Dig This Treasure!

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that Beanie Babies are essentially a worthless investment.  At their height, you could DEFINITELY make some bucks on them.  Nowadays, not so much.  There are just too many in existence (like at this sale) and rarity is one of the cornerstones of collecting.  If everyone has it, it ain’t worth nothin’.  

And before I go on, let me remind you, that I am the Beanie Baby master.  (P.S. Why this photo of me hasn’t gone to the front page of Reddit yet is a failure of all you readers and a huge disappointment in my life.)

Last night, Zach stumbled upon this great short documentary called “Bankrupt by Beanies.”  It is made by a student at The University of Arizona and is super compelling.  This family spent $100,000 on Beanie Babies, and did so in the hopes that the investment would pay for 5 children’s college educations.  The results are as you can expect.

So check it out.  It is short, and worth the watch for sure.

-Erin

Last Friday (Good Friday) honestly didn’t seem that promising. Because of the holiday, there weren’t very many sales. But it ended up being such an awesome day that we’re going to have to split the adventure into multiple posts! 

We started out our day by visiting two sales on the east side of town. The pictures of the first one looked promising, but it ended up being packed full of junk. We knew this was going to be the case when we saw people DUMPSTER DIVING in the driveway. 

For a minute I thought this was a good sign, but it really was not. 

Inside, the place was full of old stuff, but they had a lot of it priced really high, and then the rest was sort of dirty or just cheap and junky. I did find a few cool things. An inflatable birthday cake (don’t worry, it’s never been opened). 

Who wouldn’t want this ultimate birthday gift? 

I also found some old Fantasia postcards…

…And I honestly can’t remember what else I bought at this sale except for an old flip book for Adam. They were selling a bunch of vintage Disney flip books and the I thought the lady running the sale was full of it when she kept telling us they were valuable, but it turns out she was right! Oh well! 

Here is an overview of what you missed out on if you skipped this sale: 

Looking through some show tunes on vinyl.. busted! 

That is one among many paper box tops filled with Agatha Christie mysteries. 

The house was FILLED with these SelectaVision VideoDiscs, which Adam just told me are called CEDs and were the precursors to laser discs. You may recall Erin saying that she only watches movies on laser disc, so I’m shocked that she did not jump on this rare opportunity to enhance her collection. 

On the way out, Erin actually made friends with some of the dumpster divers. 

I asked the guy on the right if he found anything good in there. He started talking about how he found some stuff for movie sets and that he’s in the video production business, so Erin started chatting him up. She asked if he needed any editing work and ended up with his business card. So all of you job seekers out there… check the dumpsters! 

We checked the listings for sales nearby since we had no plan. We found a sale that was described as being at the home of a former gift shop owner and Erin and I both got pretty pumped. It was only about 20 minutes away, so we hit the road. As soon as we walked in, we were transported to A Whole New World. 

Yes, you are in fact looking at a life-size plush carousel. It seriously only got worse. 

Those bears are on bikes, and they were $10 each. 

Now I’m no expert but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if you have MASS QUANTITIES of Easter goods overflowing your counter space two days before Easter, it would in fact be the PERFECT time to make those exact items half off. 

The den was filled with dirty old plastic toys and “DVDs”…although I’d argue that this woman was fairly confused about what DVD means. 

I would also like to know where on Earth a VHS tape is worth $4. Probably the same place where a dirty, ratty old paperback is also worth $4. I’ll get to that in a minute. 

We headed to the basement and that’s where Erin found Beanie Baby Heaven. When we got down there, it became clear that this was some sort of weird “I’m selling all of my possessions” sale because the woman’s teenage daughter was down there and talked to us for a while. She told us that “everything except the beanie babies” was half off. Right away, I found some vintage teen paperbacks that I thought a friend might like, a couple of records, and an old Pucci doll.

I was about to pay when we realized that there was also an upstairs. Of course we had to check it out. It was the worst of the worst. 

You are reading that correctly. TWELVE DOLLARS for a gross old used men’s sweatshirt. I’m not sure a new sweatshirt costs that much at like, Target.

I also found this totally bodacious one-piece suit. 

To top off our visit, we found this stain. Clearly a biohazard. 

Right after I walked in and saw this, Erin walked in and made a priceless face. I’ve captured it here for your enjoyment.

One more time. 

