Dig This Treasure!

So like Sarah mentioned, we headed back to Windsor on Wednesday so I could try to buy those antique moccasins that totally burned me last time.  Kudos to Sarah for actually getting to my house on time.  We made it to the auction only 15 minutes late, and luckily the moccasins had not been up on the block yet.  In fact, the only thing we seemed to have missed was this giant box of VHS tapes:

Here’s how I probably looked waiting for the moccasins to be auctioned:

I won’t keep you all in suspense…I didn’t win the moccasins.  I KNOW RIGHT?!  Unbelievable.  Here is how it went down:

The moccasins went up for sale and the same auctioneer from last time (my mortal enemy) started them at $100.  He went down to 50, then 40, and when he got to 30 dollars I bid.  I didn’t want a repeat of last time where I think he is going to go lower and instead he ends the item.  So here I am, the ONLY bidder on these for $30.  

At this point, no one else is bidding and he starts doing his final countdown before he says “SOLD.”  All of a sudden, one of the EMPLOYEES starts bidding.  (Very fishy I know.)  I’ve seen workers bid at an auction before, but this was strange considering how badly the auctioneer did not want to sell these to me last time.  And why did she wait so long to bid against me?  

So we go back and forth and get up to $85.  At this point, I am convinced they are trying to bid me up on purpose, so I bow out.  The auctioneer seemed genuinely surprised that I did.  

To be fair, I did see this female employee leave with the moccasins, so she probably did buy them.  I felt at peace.  I got a fair chance to buy these (FINALLY), and $85 was more than I wanted to spend.  At least it was my choice, and not someone else telling me I couldn’t bid.  

So with that all settled, it was on to more treasures.  I bid on and won this amazing old box from the Canadian Salt Company.

There was still a little bit of salt in the bottom of this, which I was sure the border agents would think was cocaine when we tried to reenter the States.  I didn’t tell Sarah about this because she already acts like a crazy person at customs.  Not really a crazy person actually, but more of a deaf mute frozen in terror.

I then bid on this old bottle from Bright’s Winery, which is the second oldest winery in Canada.  I just liked the look of it, but might end up putting it on eBay.  

The bottle came with a ton of other glassware that I will end up putting in our garage sale this summer.  I also gave some stuff away to the lady next to me, which was great because it lightened the load a lot.

Next, I bought this old glass rolling pin, which Sarah thought looked very suggestive.  In reality, I bought this to use while baking, as it was just last week I made pizza dough and realized I had no rolling pin.  

The lady next to me said I need to get a cork for the end, and that way I can put ice water in the rolling pin while using it.  Apparently the cold will help your dough roll out more easily.

I also bought this cool book for Zach, which has lots of useful information in it.

I’ve been thinking of upping the number of servants in our household, and this book confirmed that I probably should.

Here are some things we didn’t win:

Sarah and I both wanted those green canisters, but they ended up going for like $40 or something.  If we got them cheaper, they would have been an easy eBay resell.  Oh well.

This hockey game would have also been an easy item to resell, but it too sold for a high price, around $50.  

And look at this great, retro table!  It wouldn’t fit in my car, otherwise I’m sure Sarah would have bought it.

She also would have bought this Beagle, but she wasn’t for sale.

We waited around until the end of the auction because there was some stuff that Sarah wanted.  I got us “2 Pop” again, and then went to wait in line to check out.  For some reason, this place has a woman who can’t do math who checks everyone out.  It literally takes 10 minutes for each person in line.  I waited in line while Sarah bought her last items, and then paid for both of us when I checked out.  This let us hightail it out of there pretty quickly so we were home at a reasonable time.

This guy in the background also had some pop, but he obviously brought it with him:

Also of note here is Sarah’s equally hilarious and confusing expression.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I don’t know why we thought that man with the two-liter was so funny but we did. Also, can you believe that beagle?! Oh my gosh, I was obsessed. Her name was Maggie and she was 7 months old. She also had on red nail polish. Her owner, a hipster-looking guy, told me that she was a “princess” which was sort of an odd thing to hear from a guy like that.

In the end, I got a few cool things. First, this cool map of the Detroit river from 1952:

I also got these cool old rulers:

And I also got this JC to match my Mary from last time.

