Dig This Treasure!

I know you all miss us terribly, but please know that our absence has been totally legit!  On November 1, Sarah gave birth to this amazing little dude.  Meet Arden!   

I know, right?!  He is amazing.  Arden clocked in at 7lbs. 10 oz. and has been an eating/sleeping/pooping champ since his arrival.  He is named after a street in the neighborhood that Sarah and Adam both grew up in.

Sarah is also a champ, having labored for about 20 hours (including 4 hours of pushing).  Turns out that Arden was sunny-side-up and essentially stuck, so he was born via cesarean. She is still recovering but is already rocking momhood.

I am so happy and delighted to get to know Arden, and I am sure we will share more of his adventures here.  His first estate sale/auction/garage sale will be such fun! 

Ok, more pics!  Because, well, BABIES!!!

Hooray!!! We love you Arden!!!

-Erin

Sarah and I have been super lazy bloggers, but luckily our disciple Zach has been much more proactive.  Husband Zach collects and resells vintage watches, so lately he has been scoping out estate and garage sales in hopes of finding some. 

On Sunday I got a Facetime call from him, which looked like this:

He explained that he bought this doll because it was only $1 and he thought it might be valuable.  I told him I thought so too!  At least more than $1 valuable!  Zach also bought this crazy Knickerbocker doll because he knew we had blogged about that brand before:

This doll is amazingly weird.  It is a baby and a Santa.  A Santa Baby…like the song, except I don’t think the song literally meant a baby that is also Santa.  Anyway, we are going to stick it on ebay and see what happens.

So while on this call, Zach explains that this sale he was at had tons of old train stuff but he didn’t know what to buy.  He described this “service station” thing and I convinced him to go back and buy it.  It sounded like something we should take a chance on.

It turned out to be way cooler than I imagined while talking to Zach on the phone:

I could tell this was crazy old because it was wood and not tin.  It was in great shape.  After doing some research, we figured out it was made in 1949 and sold at Sears.  It is up on ebay now and already has a $50 bid.  It has 18 watchers too, so hopefully it will go a little higher.

So then flash forward to today and Zach gets home later than usual after work.  Turns out he had stopped at an estate sale.  I was just about to nap with Everett when Zach informed me that I REALLY needed to get up and go to the sale he was just at.  “It was like a hoarder and there was all this stuff and I know we could resell some of it and blah blah…”

Well, his assessment was right on.  This place was packed.  And the stuff was good.  The prices seemed fair.  I had apparently taught Grasshopper well.

They even had a doll of Sarah’s future child there:

Check out those teefers.

I ended up buying the following:

An Ohio Art tin buggy which seems like it should be an easy resell:

A cool old ice bucket by Hazel Atlas Glass company:

And this hilarious watch which was only $1.  People like Duran Duran don’t they?!

(Zach seemed very skeptical of this purchase.)

I will probably go back tomorrow with Sarah because there were other things I was interested in but wanted to wait and barter over.  Prices today were pretty firm.

When Zach was at the sale, he got this cool toy wagon for $15.  It was really dirty and he cleaned it all up.  It is all wood and super cute.

So good job Zach!  You have officially earned the ranking of DTT Scout.  We are so proud :)

-Erin

I’ll just tell you now…I get into a fight at the end of this entry.  So stay tuned for that.

To begin though, Sarah and I visited a sale on Friday that looked GREAT.  It was the home of a former skin diver and overall adventure man.  There was a ton of ephemera and photographs so of course our girl Sarah was practically drooling looking at the photos of the sale online.

We had to bring the baby meatball with us to the sale, and he was nestled happily in a Moby wrap, which I highly recommend to all moms.  Little man is pretty much pissed off in all other carrier options.

I know what you are thinking…yes, I have the cutest baby.  Yes, it is as though he fell from a heaven cloud and is now an angel living on Earth amongst all of us lesser creatures.  

Anyway, the sale, like mentioned was pretty paper heavy.

The photos at the sale did not disappoint:

All of the photos were interesting and fun!  I didn’t buy any because I am not exactly sure what to do with other people’s photos, but I know Sarah snatched some up.

The basement of the sale was straight up Bear Grylls’ house.

I ended up buying only one thing–a set of Gurley pilgrim candles.  They were $2 each and totally worth it.

They were in great shape!

Ok, so after we left this sale, we visited another nearby.  We got out of our car and were about to cross the street when a crazy man in an SUV came flying 40mph IN REVERSE towards us.  If Sarah would have taken one more step forward, she would have been toast.  I even reached out to pull her backwards.

