Dig This Treasure!

I’m almost scared to write again about the Plymouth auction that Zach and I frequent on Saturdays.  I don’t want all of you marching up in there and bidding on my goods.  So far, this place has been like my own personal ATM machine, only it is linked to someone else’s bank account.  Buying and reselling from this auction has seriously been a goldmine.  Last Saturday was no different.

When we arrived at the auction, it was so packed.  The seats were all taken and you could barely stand anywhere without having to bear hug someone next to you.  We decided to stay though because the items looked pretty good.

My first bid was on this illustration from 1968, which I bought for Timmy because it was Tigers and World Series related.  This is original art, not a copy, although probably not worth a TON of money.  It was just too cool to pass up.

Zach won an amazing cast iron bank for $17, when others go for upwards of $150 on ebay.  It is really neat and living on our bookshelf.

I then won the quilt squares that were mentioned here on the blog a few days ago.  I panicked that I had made a bad buy on these ($20) but they already have bids over that on ebay, so I am relieved.  

At this point, I noticed an old charm bracelet in one of the display cases at the front.  It was LOADED with charms, and when I looked closely, most of them were marked as sterling silver.  The rest were also silver but not as pure (marked 800).  My sister started me a vintage charm bracelet a few years ago, and I learned from her that sterling silver charms alone can sell for $20-50 each!  Sometimes more.  A whole bracelet full of them had to be super valuable.

I told Zach that I wanted to stick around for this bracelet, and so we waited and waited and waited.  During that time, people bid crazy amounts on crazy items.  $30 for a Superhero poster that you could get at Toys R Us, $50 on an old stereo receiver that no one knew if it even worked.  It is seriously unpredictable what people will pay for things.

I told Zach that my limit for the charm bracelet was $100.  I was hoping I would only have to spend about $50.  Finally, it came up on the auction block.  The charm bracelet was placed in a lot with a bunch of other bracelets, so I assumed that would kick the price up pretty high.  But then the auction started at $5 and it was only me and one other woman bidding!  When the price got to $18, the lady backed out.  EIGHTEEN DOLLARS.  

I went up to collect my bracelet lot and was shocked to see that not only had I just won the charm bracelet, but THREE other vintage sterling silver bracelets.

I will probably scrap these 3, which should pay for my $18 investment.  As for the charm bracelet, you can follow its progress now on ebay.  

Zach and I sat at the auction for a few more minutes because I was all sweaty and flush. I had gotten so worked up about the score I just made, and when I get excited, I turn into a beet.  A sweaty beet.

-Erin

My mom came along on Friday again–she’s turning into a true estate sale junkie, which is fabulous. She especially likes to come with us when the sales are really far away so she doesn’t have to drive all the way from her house on her own. I don’t blame her. 

Both sales we were going to were in St. Clair Shores, which is pretty far away. On the way there, someone in the car mentioned that they had read that one of the sales had an update on it that morning that said the house the sale was in flooded and everything was moved to tents outside. Sounded shady to me, and sad, because it was raining. Sure enough, when we got there, the woman running the sale looked familiar, and then half of the stuff in the garage looked familiar. Turns out, some of the stuff was from that duddy sale we went to a few weeks ago. Part of me wonders if the sale wasn’t just at the house of the woman running the sale and she was just fibbing about the flood. The quantity of stuff in the garage was definitely not the entire contents of a house.  

Anyway, we still found a few treasures. I found a huge lot of vintage cards and I can’t remember what Erin found but I do know she bought a really dirty (as in filthy, not sexy) book. Here is one thing we chuckled about: 

They’re so versatile! 

The only thing I remember my mom buying was a rubber faced monkey that she has up on eBay now. 

The next sale looked more promising because it was overwhelmingly packed with stuff. At this sale, we discovered that my mom likes to take her sweet time, while we tend to be able to get in and out of sales quickly, even if they’re packed. You can sort of get a vibe in terms of what sort of stuff is there, and these people didn’t have a ton of the type of stuff that either of us are interested in. Still, of course, I bought a lot of things. 

Before I go on, allow me to complain: One particularly disappointing thing that happened at this sale was that there were a TON of cast iron figurines and larger statues, but they all ended up being reproductions. As Erin has discovered, original cast iron can end up being really lucrative. Still, I found one cast iron thing that I bought for myself because it was cute: 

It looks big here but it’s a tiny little dish.

UPDATE: Since writing this, Adam pointed out to me that it’s an ashtray. GROSS.  

I also found ANOTHER Max statue! 

Erin cannot deny that this looks like Max. 

