Dig This Treasure!

By now you are all well acquainted with the “best sale ever”, and even though I got a million treasures there, the most lucrative by far were the antique metal molds.  

Like I mentioned, I’ve known for awhile that antique chocolate molds are collectible, but that’s about all I knew.  So here’s what I discovered after buying a bunch of them…

First off, not all old molds are for chocolate.  A few of the molds I bought were pewter, and actually meant for ice cream.  Fancy rich people in the Victorian era used to have their ice cream molded into festive shapes for parties.  Each guest would be served an adorable mini ice cream, all dolled up to look like Santa or a President or even other foods (vegetables mainly).  Here is one of the ice cream molds I bought:

The outside of the mold said “E & Co.” which I soon found out meant Eppelsheimer Company, one of the earliest mold manufacturers.  This was a good thing, because signed molds are generally more valuable.  This Santa dated to 1890!  

The chocolate molds I bought were thinner and not made of pewter.  Most of them were 2-piece molds.  One of the most interesting I found was this tiny Pope mold:

I almost didn’t buy this mold because of the rust on it, but one of the men running the sale mentioned that he had never seen a Pope mold before.  I bought it for $5, which turned out to be TOTALLY worth it.  This little guy is made by Joh. Fohn, which is apparently pretty rare because I can hardly find anything about that company online.  I do know that it is German and pretty darn old.  

I had a lot of people asking me questions about the Joh. Fohn mold and whether its sides matched up well.  Turns out that this is super important in mold collecting.  Molds should close up snugly and all edges should align, otherwise the value decreases drastically.  

Another tip in mold collecting is that the larger and heavier a mold is, the more valuable.  I found this out with my most favorite mold from this sale.  It is a super large Santa that weighs 3 pounds!

The heavy hinge, along with clamps that kept the mold shut tight, made this piece the most collectible.  It didn’t even have a maker’s mark, but its size and girth were enough.  It also helped that the mold had such impressive detail inside.  Reading about molds online made me realize that the more detail, the more desirable.  

I bought this mold for $30, which made me nervous at the time.  It ended up selling for $177!  I could not be more thrilled, obviously.  Here’s how all of the mold auctions went:

OK, so before one of you tries breaking into my house and stealing all of the cash I made on these, just know that the proceeds were used to buy George the otterhound.  

I also used some of it to get my very first tattoo, a rabbit on my right forearm, which I may or may not be disowned by my parents for.

That’s it in progress.  Also, I was totally THAT PERSON who wore a rabbit shirt while getting a rabbit tattoo.  UGH.

-Erin

It’s time again for some items that were seriously hard to resist purchasing.  

Alright, so people say Psycho is a movie classic, but have you seen Psycho II?  Oh you haven’t?  You say that no one saw Psycho II?  Hm, ok.

What about some “art” that we found at a garage sale?  I call it Devil in a Pink Dress.

I love this little raggedy ass doll.  Look closely, he has a random plastic baby leg glued to his right hand.  I don’t even want to guess what he did with the rest of the baby.  AMIRITE?

Alright, and here is the deal on the last HTR.  When Sarah and I hit up that ice cream place awhile back, they had all these INSANE ice cream flavors.  Not insane like Jalapeno or the Lemon Basil that Sarah got…I’m talking truly insane.

GROSS.

-Erin

Gosh, last Friday seems like it was so long ago. Erin and I have been spending so much time prepping for this garage sale that I can’t even remember much about the day. 

I do remember we started in Farmington Hills, where there was a sale with no pictures. Now, these are incredibly hit or miss. But sometimes they’re great because all it means is that there are some older people running the sale who have no idea about technology and they have a ton of treasures in their home. But the serious collectors don’t come, because if they can’t see pictures in advance, it’s not worth their while. I can remember a couple of sales that lacked pictures where I found some seriously cool stuff.

Unfortunately, this sale was not of that variety. Instead it was this little old lady and her daughter, selling a bunch of household items that were generic and cheap. The woman had clearly been moved into assisted living or was in the process of doing so. However, this sad tale is not without its highlight: When we were in the basement, Erin made a friend. This crazy woman was talking to us NONSTOP about whether we had been to any other sales that day, if we found anything good, etc. Then she picked up a pair of exfoliating gloves and proceeded to tell us about how she loves finding them at sales because she uses them to clean her body, and then throws them in the wash, and then uses them to clean her house–especially the bathtub. We escaped as quickly as possible. 