He’s also busting out the immaculate heart…

Finally, I got two things at the end of the night that I had to wait around for. First up was this cool vintage book of valentines.

Quite adorable!
Also adorable are these vintage doll heads from Japan.

The only annoying thing about these were that the auctioneer made me pay $7.50 for them. Absolutely nobody else was interested in them, but he would not go down to $5 once he knew that I wanted them. Still, I have a feeling they’ll sell on eBay!

The sales last Friday didn’t look all that spectacular, but we still decided to venture out. The first sale that we went to was actually the sale in Redford that Erin hit with her sister and dad the day before. It was packed with stuff and they were discounting, so I wanted to check it out. 

Right away I saw all those dolls, but even though they were discounting, they were still pretty overpriced. I found this mug but then decided that I really didn’t need it (you’re welcome, Adam) since it was grungy and I don’t smoke: 

Still, I love the idea of a person in the ‘70s taking a coffee/cig break and then going back to work upon seeing that message at the bottom of the mug. 

The basement of this sale was a Christmas wonderland: 

But nothing was all that fabulous. 

In the end, I came out of the sale with a few cool things, including a really old bakelite View-Master (probably a 1950s version) and a stack of reels. If you’re interested in things like that, I’m selling them online. I already sold the Las Vegas and Mexico reels. I also found a bunch of Dakin Dream Pets that were reissued. Each of these cost me 75 cents and Organ bought one already! I’m selling the others together in a lot. Aren’t they cute? 

I found some other cool stuff at this sale, including a C3PO charm from 1977 that I thought was rare but actually isn’t that rare, and then this pin, which is amazing: 

Apparently people are willing to spend up to $30 on these wizard pins. 

Here is one thing I did not purchase at this sale: 

And here is one thing Erin wanted to purchase for a White Elephant gift, but I talked her out of it (it was priced too high!): 

(Worth noting: In my folder of images right now, this image is named “Mythic Creature.”) 

Erin had an extreme tragedy happen at this sale, but I’ll let her tell that story. 

We only went to one other sale, and it was a major disappointment. Let me show you why: 

1. People getting pervy with Barbies.

2. Weird babies with nylon heads. 

3. Bed covered in cheap stuffed animals and blankets. 

4. Garden sculpture of 1950s Bart Simpson. 

I found a stack of black and white pictures at this sale, including some weird ones of a paraplegic. 

Erin and I went back and forth about possibly going to an auction that was in Stockbridge that night. We decided against it and I was going to meet my mom and her friend there instead. My mom called me when she got there to warn me that it was in the middle of nowhere and you had to drive on lots of dark, dirt roads to get there. Doesn’t sound like my idea of fun on a Friday night, so I passed. In retrospect, I should have gone because my mom found a lot of cool stuff and nobody was willing to bid over $7 for any of it! She got me a box of very cool old cards and I’ll post about those in the future. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  I was so excited to be back at the Redford sale, because there were a few things I saw the previous day and hoped would be discounted.  I immediately grabbed this huge stack of handmade pottery dinnerware and serving pieces.  The set was originally marked $40, but this day it was 50% off, AND the woman running the sale said she would give me another $5 off because I didn’t want the mugs in the set.  If you can’t do math, that’s a total of $15 for a whole bunch of awesome ceramic plates.  I was walking around the rest of the sale fantasizing about what I could make and serve on them at the holidays.

The rest of the house was insanely picked over and I only ended up finding this ceramic Cornucopia in the garage.  

I bought those adorable glass pumpkins on ebay specifically for the purpose you see here.  So fun.

Ok, so the checkout for this sale was set-up in the driveway outside.  Sarah and I head out there, and just as we do, there is a giant gust of wind followed by a HUGE crash.  Like people always say in traumatic events, everything happened so fast.  I was looking around confused at what exactly HAD happened.  Clearly a bunch of breakable stuff had just broke.  

As I am thinking about how bad this sucks for the people running the sale, I hear Sarah say, “OH ERINNNNN!”  in a really distressed and pitiful way.  It took me a second, but I realized that she was saying this because IT WAS MY HANDMADE POTTERY DISHES THAT HAD JUST CRASHED TO THE GROUND.  The woman running the sale had taken them from me while I was shopping, and set them out on a stepstool/ladder thing near the checkout.  When the wind blew, the ladder fell over, and so did my beautiful plates.