I was furious.  I was carrying Everett and all of us could have been hit.  After flying past us and throwing his car in park, the man literally jumped out of his vehicle and started racing towards the front door of the sale.  You would’ve thought this was McDonald’s in 1997 and they were giving away Teeny Beanie Babies.  This guy was a maniac.

I WAS SO FURIOUS.  I felt hot all over.  So I marched up to him and said, “I REALLY HOPE THERE IS SOMETHING IN THERE FOR YOU WORTH ALMOST KILLING US OVER."  He said really snottily, "I saw you.  I didn’t almost hit you.”

YEAH RIGHT BOZO.  I continued yelling at him and called him a “crazy man."  I then told the people running the sale (we know them) not to give the guy any deals. 

Should we have been killed though, we wouldn’t have missed much at the sale.  Except for this:

In case you can’t tell, that is painted on the wall.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Man o man, Erin was sort of a crazy person at that second sale. But honestly, I couldn’t believe what a giant d*ck the guy was. He really was driving like a maniac (reminder–IN REVERSE at about, if we’re being honest, 30 mph in a residential area), and he did almost hit me. 

So Erin is right–I was so pumped about this sale! I even considered going and getting there early/standing in line. But I was too lazy.

If you look at that picture of me sorting through stuff with the diving gear hanging from the ceiling, you’ll notice a person standing on the left side of the picture. This guy was the worst. As soon as I got into the basement, I saw a big box of more photographs and started sifting through them. This guy had already been down there and had his chance to look first. Instead, he proceeded to just stand super close to me and stare while I sorted through the pictures. Note to you readers: If you frequent estate sales or other places where there are small things to sort through, DON’T DO THIS TO OTHER SHOPPERS. It is so annoying. I never hesitate to say things to people so I looked at him and said, "AM I IN YOUR WAY?” He said, “No, I’m just looking while you look.” UGH. 

Anyway, I found very cool things at this sale. I am going to save a lot of the pictures for another post but here’s one of my faves: 

Something sexy is going down there. There are THREE sets of shoes, y'all! 

I also found very cool greeting cards. 

And I also found some cool vintage baby animal prints. 

Oh wait there’s one more picture I want to show you guys. It’s an old shot of Erin on a Thanksgiving of yesteryear. 

I found these cool old children’s picture discs. 

Finally, here’s a great looking log cabin quilt that I purchased. When the lady was ringing me up, she did the worst thing a seller can ever do. She said, “Oh wow. You’re getting a great deal on that. I usually price those at $80.” It was priced $40. I said, “Cool. If it was $80, I wouldn’t be buying it.” SO ANNOYING! 

Erin might have the cutest baby but I clearly have the cutest dog. 

I don’t have much to say about this sale we visited a couple weeks ago, other than it had an insane amount of vinyl records.  Oh, and that we brought Everett with us to the sale, which was an adventure.

I gave him that maraca to distract him.  He clutched onto it with his sweaty little mitts through the whole house.  And then he dropped it along the way and I didn’t notice, so sorry to the people running the sale because it is probably behind a dresser somewhere.

I should mention that there are perks to taking a baby to an estate sale.  You can disobey all rules.  This house was basically built on top of an ice luge and had a crazy long, treacherous driveway that patrons were barred from parking in.  I rolled my ass right up into that driveway though and was like YO PEOPLE WE HAVE A BABY OKAY.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say because I didn’t buy anything.  The house was cool though, and the amount of records was astounding.  So here, indulge in these photos:

ULCER DEPARTMENT.  LOL.

I don’t remember exactly what Sarah bought, but I am pretty sure she got this:

And this:

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Because I’m a bad friend, I actually made Erin drive up the driveway and give me the baby, and then go park her car elsewhere. I was afraid of backing out of this driveway because it was super long and there was a crazy woman standing at the end of it who refused to move. Man, all I’ll say is you get a lot of attention if you’re holding a super cute baby, even if it’s just for 3 minutes.

The first thing Everett and I looked for was a Big Hug Mug. 

There wasn’t one. 

This person was obsessed with two things: Clowns and records.This was hands down the most records I’ve ever seen outside of a record store. 

They also had this cool old player piano. 

There were lots of books at this sale, which excited me. But I only found a couple of hardcover comic collections for Adam. 

I also found a copy of Mommie Dearest on DVD! I looked like this when I found it.

My mom let me watch that movie as a child and it scared the sh*t out of me! Time to revisit it. 

I also found this adorable vintage Holly Hobbie serving platter: 

The people running this sale were awesome and charged me $10 for all my crap. The plate alone was marked $8! 