I am racking my brain to try to remember where we went next…I have no idea. I have this picture as proof, though, so it wasn’t good:

Anyway, onto the more memorable moments: At some point, we ended up at a sale that was in a sort of bougie house that contained some cool items. There was a lot of modern/mid-century art, books, and records. But it was abundantly clear that the guy running the sale was a tool and a half. He was wheelin’ and dealin’ the whole time, and his phone kept going off and he would say things like, “This thing’s gonna sell no matter what, so it might as well be YOU who gets it.” Anyway, I found some Stevie Wonder albums, a Disney picture disc, and some books that looked interesting, but absolutely nothing in the home was priced except the artwork and furniture. Speaking of which, here are some pics: 

For some reason I was really interested in that head statue but I think it was marked something crazy like $300. Ugh. 

Anyway, I got to the front of the line after some waiting and had approximately 6 records and 5 books. While in line, Erin and I were guessing how much he was going to ask for all that crap. $30? $60? And we were also guessing what I’d actually agree to pay. Anyway, he looked at my stack of stuff and was sort of distracted because he was talking to a long lost chum that he ran into. So he said, “Fifteen bucks.” I said ok right away and then he started backpedaling, saying he didn’t see the records. He went on to tell me that the records were $5 a piece. I just looked at him and said, “But…they’re not worth that,” and he told me that people had been telling him that all day. HA! Anyway, he said $30 for all of it and I said no, but that I’d pay $20. He said $25 and I just kept saying no… so he finally agreed! Score! The worst part is that none of what I bought was worth anything, but I did get a couple of cool things that I’ll hang on to, including an illustrated copy of Jane Eyre. Which I’ve never read, and I was an English major. Whoops. 

The next sale we hit up was run by the same company, and as soon as we walked in, we saw our favorite phone talker. Greeaaaaat. Just like the last sale run by this company, nothing was priced except big ticket items. Right away, I saw an adorable old teddy bear. I was shocked that Erin didn’t spot him right away. I also found some pretty cool stuff in the basement of this sale, including a few old children’s books that might be worth a few bucks (and had their Detroit Hudson’s price tags still attached–so frickin’ cool!) and some knee huggers! 

When we were ready to check out, the woman did the same thing as last time: “What’s up?” Uhm isn’t it obvious that I want to buy these items? Anyway, first thing she looked at was the teddy bear. She scrutinized him and said, “40 dollars” because he might be “worth $300.” Uhm, that raggedy ass teddy is not worth $300. Trust me. I told her that was fine–I didn’t want him for that much. At some point she actually looked these bears up on her iPad, even though I was insisting that I was not buying him to resell. Eventually I made it out of there with all of my finds (including Mr. Tedders) for a total of $55, which seemed reasonable to me.

Once we got out of this sale, we were starving (shocker), so we looked for the closest place. Erin refused to eat fast food so we stopped at some place called McVee’s. It ended up being a typical bar/grill, filled with barflies in the middle of the day, and the menu sounded better than the food tasted. When I’m really hungry, I often can’t make up my mind, so I order everything I might possibly want. In this case it was waffle fries, a Chicago dog, and mac & cheese:

Oh, and a beer. Totally not excessive. Also, for the record, I only ate about 1/3 of this food. Worth noting: Erin was totally reasonable and got a beer and a BLT:

And now she’s blonde. Clearly trying to slowly become me.

We also indulged in a crappy dessert that looked excellent on the menu, and Erin wasted some money playing Keno. Actually, she may have made two dollars.

The last stop of the day was a sale in Detroit that looked like it was really packed. I’m not sure how they did not capture the fact that this was a true hoarder sale in the pictures, but they managed to fool us. The only thing I can say about this house is that it was insanely depressing and gross. It was obviously an older Russian or Czechoslovakian woman living there, and she liked to keep stuff. Lots of it:

This is actually the attic, which, because it was 95 degrees out on Friday, was about 110. I could only stand up there for about five seconds.

When I showed Erin this picture, she almost cried:

The basement was, by far, the worst:

I did find a little bin filled with vintage cards down there, so I purchased that. Another fun fact about this sale was that there was a full human poop floating in the toilet in the bathroom.

After this depressing and horrifying sale, we called it a day as far as sale-ing goes. We stopped at a nursery I needed to go to to pick up some hydrangeas, and then lost some money at the casino.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: There are so many things I love about Sarah’s description.  First of all, I can’t believe she hasn’t read Jane Eyre.  That is my favorite book of all time.  Second, Sarah scoffs at paying $300 for original art and yet she will pay $15 for a Sesame Street cookie jar…BEST.

