Dig This Treasure!

Two Saturdays ago, I drove out to Grass Lake, where my friend Sarah lives, to check out some local resale and antique stores. She wanted to take me to one store in particular that’s located in (tiny) downtown Grass Lake, The Copper Nail. Before that, though, we had to stop at the Grass Lake Diner for breakfast. Look, all I’ll say is that I had the most amazing “toast” of my life. I don’t know how I didn’t take a picture, but I did find one online. Basically, they take banana bread or pumpkin bread and toast it so it’s nice and crunchy on the outside and cakey on the inside. Then they slather it in butter. So it looks like this: 

My mouth is watering just remembering it. 

When we finished breakfast, we went across the street to the Copper Nail and started digging. The store is community/volunteer-run and gives all of its proceeds to local nonprofits. Very cool. The store is a mix of vintage and new items, and the first thing I saw when entering was a rack of Halloween costumes. Nothing really struck my fancy, but I was a bit horrified by this:

… and then fortunately while recovering from that visual, I noticed a marionette hanging from a shelf.  

There were TONS of books at this store, which, as I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear, made me incredibly happy. I found some with pretty chuckle-worthy titles. 

They can? I guess they can. 

One nice touch about The Copper Nail is that they offer their guests cookies. Sarah said they’re normally homemade cookies, so she was disappointed by the selection that day, but free cookies are always good no matter their origin, if you ask me. 

Check out that moose butt. I just noticed it. 

I was hopeful that I would find some old paper goods, and got really excited when I spotted this Santa box, which I recognized right away as being a card or stationary box. 

While these Santas are super cute, all I found inside was a bunch of birthday cards with ducks on them. Whomp whomp. 

In the end, I did find some cool treasures. Here’s a group shot. 

A little bag of vintage cards, a Linus and Sally figurine, an adorable vintage Paddington for $1, a vintage pitcher, and a cool old copy of The Westing Game! I already have a copy of the other book, but I bought this one to stick in our neighborhood Free Little Library, which happens to be across the street from my house. Paddington will fit right in with the rest of the stuffed children’s book (and TV) characters I’ve got on one of my office shelves. 

I also purchased this ultra cute ceramic Christmas guy. 

He looks like he was made by someone at home with a kit–probably a lot like those Holland Mold heads I wrote about a few weeks ago. He was only $2. Adam was thrilled because we are super short on Christmas decorations. Right, Adam? 

I also purchased these two chalkware lambs to resell. 

Do you notice anything weird about one of the lambies? 

So let me explain what happened. After I paid, the nice little old lady who rang me up started wrapping my breakables in newspaper. But she was balancing the paper bag she was putting all in on a wobbly chair behind the checkout desk. When she was loading the last few items in, the bag tumbled to the floor (with all breakables inside) and Sarah and I just looked at each other and made an “EEEK” face. The lady took out the chalkware sheep and looked up and said, “Well. What do you want to do?” as if *I* had, through psychic powers, willed the bag to fall to the ground. I told her I didn’t want the sheep for $10 since one of them was now legless. They ended up selling them both to me for $5. 

Finally, check out this cute baby blanket with bunnies on it. I like buying cute, soft old blankets to put in the various pet beds around the house. Another habit that my husband loves.

As soon as I took this blanket out of the bag, Scout decided to kick back on it. 

If he looks a little somber, that’s because this picture was taken a day before we discovered that scout had eaten a 13-inch piece of cellophane that was stuck in his stomach. What happens when your cat gets cellophane stuck in his stomach, you ask? Well, you pay $1600 and then your cat looks like this: 

Now he gets to wear a more stylish, clown-like collar, and he seems to be doing a lot better. 

I know it seems out of place for me to be writing about this pet fiasco on a blog about treasure hunting and reselling but it DOES relate! The cellophane that Scout consumed was the backing from the adhesive on a plastic book mailer/envelope that I had used a few days earlier to ship something to an eBay buyer. So our family has suffered even MORE injuries from the treasure-hunting/resale business. 

This is getting a little long, so check back in a day or two to hear about the second part of our Grass Lake adventure! 

-Sarah

As mentioned, Sarah and I hit the road last week for a mini vacay up in Traverse City, MI.  We were sure that many antique stores, yard sales, flea markets, and more awaited us.  It turns out though that most of the antique stores in Northern Michigan have gone out of business.  And for whatever reason, there wasn’t a single estate or yard sale!  What a true bummer!  

We did manage to find some treasures though, as well as wacky things that I’m sure Sarah will blog about at some point.  

One antique store we did find was in downtown Traverse City, and was 4 floors of high-end collectibles (including antique gynecology tables.) Unfortunately for us, we arrived there 10 minutes before they were closing.  Before being kicked out, I spotted some old chocolate and ice cream molds:

Of course, I particularly liked this rabbit one, but it was too pricey.

Having a glimpse at this store made us plan a special return visit.  A couple days later we made the ½ hour drive back to Traverse City (we were staying in nearby Cedar) to find us some treasures.  When we got there, the store had closed early BECAUSE OF A PARADE.  Usually I love parades, but not when they ruin our fun.  We were so disappointed.  

