Dig This Treasure!

Wow… If only I could properly illustrate the extreme horrible-ness of the sales being offered these days. Erin and I had some time to go out on Friday. Erin didn’t have a sitter so baby Ev came with us, and so did our friend Jen. It was a horrible first sale-ing experience for both of them! We literally couldn’t find a single sale that seemed worth going to, so we decided to stay close to home and hit up a sale in Livonia. 

I noticed these cool old mugs but… they weren’t worth $40. 

Basically, there was nothing remotely good to be found at this sale. Unless you wanted some old Drano or a really scary clown candle. 

I did find one thing at this sale: A TON of oversized cash, yo. 

I actually knew Adam would be thrilled with this find. And he was. 

Anyway, Erin was really desperate for some good sale-ing and Jen was desperate for some action on her first trip out with us, so we went to the warehouse. Erin was acting all brave and ready to just go in there…until we pulled into the parking lot! At that point we decided that we needed to send Jen in as our lookout. She was to enter the warehouse and then come back out and let us know if the coast was clear. It’s worth noting that Jen had never seen an episode of Cash and Cari so she had no idea what Cari looked like. We showed her a picture and she went on her way. Erin and I anxiously sat in the car. 

She jumped in the car and told us that public enemy #1 was inside the warehouse. MAAAAAAN!!! We were bummed. That was our last option so no other sales were visited, and we’re hoping that this weekend’s offerings are a bit better. In the end, we had some good Mexican food and Everett was a little angel the whole time. Until we got home. He was p*ssed about the sales that day. 

-Sarah

We want to be totally upfront. Erin and I have spent the last couple of days mulling over whether or not to write about this. We know that this could be perceived as adding fuel to an already out of control forest fire. But in the end, we decided we needed to document this experience, because it is just too crazy not to.

If you’ve read the blog for a while, you’ll have noticed that because we live in southeast Michigan, we’ve gone to sales put on by RePurpose, which is the company featured on Cash & Cari. We don’t go to these because we’re weird groupies or superfans. We go to them because they’re just one among many companies in the area that run sales. The last time we went to one of their sales, we wrote it up as a letdown for a number of reasons. 

Despite that last experience, we started the day by going to one of their sales. (We go to plenty of disappointing sales and then back to another by that same company the next week.) Less than two minutes after being inside, we were approached by Cari and another woman who works for her. Cari let us know that she saw our blog, and that she was disappointed, and that our entry was mean. Erin quickly asked them if they had read any of the other entries, as we tend to be pretty sarcastic. Cari said no, and let us know that HGTV had found the entry and notified them about it. (Sidenote: Turns out we ARE world famous bloggers after all!!!)

They went on to inform us that the owner of all of the stuff at the “letdown” sale had been mentally retarded, which began their process of insinuating that a) this matters and b) we were making fun of the items for sale because of the man’s mental retardation. Neither of these things is true–we couldn’t have known anything about the seller (and we’ve written about this in the past), and we aren’t evil. They also seemed to be offended by our commentary on the way items were priced, but the fact that prices at their sales have gone up is true, and we aren’t the only ones who are saying so. Erin smiled and reiterated that the sale was overpriced. 

We were both really shocked by what was happening, and sort of stunned into silence for a while. Erin went into another room, and I kept looking at the cute things on the table in front of me–there was a lot of cool, reasonably priced stuff at the sale! But I could tell Erin was really upset–she does not like confrontation. I found her in a bedroom around the corner, and she expressed that she wanted to leave. I reminded her that a) we said nothing untrue and b) they were just upset that someone was criticizing them and c) HGTV was probably upset that someone called them unprofessional. 

A few minutes into looking around in the bedroom, the woman who was with Cari approached us again and asked why we were there. Now, once again, I think it goes without pointing out, particularly if they’ve found our blog, that we were there because we go to estate sales every weekend. If they had taken a moment to actually look at any of the other 70+ entries, they’d have realized that only TWO relate to a sale run by them. But after listening to this woman rant for a while, it became clear that they were under the impression that the sole purpose of us going to their sales was to sabotage their reputation. This is actually hilarious–they must think we have a lot of free time on our hands. Good God.