At this point, it was clearly time to check out and the lady told me my total was $16.50. I almost just took out a $20 but then reality hit me and I had no idea how a couple records, books, and a tiny stuffed animal could cost that much. I asked how much the books were and she said, “Four dollars… so they’re two dollars today.” I still felt confused and then realized that she meant EACH ONE was that much. I said, “…oh…that’s A LOT.” The lady seemed shocked by this, and Erin reiterated that $4 for a paperback that cost 25 cents in the 1950s was insane. Then the woman told me, “oh… well I’ve been selling them like crazy for the last four weeks.” I’m not sure why we did not ask this but… WHY HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING AN ESTATE SALE FOR FOUR WEEKS?! 

Anyway, I paid for everything besides the books and we high-tailed it out of there. In part two of this Friday update, we’ll tell you all about we heard some gossip about this very sale at our next stop! 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: At that first sale, I did in fact call all those weird CEDS “laser discs.”  Some guy heard this and later hunted Sarah and I down to tell us that these were NOT laser discs.  He didn’t know their proper name (thanks Adam) but knew FOR SURE that these IN NO WAY were laser discs.  Thanks man, but I’m still not buying them.

I didn’t find much at this sale, but they did have this snack maker, which Sarah was not shocked to learn I had as a child.  Spoiler alert: I was a fat youth.

I remember this being kind of janky when I was young.  The fry maker would shred a piece of bread into strips and voila, you had fries.  Except not.  I can certainly tell the difference between shredded bread and french fries.

They also had this doormat, which cracked me up immensely:

Someone’s last name was “Chicks” or someone was trying to welcome “the chicks” to this house, in which case, that someone should have cleaned up all the Tron CEDS and McDonald snack makers before said chicks arrived.  

I found one treasure here.  A pennant from the 1950s or 60s, for the St. Louis Cardinals.  When I reported this find to Timmy, he was so thrilled.  Apparently the green background on this is mega rare.  It will be on ebay soon.  I paid $5.

The second sale was held in the fourth circle of hell which, if you don’t remember, is reserved for the hoarders and the spendthrifts. 

Ok, let me explain something about Beanie Babies.  Wait–let me first explain my Beanie Baby credentials.  Early readers of this blog may remember, but this is me:

I know my stuff.  TRUST.

Beanie Babies in 2013 are worth exactly the scrap price of polyester blend fabric and tiny plastic beads, which as it turns out, is $0.00.  That said, at estate sales and garage sales, young children still love them a cheap Beanie.  So here is what you do: sell each Beanie Baby for 25 cents, or even better, let any kid who shows up fill their grubby little arms with as many Beanies as they want–for free.

Instead, the woman at this sale was selling each Beanie for $2.50, which sounds cheap, but isn’t when you have THOUSANDS to sell.

I didn’t find anything to buy here, although chances are I couldn’t afford it anyway.  Case in point:

Because I was off of work last week for winter break, Erin and I were able to go treasure hunting for two days in a row. We ventured out on Thursday, ready to hit up a really packed looking sale in Garden City. Don’t let the name fool you–Garden City is not a gorgeous haven. We arrived at the house and it felt like a repeat from a few weeks ago–you had to enter through the back yard and it was a treacherous, icy swamp land.

When we finally made it inside, we were pretty pleased with the offerings right off the bat:

Scary models, lots and lots of junk, 3-dimensional animal artwork, sexy babies… what more can you ask for?

Right away, we saw some cute stuff but it was a little overpriced. For example, these guys were cute but one was stained and the other was marked $25.

There were some other interesting items, but again, a little too pricey and it was the first day, so there was no negotiating.

I would have bought that Pee Wee if it wasn’t so crazy expensive. Adam and I both have a soft spot for Mr. Herman.

There was also a lot of not so great stuff at this sale:

The real interesting collections were down in the basement. I don’t know what it is lately but we sure have run into a lot of beanie babies. This sale was no exception to that recent trend.

These bins alone seem to be holding lots of beanies but they don’t even begin to capture the number that this person had. She also had a lot of other stuffed toys and dolls.

Sexy dress, sexy specs.

Mountains of Barbies. Note that many of them are multiples of the same item.

Lots of Mikhail Gorbachev dolls.

A lot of the dolls (Barbies, etc.) were totally overpriced, but one thing that was not overpriced was a set of Snuggle bears with their original tags, marked $5 for the whole set. This was a steal! And Erin was kind enough to give me them. Here they are, waiting for buyers on eBay:

You’ll notice I also found some talking Taco Bell dogs in their original bags at this sale as well. I’ll take any respectable offers, so please buy them.