One other fun thing I found was this mug, that I got to surprise Adam with. 

He recently bought me a Keurig machine for my birthday and he started drinking “coffee” out of it (these weird coconut mocha cups) but I was horrified to discover the other day that he uses the same mug every morning. (Note: We have many, many mugs at our house. He just likes this one particular mug.) Now he can alternate. The “Paw” part is appropriate because I often call him “Daddy” when he’s acting like a dad (paying for dinner with coupons) or wearing dad-ish clothes. I hope he loves it. 

One strange thing at this sale was the abundance of depressing decor. Here are just a few examples: 

Worth noting: That is the second time I’ve seen that exact nervous breakdown plaque at a sale. Someone needed to give the man who owned this house a big hug. 

Ok, back to happy times: I also found this weird doll. It’s by a Japanese brand called Senpo, probably from the late ‘60s or '70s. I know that dolls with these sort of faces can be valuable thanks to all of my stalking of Becky’s Flickr and asking her various questions, but I still can’t identify which ones are the most valuable. But this one is sort of cool because it’s also musical and rotates. Last night while trying to describe her clothing in my eBay listing, I got sucked into a Wikipedia hole of pages of fashion from various time periods. Whatever, I called it “Victorian”… 

I found some other treasures, one of which I’ll write about some other time. The really excellent part of this sale was that everything was priced reasonably. The people running the sale were the same ones that gave us some good deals when we found Timmy’s Santa. 

We knew we were in trouble when we finished going through the entire house and my mom had only made it into three rooms on the main floor. I told her we would go grab some food and then come back and get her and she was cool with that. On our way to find a Mr. Pita, we actually found a secret church rummage sale! I didn’t really think this was worthy of the secret sale chant but we did it anyway. The most exciting part of this sale was this sign, telling us that really excellent things were ahead: 

We quickly discovered that we would not need to go to Mr. Pita, because this was a Greek Orthodox church and the ladies inside were cooking up some badass spankamankapita or whatever the Greek word is for SPINACH PIE. It’s a good thing because the “Mr. Pita” on my map ended up being someone’s house in the middle of a neighborhood. I still can’t figure out why that happened but we got some good laughs out of it.  

Besides some tasty Greek treats, I found these two items at the church rummage sale: 

Look, I’m shocked that Erin didn’t grab those earrings. One year ago she was wearing bedazzled velvet Christmas shoes, but now she’s too good for Santabear earrings? Also just an FYI, if you have a secret stash of Sandra Boynton items, try to sell them on eBay because there is a crazy market of cat ladies out there just waiting to give you their life savings for your fat cat gear. 

We went back to the sale to pick up my mom, drove home, and then Erin and I had an argument about Christmas in her driveway that drove us both to tears. True story! Coincidently, I discovered this picture in a photo album last night while I was visiting my grandpa: 

Clearly, not much has changed since I was six.

You’ll be relieved to know that we’ve completely recovered from this argument and are still friends. I mean after all, SOMEONE has to run this blog. 

-Sarah 

Update from Erin: It’s true, Sarah and I went all Cash & Cari on each other in my driveway.  At one point I remember exclaiming, “JESUS CHRIST SARAH!” which means that I was both really mad and not scared of going to hell.  I’ll just blame the whole thing on a drop in blood sugar because I’ve heard other people give that excuse before when they are cranky.

ANYWAYZ, I got some neat things at the first sale.  The first was a Nippon gravy bowl that I had actually seen at a sale the week before.  It obviously didn’t sell, and had made it here to this sale.  Last week it was $15, but this day I got it for $4.  I plan to put gravy in this at Thanksgiving.

Speaking of the Fall time (my favorite season) I got this awesome table runner and set of placemats.  So cute!  I asked the lady the price on this set because the sticker was hard to read.  I think she thought I was asking for a deal because she said, “Well, it’s marked $3, but I guess I’ll take $2.”  I just gave her the $3 because right before we checked out, another shopper at the sale was relentlessly lowballing this woman.  It was awkward and sad.

The gross book that Sarah mentioned I bought was about flea market collectibles.  It’s a cool book with helpful tips on common collectibles and antiques.  When I use it to buy something valuable, maybe Sarah will be less apt to knock it.

The next sale was a nightmare.  Cindy loved it and found great things, but I have no idea how she did it.  The house was PACKED, but everything was awful.  I hate saying that about someone’s stuff, but really, it was so awful.  

Sarah mentioned this, but I’ll reiterate. The problem here was that almost EVERYTHING was a reproduction–and a cheap reproduction at that–but still priced like authentic items.  Here are a bunch of cast iron banks and door stops that I got excited about, until I realized they were fake:

The thing about cast iron is that people collect it because it’s cast iron, so when it’s NOT cast iron, well, you get the idea.