The woman was so agitated that it was nearly impossible to respond to her questions or say anything at all really. She went on and on about the fairness of the Barbie prices (as if I wanted to buy them all), that they had been priced at “fair market value” and they ended up selling them for much less (shocking!) She also repeatedly tried to bring up the fact that the owner of the items at that sale was mentally retarded, as if it had some sort of impact on what is or is not amusing to us. I interrupted her and explained that it was ridiculous to even suggest that.

Despite anything either of us tried to say, she went on and on with her defense, explaining how stressful that sale was for the company, and that they had been busy ALL DAY and was it really so bad that they took a couple of minutes to laugh at a funny video on the Internet? (The best part is that if they had read that entry closely, they would have seen that I specifically said watching a video of popping a giant blackhead is SOMETHING I WOULD DO MYSELF.) I was getting so tired of hearing her loud, angry defense that I finally just looked at her and asked, “What is it that you want us to do? Do you want us to take down the entry?” She told me no, but then didn’t seem to have an answer about what action we could take to make them happy. She just wanted to yell at us. 

The icing on the cake is that while Erin and I were being scolded, an older woman had come into the room and was observing what was going on with a concerned look on her face. I was facing her and getting more and more uncomfortable because I could tell she was really uncomfortable. Finally, she asked what was going on, and expressed that she did not want to be in the middle of a fight on television (no, they weren’t recording us.) Finally, the woman who was confronting us left the room.

We went through the rest of the house, each bought some cool stuff, and high-tailed it outta there. Erin and I spent the rest of the afternoon going to other sales and reflecting on how insane our morning had been. As this is part of her personality, Erin was searching for ways that maybe we had messed up. We could come up with nothing, besides the fact that it wasn’t necessary to mention the zit video. Even that was a stretch–it was obviously a joke. Also, just in case anyone’s keeping tabs, I think we can all agree that it is unprofessional to watch an exploding zit video while customers are shopping at your estate sale. 

The more I think about this whole experience, the more flabbergasted I am. We write a blog about estate sales, and we wrote about our experience. We also made some jokes. This is what we do in every entry. Combined, Erin and I have spent literally hundreds of dollars at Cari’s sales. How anyone at a company featured on a national television show thought that this was a reasonable way to address online criticism is beyond me. But I’ve gotta say, it is pretty damn beautifully ironic that Cari and her assistant found it appropriate to publicly chastise two people for writing on a blog about the company’s lack of professionalism at a previous sale. 

We will have to post another update about the rest of the sales we went to on Saturday (not to mention Friday). In conclusion, the best part of this whole experience was that Erin found an original Bob Dylan poster in the basement of Cari’s sale. She bought it for $5 and it has sold in the past for as much as $200. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  Sarah is right, I did immediately try to find reasons why this was all our fault and we needed to apologize.  The more we talked though, the more I realized that this whole situation was ridiculous and overblown.  

Are we sarcastic?  Yes.  Did we need to say all the stuff we did about that particular Cari sale? No. But we don’t really need to say much of anything we post on here.  We could simply post photos every week of our finds and leave out the commentary, but instead we choose to include all of the things that run through our heads while out at these sales.  It is more interesting to us, and I assume to our (20 or so) readers.

So in that respect, we take responsibility for what we post. We write what we write for some laughs and to shed light on a hobby. And in doing so, I think we just assume that everyone will take this all in stride. Maybe this is a mistake on our part. But Becky and Lance from the “House of Horrors” posts are perfect examples.  I was super hesitant to have Sarah contact them because the things we wrote could come off as offensive. We were light and jokey about that sale, but not everyone is light and jokey.  Becky and Lance thankfully turned out to have a great sense of humor (and also be awesome.) 

It’s not fair for us to ask that anyone and everyone just “take a joke.”  But it is also not fair to go all grizzly bear on two women in public. The amount of yelling that was happening on Saturday was absurd and embarrassing. I got so freaked out that I was physically shaking, which is SO CRAZY. This is a blog with a pretty limited readership, as far as we know.  This isn’t some sort of New York Times-whistleblower-inside source-Wikileaks type shit.