While phone lady was busy trying to charge Sarah $40 for a bear, I was busy paying a mere $8 total for some vintage Chanel No. 5 and a Tigers World Series newspaper from 1968.

Both are currently blowing up the ebays.  

The hoarder sale was the worst.  So heartbreaking.  We breezed through it pretty quickly because it was actually sort of dangerous.  I got hit on the head with a box while rummaging around in the basement.  I did end up buying a gold Raymond Weil watch for $20 because I thought Zach might want it.  It’s a little small for him, but it looks like we can sell it easily:

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

I wasn’t going to go sale-ing on Friday because, as I mentioned, I still had tons to do for my charity relay on Saturday.  I am SO glad I decided to go though!  We headed out to a house in Royal Oak that was formerly home to a professor.  The house was gorgeous, and packed full of really interesting things.

I wanted this chair so bad:

You can’t really tell, but that chair was HUGE.  It would never fit in my car or our house really.  Here is what I did take home though:

This bell jar is really large and heavy.  I found it hidden under some stuff in the basement of the sale and the guy working down there told me it was $6.  At the time, it had some old coral in it, but I later found a giant Abalone shell to put in it.  The shell was $2 I believe, which is a steal.  I love both of these items so much and am happily displaying them in our living room.

I also found some weird old glass photo plate.  It seems like an old negative but on glass.  This is probably a super common thing that I am just uneducated about.  Anyway, it is from 1905 and has some sailors on it.

And by “sailors” I guess I really mean fishermen.  

The last item I will mention had some drama attached to it.  It is a little brass bust of George Washington.  I figured Zach would want it, so I asked a lady at the sale how much it was.  She said $5.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to pay that so I set little Washy back down.  As soon as he hit the table, the woman exhaled really loud and frustratedly, like I was totally wasting her time.  I ignored it and moved on to look at a desk and as soon as I touched it, the woman snapped at me, “THAT’S SOLD!”  I apologized and said that I didn’t see any sort of SOLD sticker on it, and she informed me that that was because there was no sold sticker on it.  Uh, ok.

I had made an enemy.  Not sure how, but I did.  By the time this lady rung me up later, I had picked back up the little Washington.  As she was writing down my items, she wrote,  "Jewelry $5.“  Now, I hadn’t bought any jewelry so I thought maybe this was a mistake, and I asked her about it.  She exhaled her hatred for me again and then announced that the "jewelry” was the little Washington statue that she had CLEARLY ALREADY GIVEN ME THE $5 PRICE ON.  I apologized to her, even though I think it is totally fair to assume a brass statue is NOT jewelry.

-Erin 

Update from Sarah: Erin has a terrible memory. Worse than mine, which I didn’t even think was possible. The professor sale was the second sale we went to, unless she found something out that I didn’t know. She didn’t even mention the second sale!

The first sale was cool, though. And don’t you think it’s obvious that the woman just wanted Erin to wear that bust around her neck, Flava Flav style? Anyway, these people had a lot of very old, nice things. They also had a lot of very old, not as nice things. Once again, the whole basement was covered in books and they were all pretty damp. Not a great idea. Especially since all of the books were either older or actually antique. I did, however, find some good treasures in the basement. I found a stack of memorabilia from the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. At first, I put all that stuff back where I found it, but then I looked on eBay and Mission Inn memorabilia seemed like it might be collectible.

Also, while I was in the basement I noticed this woman sorting through an enormous stack of cards. I just sort of hung around the area for a while because I couldn’t tell which ones she was keeping and which ones she wasn’t. After a few minutes of just lumbering around, I decided to act like a human and actually ask her if any of the cards were ones she didn’t want. Turns out the big stack were ones she didn’t want! Score. Here are some of them:

I also found a cool wooden box that I forgot to take a picture of, and two really nice quilts for our couches. Here’s one of them after one of my dogs “made her bed” on it:

After this sale, we hit up a garage sale run by four women who were a little older than us. They had some cute stuff for sale but after leaving, I was shocked by the fact that I had spent $12 there. I guess ultimately it was worth it, though, because I found this: 

Felted Mr. Toad Christmas ornament?!! Heck yeah. I bought him even though he was $2. 

After this sale, we hit up Treat Dreams in Ferndale. I was really excited for this because I was fiending for something delicious to eat, but was then sadly disappointed by my choices. It’s my own fault. I really wanted something fruity and got salted caramel and lemon olive oil as my two flavors. I was so annoyed with myself that Erin finally convinced me to go back up and get the sorbet. I got some coconut lime sorbet that was so terrible. It was like… pure ice with coconut flakes in it. It tasted like nothing. Anyway, next time… if there is a next time… I will go with my gut and get something good. 