This is just a small portion of the damage.  Sarah contends that I proceeded to stand over the crash site wide-eyed with sadness for the next few minutes.  At some point, she told me to back off because clearly I looked like a crazy person.  I was obviously suffering from some serious PTSD.

I will never forget those plates.  Never.

The next sale, like Sarah said, was gross and sad and weird.  And even though Sarah and I love buying us some dolls lately, we passed on all of these:

These dolls were the kind that they sell on QVC in the middle of the day.  The kind of dolls that have elaborate personal histories and personalities.  The kind of dolls that kill people for fun but no one ever catches because, “Hey I’m just a doll! I can’t kill nobody!”

I did buy one thing at this sale, which is this amazing Mexican lawn ornament.  I saw things similar to this when I was in San Antonio last month, but I couldn’t fit them on the plane home.  This guy was also featured in my Halloween post the other day, but I’m going to be keeping him out all year long.

-Erin

Sarah showed up to my house mega early on Friday because there was a sale in Trenton that looked BALLER.  It was packed to the brim, possibly past the brim.  And everything looked collectible and old.

This sale was run by our now favorite company, which will remain nameless.  They always have great full houses and are always willing to be fair about pricing.  I used to be kind of intimidated of these ladies, but turns out you just have to ask nicely and they will work with you on price.

When we showed up to the sale, there was a line.  Sarah and I are super impatient and generally try to avoid estate sale lines at all costs.  After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, Sarah suggested we leave and come back later, but I insisted we had already come too far.

Here we are waiting for our turn to enter:

Our hair in this pic looks like we are those Garbage Pail Kids.  

We finally got in the sale and it was indeed packed full, of both people and stuff.  There was so much to look at!  I immediately grabbed this old bisque Arranbee doll.  I recognized it as a “Dream Baby” doll because in the past I had unwittingly bought one in a lot of doll parts and sold it for quite a bit.

I have this doll up on ebay now, but I am secretly bummed about it.  I kind of want to keep it!  I’m not sure what my attachment is to this doll, but I think it has something to do with how TRULY ADORABLE it looks when you take off that gross dress:

Look at that weird little body.  It makes the doll look like a dumb little idiot, which I find kind of endearing.  

I can’t remember what else I bought at this sale, except for a little plastic King Kong from the 50s or 60s.  I also got some turkey salt and pepper shakers which I had to throw away because I washed them and all the paint came off :(

The next sale was in Troy and took place in a basement.  This person was certainly a collector, and everything was sorted neatly among their various interests.  There was a lot of Shirley Temple stuff, and a lot of glassware.  

At this sale I got a Ted Williams baseball bat (sold in Sears stores in the 1950s) and this little metal Santa.  He is skiing!  I got this guy for Zach because it combines two of his favorite things: old metal soldiers and Christmas.

Look! Zach already had some fellow skiers for Santa to join up with.

I think Sarah hated this sale because they were selling Garfield pins for $1 each and she wanted a million of them.  They refused to give her any sort of discount even though pins are universally a 25 cent item.  

The last sale was in Warren and it was weird.  Everything upstairs was newer ceramic and looked very Hallmark-y.  The basement though had a bunch of old dolls.  Clearly, as of late, Sarah and I are on a doll kick.  We weren’t the only ones though…down in the basement there was this lady walking around talking to each and every doll she picked up.  She would grab one and say, “Oh hello!  You look very friendly.  Looks like someone liked you very much! Oh look at you poor thing, you have no hair!” and on and on…

This lady was also some sort of self-defined doll expert because anytime I would go remotely near a doll she would interrupt me and say, “OH I didn’t see that one.  Let me see that” and then she would tell me all about it.  This was helpful in some ways, but it also seemed very clear that she might be making everything up.  At one point, she grabbed a broken doll and said, “Oh my, this poor doll was in the war and was injured.” And then she picked up a doll that someone had painted black and said, “And you are black now! Someone wanted you to be black!  But you aren’t supposed to be black!”  I almost died.  

Here she is, dollin’ it up:

This will be me in about 20 years, I guarantee it.