Whew.  I could go on and on.  This whole situation was a giant bummer for Sarah and I. I don’t think we will be sale-ing at RePurpose sales anymore. There will be one more post in the future about my dad being on the show, but I’ll try to keep it glowingly positive.  Which, for the record, I felt like our first Cash & Cari post was.

So, the first house we went to on Friday was in Dearborn, and even though we didn’t find extreme treasures, we found something amazing: A crazy 1960s beauty salon in the basement that was stuck in time! Here’s Erin gettin’ her hair did: 

On the right, you’ll notice the reception desk, and then the hair washing station. 

Here is Carmen’s 1955 Diploma from the Virginia Farrell Beauty School… (diplomas are one of the saddest things we see at sales… diaries being the worst.) 

Here are a few more shots of the entire salon: 

I was the first one into the basement, and I could hear Erin at the top of the stairs gabbing away with a stranger, so I was like, “Erin! Get down here!” She told me she immediately thought that I found an extreme treasure that she was missing out on. When she realized what it was, she decided that an old beauty salon was an even better treasure. 

We both found a couple of things and started checking out. Erin bought an antique baby scale (?!), a meat grinder, a Christmas coffee mug, and a box of Bakelite sockets. The woman running the sale was skeptical of Erin’s purchases, and said something like, “you have an interesting selection of items here.” When she found the Bakelite sockets, I think she started catching on to Erin trying to make some mad cash. So Erin said, “No… we just like to find weird things at sales. We have a blog!" 

Anyway, this conversation went on and on, and Erin started holding up a line of people, which made her start sweating. The woman wrote down the name of our blog (WHAT WAS ERIN THINKING?!) and Erin told her that we could sponsor her sales with a banner. WHAT. THE. HELL. When we got outside, I told her that she should always be thinking of a good reason to want something valuable to tell sellers when they ask. A reason besides reselling it. Like making an art project out of it. 

I bought an ugly table cloth and a creepy old doll. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t bought either of these things. The one thing I will say is that Erin chatting these people up made them give us deals and start opening up to us, so I’ll give her that.

The house after this was the Grey Gardens house, and then we had to make a decision. There were two sales left on our list–one was closer, but ended sooner, and we were starving. The other was all the way in Utica, but it was open until 5. We decided on the Utica sale so that we could eat before. 

The Utica sale was another Cash & Cari sale. It looked sort of interesting, but nowadays their sales are always incredibly overpriced, so I was skeptical. We arrived and there were a crapload of people in the house, which immediately made me want to die. Also, the stuff in the house was abundant, but all gross and tacky. This person had a weird assortment of collections. It was like he/she decided to collect EVERY thing that they had a single item of. Shot glass collection? Check. Barbie Collection? 

Check. 

Beer tap collection? 

Check. 

Lava lamp collection? 

Check. You can’t get much worse than a lava lamp collection.

Also, the prices on all of this garbage were insane. I don’t understand what’s happened–less than a year ago, her sales had stuff that was totally reasonably priced. I can’t believe anyone was buying anything. For example, there was a "Canadian Barbie” that I picked up because I have a friend who is Canadian, and I was like, “That might be cute…” But no… It was marked $75!!! That thing sells on eBay for between 25 and 50 bucks. WTF?! Cari is gettin’ a little too big for her britches. Also, one of her employees was in the Barbie room showing another employee a video of the largest blackhead ever being popped. I realize this is something I would do, but still–real professional, ladies.

At this point, I wanted nothing more than to warp home. Instead, we had to drive for an hour in rush hour traffic. 

By far, the best treasure of the day was finding that Better Made (Adam pointed out that their website is bmchips.com… bad choice, guys) and National Coney Island have collaborated to make these: 

If you know me, you know that chili fries are my favorite food. Erin was back on the east side of town on Saturday, so I made her pick up five more bags of them. Adam and I keep eating them, exclaiming, “they taste JUST LIKE chili fries!" 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Ok, I did buy an old baby scale.  But how is this not adorable?  I am going to try and sell it, and if that doesn’t work, it is a cute thing to have in a nursery.  