Erin and I both bought this snowman “Beanie Buddy” for $1 because it was so friggin’ adorable! Next Christmas he’s gonna be chillin’ (no pun intended) in my living room.

Finally, the best thing I found by far was this music box, featuring breakdancing bears. They dance to the Flashdance theme song.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: That Jesus wall mount looks like a hunting trophy.  When I saw it, I could not stop laughing.  A little deer head Jesus…so weird.

Let me also say here, that if a crazy person buys that large Snuggle bear from Sarah for $70, then she better treat me to lunch.  I don’t know on what planet people buy Snuggle bears for $70, but should it happen, I am a FOOL for finding those bears and giving them away to her.

Like Sarah mentioned, I bought one of those stuffed Christmas snowmen.  It is seriously the softest stuffed animal I have ever felt.  I love him.  

I also bought this Mexican folk art piece for Zach’s mom.  It was her birthday last week, and I knew this would be a perfect gift.  Sandy is Mexican herself, and collects all things south of the border.

A little carousel!  The figures had really worried expressions on their faces, which made this even more cute.

-Erin

As mentioned, on Monday night I went to an auction with my parents and scored a boatload of Muffy VanderBear and Hoppy VanderHare dolls. Before I tell you the tale of this auction, I need to share one more thing related to the Muffies. This is, by far, the most adorable thing in the lot of stuff I purchased. It’s a Muffy BATH TUB!!!! 

Once again, proof that Erin and I were destined to be BFFs. I mean, if I’m being completely honest, I would have DIED if I had this stuff as a kid. It’s just so stinkin’ cute.  And look at the inside of the bathtub!!! 

Anyway, my parents go to this auction every week, and it’s pretty far from where I live, so I’m not normally able to go. But this week is our winter break at work, so I’m free like a bird. This auction house has auctions all of the time, and the Monday night auction is actually three different auctions going on simultaneously. My parents like going because you can get some great treasures for very little money. It is a very odd auction because it really is a mix of valuable/quality stuff and just plain old junk. 

As soon as we got there, I was overwhelmed. 

It was impossible to really capture the number of people who were up in this joint, as well as the quantity of crap there for sale. That picture above does not do it justice but it’s the crowd of men around the “man sale” area–I guess one of the auctioneers is always selling man stuff. 

What they do is they start at the front of the room and work their way back. It was a little stressful to try to pay attention to what might be coming up in each of the three places. I was also worried at first that I would never find my mom and dad again but then I realized that my mom was wearing the same color vest as a crossing guard in elementary school. 

There she is, inspecting a high-quality wooden basket. 

I spent most of my time between the Muffy sale and the middle sale, which was a mish-mash of stuff. The mish-mashy sale was lots of typical estate sale stuff–glassware, figurines, some paper, etc. But then they also had things like this:

Fun fact: I owned both of these Barbies when I was a kid, and they came with a Barbie and the Rockers record. 

I ended up missing a lot of that auction, because I spent so much effing time waiting for those Muffies to go up on the auction block! That auction was being run by the son (I think) of the main auctioneer on that side of the room. Besides the Muffies, there were more Beanie Babies than I’ve seen in my life. When the son went to put the Muffies on the auction block, the dad stepped in and was like, “No way, I’m not selling those as a group.” I wanted to cry. It was about 110 degrees in the joint, and I had worn my down coat inside. (Excellent decision on my part.) As I stood there and sweat bullets, the auction guys started separating all of the Muffies and beanies into piles that they were going to choice out. First I won the bin with some of the Muffy furniture and stuff still inside, and then they started choice-ing out the plush lots. I was the ONLY PERSON who bid $5 and nobody bid me up. I bought all of the Muffies that they had just separated out, but then after I did that, people bought some of the groups of beanies for way more. I have no idea how or why it went down like that, but I’m not complaining! 

While I was fighting off grandmas for my scores, I missed out on some adorable wooden dog head bookends that went up in the other area. Probably for the best. I also missed out on a box of cards that someone probably spent too much money on. 

Early on, I had spotted an old E.T. lunchbox in the “man sale” area.

I really love E.T., which I think I’ve mentioned in the past. I ended up winning it, but then afterward realized that I don’t really need an E.T. lunchbox, so I’m reselling it. It’s in really awesome shape for its age. If you’re a fan, please buy it! 

