Dig This Treasure!

So a few years ago I saw this Christmas display that used old glass insulators set on top of a string of lights.  It was mega cute.  I tried googling an image for you, and the best I could find is this, which is also mega cute:

So I set out collecting insulators.  I have a whole bunch now, but have never actually set up said light display.  While in the basement today, I dug the insulators out and figured I would look them up on ebay to see if I should sell them.

I should interject here and say that I am still not totally sure what an insulator is/was.  I mean, the name is self-explanatory, but what these actually insulated is unclear to me.  Something about telephone poles.

I should also add that people EFFING love insulators.  The websites and blogspots devoted to these glass phalli ( I thought it was phalluses but I stand corrected) are numerous.

So anyway, in my stash, I had 3 purple insulators.  It turns out that these are insanely rare.  And valuable.  We’re talking way more money than you could even imagine someone would spend on a piece of purple glass that you stick Christmas lights under for decoration.  Timmy and Joan bought these for me at an auction for $4.

So of course I immediately listed mine for sale and in the matter of a couple hours they already had 18 watchers and several bids. 

And then this happened:

Some glass insulator know-it-all is trying to rain on my purple glass parade.  WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?!  I panicked of course and started frantically looking up what the hell “radiated” insulators are.  Turns out, the term is actually “irradiated,” so basically I should not trust this guy at all.

Irradiated glass, as it turns out, has literally been placed in the presence of a machine that emits radiation, like an x-ray machine.  It turns the glass amazing colors like purple or cobalt blue.  The glass will naturally turns these colors if left out in the sun for decades, say, on a telephone pole, but some scammers don’t want to wait for that to happen.  They buy cheap insulators and then irradiate them.  UGH.

This is a SUPER HOT TOPIC in the glass insulator community and is debated fiercely.  I highly recommend poking around here. Here is a taste though:

^^^ UM, ok THIEF.  Get down off those telephone poles!

So WTH.  Are my insulators fake? I really don’t know.  I don’t think so though.  Who would go through the trouble of irradiating these and then selling them in an auction for $4? 

From what I have read, it is super hard to tell which insulators have been irradiated and which are authentic.  The fact that this guy thinks he could tell just by looking at a photo of mine on ebay is sketchy. 

I am holding out hope for my little insulators! I will let you know how they end up doing!

-Erin

On Saturday, I returned to Ann Arbor for “The Super Auction” with Timmy.  He was on the hunt again for some nice sports items and I was just looking to get out of the house.

If you don’t remember, “The Super Auction” is held on some farmland inside a giant barn just outside Ann Arbor.  If you also don’t remember, things often sell super high here.  Maybe that is why it’s called “The Super Auction” because it is SUPER expensive.  Seriously, it’s like people save all year for this thing or something.  And then they show up dressed like hog farmers but carrying mega bank.

There were three separate auctions happening when we showed up:  a sports memorabilia auction, a toy auction, and a vinyl record auction.

That Jolly Roger boat pedal car above sold for $900!  It was really neat and some kid will be riding in style.  Actually, probably not.  Some old man will probably have it on display in his man cave or something.  The other pedal cars actually sold pretty cheaply…all around $100 or so.

I don’t know what you are supposed to do with this giant train, but I wanted it!  It was sold by the time I got to the auction though.  Whomp whomp.

I also loved this ride on horse guy.  My dad forbid me to buy it though because he said it looked very “germy.”  My dad is OBSESSED with germs.  He is like Marc Summers—just totally insane about germs.  And if the stove is turned off.  He is also insane about that.

What I did buy was a giant stack of records for $5.  I shouldn’t even say “stack” because it was a straight up haul.  Zach asked me to buy him records at random and he got his wish.

I also bought a box of random doll related things for $20.  I took a chance on it without even sorting through everything because it was one of the cheapest prices for an item I had seen all day.  There was some good stuff in the box that I will be putting on eBay.

That tin doll IronRite machine above is SO CUTE.  It runs on batteries and still works.  I haven’t found a way to justify keeping it yet, but I am sure I will.

All dolls need their own doll flatware set…just FYI.

