Dig This Treasure!

Well, Friday started out great–when I stopped at the credit union to get some cash before driving out to Erin’s, a man with a gold tooth told me that I was a “gorgeous woman.” Can’t get much better than that. I also parked behind this person.

Good thing he’s from Ohio and not Michigan because that’s what *I* wanted for my next vanity plate. 

Like last week, this week’s sales didn’t look amazing, but there were still a few that we wanted to check out. When I got to Erin’s, she told me that she had spotted a secret/rogue sale near her house, so we stopped there first. All signs pointed to it being fabulous… 

…but in the end it was not. 

The best part of this sale was that it was being run by a cute little old lady and someone who I assume was her daughter, and they had all of her little old lady goods displayed on these tablecloths: 

Next on our agenda was a sale that looked like it had some potential, but again, it ended up being not that fantastic. I honestly didn’t find anything except for a few old brochures/cards. Here is one cool thing that Erin spotted in the basement rubble…it’s a decanter: 

We felt a little discouraged after this, but still went to two more sales. The next sale was in Dearborn Heights and was ultra depressing because it obviously was not an old person. I don’t know why but the sales where it’s obviously a foreclosure or huge family accident or something are always most depressing to me. Also depressing was that these people had horrible taste. The first sign: 

Everything in this house was cheap and made in China. Also, they had more pillows than any house I’ve ever been inside, but strangely neither of us took a picture of them. Here is one other gross thing Erin did capture, though: 

I bought four children’s paperbacks (Ramona the Pest, etc.) for our neighborhood Little Free Library and the woman running the sale charged me $2 for them even though the sign said they were 25 cents each. I asked her about this and she told me that the “really skinny ones” were 25 cents, and the rest of the paperbacks were 50 cents. Man, they were really trying to get any pennies they could. 

The last sale of the day ended up being the best. Once again, the sale was listed as being in the Boston Edison district of Detroit, but it was really…not. Still, worth going to! So here’s what the house looked like on the outside: 

Like many old houses we’ve been to in Detroit, the first and second floors were in good shape, but as you progressed up or downstairs, it got progressively less inhabitable. The people who lived at this house, I believe were a professor and a social worker, from what I gathered after asking some of the estate sale company employees. They had a lot of really nice stuff, and then a lot of areas that you could tell they just hadn’t even gone in for decades. 

Here is a room of books that made me happy: 

Erin was very impressed with the carved wood throughout the house: 

While Erin was exploring the third floor of the house…

…I was exploring the basement. 

When I first got down there, I noticed that it looked pretty hazardous, but I couldn’t help myself… I had to go inspect some of the rooms that were back there. Right away, I noticed a milk crate that was full of family photographs and scrapbooks, and many of them were extremely old. As I tore through some of the surrounding piles of junk, I found more and more and just kept piling them on. I was so excited because of the sheer quantity. One of the rooms that was behind the area pictured above was an old darkroom that nobody had touched in many, many years. Here is a picture that Erin snapped of me, demonstrating where I so badly wanted to get: 

Back behind all of that rubble, I could see about four or five paper boxes filled with old paperwork and who knows what else?! 

There was just no way for me to get over to those boxes when there was that much debris in the way… For the rest of the day, I kept thinking about what might have been inside those boxes. So disappointing!

Anyway, when I got upstairs with my enormous stack of photographs, I was ready for some sad news. A lot of the stuff in the house was priced fairly high (despite those photos, they owned many nice things), and since there was so much stuff in my crate, I expected the worst. But the guy sort of gave it a cursory glance and told me $20! I was so excited, I wanted to do a dance. 

So I spent my Friday night looking through someone else’s family history. I’ll write more about what I found in those boxes some other day because there were some REALLY cool photographs, but I’ll leave you with the most horrifying find: 

I got a serious wave of heebie jeebies when I found this–it was wrapped up inside old tissue/butcher paper so it was a real surprise. The good news for me is that people collect these things, so if you’re into that sort of thing, bid away!