I bought two dolls at this sale, each for $5.  One has the coolest eyes of all time and is a Bye-Lo Baby, which are apparently collectible.  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: The first sale was so incredible–I knew as soon as I stepped foot in the house that I was going to find some extreme treasures. There were bags and bags of Victorian (and later) postcards at the front desk, and I immediately started looking through those and found a stack that I wanted. It was so crowded at this sale that I got pretty irritated with people pretty quickly. If you were looking at items on the floor, people would crowd you so much that eventually their butt would be right in your face. Not a recipe for a fun time. 

Anyway, the house was a tri-level and on every floor and in every room, there were tons of office boxes (the sort with handles and lids) filled with various items. When I went into the bottom floor, I spotted a box with a few random things inside, but when I moved some of it aside, I found a huge stack of 1930s/1940s greeting cards! Here’s an up-close picture of some of the best ones: 

They’re up on eBay now, if you happen to be interested in that sort of thing. 

The best, though, was when I got upstairs–there was one room that was just FILLED with office boxes overstuffed with ephemera. I noticed right away that many of the boxes had greeting cards–and they were 1940s through 1960s era, for the most part, which is my most ultimate jam. I just started gathering them and shoving them in one box that was already overflowing with cards. The woman who owns the company running this sale knows us and knows that I collect cards, so she said, “I’m gonna make a judgement call–$50 for the whole box.” I was prepared to pay way more than that, so I was thrilled and agreed. She said, “Good. I figured you wouldn’t bitch.”

Anyway, I’m going to have to do a separate entry about these cards because they ended up being SO AWESOME. This sale takes the cake in terms of the best huge amount of GOOD greeting cards I’ve come home with. Can you tell I’m excited? I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of them before I sorted them, but here is a picture of some of them, post-sort: 

I bought lots of other stuff at this sale, but nothing quite as good as this lot. 

Erin actually forgot about one other sale we hit up downriver–I actually forgot too, until I saw this picture: 

That sale was full of garbage. End of story. 

The rest of the day was sort of uneventful in comparison to the first sale. I didn’t find anything crazy awesome, but I did buy a lot of buttons (Peanuts, mainly, NOT Garfield), even though that lady was a jerk about the prices. At the last sale, I bought some records and three-headed doll, after Erin and the crazy doll lady convinced me that it was a good buy. I forgot to take a picture of mine but it’s identical to this, except without any hair or clothes. The faces it makes are pretty amazing–especially the crying face: 

The crazy doll lady told me it was “in the doll books” and worth something like $500. I asked her why she didn’t buy it then, and she said it was because she didn’t realize it had three faces when she first saw it. That one above sold for $35 on eBay, which is good, but obviously she was full of sh*t. 

After my solo auction excursion, I convinced Sarah to go to another auction with me the following the day.  I had auction fever for sure.

This auction was in Romulus, so Sarah met me there.  I had arrived first and scoped out the goods, and was pretty excited about most of the stuff there.  Everything was high quality.  I saw a bunch of old greeting cards that I figured Sarah would like, and a bunch of old chocolate molds for me.

There was also a separate doll auction going on in another room that I figured Sarah might like.  Boy did she ever.  I think she stayed in that doll room nearly the whole night.  Every time I came to check on her, she was drowning further and further in a sea of dolls she had purchased.

That furry beast on the top of the heap looks like this up close:

Sarah paid money for that, in case you are all wondering.  It came in a lot with a bunch of other animals, but this kitty was by far the best.

I bought many things at this auction but nothing that I really really wanted.  Most of the stuff I bought was super cheap, and I decided to just take a risk on reselling it.  This sale had some old paper mache Halloween decorations I wanted REALLY BAD, but like last time, they sold for a crazy high price.  I was so disappointed.  A lot of two pumpkins sold to this guy for $220 and I wanted to walk up to him and tell him that 1. they aren’t even worth that! and 2. my Halloween was now ruined.

There he is all smug with his pumpkins.  I should say MY pumpkins.  My stolen pumpkins.  Also, someone is going to step on those as they are so carelessly placed on the floor.  If I had those pumpkins, I would have gone to the doll auction and bid on a $400 antique doll cradle to carry my pumpkins in.  That’s how much I love those pumpkins.

Whew, anyway…speaking of the doll auction, I did buy some dolls.  I got a lot of 3 for $10 and a Madame Alexander baby doll for $10.  The latter turned out to be my best score, as I sold it for $56.

