearly NOT a school.  So insane.

Also totally fascinating was why Sarah didn’t buy this:

First of all, she is OBSESSED with llamas.  And secondly, she loves her some giant wall decor, like that fabric heart thing above.

I bought a Seiko automatic watch at this sale because they usually sell for good money on ebay.  This one is in really rough shape though, but for $4 I figured what the hell.  Zach is a mega watch collector and said that some guys like beat up watches because it gives them a “story.”

At the second sale, I immediately zeroed in on this baseball bank.  I knew Timmy would want it.  It was priced around $30 though, which I knew was crazy.  I decided the best plan would be to call Timmy on my phone where I knew the guy running the sale would hear me.  By hearing my side of the conversation, I hoped the guy would realize that I really wanted to buy this thing, but also that the price was of great concern.

Sure enough, the guy heard me describing the bank to my dad and then also heard my reaction to my dad obviously saying the price was too high.  I acted kind of disappointed and like I was going to put the bank back.  The guy running the sale said, “That’s worth $200 on ebay you know.”  I was super polite but also wanted to be like, “UM NO WAY JOSE.”  He ended up selling it to me for $20, so I was happily victorious.  

At one of the last sales we visited, I picked up this giant stuffed monkey.  He’s from Howdy Doody or something like that.  I forget his name.  He was $15 but I am hoping he will sell for more on ebay because he is gigantic.  Smaller ones seemed to sell for $30-$60.  

I made the mistake of seating this guy at my dining room table when I got home from sale-ing.  In the night I got up to drink some water and he scared the sh*t out of me in the dark.  I thought a really ugly toddler broke into my house and was pulling a Goldilocks or something.

Anyway, I can’t make any promises but I am hoping to take a break tomorrow or Friday from raising a tiny human and instead hit a few sales.  Sarah is doing a great job keeping up the blog, but I am hoping to still pull my weight.  Wish me luck!

As planned, after the secret doll auction last week, we headed over to the Michigan Modernism Expo.  Sarah already regaled us with a new obsession she cultivated at the expo, but this entry will share all of the other goods we saw.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m really not into modernism.  That said, there were some pieces that really caught my eye.  The more rustic pieces in particular were interesting to me.

These are old pommel horses.  Not very practical, but very cool!

If I remember correctly, this woodcarving was by Leon Kroll, who was mostly a painter but dabbled in sculpture apparently.  I loved this so much, but alas, it was $500.

I would put both of these in my house, and I would display them side-by-side as you see here:

I also loved this, but wasn’t sure what need I have for a REALLY EXPENSIVE shopping cart:

In fact, “really expensive” seemed to be the trend of the expo.  I kind of expected this, but figured there would be at least some affordable jewelry or smalls.  Not so much.

Even this thing was like $600:

Doesn’t that look like something I would make fun of Sarah for buying at an estate sale?

Now this is the kind of stuff we came to the expo for:

To me, this is a museum piece.  And it was cool to look at pieces like this in person.  I have to hand it to the exhibitors here, they really did haul in their best stuff.

Here is Sarah (napping?) in a chair.  We call this a “statement piece." 

Another statement piece:

Ok, one more.  This little turtle was the best. Both Sarah and I saw this and were all, "Look at that turtle!”  I love his dumb little face.  I would totally buy this if I was rich:

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I’ll admit it, I didn’t want to go to this thing because I knew it was going to be expensive. Admission itself was $10 but we got in for free because “we’re both students.” Thankfully we both look younger than we are. I think I actually have the same disease as Benjamin Button. Anyway, once I knew I could go for free, I was game. 

Right away, we saw those Charlie Harper prints, and they were also selling Charlie Harper decorative tiles. Even though Erin is the Bunny Master, I also am fond of rabbits and bought this cool tile: 

There was a lot of neat stuff to look at, but like Erin said, sort of disappointing that there wasn’t much to purchase in our price range. I did find a cool vintage shirt for $15, but besides that, pickins were slim. 

At one point, I went to find a bathroom indoors and found myself following a woman with a newborn baby in a 1950s Saks Fifth Avenue stroller. Really? You need your baby to ride in style? 

If Erin does something like this to her child, I’ll walk about 10 feet behind her when we go out together. 

After I got out of the bathroom, I was able to capture the buggy so y'all know I’m not makin’ this up. 

I want to say I’d be less judgmental of this if the poor thing wasn’t screaming the whole time but really, regardless of how happy the baby is in that thing, it still looks ridiculous. 

Here are some other cool things I saw that I’ll never be able to afford: 

I don’t even really like peanuts… I just loved that watch! 

And finally, here are some things of questionable “modern” creation that were for sale:

I will say, however, that that’s exactly what I look like when Erin and I watch scary movies together, so mad props to the artist!