-Sarah

Update from Erin: I loved that first sale!  Sure, they had like 2 things for sale, but how can you beat free cookies and coffee?  There was even a cute grandma who followed us around and tried to sell us things.  I found a Waechtersbach teapot for $3!! 

$3 is a SERIOUS steal.  This pot on ebay is worth about 25-30 dollars.  If you don’t remember, my mother-in-law got me hooked on this dishware when she gifted me some a few years ago.  Every Christmas, she buys me a few more pieces.  I even found a bunch of this set at “Best Sale Ever” so my collection is getting pretty huge.

Sarah also found this trivet for me to buy.  It was something ridiculous like 10 cents.  Zach and I vacationed in Cape Cod for our honeymoon and have the biggest crush on Nantucket.

The second sale had a lot to look at for sure, but I only bought a couple old Disney plates to sell.  And for the record, I liked that decanter Sarah mentioned earlier because it looked like an awesome 80s computer.  But then it was all political and I backed off it.  Still cute though!

And also for the record, that Corvette at the third sale was a baller ass ride.  I thought I made a superb joke about it just needing a new windshield (the windshield was a large decal sticker with bubbling from age, but this made the windshield look cracked). Sarah didn’t seem to laugh.  

And alas, the final sale.  I had a blast at this one.  The house was COOL. The furniture and decor reminded me of our own house, only more upscale.

Well, except for the random Taz poster.  People sure do love them some Taz.  Are there any anthropological or cultural studies on the love of Taz?  I’d totally read that shit.

At this sale, I bought some bubble wrap, a tablecloth, and a cast iron still bank that looks exactly like George.  I splurged on this for $20, which was fine because I had barely purchased anything the whole day.

It looks just like him!  I can’t believe it.  This little buddy doesn’t eat mail and dig up the lawn though…or pee on the bed.

-Erin

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

Last week was chock full o’ sales for me, as I ventured out Tuesday and then again on Thursday with my sister Lindsay and dad Timmy (and again on Friday with Sarah).  Timmy was super excited because there were like 6 sales within a 5 mile radius on Thursday, so our prospects for treasure looked good.

The first sale was in Redford, and was actually a repeat of a sale that happened a few weeks ago.  This time, there were even MORE items, and the basement was opened.  I forgot to take pictures at this sale, so here are some I pulled off estatesales.net:

This sale had some GREAT dolls, but they were all priced pretty high.  I carried one around for awhile, but it was $70, so I don’t know who I was kidding…I put it back eventually.  As you know, Sarah and I are on a doll kick as of late, which has been SUPER successful for both of us.  Here’s what I ended up selling that little “idiot doll” for last week:

The first item I did find to buy was a Stangl pottery box.  One of my newer estate sale tricks is to buy things that I personally like and would be happy to keep if they end up not selling on ebay.  

The box did sell after all.  I paid $4 for it and it sold for $20. 

A funny thing happened when I was looking at this box.  I was all alone in a bedroom, examining the piece.  A window near me was open, so I could hear people outside.  All of a sudden I hear a woman ask one of the sellers about a particular item, and the seller responds, “Oh, I think it is in that room right there where that MAN in the plaid shirt is standing.”  Upon hearing this, I look down at my shirt, and I AM WEARING A PLAID SHIRT.  And I am alone in this room!  I AM THE MAN IN THE PLAID SHIRT.  Hilarious and sad.  To be fair, my hair was up in a bun this day.

I think my sister had the best scores at this sale, but I can’t remember all that she bought.  I know she found a Rushton rubber face squirrel and an old Monchichi monkey.  

At the next sale, everything was super high end, but the prices were fair.  My sister found a super cool item and was nice enough to give it to me:

This is a Knight head wine stopper, but when you lift its little face shield, you can pour the wine out through the spout!  How cool is that?!  I can’t wait to use it.