I also bought an old print of a natural history museum to hang in our house.  I used to work at a museum like this in Ann Arbor and got to teach kids about dinosaurs.  This print reminded me of that and was just too darn cool not to buy.

I definitely overpaid for this ($40) but I love it so much that I will accept that hard truth. At some point, a dude came over to me and said, “You know that’s the Louvre in France, it’s a famous museum.”  I politely thanked him for the knowledge, but will say now that that is a bold faced lie.  No dinosaurs up in the Louvre y'all.  The print also says Hunterian Museum, which wikipedia says is in Scotland.

I’ll let Sarah talk about how much she loves auctions now, but before I do, here is my favorite part of the night.  Near the end of the auction, the auctioneers do a sort of speed round in which they break off into little clusters around different tables and sell the stuff on each one at a very rapid pace.  Sarah was bidding on a bunch of cards and valentines during one of these rounds, and as soon as she started to, this older woman behind her let out a yelp similar to that of a trapped animal.  A sort of singular moan/howl of true sadness.  

I think this lady thought she was going to be the only person interested in these items, so when Sarah bid, she was obviously distraught.  Every time the bid went up, she would repeat the same moany “NOOOOO.”  I felt bad for her in a way, because I had been sad about my pumpkins…but at the same time, the whole thing was absurd and hilarious.  Listen people, auctions are like the end of “Old Yeller”…heartbreaking but necessary.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I won a SH*TLOAD of dolls at this auction, and it was SO FUN! HOWEVER, Erin failed to mention that at least four dolls in that doll pileup were hers.

I think Erin is an auction addict now, but I understand why. It’s like going to an estate sale but more exciting in some ways, because you don’t really know how much you might end up paying for something you want. There’s more mystery involved. Also the whole thing was mysterious for me because Erin invited me about 5 minutes after I got out of work, so I had no idea what would be there, and I definitely did not know that all those dolls would be there! The only real downside about auctions in general seems to be the sadness that happens when you don’t win something you really want–like the pumpkins.

The only complaint I have is that the food was not good. Erin had tempted me before by telling me that the auction she normally goes to with Zach in Plymouth has a huge food bar with french fries (I don’t know about you but that’s enough to entice me), but at this auction, I had a hot dog that was so bad that I threw it away after one bite. An occurrence that is unprecedented in the history of my life. 

Before I talk about what I won, let me say that half the fun of going to this thing was the people watching and also seeing some of the insane things in that doll room. Erin said the stuff was all high quality but I mean, you saw that stuffed cat. And here’s another doll we didn’t win: 

I don’t know if the previous owner was trying to make a statement (The Bluest Eye?…) or was just blind, but that is one crazy looking doll that I would not describe as “high quality." 

Unlike Erin, I ended up winning everything I wanted, and that stuff fell into two categories: dolls and stuffed animals, and ephemera. I haven’t even really sorted through the valentines and postcards that I won, but so far the dolls are doing well: 

I think I paid $30 total for those three dolls (plus some), so I’ve definitely made a profit. There are many more where those came from. Here are two terrifying ones that I have on eBay right now: 

When I saw that paraplegic doll it made me feel weird and sad inside. I ended up getting her because she came with that first doll (the antique Horsman doll) and when they brought her over to me I felt so genuinely creeped out. Erin wanted me to just throw her out but I feel like maybe some doll collector will give her a new pair of legs. Or who knows? Maybe you’ll see her zoomin’ around some day like Oscar Pistorius! 

Erin and I ventured out rather late last Friday, as I had a bunch of stuff going on at work in the morning and then had to take Betsy back to the vet. There were only three sales that looked remotely good, and they were all in opposite corners of town. One of them was in Flat Rock, one in Dearborn, and the other was in Troy–round two of the Valley of the Dolls sale from a few weeks back. 

We started out in Flat Rock, which is not close. The sale looked good and packed online, but when we got there, we realized that a lot of it was sort of junky. 

We probably should have been prepared for a letdown considering the sign that greeted us: 

I’m not sure the purpose of this sign… was it to tell us where all of the goods were? If so, not really necessary, bro. That’s generally where things are at estate sales. Or maybe there was a “side house” on the premises that was storing all of the good items. If so, we never found it. 