One thing that I did not buy, which I’m now regretting, was a Show ‘n Tell phono viewer for Adam. It looked like this: 

It somehow plays records and projects images. I have no idea how. He had never heard of one, and seemed pretty bummed when I told him I stopped bidding at $35. Oh well, you win some you lose some! What I bought him instead was an old parking meter. No joke! I thought he might want to tinker with it. 

Finally, at the end of the sale, I won two really nice vintage quilts. 

My mom ended up with an '80s Spuds MacKenzie Bud beer sign. I have to admit that I laughed at her when I found out she bought it, but it’s actually got bids on it already! My dad bought three little children’s books that ended up not being valuable. Oh well! But he did do an awesome job of carrying all of my items to the car for me! 

One final weird thing about this place. This is the sign you see in the women’s bathroom: 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  One day I will go to my parents house and photo the obscene amount of Muffy Vanderbear stuff I have packed away in their basement.  My Aunt Cathy used to gift me Muffy things for every birthday/holiday/etc.  It was such a delight.  

Anyway, I wanted to comment on this entry because I noticed a photo in our DTT dropbox that I am assuming Sarah took at this auction.  I think she forgot to include it in this entry.  The photo is so magical that I had to add it in:

Brilliant.  

The Plymouth auction hadn’t been in action since before the holidays, and the crowd last Saturday showed just how excited everyone was for its return.

Zach, Timmy, my sister Lindsay, and I got there super early and snagged some third row seats.  The people in front of us had a clever way of saving their seats:

There were not enough chairs in the place to accommodate the crowd, and I am pretty sure there wasn’t enough oxygen either.  It was hot and stuffy, and very very loud.  The chaos was clearly annoying the auctioneer, and he would repeatedly yell for people to quiet down or to move away from the front tables.  Most of the time I had no clue what was being auction off, and in deja vu of last week, kept asking my sister.  She usually had no clue either.

For the most part, everything was garbage.  Actually, I shouldn’t say “for the most part,” I should say for the WHOLE PART everything was garbage.  We stuck around though.  Even if we didn’t buy anything, this auction is always entertaining.  In fact, our favorite “regular” was mincing about, wearing his pajamas and talking in a volume similar to when your ears are completely plugged up.  I think he ended up buying a box of markers or something.  

Zach ended up with some cool woodblock prints that he has already framed and hung up in our bedroom.  These were a steal at $5 for the whole lot.  No one else even bid against him.

He also bought this old “camel saddle stool” which I am not going to pretend I know anything about.  From what Zach has said, these stools are modeled after actual camel saddles, and were popular in home decor during the 50s and 60s.  Zach set a limit of $30 on this item, and luckily he won it for $27.50.  

It is all leather on top, which we have since cleaned and polished.  The stool is now being used as a footrest in our living room.  To be honest, I was skeptical of this purchase, but now that it is clean and has a nice spot in our house, I am on board.

Timmy bought some diecast toy car that was sold during the 2003 All-Star Game.  He actually worked this particular All-Star Game for the Detroit Tigers, and wanted the car in commemoration.  It came with a World Series car, which he is going to sell on ebay.  

Lindsay ended up with 2 giant boxes full of Beanie Babies and Beanie Buddies.  If I had known she wanted Beanie Babies, I definitely have some to offer.  Remember this?

At some point, everyone was ready to get the hell out of there…except me.  I had been holding out all night for one item, and I was NOT going to leave without it.  FINALLY, after being at the auction for almost 3 hours, and watching people pay $9 for scissors, my item came up.  And I won!  Here’s what I got for a mere $5:

A whole bunch of ornaments that look like Chicken McNuggets!  If you recall, I had my first ever McNugget a few weeks ago.  I can’t say I am a huge fan of real nuggets, but these ornaments are the cutest!

So overall, a fun night.  Not the most lucrative or unique treasures, but treasures nonetheless!

-Erin

Alright, so, as mentioned, Sarah and I hit one more sale last Friday.  I believe this one was in Trenton.  When we arrived at the sale, it was immediately clear that this person was rich, and that they had a lot of time to buy rich people things.

The first room was filled with these elaborate dollhouses.  They were all pretty remarkable.

What’s interesting about these type of dollhouses is that you never actually see little miniature dolls inside of them.  What’s up with that?  

Upstairs at this sale was a room completely full of designer purses, all of which still had the tags on them.  At first I was sure they must be fake or something, because who buys $400 purses and doesn’t use them?  All of the tags though had Macy’s stickers on them, so certainly they were real.