The last sale of the day (the one that was in a professor’s home) was a sale in Palmer Woods. Erin was shocked by this neighborhood. It is fairly strange–a gorgeous old neighborhood in the heart of a very not so great area. I bought some books, a piggy bank, and a couple more quilts. Here is an obese cat sitting on one of them: 

I had Thursday and Friday off this week, so Erin and I had maximum fun times. We got started bright and early on Thursday morning, and the first sale we hit ended up being a story on its own. So today’s entry will just be about this sale. 

The pictures of this sale looked amazing–it was incredibly full and looked fairly disorganized which is always a plus (more chance of finding a hidden treasure). The sale was out in Royal Oak, and as soon as we pulled up and started walking into the backyard, we noticed this guy that we’ve written about before–most descriptively in the Goonies Poster entry. We both groaned and said something along the lines of, “Oh God… THAT guy…” but it wasn’t until we got back into the garage and started browsing around that we realized that he wasn’t a shopper–he was running the sale. I wasn’t really sure if that was going to end up being a good or bad thing, and at first, I wasn’t sure if it was his house of treasures that he was selling or what. After a few minutes, I realized that he was actually liquidating someone else’s estate (he kept referring to this person as an antique collector but she seemed to be a cross between that and a garage sale junky.) Here’s an example: 

Anyway, first thing that caught my eye in this monstrosity of a garage was a giant bin full of pins (shocking, I know). Here are my finds from that: 

I really love “no teeny weenies”… What is that even from?! I also love the two pins about French.

There was so much stuff at this house, I was really going crazy with joy. After being there for a few minutes, I said to Erin, “This is my favorite sale.” She said, “I noticed.” I already had quite the armload of items, including this adorable Michigan-themed cross-stitch: 

After perusing the junk in the backyard and garage, I went into the screened-in porch that led to the interior of the home. I was filled with glee when I discovered that almost the entire porch was filled with vintage glasses–another thing that I have way too many of. Anyway, I only bought a few, and the coolest thing was that some of these Detroit News glasses that Adam and I have at home. I’ve never seen them at another sale. It only made sense to increase our numbers there. 

I also found this glass for my father-in-law, who is always leaving notes around his house, reminding himself to take pills: 

Can’t get any weirder, or more perfect than that. 

Another great thing that was in the screened-in porch: 

So the porch actually led right to the stairs to the basement, which sadly, neither of us photographed. But we should have. It was jam-packed with stuff. Mainly books and magazines, some of which just seemed sort of…damp. Someone needs to contact all of the collectors of the world and let them know that basements are bad places to store paper material.

Anyway, I quickly snatched up some vintage scouting magazines (not sure if they’re worth anything but thought I’d check)… but then noticed a sign that said that magazines were $3 per issue. WTF?!!!! I put those magazines down. I kept walking around and noticed an ENORMOUS box of vintage Playboy Magazines. At first, I just figured it was a lost cause since a) they were so pricey and b) the man running the sale is sort of crazy. But then I figured I’d go out and ask if they’d take a flat price for the whole lot. I went outside and asked the guy’s poor wife if they’d take a flat price and of course, she had to check with him. I also mentioned that they weren’t worth $3 per issue. The guy said that there should have been a price of $75 on the box. I just stared at him. Then he said, “For you, I’d take $50.” Sold, crazy man! 

Anyway, here is a picture of just SOME of them… Notice that there are also piles on our liquor stand. 

I hope the pervs come out in full-force and snatch these suckers up! Turns out they’re mostly from the mid ‘70s to early '80s but I did find one issue from 1958 up in there. And, based on yesterday’s entry, they will provide us with hours of amusement, if nothing else. 

Inside the house, the guy had two women working a cash register, and outside, his wife was (wo)manning another. In retrospect, I should have done all of my checking out with those ladies inside, because they were giving deals left and right. It was like they knew that the guy was being unreasonable about some prices, and they would just sort of wink and give you deals without asking. They did give me deals on a bunch of vintage (we’re talking '80s) earrings–I absolutely love finding tiny earrings at sales. Some of the best here include the ducks and the corn: 

Anyway, the inside of the house was just as packed as that picture of the garage, and even though it was sort of chaotic, either the woman who lived there or the sale guy had arranged everything into different themed rooms. Here’s Erin digging through a room filled with books: 

When we were in that room, I almost had a panic attack because I’m sure there are a ton of valuable things in there…but how in the world do you find them? 