We stopped at a few more sales which were duds.  I did make one final purchase, which was a piece of cast iron enamelware.  It was brand new!  

These things are on Amazon for $120, and the lady had a price of $45 on it.  I bartered her down to $30 after explaining that I love rabbits and showing her my rabbit tattoo.  Embarrassing tactics, but they worked.  She said she would make the deal because I was “cute.”

I didn’t tell her that earlier in the day someone mistook me for a man.  

-Erin

Last Tuesday I noticed that there was a rogue estate sale happening about a mile from my house.  The listing said it was the home of a former antique dealer so I figured I better go check it out.  I don’t know what the deal is lately with lines, but here again I was stuck in a long one.  

I chatted a bit with some old men behind me and then noticed that Sarah’s mom had herself arrived at the sale.  I joked that I was going to steal all of her treasures before she could make it in there.  Maybe I cursed myself by doing that, because when I got inside, there were actually very few treasures to be had.

There was a lot of nice Christmas stuff, but everything was priced high.  This one case was filled with all old milk glass bulbs, which are super cute.  I would want a whole bucket of these things though to decorate with, and at $6-$8 each, that wasn’t going to happen.

Here is a picture I pulled off ebay to show you just how cute these things are:

Can’t you just see like a whole big basket of these on a table as decoration?  Too cute.

I did find a set of nesting bowls that had a knockoff Spode design.  They were priced $25 for the set which is outrageous.  One of the women working the sale told me that the set with Spode, hence the high price, and I kindly told her that I didn’t think it actually was Spode.  She then changed the price of the set to $8 and I bought it.

I also bought some salt and pepper shakers to replace the turkey ones I ruined last week.  I think one of these birds is a turkey, but I am not sure what that other one is doing.  Is he a puffer bird or holding an egg?  Not sure, but I liked these a lot. 

I was about to leave when I saw this small box tucked under table.  It was filled with paper items and old Victorian Christmas cards.  Zach loves him some old-timey Santa images, so I started to rummage.  Behind all of the cards I found some old Canadian and Bahamian money.  In my head I thought, “Oh hey wouldn’t it be SO COOL if there was like a bunch of Confederate money up in here?!”  

I joke often about finding a Confederate money jackpot (along with Princess Diana beanie babies and solid gold bars), but I have never actually seen Confederate money in person.  Yet sure enough, as I rummage a little further, there are TWO Confederate bills.  I about died.  I thought FOR SURE I would never be able to walk up to the register and buy these for a reasonable amount, so I tried not to get too excited.

I took a stack of cards and the money up to the register and asked the woman how much everything was in that box I had just looked through.  She said $1 each and then proceeded to count my stack of items, including the Confederate bills.  A total of 9 items from the box meant $9.  I was thrilled.

You would have thought that my Powerball numbers had come in or something.  I was about to call up my boss and quit my job.  I was sure I was so rich.

So after some research, this money is in fact real.  But it turns out that Confederate money is actually not THAT valuable.  Some is, but the two bills I have are about $40-$50 each.  Definitely worth the $2 investment, but I won’t be retiring any time soon.

At least I can now say though that I did stumble upon some of this money, and one day hopefully the Princess Diana and gold bar stash too.

-Erin

I spotted a secret sale the other day while driving and decided to stop.  It was pretty unremarkable, and I didn’t buy anything at it.  At one point though, I spotted a tiny attic closet that no one seemed to be looking in, and I immediately thought, “I bet that’s where all the treasures are!”  

You can just barely see the opening of the secret attic door in the top left of this photo. It was one of those little midget Alice in Wonderland doors.  (The kind that Alice couldn’t fit her fatty self into after eating all the little cakes.)

I climbed into the closet and started to rummage.  There were a bunch of sealed boxes, which I assumed could only contain solid gold bars and Princess Diana beanie babies.  