As for Timmy, he bought a million things because he is apparently a secret baller.  The best things he bought were some old Lafayette Rittgers baseball figurines.  These ceramic art pieces are from the 1940s and my dad had never seen them before despite all his years of collecting.  The studio where these were made was out of Chicago.

He paid $80 and from looking at eBay, he got a great deal!

And to top things off, Zach found some good records in the lot I bought him.  We spent part of Saturday listening to random folk and funk singers and it was delightful. 

-Erin

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

Last night, I hit up the secret auction with my folks. When we got there, the guy who gives out numbers greeted us by name which made me feel like I belonged to a secret society. It was great. But what wasn’t great was the merch at this auction. As discovered on previous trips to this auction, it’s a mixed bag. It had been a while since I was able to go, so I was excited at the prospects, but pickins ended up being slim.

There were lots of toy trains and cars, which, you will be shocked to hear, are not my cup of tea.

There were some cool things but none of them were cool enough to wait around for hours to buy. For example, this photograph:

This duckpin bowling set was pretty cool.

They appear to sell on eBay, so if you ever spot one for cheap, snatch it up!

I also spotted another rare Cabbage Patch Kid—but it was on the last table and I did not have the patience to wait for it. Also, it was an elf. You can’t see its ears in this pic but trust me.

Here are some extremely desirable goods that I passed on.

(Guest appearance by Cindy—checking out comics, a sweet velvet painting and Stanley Cup Dr. sign.)

Wat?

In the end, I came away with two things. First up is this new car for Erin

Now that she’s a mom, I thought this would give her the extra room she needs to transport Everett around.

The other thing I bought was this crocodile skull.

Chomp chomp.

It was a world record for me—least amount of money spent at auction ever. $10.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I can’t tell if Sarah is joking about buying that car and crocodile! I hope so! That car looks jank!

Also, I read “Stanley Cup Dr.” as “Stanley Cup Doctor” which was confusing to me and ultimately hilarious.

Ok and final thoughts: Despite not being able to “see the ears” I think the elf shoes on that cabbage patch doll are a dead giveaway.

Last Monday, I met up with my parents and hit up the Secret Auction yet again (I have to work late tonight so I’ll miss it today… BOO.) Things were packed and hoppin’, as usual. Also as usual, there were lots of interesting, hilarious, and freaky things to see.

First up on the list of freaky: Old dentists’ tools.

I actually made a mental note to go back to this table later, but ended up forgetting. I was sure that I could have sold these items to some weird Marilyn Manson person. Now that I think about it, I can’t even believe I considered this because I hate the dentist and am terrified of going every time I have to.

Ok, back to the funny things for sale.

(He sounded like Satan when you pulled his string.)

That is a broken nutcracker that looks like a woman’s groin.

A wide array of off-brand toys, new in boxes.

So in case you’ve forgotten, the secret Monday night auction is different than most—they actually have three simultaneous auction’s happening, so if there are things going up at the same time that you want, things can get a little stressful! That happened really bad at the end of the auction. I really wanted this giant box of old stuffed animals in one booth, and then a big box of paper in another booth, so I had to tell my mom to bid on the paper for me if it went up for auction, while I went over and tried to win rubber faced Yogi Bear. Spoiler alert: SUCCESS!!!

Like this little buddy? He can be yours. All you have to do is bid on him.

Right when I finished winning Yogi Bear, I ran over to the other auction and was able to bid on my box of paper. I was a little nervous because there were two nerdy middle-aged men at this auction who were really ramping up prices. One of them, before that booth went up for auction, was talking to the other like he already OWNED the box of paper I was interested in. I looked at my parents and I was like, “Ok that’s it… I’m going home with that box of paper no matter what!” I didn’t want a repeat of the auction thievery that happened there before. Spoiler #2: I ended up winning the box of paper. Here’s one scary/adorable item that was in it.

I also walked away with this very awesome vintage Ben Cooper Dick Tracy Costume. It is also up for sale if you’re into that sort of thing.

