Dig This Treasure!

While I’m stuck being semi-reclusive (and I have a job where I have partial summers off), I’ve decided that I need to try to list as much as I can on eBay before I have to go back to work in the fall. There have been many occasions where Erin and I discover that we have something valuable that we had no idea was worth anything, and that’s what this post is about. 

Sometime in the winter, Erin and I hit up a sale where I spotted this very cute handmade toy ark. 

The top opens up and holds all of the little animals, and the bottom also opens up and reveals a tiny staircase and more storage. It’s so cute. I bought it for $15 and thought I might keep it, but then realized that one Noah’s Ark is enough. (You’re welcome, Adam.) 

One of the reasons I bought it, was that it was marked “Made in Germany” on the bottom. I’ve learned from my mom that things made in Germany or Sweden are often very collectable and people running sales often don’t know this because there are so many new cheap reproductions. Anyhow, in the process of looking this up before listing it, I was very pleased to discover that some of these old handmade German arks are worth LOTS of money.

I’m not going to count any eggs before they hatch, and I don’t think mine has as much character or age as some of the others I’ve found, but there are already 32 people watching this thing. So I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

In the meantime, check out some of the coolest ones I found while doing my research. 

I want them all!

-Sarah

Last week, Erin wrote about that awesome folk art sale we went to twice, and I wrote about one find that ended up making me some serious money. But I forgot to tell you all about the cool things that I bought to keep!

The first day we went there, I was really overwhelmed because things were priced on the high side and there were so many things I wanted. I came away with two dog carvings. Erin spotted both of them for me. I love this one so much:

Looks like a Brittany Spaniel, and that’s close enough to a beagle for me!

The other dog statue I think Erin also found, and it’s mechanical:

When you turn the crank, the dogs mouth opens and closes, and his tail spins. Adam loves anything mechanical in nature, so I thought he might like it but I was unsure of the face. He ended up loving it, so score for me!

I also bought this two-drawer box. I’m not sure how old it is but I really like it and will probably put it in my living room and keep junk in it.

I’m sure Adam is thrilled to hear that.

On the day we went back, I mainly bought stuff to resell, and once I saw that the woman there was making deals, I stepped up my game. I came away with a poster I saw on the first day that I thought was funny.

I also bought this doll that was priced $95, but sold to me for $30.

I also bought these adorable wool dolls to resell. Here’s a picture that I took of them cuddling.

Besides the Tigers slides that I sold, the case of slides I purchased also had a ton of other slides in it, and I sold the case and slides for $150. I separated the slides into groups by theme—adults, kids, cars, etc. So that was my most fruitful purchase. If you ever see a bunch of those slides for cheap, snatch ‘em up! People collect them. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the group.

Love me some kids being weirdos.

Finally, Adam dropped some major bones at this sale. But we’ll save his find for another day, because it was really unique and interesting!

-Sarah

A few weeks ago, I saw a listing for a sale in Ann Arbor that started on a Saturday. Adam and I hit it up BEFORE breakfast, which is pretty unheard of, but I needed to get there early. It looked like it was a retired professor’s home, and there were TONS of books. As mentioned in the past, I love me a sale with a lot of books. (Remember that store in Montague?!) I’ve also been known to make a killing on books that people don’t realize are valuable. 

We arrived and man, were there books. 

Nearly every single room I entered looked like this one. It was so overwhelming and so awesome. The non-awesome thing was the pricing on these books. I was pretty disappointed by this because we have been to other sales run by this company, and their pricing was really reasonable. At this sale, hardcovers were $4 each, no matter what. Softcovers were $3. Oversized books were $6. Little paperbacks were $2. I’m sorry but if you have THAT MANY books in a house, you’re gonna want to make those prices a little lower. I grabbed a bunch of books but put a lot of them back once I saw the pricing list and the quantity throughout the rest of the house. 

Adam quickly moved through the house and I could tell he wanted to cry because he knew it would be a long visit. It was also hot as hell in the house because there was no AC and it was during a heat wave. 

There were a lot of vintage Heritage Press copies of classics, which can sell for a decent amount of money on eBay, especially if you get them for cheap (meaning, not $4 each). I ended up with just two–a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and a copy of The Moon and Sixpence. 

The Austen book sold right away–for $28. Woo! The Maugham didn’t sell, and I’m sort of surprised because it’s got some beautiful illustrations. Oh well. 

Even the basement was filled with books on every available surface.

The other cool thing that I saw in the main room (first picture) were these old wood carvings/molds that were hung on the wall. There were a few very large ones and then a bunch of small ones. The small ones were all marked $20 a piece, which seemed reasonable. I was interested because I know that primitive butter molds can be very valuable. If you ever seen something like this, and it’s cheap, BUY IT.