EVERY box and bag in this closet was filled with SHELLS.  Little shells.  Like thousands of shells.  And not special shells.  Just those normal plain looking shells.

Look at those shells peekin out.  I then found this:

Dictionary of shells?  Is dictionary the right word here?  I sure as shell don’t know.  And I sure as shell don’t care.

-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. 

On Sunday, Zach found some nearby sales that looked interesting, so we rushed out to visit them.  The first sale was in a condo, which is often disappointing because the smaller space typically means less treasures.  However, this condo was pretty full and had lots and lots to look at.  

I was immediately excited to see a Zuni fetish necklace, which I have blogged about wanting before.  They had a price tag of $50 on it, but since it was the last day, the woman said she could do $25.  It was immediately clear that the woman had no idea what this necklace was, because as I looked at it, she said, “Yeah, such a strange little piece, huh?”  I told her that it sure was, and that I was interested in it, but for $20.  

Of course I bought it, and of course I was thrilled.  There was actually a lot of Native American pieces in this sale, but some of it was more common touristy type stuff.  In what I shall call a true miracle, I was reunited with this guy, who I had seen at “best sale ever” and stupidly did not buy:

He cost me $1, which is probably THE BEST $1 I have ever spent.

So Zach and I headed onward to the next sale, which was run by the lady who once made me wait in line holding a 30 pound box while she talked on the phone with her friend.  Despite that whole debacle, I have come to like this lady (Linda), as she is generally pleasant and has fair pricing.  When she doesn’t have fair pricing, she will say frankly, “Fine, then what do you want to pay for it?” and then you tell her and she says ok.

So as soon as we walk in, it is clear that Linda is being bowled over by some mega bargain hunters.  Everything at the sale is already 50% off, but these ladies wanted even more, and possibly, they wanted blood.  The bickering was overwhelming and awkward, and Zach and I shuffled out of the way of the conflict.  

We head in the basement, and there is another fight down there!  Let me break this down…when you go to a sale and the seller says they will give you a discounted price on a whole pile of stuff, that price is therefore only applicable if you agree to go ahead and buy that whole pile of stuff.  

You cannot do the following:  Get a price on a whole BIG pile of stuff (let’s say that price is $15) and then ask the seller, well how much is just this one pan in the pile?  When the seller says, well that pan is marked $10, you cannot then say, “Well fine, I’ll just buy all the rest of this stuff for $5 then.”  

I hope that all made sense.  The bottom line is that there was a man in the basement YELLING over pricing at one of the women running the sale (not Linda, who was busy being slaughtered upstairs).  When this lady walked away from him, he followed her and continued the charade upstairs.  He engages Linda in his rampage and every time she tells him a price that he doesn’t like, he throws the item down on top of a jewelry display they have at checkout.  

At some point, he knocks over a piece of dishware and Zach decides to step in.  Of all the things to say to an angry man, I think Zach chose wisely.  He simply looked at the man and said, “YOU NEED TO RELAX.”  Truer words have never been spoken, except for what Zach said next, which was “AND YOU NEED TO PICK THINGS UP WHEN YOU DROP THEM.”  Yes, right on.  I married a smart man.

The grump ignored Zach and things escalated when we ran into him outside as we were leaving.  Zach called him “a rude person” and a “f#cker”, which I support as a harsh but fair assessment.  The man walked away, but looked back at Zach one more time before we got in our car.  Zach then proceeded to do the most terrifying point and stare maneuver, which I have forced him to recreate here and now for this blog entry:

That man was surely shaking in his boots.  Or flip flops.  For all I know, that jackass was wearing flip flops.

This was probably the worst I’ve seen people at a sale, except for THAT ONE TIME when Sarah and I were in the eye of the storm.  I just don’t get the logic here.  Throwing a fit will definitely NOT make someone lower the price for you.  You gotta be nice!