I also won with this S&H Green Stamps poster, that I’ll sell eventually. Listen, I didn’t know what the hell Green Stamps were—I just thought it was super cool and it’s actually reversible but I forgot to take a picture of the other side! My mom schooled me about Green Stamps after I bought the poster.

Here is one other thing I wanted but forgot to bid on:

I thought this would be something that would freak Adam out, but no—instead, when he saw the picture, he seemed super sad that I didn’t buy it. WTF?!

-Sarah

P.S. Here is a picture of my favorite auctioneer, wearing a mullet wig that was up for sale.

Sorry it’s so blurry—I had to be incognito.

A few weekends ago, Erin and I saw a listing for a really baller looking auction at an auction house that’s just a mile or two down the street from where I live. I had never gone but always wanted to, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Erin arrived first and warned me it was very, very crowded. It was even more crowded than I expected. While waiting in line for a number, I heard people saying that there was some other antique market that weekend, and there were probably a lot of out of town dealers there. Makes sense. The stuff for sale was all very high quality, and there were tons of gorgeous quilts, woven coverlets, and lots and lots of antiques and primitive items. I was sort of overwhelmed. 

Seats were a very hot commodity at this place, and Erin smartly and quickly grabbed two in the back. The auction started and here was our view. 

Right when the auction started, I said to Erin, “I think that’s ______ _______ (name of annoying auctioneer from previous post.)” He was dressed so differently and had such a different way about him this time, that Erin was in denial at first. But it was indeed him. They were doing this crazy thing (because there was so much stuff there!) where as soon as one auctioneer ended, the other would start on the next item. It made things move incredibly fast. 

I had my eye on a few items, but based on how high things were selling, I didn’t think I’d end up with them. One of them I was right about. 

I mean how freakin’ cool is that thing? Anyway, it sort of reminded me of the card catalog type thing I spotted at a garage sale in Charlevoix. Anyway, this sold for $600+. I did, however, score an old post office shelf that someone repainted a beautiful green color. 

I think I might set it long ways on top of my big desk in eBay World. Not sure yet. Right now it’s still in my garage. I paid $75, which seemed fair to me. 

It was a really long night with so much stuff… a lot of things that seemed interesting or bid-worthy just went so high so fast that we didn’t get a chance to even bid! I had seen an old folk art dog carving that I was determined to go home with. They ended up putting him up with a taxidermy mini horse toy like the one Erin had appraised at Antiques Roadshow. I will not even admit what I paid for these two guys but I did go home with both of them. The horse is terrifying looking and will be listed on eBay shortly. 

Awesome doggy! 

Freaky horse!

On my way up to the check out counter, I did spot a paper doll of Erin: 

Isn’t she darling? 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: The items in this auction were all from the same owner, a collector named Irene Marinovich, who clearly had good taste and lots of scratch.  You can look at all the items for sale here, although I don’t know how much longer that link will be up. Googling Irene, it looks as though she was an artist and jewelry maker who unfortunately passed away in March.

I saw several items that I was interested in, the first being this weird mosaic frog.  I think it’s a frog anyway.  It was made of cement and super heavy, so I figured it was some sort of lawn ornament.  

I think maybe it was art and not a lawn ornament because it sold for like $80.  That was one of the cheapest prices we had seen all night.  

This cool face was some sort of weird resin/wood blend.  I was kind of obsessed with it because the eyes were super real looking.  I thought this would be nice above a door frame in our house, but it sold for over $100.  

I was starting to feel like Sarah at the last auction we attended, when she kept getting shut out from buying things.  Hours into the auction I had only bid one or two times and came nowhere near winning anything.  The only success I had had was buying snacks for Sarah and I all night long.  Here’s how it looked around my seat at the end of the auction:

To be fair, I think one of those chip bags wasn’t ours.  It just snuck in with ours to make me look bad.

Ok, so here we are.  I am getting kind of bored and antsy.  Sarah has had success but it has come at a price (literally, not figuratively).  There was one more item I was interested in.  It was this weird art bowl thing from some artist in the 80s.  I just liked the design.