Sarah kept pointing out that this scale is all dirty, which is true.  Obviously, though, she has never heard of a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Let me also say that I do indeed have a hard time being put on the spot by people, be it at estate sale or the gas station.  Sarah knows that I always get roped into long conversations with strangers, which is probably why the Jehovah’s Witnesses know my name and visit every other day.  Bottom line: I am too polite.  So yeah, I did say we would be willing to sponsor an estate sale with some sort of banner.  But why not?  I have never had a giant banner for anything before.

And I need to point out that this cavorting did lead to some good discounts for us.  I got these old welding glasses for free at the sale.  And they already have 2 bids on ebay.  (Steampunks will buy anything labeled "steampunk”.)

I also got this adorable thing for Zach because he actually wears tie pins and cuff links.

I don’t know why you would want to mix ashes will all of your valuables, but maybe it is an old-timey thing.

The last thing I will say about this sale is that I was OBSESSED with this old metal tray table.  It was part of the beauty salon stuff.  The industrial look of it was just really neat.  In the end, I had no place to put it in our house, so it got left behind.

So full disclosure, Sarah and I were famous estate sale-ers way before this blog.  Back in October we were featured on the “hit” (debatable) HGTV show Cash & Cari.  The premise of the show is that treasure broker Cari Cucksley runs estate sales and viewers watch as she sells off goods to weirdos like us.  

By chance, Sarah and I rolled up to a sale in which Cash & Cari was filming. The house was jam-packed with knick-knacks, but nothing that interesting or collectible. Originally, we left the house (me empty-handed) having avoided the cameras. 

Before we left, I checked ebay quickly to get the prices on antique taxidermy. The basement of the sale had several vintage animal mounts, all priced pretty low. I worked at a natural history museum in the past and knew that old taxidermy could be really collectible.  (It can also contain high levels of arsenic, so there is a trade off.) Seeing that I could make a good profit on an antique fox mount, I convinced Sarah that we had to go back into the sale.

Here is a photo of me grabbing the fox mount, and Sarah running away in absolute horror. She kept yelling that I had to put the fox in the trunk, which I thought might damage it.  

As soon as I grabbed this fox, the cameras were on us. I am sure the producers on set were thinking “what the hell is this girl going to do with that fox?” In fact, I know they were thinking this because they eventually asked me. I put on some charade about thinking it was cool and putting in my house, all because I felt bad about admitting that I was going to resell it.  Sarah, of course, hoed me out…on camera.

Cari and her crew were cool with me reselling the fox. They were also cool with making me look like a true freak on camera. I was positioned in the sunlight outside, posed with the fox on my lap, and asked to stroke the fox’s fur whilst smiling at the camera. I was totally down with this.

So after my interview and foxy photoshoot, Sarah and I left, cracked up for awhile in the car, and headed off for more treasure hunting. Here’s where things get good…

So we’re driving, and probably arguing about where to eat lunch, when we pass some creepfest flea market. We decide to stop. I say to Sarah, “Hey wouldn’t that be crazy if we walk in and there is like a taxidermy man and all he has been pining for is a fox mount?”  

And lemme say, it was as though Jiminy Cricket himself was waiting for me to say this, and at that moment, we walk in and see a GIANT taxidermy hut. I approach the man, tell him about the fox in my backseat, and he is out the door to the parking lot. Peering into my car, he pulls out a wad of cash, hands me $60 and says he’ll take the fox.

I was kind of shocked at how fast I owned the fox and then didn’t own the fox. I wasn’t sure if I got the best price I could, so I started getting cold feet. The man told me to walk around the market with his $60, think about it, and then tell him if I changed my mind about selling the mount.

I decided to not change my mind. I had cold hard cash, got rid of a possibly arsenic-tainted animal, and was going to be on HGTV. Here is the dude who bought the fox:

And yes, that man is holding a little plastic Sumo man. I did not sell it to him.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: That was such a fun day. That man had the fakest chompers I’ve ever seen.