HOWEVER, I cannot complain too much. I found an insanely good lot of old greeting cards (we are talking HUGE lot) from primarily the ‘30s and '40s that the woman running the sale sold to me for $40. Total steal, since part of the lot (not even half of it) is currently on eBay and is already at $41 with 4 days left. I will do a separate post about these cards at some point, because it’s the coolest lot of cards I’ve ever found, period. Here is a sneak peak: 

Anyway, we did not find many treasures at this sale, but here is one item that Erin decided to pass on, after lots of deliberation. 

The only other thing I remember about this sale was that the basement was filthy and smelled weird. It was the sort of smell that makes you think, “I should get out of here." 

After leaving this sale, we decided that we really only had time to hit the Valley of the Dolls sale, and the third sale would have to fall off the radar. Turns out I went to that Dearborn sale the next day with Adam, but that’s a story for another time. 

Oh I also forgot to mention that Friday was Erin’s birthday, and I told her I’d take her out to lunch and to pick whatever she wanted. She picked National Coney Island. OBVIOUSLY I am rubbing off on her in all of the wrong ways. (For those unfamiliar with the way that chili cheese fries define me, I once chose coney island for my Valentine’s Day dinner.) Because Erin is such a good friend, while we were eating our lunches, she exclaimed, "Your hair is all grey and white underneath!” and proceeded to capture this on my phone. 

What is she even talking about? (OH MY GOD. HELP.) 

So finally we arrived back in Troy at the scary doll house and man, was that a mistake. The incentive was that they had opened the garage and basement, and the pictures did look pretty good. The basement in particular seemed like it might be hiding some extreme treasures. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The basement was filled with plaster of Paris sculptures made out of those molds you could buy at Frank’s Nursery (before the days of Michael’s), and then lots and lots of these: 

Or these…

OR… these (please no nightmares): 

Whatever. There is no way that these last two dolls do not have violent histories/criminal records. 

Everything in the house, particularly in the basement, was covered with a layer of grimy, semi-moist feeling filth. I don’t know what we were thinking going back, considering the state of Erin’s face after leaving the last time. Let me refresh in case you’ve forgotten: 

The silver lining is that Erin got to pose with yet another Santa: 

And we also found a one-of-a-kind collector’s item, tucked away in a closet: 

I left this sale with nothing more than about 40 extra miles on my car, and very, very dirty hands. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  Sarah shouldn’t be so sad about going grey.  My hair started turning grey about 4 years ago and I’m like half Sarah’s age.  Plus, she is blonde, so you only really notice the greys when they are under the truly unflattering lights of National Coney Island.

Anyway, the first sale was disappointing.  The pictures looked so good!  But then we showed up and they had stuff like this:

My favorite part of this sale though was walking upstairs and Sarah immediately yelling, “OMG WHAT IS THAT?!?!”  She pointed to this thing on the floor:

I informed her that “that” was a coconut.  She asked me why it looked like that and I told her because it’s a coconut.

I didn’t buy much at this sale.  One thing I did find was this old felt piece with an American flag design.  I am using it as a little doily:

Returning to the doll sale was truly a mistake.  It smelled really odd in there this time around.  Not totally awful smelling, but it felt hard to breathe in there.

I found this large Rempel squeaky giraffe.  Rempel squeakers are usually pretty collectible.  I took a chance on this guy for $1.  Looking back, I don’t think he will actually sell.  His squeaker is broken and he is covered in dirt and sadness.

Whomp whomp.

-Erin

On our way out of the Valley of the Dolls sale, I caught a glimpse of Erin in the daylight. I’m not sure how we didn’t realize it inside, but that house was absolutely filthy. Look at how much dirt is on Erin’s face!!! 

Need a closer look? 

Hand sanitizer did nothing for us–it just created a disgusting dirt hand salve. 

Also, before I forget, check out these two things I scored at the sale. One is horrifying and the other is hopefully lucrative. 

Can you guess which is which? Just kidding. Anyone out there need a juggalette doll. 