Here’s another themed room–the stuffed animal and toy room: 

In this room, I found some adorable vintage budddies: 

I also found this terrifying monkey that reminded me of one just like it that I had as a child. I believe I got mine the one and only time I went to the circus. I think the fur on it is rabbit fur: 

Don’t worry–I didn’t buy him. But does anyone else remember these scary monkeys? 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: This sale was definitely Sarah’s favorite.  It had the perfect storm of smut magazines, stuffed animals, and pins that Sarah might or might not ever wear.  Speaking of pins, not sure why she passed on this one:

I’ll say up front that I was super distracted last week while we were sale-ing.  I had tons to do for a Relay for Life event happening on Saturday.  My mind kept rehashing all the things that awaited my responsibility, so my energy for digging through this sale was low.  By the time we got to the living room, Sarah had two full boxes of stuff and I had literally nothing.

Then magically, I was rewarded for my total laziness.  Sitting right on a table in the middle of the living room was a vintage Detroit Red Wings hockey puck.  I knew instantly that it was super valuable.  My dad taught me when I was younger and we would go to sales, that I should always look out for the infamous “orange octagon pucks.”  These pucks were made in the early 1960s for game use by the NHL.  They are super rare.  Here is a glimpse at some recently sold on ebay:

I grabbed the puck immediately and called Timmy.  He couldn’t believe it.  He kept saying “DON’T SET IT DOWN.”

I went to ask THAT GUY how much he wanted for the puck, bracing myself to be ripped off.  He told me that the puck was supposed to go with some street hockey stick so I need to go look for that.  I told him I didn’t want the stick but he made me look anyway.  After casually glancing around and finding no such stick, he agreed to sell me the puck for $2.  DEAL.

My next interaction with this guy was not such a deal though.  As we were leaving, I saw this gravestone rubbing kit–essentially some giant paper and a block of wax to capture artwork off of old graves.  I asked one of the women working how much it was and she said that it was bundled in with two framed pieces of “rubbing art” for $75.  

Now here’s the deal, I am all about bundles, but this one made NO SENSE.  The “rubbing art” was not gravestone related but instead two dancing Japanese ladies.  And they were silkscreened, not rubbings.  The woman agreed with me and said we could go ask THAT GUY for a price on just the rubbing kit.

He refused to separate out the items, even after the woman helping me said he was being ridiculous.  When I went to leave though, he offered me the kit for $25.  I politely said no thank you but he really wanted to argue with my apparently.  I said I could find it online and under his breath he said, “Good luck paying the outrageous shipping charges.”  Anyway, here is the EXACT same rubbing kit on Amazon…with free shipping.

Sarah messaged this morning to alert me to a secret message hidden in a sale listing for today.  

“COME DIG FOR A TREASURE”….alright Edmund Frank & Associates LLC, we’re onto you.  You want to lure us to your sale?  We’ll bite this time, as it appears that you have an assortment of desirable items that I assume will all be reasonably priced.

Here is the exchange Sarah and I had after I looked at the secret message:

Wish us luck today on our sales!  And if you don’t know who BTK is, then read this truly terrifying Wikipedia article.

-Erin

Saturday turned out to be extra special because Sarah and I went sale-ing with Adam and Zach, the first time we have all sale-d together!  We headed out to Royal Oak for some pretty promising sales.

I don’t remember much of anything about the first sale because I am not entirely convinced that they had anything for sale at all.  Oh, except this:

Story of my life little ape man, story of my life.

Also, what company makes SAD animal plaques?  So weird.

The second sale we hit will be forever memorable.  I knew we were in for some total insanity when I saw the signage at the door.

Did these people really install security cameras at an estate sale?  Or were we just under the surveillance of the Sharpie marker cameras they drew on these flyers?  

Also insane was the long-ass line out the door to this sale.  It was 2:30 on a Saturday (the last day of the sale) and there was a line.  This is unprecedented.  They must have so many treasures that the sale is endlessly packed with visitors.  Spoiler alert: not true.

The “Gatekeeper” as she will be called, monitored the flow of shoppers with an eagle eye.  We waited at least 10 minutes before Adam and Sarah were allowed to pass the holy gates into the sale.  Zach and I stood there another 5 minutes before we spoke up. We had now been standing there for 15 minutes and had not seen ONE person shopping inside the house.

