Dig This Treasure!

What’s in the Bag?

Last night I drove to Howell for an auction. Now, I wouldn’t normally recommend spending your Wednesday night driving to Howell, MI but I went for two reasons. First, I was cooped up working all day yesterday and started going a bit stir crazy. Second, Zach has either the Plague or Black Lung, so I wanted to decrease my chances of catching it.

Oh wait, and three, I wanted to buy these awesome old paper mache Halloween decorations:

That cat one alone sells on ebay for $60-$80. The pumpkin varies anywhere from $30-$70 or so. My plan was to buy them for keeps…we’ll get to that later though.

The online listing for this auction said “Boston Peddler Auction” but when I showed up, the sign outside said “HAMMER TIME AUCTIONS.” I laughed really hard at that.

The place was kind of a ghost town. And it seemed like most people were there for the snacks. In the back of the room they were selling various Little Debbies and that sort of fare. $1 per box! What a steal! People were walking out with boxes and boxes full of this stuff.

Besides selling probably-expired-moonpies, this place was weird for many reasons. Here is a sample of the decor:

Let me be honest and say that I don’t get the joke here at all. Is this a sexual innuendo or an ode to cannibalism?

Also weird were some of the items for sale. I wish this picture was more clear, but that there is a burlap sack for use in bagging terrorists. It has a silkscreened image of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and the phrase “Terrorist Body Bag.”

I almost bid on this. Look at how nicely it is framed. Let me point out though, that you could NEVER fit two bodies in that little bag. I don’t speak from experience, but I do speak from common sense.

Ok so on to the auction. I’ll spoil it now and say that I didn’t win either of those paper mache Halloween things. It’s like people at this auction were made of money. Either that, or they were just super competitive and insisted on winning any item they bid on. Both of these items sold for over $50. My logic is that I could buy some on ebay for around that price, and in better condition. Still though, I was bummed.

I did buy some old pressed tin cap guns for $3, and this spooky old Halloween costume.

What’s weird about this costume is that it looks very similar to someone I know. I don’t want to name names, but I will say that it rhymes with “Barah.”

Perhaps my best buy was this Mickey Mouse pull toy from 1939. It is in rough shape, but I only paid $10 for it. Ones in good condition sell for $150 on ebay, so hopefully I can at least make my money back.

I don’t anticipate heading back to Hammer Time Auctions anytime soon, but I will for sure remember it fondly. Well, kind of fondly.

-Erin

Avon Party, Lawn Ornament Graveyard, Grey Gardens Part II

Just in case you were worried, Erin and I are once again officially BFFs and made up after our Jerry Springer style argument in her driveway last week. We started our adventure in Warren at a sale run by the same woman who ran the sale from last week that I speculated was actually held at her house. Erin had some mad love for that lady when leaving the sale last week but the tables turned this time around. Erin has a habit of fluctuating between feelings of love and hate toward the people who run these sales, while I’m usually more ambivalent (except for my favorite guy ever–the guy who tried to hook us up hard at the Best Sale Ever.)

Anyway, this sale was the worst but we did find some funny things. This is the best of the bunch:

If you’re struggling to determine what those are, they’re two handmade refrigerator magnets. The one on the left is a pig that says (in little alphabet noodles glued on), “Porky are you eating again?” The one on the right is a cow that says, “Holy cow are you eating again?” I had to buy the cow.

Basically, everything at this sale was either made by Avon or found at the dollar store. I’m not into either of these things, so I was sad.

Here are some items that I passed on:

I can’t even remember what I bought at this sale, besides a little pile of letters that I thought were affair letters, judging by the first few lines of one of them. I haven’t read them in their entirety but Erin read some of them aloud to me in the car and it turns out they’re really depressing letters from a sister to her brother about having cancer. That’s what I get for being nosy! Also insane: I had a tiny stack of cards and the lady told me it was $5. I am talking like, three cards. In this stack was an old brochure about Cedar Point that I wanted to buy for a friend’s kids. She told me, “that brochure alone is worth $3!” Really, lady? ON WHAT PLANET? You should be thanking me for getting rid of the crap that nobody wants! I told her to forget the brochure and I’d give her $2 and she told me she had to recalculate the cost because she was giving me a “bundle deal”… WTF?!

Next stop was a sale in Mt. Clemens. This sale contained a ton of antique furniture, but most of it was in really bad condition. I got a box of really old wrapping paper that was in great shape, and a vintage little girl’s pea coat. Erin got a box that had visible bird poop in it. I wanted this thing until I saw the made in China sticker. I ONLY BUY AMERICAN.

Just kidding. I just didn’t realize it was a reproduction at first. I still don’t know what it was supposed to be, but it reminded me of a card catalog (but real card catalogs have labels on the drawers.)

The next sale we hit up seemed promising but ended up not being that great either. But it was really weird and time-warp-y and there were the most lawn ornaments I’ve seen in a while. It was also worth going to because the house was arranged really weirdly (it seemed like over half of it was a screened-in porch) and there were lots of funny things to see:

Again, what is UP with these depressing statues? We see them basically at every sale now.

Classy lady, classy car.

Spuds MacKenzie.

Private parts statue.

…and… a ladyman with very large penis under her skirt.

I found a few good things at this sale. First, a real deal garden gnome. I have a handful of lawn ornaments and he will be a good addition. I also got a couple of cute things to sell. Here is one of them:

Yes, that is a kitten wearing a yellow beret and blue glasses.

It’s past my bedtime, so I’ll let Erin update you on the Grey Gardens Man sale.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I was disappointed with the seller lady at the first sale because she was being outrageous with her pricing. Last week she gave me all sorts of deals, even when I didn’t ask for them. Yet this time, she tried charging me $1 each for a stack of old dirty Christmas magnets. The magnets were handmade out of felt and had some sequins glued on them. They were cute obviously, but as a general rule, ANY magnet in the world should be 25 cents. $1 each? You’re out of your mind.

The second sale was great. Sarah thought the furniture was all gross, but she was wrong. It was like the movie Aladdin, you had to be willing to see the diamond in the rough here. I bought an old cabinet for my new porcelain pieces.

After some windex and Lysol, it looks amazing:

As for the “box with visible bird poop” that Sarah mentioned, this was actually an old DRAWER, that I planned to turn into a shelf. It wasn’t really covered in bird poop, it had drops of old paint on it. It did however have some mouse poop on it.

All you gotta do is hose that shit off, sand it, and stain it…WHICH I DID.

Look! Room for more porcelain!

At this sale I also got an old Minnie Mouse wind-up watch from the 60s. It is apparently collectible, and most people start it on ebay at over $100. I have it up now and it’s doing great. I paid $10.