Alright, anyway, I bought one thing at this sale, which is a fabric applique art piece known as “mola.”  It is made by the Kuna Indians in South America.  It is hanging in our bedroom now and cost me $30, a super discounted price that Linda gave me FOR BEING NICE WHEN ASKING FOR A DEAL.

-Erin

Sunday morning I was sitting at my desk doing some work, and Zach rushed in the room all excited about some nearby estate sales.  They were apparently packed to the brim, and both 50% off.  We rushed out the door and headed first to Redford.

The sale was kind of packed, but you could tell that it was also picked over.  And it was super old lady.  Zach kept looking for a “man’s room” but found none.

There was a lot of porcelain, but most of it was cheap or chipped.  I bet there were probably some good pieces in the sale days before.  This person certainly was a collector.

I did find some marble eggs, which I had been looking at recently on ebay.  I wanted some of these to put on my egg scales.  What’s interesting about marble eggs is that they are a good alternative to Victorian glass eggs, which many people collect.  Victorian glass eggs were placed in chicken coops as decoys, and would provoke the hens to lay their own eggs.  Isn’t that neat?  I love these glass eggs and hope to one day own some, but for now, marble eggs are much easier to find and to afford.

I also found this little piece of Jasba pottery, which is a company out of Germany.  Some of their pieces are really collectible, but others are more common.  I took a chance on this because it was $2.

The last thing I bought at this sale was an old toy stick horse.  When I grabbed it, Zach looked at me like I was insane.  

But look! These things sell!  I only paid $4 for him, so my chances at a high profit margin seem good.

The second sale we went to was at a super rich person’s house in Farmington Hills.  The house was a mansion, and the sale was listed as having Chanel items.  I recently bought a fake Chanel bag in New York, which fell apart in less than a week, so the chance of owning a real one was exciting.

Upon arrival, Zach and I were whisked into some sort of time travel machine and taken back to the 1980s.  This was cool because I was born in the 80s and don’t remember much about them.  Here was my chance to get a taste.

All of the furniture was like a white formica substance, and the carpets and walls were white.  We had to wear little booties on our shoes to protect the carpet, which turned out to be silly because the carpet was filthy.  And my little booties kept snagging on things and falling off.  Zach ended up just taking off his shoes because the booties were too small for him.  Shopping in your socks is embarrassing.

Check out that banister.  

I asked the people working here if all of the Chanel stuff was sold, and the woman paused and looked at me for a good 5 seconds before answering.  I know she was thinking, “You Miss, didn’t shower today.  AND you can’t afford Chanel.”  Both of these things were true, but still, how rude.  The Chanel items were in fact sold, but I did buy one treasure here:

This my friends is some 80s-ass modern art.  It’s a big heavy sculpture which Zach contends is of aliens riding an alien horse.  I refer to it as “tribal.”  I’m sure Sarah would refer to it as ugly.

Ok, last thing of note.  On the way home, we passed the craziest set of old abandoned buildings I’ve ever seen.  In the middle of Farmington Hills!  So weird.  Apparently, this was an old commune that got shut down or something.  How sweet would it be to go explore?  You could tell there was still stuff inside of all these buildings.

-Erin

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.

The next sale was awful, despite having a million cute sheep lawn ornaments.  

They were selling things like this:

Watch, that doll is probably like CRAZY VALUABLE.  

Ok, this entry is getting so long.  You all need to email us if these jumbo posts are annoying, and we can try condensing…

The last house was in Detroit and was a crazy mansion.  Rooms up on rooms up on rooms.  

Things started out promising, but the further you went in the house, everything got weird and abandoned.

Look at those walls and the ceiling.  They needed me to get up in there and hang some bird poop shelves and fill them with porcelain.

Oh wait, looks like someone already was moved in:

OK, one more Grey Gardens-esque pic…

I bought an old, giant Mae West poster at this sale for $3.  That’s it I think.  I didn’t buy this poster which some perv had drawn all over:

-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.