Yep, that is the Gatekeeper herself blocking a completely empty room.  I told her that I felt SUPER CONFIDENT that I could navigate that room without bumping into anyone or anything.  She didn’t believe me.  We watched that empty room for a few more minutes as the line grew behind us.  Finally we were allowed to enter, and we got to see the precious treasures that the Gatekeeper had been protecting.

Wait, what?  You threatened us with hand-drawn video surveillance systems for this?  

I ended up buying a vintage Basketville basket and a gold-plated Christmas ornament of the White House.  Total investment: $1 and lots of frustration.

The last sale was in Birmingham and we were pretty skeptical because it was run by those teenage vagabonds we mentioned previously.  Things turned out pretty good though.  I found some really excellent treasures and the boys running the sale gave me some deals.  

I picked up this tiny Reuge music box.  It was originally priced at $35 but I got it for $10.  It already has some bids on ebay.

This sale had a lot of legitimate Native American art, and I found this really nice handmade basket.  It was a total steal at $2.

And by far the best purchase of the day was this set of Le Creuset cookware.  I got the whole set for $25 and look how it’s doing on ebay so far:

Hooray!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I’ll take full responsibility for choosing some real duds (on my end)… There were SO MANY sales last weekend but I picked some pretty bad ones on Saturday. It was fun anyway, but I wish I had found more treasures. Also worth noting was that Saturday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Erin and Zach’s was on Monday. Hooray for all of us. 

First, Erin is wrong–she didn’t even find that ornament at the sale that made her so mad. She found it at the first sale. So I’m not even sure she bought anything at the sale that made her so angry. I’m trying to remember if I even purchased anything worth mentioning at the first sale. I did find a really nice vintage velvet clutch for $1. 

The surveillance sale truly was insane. Also insane was seeing Erin get so aggro with the people manning the door. Usually it’s my job to yell at people. Anyway, she was real mad. Adam and I got in first so I had some fun walking by her and Zach, saying, “We’re taking all the treasures.” They were so engaged in arguing with the woman at the door that they didn’t even hear me, but obviously, there were no treasures. 

HOWEVER. The guy who lived at this home had worked at Jacobson’s which some of you might remember. Evidently, he worked in the greeting card department (ok, probably the Holiday Dept.) because he had TONS of greeting cards all over the house. They were all modern–no vintage cards to speak of–but they were selling them for 4 for $1. I cannot explain the quantity we are talking about. And I don’t know what happens to me but when I see greeting cards, I want them. Because I’ve found some really crazy ones. And there were just so many, I knew I wouldn’t have time to look through them. So I decided to ask if they’d sell them all to me for a set price. Anyway, as a sidebar, let me say that their “surveillance system” consisted of staffing each room with a middle-aged woman who looked like she listened to the Moody Blues and toked the reefer who followed you around like you were trying to steal junk. There were no cameras. Because, uhm, that would be crazy. So anyway, I asked the woman who had been watching me like a hawk if she worked there. Of course she said yes. I then asked if they’d sell the cards as a lot and she told me I’d have to talk to “Angel." 

I went upstairs to find this person and she was on the phone. When she got off the phone, she and another of her employees went downstairs to assess how many cards we were talking about. When she saw the quantity, she started acting like there was no way she could think of a price for all of them. I said, "Well, I’m just assuming you want to get rid of these.” She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Well, yes we do but they’ve been really popular.” Now, this was the LAST DAY of the sale, at about 3 p.m. You’re gonna tell me that in the next hour, you’re going to get a rush of crazy scrapbookers who want your gross ‘90s cards? C'mon now. Anyway, she said that I could have this one medium sized group of them for $10 and I said, “No–I mean all of the cards.” You would have thought I had asked her to recite pi. Finally I said, “I was going to offer you $40 for all of them.” Needless to say, she was pleased with that figure and they quickly helped me to gather all of the cards together. On my way out, I said, “Thanks for agreeing to let me take all of these!” and she said, “Oh you’re welcome, I’m happy to get rid of them.” Uhm excuse me? Two seconds ago you were acting like I was trying to rob you!!! 

Since purchasing these cards, I’ve realized that they were not a wise investment, but I’m hoping to offload them at our upcoming garage sale, which is just a few weeks away!

At the last sale, I found nothing worth mentioning, but I’m glad that Erin was the ultimate treasure winner. Adam found nothing at any of the sales and was very saddened by this. Boo f'in hoo. I made it up to him by giving him a fancy nerd watch later that evening for our anniversary.