Everett started getting cranky and Erin and I both had little patience for that vast quantity of records, so we booked it out of there. We were all happier at Daly’s, where we indulged in some good-ass food. Here’s proof: 

I broke Erin out of Baby Jail on Friday while Granny Sandy watched lil’ E. We were both thrilled to see each other–while I love that baby, it’s just not as fun to estate sale without Erin there to harass me the whole time. 

We started out afternoon off right–by eating some garbage at Daly’s. Be sure to click that link if you want to see the jankiest website ever created. When it was time to get moving, we kept it close, just in case there was a baby emergency, and stopped by three sales in Livonia. The first was pretty grubby.

I stumbled upon this award winning title but decided to pass.  

Basically, everything was yucky.

I did find one treasure–a 1943 Esquire Vargas pin-up calendar, that’s complete and in good shape. I spent $40 which seems like a good investment. 

While in the basement, I started hearing some commotion above me on the main floor. The old lady running the sale had a really loud smoker’s voice. She yelled downstairs like a lunatic, “RALPH! HAVE YOU SEEN THE CALENDAR?????!!!!” as if some crazy ninja had come through the house and stolen it. I meekly let Ralph know that I had the calendar in my hand and planned on buying it. Ay yi yi.

Next up on our agenda was a sale that was at the home of an antiques dealer, who seemed to specialize in linens. Neither of us collect fancy linens but it seemed worth stopping at. 

That’s the linen room, and there I am, lookin’ like a big dummy (but sporting my cute buffalo plaid coat from last winter.) Shockingly, I have sunglasses on my head. I swear, one day I’m going to just do a post of all of the pictures of me on this blog with sunglasses on my head. It could be pouring rain and I think the picture would still have me with sunglasses on my head. 

Right away, I spotted these adorable Holt Howard Santa mugs inside a china cabinet. I bought them, so here they are. 

Are they not the most adorable? Anyway, as I was carefully removing these from the cabinet, I somehow knocked a tiny port wine glass off the shelf and it shattered all over the floor. It’s amazing how much attention you can attract by breaking glass inside a stranger’s house. (Note: I immediately offered to pay for the broken glass but the woman running the sale was very nice and told me not to worry about it.) 

The sale contained a mix of modern and antique goods…with some general garbage mixed in. 

Those were some awesome masks–but the set was marked $25 and it was too steep. They were made on really heavy boards, but still…too risky. 

I found a few other items at this sale but that was mainly when I went back the next day to pick up something that I’ll feature another day as a Fave Find. When we went back, I realized I hadn’t gone into the garage at this house and out there, I found a handful of very cute little dudes to put in my mini holder. 

The cutest is that teeny tiny kewpie. 

I also bought these cool Duralex mugs (set of 6) to resell. One of them had some very prehistoric dead bugs inside. 

Anyway, while I was trying to check out, the woman from the estate sale company kept talking to me about how I had a “great eye” and kept talking my ear off about it. I just thanked her and nodded politely because I got the impression she thought I had never been to an estate sale. 

The last sale ended up being the most fruitful, and it was a total accident! When we first got there, we had to walk down this super long driveway to get to the house, because it was in the middle of some woods. Here’s the first thing that caught my eye. I wanted Erin to buy it because she wears pins a lot, but she didn’t. 

The house backed up to a gorgeous wooded area with a little stream running through it. 

That picture doesn’t even really do it justice. It was so beautiful. 

I made my way upstairs and found a room of old children’s books, toys, etc. I noticed a box of old films right away and asked how much they were. The guy there said $5 for the whole box. I was super excited but didn’t want to lose my cool. I then noticed this packet of stuff that was marked $15. Inside, I noticed these old brochures about the Detroit Free Press, but then I saw that there was a record inside. 

WHOAAAAAA! You can listen to both of these things here. 

Anyway, while I was looking around, the guy in that room asked me what sorts of things I normally look for, and I told him paper, photographs, books, etc. He said, “Slides?” and I about leaped with excitement. I told him yes and he said he was going to check to see if there were any left. I expected him to bring down a little box of slides but when I turned to look for him, I saw him coming down the stairs with an enormous stack of carousels. 

I felt a little overwhelmed because, as he was walking, I could hear another guy asking him how much he was charging for the slides. The estate sale guy was pretty good at reinforcing that he was bringing them for me to look at, but the other guy was just relentless. As soon as he put the slides down, the guy zoomed over to me and was literally ON TOP OF ME, breathing down my neck. I don’t do well with people invading my personal space to that degree–especially when they seem to be interested in stealing my amazing merch–so I was not very friendly. He proceeded to grill me about what I was going to do with them, where I sell them, and how he could find my listings! WTF?! I asked if he wanted the slides and he said that he didn’t–he just knew the guy who lived at the house. It came out that he was just a neighbor, and in the end, all I could picture was a peeping tom, staring in this poor old man’s windows.