And also like Sarah said, this sale had depressing things.  Here was one I found:

Besides the sad plates abundance, the sale was also really crowded and hot, so I was happy when Sarah and I left to go get food and come back later for Cindy.  At the Greek bake sale I ate a custard pie and a bit of spinach pie.  They were good.  I also ate a pumpkin bar which was obviously the best.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I didn’t knock the book! I said it was dirty, which you cannot deny. 

After the success of purchasing my first piece of Herend porcelain, I decided that it would be nice to start collecting this stuff regularly.   I imagine a little shelf in our house with all Herend pieces.  It will take awhile to get there, but why not start this endeavor with a bang…

I found this Herend seal box on ebay and decided to splurge on it.

LOOK AT HIS SAD LITTLE SEAL FACE!  I love him.

I don’t want to say exactly what I spent on this guy, but I will say that it was more than $128 and less than $130.  Don’t tell Timmy. 

-Erin

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. 

So two weeks ago, if you remember, Sarah and I didn’t have the greatest of estate sale days…or so we thought at the time.  I didn’t buy much that day, but one of the finds was a giant lot of old plastic figures (cowboys, indians, horses, army dudes, random animals, etc).  

At the time, I kept kicking myself for how much I paid for these things, which was $25.  I felt like I was taking a big risk on re-selling them for any sort of profit.  I listed them on ebay a few days after purchase at a starting price of $19.99, hoping I could at least make back some of my initial investment.  

When I bought the figures, I tried to haggle on the price, and the woman selling them said no because there were a lot “MARX” brand toys in the lot.  I told her I had no idea what the meant, and proceeded with the sale.

Well, apparently MARX figures are SUPER COLLECTIBLE.  Over the next few days, I had numerous bids on ebay and messages from people asking me to send them more detailed photos of the pieces.  I knew something was up, so I started researching what I might have that was of so much interest here.

I realized quickly that I had posted this photo in my ebay listing, and assumed that the MPC meant MARX brand.  It does not.  It is some other undesirable manufacturer.  I panicked that I actually didn’t have any MARX brand here, and thus lied to my numerous bidders.  

But I did have MARX figures, and in some crazy alternate-reality-world I was temporarily living in, I had some of the RAREST MARX figures.  

I had a little Davy Crockett man, from one of the earliest MARX Alamo playsets.  He was only around for a little while before they started making a different, more common Davy.

I also had what are called “put-to-gether cowboys” or “swoppets” in which the torso and legs of the figure are separate and you can swap them out.

The collectibility of my set was seemingly endless.  I had benefitted from someone throwing all of these figures together into one giant pile, mixing several valuable items together that were never originally in the same set.

Over a couple beers, I read and read.  My figures were collectible because they weren’t painted, because many were light-colored, because they were clearly not reproductions, and because they were a mix of all types of figures.

I had reoccurring dreams about this lot, in one of which I payed off my student loans with the profit.  In the end, these guys sold for $100.01.

I messaged the winner of the auction and asked him what made this particular lot so valuable to him.  I thought maybe there was one figure I had not seen in my research that was the holy grail of MARX collectibles.  Here is what the buyer said:

I’ll bet you were shocked! You probably spent $10 for the bag, right? Well, chances are, unless you get really lucky, you will never get a buy like this again! You will be one of ‘us’, people who are 'hip’ to the profit margin on these guys. Do NOT, however, buy just any bag full of toy soldiers. The VAST majority of what you will find at flea markets, garage and estate sales, are garbage from China…like most stuff from over there, mass produced and definitely INFERIOR! Actually, it was the age of the stuff that attracted me. Most of it is from the '60s, the golden age of plastic toy soldiers and playsets. I am 55, so was right in the middle of it. I have loved these figures all of my life, and have collected them as well. I have a full basement of them as a testament to my devotion. These figures are timeless, and although many of us who grew up with them are no longer around, there seems to be a renewed interest in them. Something about miniature figures facinates people (doll houses, train sets). If you really would like a good resource, get the book 'Toy Soldiers’ by Richard O'Brien-it is the bible on the subject. Hope that helps, and good hunting! Can’t wait to get my fix!!!
John

I was really excited by John’s reply. He sounds a lot like my dad, who got me into collecting and has his own basement of treasures. And I was glad to know that these little guys were going to be proudly displayed amongst their fellow plastic friends. All in all, one of the coolest finds I have made.

-Erin