I convinced Sarah that we should hike our way through the parade and its crowd to another antique store nearby.  Luckily, it was open.  They had some neat items, particularly this giant bear skin rug:

I was also pretty obsessed with this bird basket, but it was expensive.  I also don’t have any birds to put in it.

I ended up buying a sterling silver rabbit ring.  I think Sarah bought some earrings.

No one bought these little mermaid cat statues though.  Whomp whomp.

-Erin

Update from Sarah:  I was very bad about taking pictures everywhere we went, but Erin summarized our disappointment fairly well. What the “antiquing” experience did affirm for me is that I love estate sale-ing and don’t really care for antique shopping. It’s so hard to get into it when you see the prices on stuff that we normally see at sales for about a 10th of the price. 

I did purchase a cute pair of sterling silver heart earrings and a copper piggy bank. The earrings were totally overpriced but I hadn’t really purchased a lot for myself on the trip, which is abnormal for me. So I splurged. 

In a day or two, I’ll give y'all an update about one “antique store” that found in Northport that contained countless gems. In the meantime, check out this treasure that Erin decided to pass on: 

Me, Erin, and my mom had an extensive argument about whether this was a beaver, squirrel or chipmunk mask. Feel free to weigh in. 

Wow, it’s already Wednesday and we still haven’t updated you about the rest of our experience on Saturday, post-Re-Purpose-Blowout. 

We hinted at the fact that there was some cool stuff at that sale. I guess you have to go through battle to get to the good stuff. Like this: 

Pretty gross to find this at a grandma’s estate sale but grandma gotta get hers too, I guess. 

Ok, in all seriousness, I found this adorable vintage cat “gum parker” (don’t think about it too much… it will gross you out because it’s used)…

And a full box of these cool bookplates: 

and then this weird but cute thing: 

It’s a little jar filled with little babushka ladies. When Adam saw it, he asked, “Are those all of the souls you’ve stolen?” I guess that could have been featured as a TTFYHO post, just like Erin’s doll from the day before. I also got some other stuff, but those are the highlights. 

After we left this sale, we went to a few others in the Bloomfield Hills/Beverly Hills area. We stopped at one that wasn’t on our list, but I’m glad we stopped because I found this cool, sterling silver necklace: 

I also found a Sesame Street cookie jar from 1980, featuring Cookie Monster. When I got out into the bagging area (this company makes you wrap up and bag your own stuff), I found a handful of dead ants in it. AWESOME. 

The lady who owned the condo that this sale was at was a total baller! She had so many shoes, and they were all real fancy brands: 

Unfortunately, her shoe size was between a 5 and a 5.5, which isn’t even remotely close to mine. I bought a few of her shirts, though. 

The next sale was a letdown, but I did see this great item that I decided against buying: 

Great price for a weird insulting/loving statue. No, seriously. Can someone tell me WHO would purchase a sculpture of a fat, bald guy on a scale with his eyes literally bugging out of his head? 

The last sale we went to was a “digger” sale at this old house and barn. The pictures made it look crazy but it ended up being pretty disappointing. First, it was really dirty and grubby in there. Second, there wasn’t really anything good there. Third, these people were hoarders of some weird stuff. Like giant, open buckets of sand. Here are some pictures that Erin snapped inside and out: 

I bought a coffee table at the sale. It’s still in my car. Erin also found me another HUGGLET!!! I’m going to give it to her so Erin’s car can also be protected from evildoers. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I have to disagree with Sarah about the weird old farmhouse.  I found an awesome old cast iron waffle maker from 1910.  I got it for $5 and on ebay right now it is at $21 and has 15 watchers!

Apparently Wagner Ware is some sort of collectible cast iron maker.  Three other waffle makers like mine sold for $100 each!  So my fingers are definitely crossed on this one!

I also got a GIANT bag full of bubble wrap for $1.  This is great because bubble wrap is so expensive!  If I have any surefire sale tips, it is to buy all tissue paper, bubble wrap, boxes, and wrapping paper at estate sales.

And then there were these Jello molds.  How are these not the most adorable of all jello molds?  THEY SAY JELLO.  Can’t get much cuter.

The last thing I will mention is this cool liquor set I got at the sale with the fancy shoes. The bottles are all really heavy glass, including the stoppers.  The holder is chrome with a locking mechanism so no one steals your booze.  They originally had this priced at $45 but since it was the last day of the sale, everything was marked way down.  Thank goodness because when I got home, I realized one of the bottles has a cracked corner and leaks!  I’m hoping I can find some sort of glue filler to seal it up.  I made up the term “glue filler” so my chances of finding it probably aren’t great.

Oh wait, one more thing.  I was seriously heartbroken when Sarah found that cat “gum parker” instead of me.  The face on it is THE BEST.  And the whole premise of having a fancy place to park my gum is alluring.  So I am now on the hunt for my own gum parker, and hopefully it is just as cute as Sarah’s.  

Update from Sarah: You can have the gum parker. It sort of grosses me out, and the face is the part I don't like. It looks human.