In the end, I was successful in buying ALL of the slides. 

And the man charged me ONE DOLLAR per carousel. Yeaahhhh! 

The only other thing I purchased at this sale worth mentioning was this awesome photograph of a girl and her great dane. 

I can’t reiterate how fun it was to get out with my homegirl. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder! And for all you baby crazed folks, here’s a current picture of Everett, chilling in his Mamaroo. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I really did feel like I was breaking out of Baby Jail.  I felt like I was a wanted felon on the run and at any moment I would be picked up and escorted back to my house.  This was seriously like the third time I had been out in public during the last month.  It was amazing.

I didn’t buy anything at the first sale because it was indeed yucky.  At the second sale, it was the best ever when Sarah broke that wine glass.  I heard a huge crash in the kitchen area and immediately exclaimed, “Rut Row!”  (You know, like the Scooby Doo version of “Uh oh!”)  I then thought to myself, “Oh man, Sarah is right in the middle of that melee.” Then I realized that Sarah WAS the melee.  So good.  You could tell she was mortified.  

I did buy an amazing treasure at this second sale, but I will detail it in a “fave find” entry.  At the third sale, guess who was there to greet me:

Can you believe it?!  Those same g*ddamn snowmen came out to welcome me back to sale-ing! 

This last sale was seriously fun.  The house was like a weird dollhouse with a million tiny rooms.  There were also multiple levels of the house all separated by tiny half staircases.  And some rooms were too small to even stand up in.

I ended up buying two old, framed photographs.  I am going to display these at Easter.  They bring me such joy.  

I also found one of those old Detroit Zoo scrapbooks as shown in this entry.  I paid $1 for it and my sister said I could resell it easily.  It is in perfect shape.

All in all a great day!

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!

Remember a few weeks ago, when I posted that image of that giant collection of VHS tapes at an “antique” sale"?… 

Well, that same week I left it up to Erin to find the sales we would be attending, and the first one she took me to was THAT EXACT HOUSE. When we pulled up, I recognized the company’s sign and started dying laughing. I typically avoid this company’s sales because they overprice everything and it’s usually a giant pile of garbage. We had some luck at their sales when they first started up, but since then, they’ve been pretty bad.

So anyway, apparently some of the pictures of this sale “looked good” to Erin, which is why we ended up there. Here is a sampling of the selection of wonderful goods available. 

(Though this would have been a great gift for Erin, I passed on it.) 

I honestly can’t think of anything grosser than used men’s tighty whities. It’s even grosser than smelly snake skin. 

The selection of gross dolls was off the chain. Here’s the freakiest. Best thing is that Erin and I BOTH took a picture of this creep. 

He has fangs, yellow eyes, and a soul-sucking stare. HELP. 

$360? Excuse me? Made of gold? 

Alright, so here you go. I took one look at this slipper and shouted, “Free Willy!” Erin and I were dying when we realized it said Fred Willey. Also, you must have some serious slipper thievery happening in your hood if you have to write your name in dry erase marker on your footwear. 

Turns out there was one lone collector who hit a jackpot here–so many VHS tapes to choose from!

I did find one cool thing at this sale–a single vintage Minnetonka boot. I looked everywhere for its mate and came up empty handed. WTF? Erin bought a woven purse that had no price tag. When she went to check out, the man looked at it and said, “Oh the woman who lived here traveled all over the southwest… she probably got this at an Indian reservation. The freakin’ purse had a manufacturer’s tag inside and Erin was super polite while pointing it out. She got the purse for $4. 

Next up on our agenda was a sale in Redford that looked pretty good. We didn’t end up with much, but at least there were more cool things to look at. 

I loved this lamp, wig, hat combo. 

That is some old-ass peanut butter. 

I don’t know what this thing was but it sure looked cool. 

Holy moly! Anyone need some lightbulbs? 

In the end, I left with some vintage cards and wrapping paper, and Erin left with a handheld steam cleaner that ended up not working very well. Here is some of the wrapping paper–pretty cute. 

When we got back to their house, I made Zach take a picture of Erin and I with that bun still in the oven. I had panicked a few days prior because I realized that the whole time she’s been pregnant, I never had my picture taken with her and her giant belly.

She wasn’t kidding! Good thing we captured this when we did, because that little boy wasted no time arriving! Two weeks later: 

-Sarah

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!