The auctioneer had stuck this bowl in a box with a bunch of other pottery, so I was bummed because I figured that would make the price jump up.  So the whole lot goes up for sale and the price starts at $50.  No one bids.  He drops down to $25 and I throw my hand up (that was the lowest price he was dropping to all night).  

And then, like a true miracle, NO ONE ELSE BID.  The lot was mine, for a mere $25.  I was shocked.  

When I got the box, I saw that mixed in with my bowl were three pieces of Pre-Columbian pottery.  I am not particularly interested in stuff like this, but it was pretty neat looking.  I thought Zach might want it, but he encouraged me to put it on ebay instead.

I was hoping on ebay that I could just make my initial investment of $25 back.  Turns out though that this stuff is Jalisco pottery, from that region in Western Mexico.  I instantly had over 10 watchers in the first hour, and two bids soon thereafter.

There are five hours left on the auction and I have nearly doubled my money.  SO COOL.  I have no clue what this will sell for, so I will have to keep you posted.  I do know that I have had a bunch of people message me about it, so I have my fingers crossed.  One dude asked me to end the auction and let him buy the pieces outright.  No way man.

So after all, totally worth going to this place, even if our not-so-favorite auctioneer was there.  Oh, and I almost forgot, look at this doll of Sarah I saw there:

She has on her “fancy” dress.

You might remember the auction in Romulus that kind of kicked off Sarah’s auction fever.  Remember she bought that whole platter of dolls?  

We ventured back to this auction a few Fridays ago.  The wares looked really appealing.

We ran into a friend of ours at this auction and he was there scoping out some paintings.  He thought they might be mega valuable, like tens of thousands, if they were real.  Sarah and I explained to him that prices at this auction sometimes go really high (we saw a saxophone sell for $4,000 once).  Really though, to us, “really high” means something goes over like $60.  Our friend said he was willing to spend a couple grand on the paintings which made me be like 1. Are you secretly rich?  2. Why have you never told me you were secretly rich? and 3. Buy me those paper mache Santas because I don’t want to spend more than $50 on them.

[Spoiler alert: The paintings sold for over $2,000 each and our friend didn’t win any of them.  The Santas went for over $200, and not to me.]

There were actually two auctions happening at this place at the same time.  A back room was filled with all old, ceramic baby plates being auctioned off separately.  

Here is a plate showing me on the day that I got chased by another dog while out walking George and then in anger called a man fat:

Sarah and I hung out in this baby plate room the most because items were selling really affordably.  In the main auction room, things were quite different.  You see, this auction is great because they have really nice things all the time.  However, the auctioneer is, to be frank, super obnoxious.

He does this whole act with EVERY item in which he says, “Ok we got this [insert item] and clearly this is very old and it must be WORTH AT LEAST [insert some crazy high price].”  This gets so frustrating because sometimes he doesn’t even know what an item is, and yet he makes up some fantastical price for it.  And then the item always sells for around that price.

Kudos to him for having such a trustworthy audience, all of whom are going to be so sad when they do some research on ebay later.

Ok, so back in the baby plate room, I scored two items.  Both of these are Roseville pottery, a brand I bought and sold recently.  These plates came together in a lot that I paid $40 for.  I am keeping the rabbit one for future baby’s room:

I love this because the rabbits kind of look like weird martian rabbits.

The second plate has chicks on it and I am going to list it on ebay:

Other than these two things, I didn’t buy anything else at the auction.  

Sarah tried to buy some things but kept failing miserably.  After the baby plate auction, a third separate auction started for a bunch of old postcards.  There were literally thousands of postcards, all stored in huge albums.  Each album was selling for $80-$200 each, depending on the content of the cards inside.

It was sad to watch.  In my head I was cheering for Sarah, and visibly holding my breath each time she was bidding.  But this SAME WOMAN each time would outbid her.  This woman bought nearly every album and spent a ton of cash doing so.  

There’s Sarah looking forlorn in the crowd.  I wanted to yell out, “Come on! Just let her buy one!!” but there was a whole crowd of people wanting to just buy one album and they didn’t get to either.