The other really terrific thing that happened when we left was that we noticed a dog inside a parked car. Not a big deal most days. But when it’s 92 degrees outside, it’s a big deal. Even if you have the two front windows cracked one inch. This provided me with a great opportunity to use one of my Urban A$$hole cards, but that wasn’t satisfying enough. Because I didn’t want the dog to die. So not only did I call the Troy Police Department, but I went back inside the sale and ratted the dog’s owners as well. They were, as I suspected, giant a$$holes. 

After all that fun, we headed to one more estate sale that happened to be located about 50 miles away. The pictures looked good, but it turned out to just be another hoarder sale, but not the good kind. This person was a hardcore crafter, and the house was filled with scrapbooking gear and gross holiday decorations that were made in China. I still ended up spending about $40 at this sale, but Erin was a the true winner. I’ll let her tell that story, but that might end up being an entry of its own. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I was so sad when I found out my face was all covered in dirt.  I had been walking around that sale talking to people, including some teenage boys working at it!  How embarassing.  Talking to teenagers is the worst, let alone with dirt all over your sweaty face.

Sarah is right.  The second sale was totally bad hoarder.  Well, bad for us I guess.  No antiques or collectibles.  

This pretty much sums up the sale:

Although now that I post that, I feel like Sarah would have bought this if it was in her size.

I ended up finding a pair of wool clog slippers still in the box.  If you remember, I already bought a pair of bear slippers at a sale earlier.  I need slippers for all occasions though, and sometimes bear slippers are a little déclassé.  

I was getting super disappointed because I couldn’t find anything else to buy, and the sale was really crowded and hot.  Then I spotted something in a showcase up front.  It was a little mini Detroit Tigers nodder from the 1960s.  I knew from Timmy’s baseball collecting that mini nodders are generally rare, and this particular Tigers one was SUPER RARE.

I have no idea how it ended up at this sale.  It was like a shiny diamond in a pile of glass shards.  I was shocked.

The nodder was in seriously great shape.  No cracks, chips, paint loss.  The price on it was $165.  I NEVER spend that much at a sale.  The only time I think I’ve spent over $100 was at the “best sale ever”, and I walked out with a wagon full of items.

I called my dad and he told me that $165 is what he paid for his same version of this nodder, but that was years and years ago.  He told me he thought maybe it was worth $200-$250 now.  

So here’s the thing.  I actually LEFT this sale without the nodder, even though the sellers offered to come down on the price.  I kept telling Cindy and Sarah that it was “too risky.”  We made it about 1 mile down the road before I told Sarah to turn around so I could go back.

I bought the nodder for $120.  I was stressed and hyper about this.  My dad and I exchanged about 3 phone calls on the drive home to discuss this purchase.  I sent him photos of the condition, and we speculated if I had just got burned or not.

In the end, I got the opposite of burned.  This is so far the BEST single purchase I have ever made.  Literally within 30 seconds of listing this guy on ebay, he had a bid.  Things just went kind of crazy after that…

$429??? Truly the best.  I wish I had finds like this every week, but sometimes it’s all just bear slippers and kitten sweatshirts.

-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

On Thursday last week, Timmy came over to help me set up a new glider we got for the backyard. I should say here that he was none too pleased that I mentioned on this blog how he wears ankle socks with loafers. He insists that he only did this “one time”, but I am still refusing to issue a retraction.

Anyway, after setting up the glider, we headed out to a sale in Taylor. It turned out that the sale was inside the Taylor Trade Center which is a flea market disguised as an antique mall. I was a little wary at first when I saw the list of upcoming events to be held here:

TWO reptile expos? Also, what is “clash wrestling”???

If that wasn’t my cue to make a run for it, these things should have been:

You’re selling photos of high school girls? Alright, that’s not totally creepy and/or possibly illegal. Cute pom pom shoes though.

We found the estate sale inside this place and it was basically a bunch of tables with random things all over, most stuff was still inside boxes or wrapped up. Here’s Timmy doing his thing:

I actually found some shockingly good treasures here, mostly these old ass dolls from Germany and Japan. I have no clue what they are, but they’re all stamped.

I also got this hand turned wood bowl from Vermont, and a cool little box of mini perfumes from France:

I also got a giant box of baby doll clothes from the 1950s and some old welding/steampunk goggles to sell. For all of this stuff I paid $20 total, which is AMAZING.

And don’t worry about Tim, he got an old baseball pin from 1937 and was as happy as a clam.

-Erin