I think Sarah and I both would have loved to buy some of these.  There were at least 100 to choose from. All of the bags were priced pretty close to retail, so we had to pass.

Back in the dollhouse room, I found a Muffy Vanderbear.  When I was a child, my Aunt Cathy (who comments on this blog often and also publicly called my blonde hair “FRIGHTENING”) gave me Muffy bears and accessories every Christmas.  They were by far my favorite childhood toys, even beating out Beanie Babies.  I still have all of my Muffys and hope that one day I will have a daughter to play with them.

Anyway, this particular Muffy was one I already had in my collection, but it was in PERFECT condition, so I decided to buy it.  I was carrying it around, and kept thinking, “Hm, I don’t remember my original Muffy having this gold necklace on it.”  

Looking closer at the necklace, it was pretty clear that it was REAL gold.  Someone had put a REAL GOLD chain on Muffy.  

Knowing that gold is like crazy valuable right now, Sarah and I started speculating what it could be worth.  I looked online and it said 14K gold was worth around $18 per gram.  I then speculated that a gram was like one paper clip.  However, neither of us could figure out how many imaginary paper clips might make up the necklace I had.

On our way to lunch we spotted one of those “Cash for Gold” places.  When I say “spotted” I actually mean that we drove down the street specifically looking for any place that might buy gold.  We were just way too excited.

So we got buzzed into the store, had the necklace weighed, and ended up selling it for $44!  That price actually covered all of the purchases I had made that day, including lunch!  Pretty exciting!  

The lesson here people is not to store your gold jewelry on teddy bears, and then sell those bears.  The other lesson here is that if someone does store their gold jewelry on a teddy bear, then totally buy that teddy bear.

-Erin

Sarah and I see Beanie Babies at nearly every sale we attend, and I always give them a good look-through.  Here’s the thing though…you know that percentage on anti-bacterial hand soap?  99.999% or whatever?  That’s exactly the chance you have of NEVER finding a valuable Beanie Baby.  

How do I know?  Well, for one thing, this is me:

(Let me say here that if I was a kid now, I would have bullied myself.)

So yeah, I know a little bit about Beanie Babies.  Also, it is a good rule of thumb for any estate sale buying that if something was mass produced or marketed as “collectible” then it really never was or will be valuable.  Holiday Barbies?  Eh.  Santa Bears? Eh.

The most collectible things are rare, either because only a few were made or because people never thought to keep them.  

So back to the bean bags…

You can tell a collectible Beanie Baby instantly by its tag.  If it has the half-fold tag with a poem inside and a yellow star on the front, then move on.  These are the Beanie Babies that my fellow youth and I collected.  They’re everywhere.  

If you find a Beanie Baby with a hang-tag that is only one single piece of cardboard, but printed on both sides, then you are onto something.  These are first generation Beanies, released well before the collecting craze began.  If you can buy these first gens for a couple bucks, then they can be well-worth the investment. 

This is not to say that NONE of the newer Beanies (with fold-tag) are collectible.  A couple of them are, but only because of SUPER RARE manufacturing flaws.  There’s “Peanut” the elephant who was released in small quantity as a royal blue color (instead of baby blue), and “Spot” the dog who in some cases is missing his spot.

You can check out some other Beanie Baby variations here.

My favorite Beanie Baby hands-down is the Princess Diana commemorative Beanie.  When I find one at a sale, I like to pretend that it is super valuable.  I usually hold it up and say loudly, “YES! The holy grail!”  In truth, it is worth about $5.  I just love that someone had the audacity to propose the creation of this thing and make mad cash off it.  

Here is one that someone put a mini crown on, because apparently the bear alone wasn’t tacky enough:

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin also used to make outfits for her beanie babies. I know this because at a garage sale she and her sister were having a few years ago, she let me have some of them that were wearing her creations. I used to make “homes” for my smaller stuffed animals out of shoe boxes that included moveable furniture made of cardboard and construction paper. Just another thing among many that I learned about her that affirmed the reason we are BFFs.

One difference between she and I–I would have never left a tag on any toy I owned. EVER. To this day, I threaten to remove the tags or take things out of boxes that Adam has that are collectible. Those tag “protectors” are especially rage-inducing for me. 

(BTW, Adam was thrilled about my securing some new beanies, as I’m sure you figured.)