It turns out that this woman owns an online store in which she scans vintage postcards that are past copyright and turns them into “new things”–probably prints them on a ton of sh*t.  To be fair, this is a genius idea.  Still though, she could have shared a little bit of the bounty.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Before I get amped up with postcard talk, let me show you a few things that were cool at this auction that I did not purchase. 

I’m really kicking myself for missing out on that sign because Adam realllllly liked it when I showed him the picture, and it would fit in very well in our kitchen. 

That plate is so stinkin’ cute but I could not rationalize buying it because I do not have baby boys. 

Giant shelf with tiny drawers? Yes, please! 

These aren’t cool–they’re super ugly and look like ducks with alligator heads. But I think they were Roseville and I wanted to show them to you. 

Ok, postcard time. What that lady does with her postcards is what Adam has been begging me to do with all of the paper goods I find that are past copyright. There is something about this that really bothers me and makes me feel bad–that I’d be turning someone’s old artwork into something mass produced. Also, in case you forgot, Adam–I have a full-time job. I don’t know–good for her. But it’s not something I’d want to do. Also, I actually felt hatred toward her while the auction was happening. I mean come on. These albums had HUNDREDS of cards in them each–do you really need 10,000 postcards?! 

They were really cool cards and in very good condition. Here’s an example of why I wanted just ONE album to sort through. 

Oh also at one point, when they were letting people choice out the albums of cards (there were so many albums that the auctioneer would say the winner had to take 4 or 5 at the high bid price) and she won, she looked at her loooong list of what she wanted and said, “Where’s 41? I want that one.” The auctioneer was like, “You already bought that one.” WTFFFFFFF?!!!!! Clearly, she didn’t even know what she did or didn’t have in her possession! 

I wish we had gotten a picture of her because she had a little minion/friend with her who was in charge of her book full of notes about each album. Erin said that when we get older, that’s going to be us. But *I’m* going to be the a$$hole buying all the postcards. :(

I did end up buying two things. First was this baby plate with hounds running on it. I’m not sure why I wanted it so bad but I did, and it was only $20. 

The second item was this set of baby plates that I really loved. Shockingly, Adam also really loved these. 

So cute! 

What Erin explained about this auctioneer is true. This experience really just made me not want to go to his auctions again. We had a surprise run-in with him the following week, though, which we will tell you about soon! 

Well, this wasn’t exactly a shock, since it’s happened before. But this past Monday, the secret auction was a real let down. 

Now, we already covered how there was at least one treasure there that I accidentally laughed at (because I’m DUMB), but the rest seemed legitimately pretty bad. 

At first, it psyched me out. First, the parking lot was PACKED. Then, I saw this sign when I walked in–super cool and old and psychedelic looking.

I was totally prepared for to turn the corner and see Kevin Arnold offering Winnie a soda. 

But it didn’t happen. 

Also this turned out to be the coolest thing there. Unless you are interested in the following: 

1). Two-Liter Lazy Susans

2). These cats

3). Tons of old phones. 

3). This super sexy frog. 

4). These bracelets. 

5). “Art" 

6). "Photoing on Car”

Now let me explain this one. Here is a better picture from the Internet: 

I looked at this and thought it seemed unique and it turns out that these do sell on eBay for a range–some for $40+, other older versions for $100+. But the reason that this was so hard to resist is…

That lady done lost her head. 

I thought this was so funny that I actually dragged my mom over and showed her. I think you can still sell these for parts, but STILL. 

-Sarah

At the secret auction on Monday, I spotted this janky looking fake Cabbage Patch Doll. 

“Ha Ha,” I chuckled to myself, thinking about how broke a$$ and fake that baby looked. I even showed one of my friends later that night. We laughed and laughed! 

Well, it turns out that “The Little People” were Xavier Roberts’ first iteration of cabbage patch kids. You can read more about them here, but the joke ended up being on me.

I’m not sure how much it sold for because we left the auction super early that night. More on why tomorrow. I know the one at the auction looks a little dirty, but it was really just dusty–it looked like someone unearthed it in a house that had been closed off for 30 years. Which is entirely possible. 

-Sarah