These things can sell for A LOT of money. 

I asked the people running the sale what they knew about the carvings. The company is a couple and their daughter who is a little younger than me, and the daughter immediately said, “I think they’re printing press blocks.” Adam and I just looked at each other because they clearly were not blocks used to print a design onto a flat surface–the pattern was cut into the wood–not sticking out from the wood. I tried explaining this to Erin in the car the other day and she lost her mind. YES, in both cases the design is carved INTO the wood. But the actual design of a stamp/press block sticks OUT from the rest of the wood, and in a mold, the design goes down INTO the wood. In other words, you put a stamp ON something to see the design, and with a mold, you put things INTO it, in order to get the design. This is simple to me, but Erin’s brain did not get it for about 20 minutes. 

Anyway, the dad interrupted and said, “No, I think they’re just decorative carvings from somewhere in Europe. I know they bought the whole lot at auction at Schmidt’s.” This made me more intrigued, because Schmidt’s is a fairly high-end auction house down the street from me. I ended up taking a risk and bought two of the molds, so we’ll see if they’re worth anything. 

The first says “PIG” in chalk on the back, and the second says “CHICKENS.” You have to use your imagination to see either of these animals in the wood. They’re up on eBay now, so we’ll see what happens! 

-Sarah 

While I’m incapacitated, there’s a whole lot of stuff I want to catch up on writing about. The first is something I discovered yesterday! At that folk art sale, I had purchased a big slide case filled with old stereo slides from the 1950s. It was marked $65 but that awesome lady sold it to me for $20. 

I started sorting through the slides yesterday afternoon, since it’s easy to do that while you’re laying on a couch. Most of the slides were family pictures of holidays and vacations, but toward the end of my sorting, I found this box: 

Unlike Erin (thanks to Timmy), I know nothing about sports or the Detroit Tigers, but thought this sounded promising. After a little digging, I discovered that Denny McLain was a pitcher for the Tigers in the 1960s, and is famous for winning 30 games in a season. Now he’s famous for a scandal involving gambling and broken toes. Oh the irony. I guess Denny and I have more in common than I thought.

Anyway, the slides in that Kodak box are of that winning/record setting game in 1968, and the pictures were taken very close to the field. 

Pretty stinkin’ cool! Anyway, if you’re a fan of the Tigers, they’re up on eBay right now! 

-Sarah

So you’ve all heard now that Sarah is out of commission for awhile because she broke her toe.  I’m going to add some entries, and when she isn’t doped up, Sarah will write all about her finds too.  Before that though, here is a card I made her:

Just kidding.  I found that on the internet.  Also, let me point out, that this is the SECOND TIME Sarah has injured her toe while doing things treasure hunting-related.

Ok, so last Friday, we ventured out to a sale that looked BALLER.  It was in Oak Park and was jam packed full of folk art.  We knew that the sale would probably be pricey, but we stopped by anyway.  In particular, I saw a rug in the sale listing that looked amazing.  I speculated that it would be $500, and Sarah guessed over $1,000.  

When we got to the sale, the rug was way bigger than I thought it would be.  I wanted it for our nursery, but it measured over 9’ x 12’.  I was still in love though.  It was priced $495 (more on this later).

The house was gorgeous and literally everything in it was interesting and collectible.

The most common items in the house were wood carvings and other wooden folk art pieces.  The smallest items were all $15-$25 each, and larger carvings between $40 and $100.  The largest sculptural pieces were a few hundred dollars each.

This horse was from the turn of the century and priced $395.  I was obsessed.  More on him later…

There were also some general antique items (non-folky) in the house.  

I wanted to buy this Detroit Zoo sign for my sister because she is the penguin keeper there.  I sent my dad a photo to see if he wanted to go in on it with me as a Christmas gift.  Then I realized that the entire right side was rotted away and disintegrating.  It was also over 9 feet long, so it was a bit presumptuous to assume my sister could even have a place for it. 

I found this weird thing below and was obsessed with it.  It was marked as Native American, but my guess was that it was actually Victorian.  It seemed like an embroidery project/decoration type thing from that era.  

It was marked $250, which seemed insane to me, but I was also judging this thing without really knowing what it was.  When I got home later that night, I found out that it is in fact Native American, most likely Iroquois.  And guess what, it’s a pin cushion!  You can read all about these pin cushions here.  Amazing huh?

I couldn’t afford a $250 pin cushion, but I could afford this great wooden apple box.  It has a crack, but I’ll just turn that side towards the wall.  At $5, this was a steal.

This apple was actually the only thing I bought at the sale…well, on that first visit anyway.  Sarah, Adam, Zach, and I all returned to this sale on its last day, Sunday.  Everything was 50% off, so we were hoping to score some deals!

And boy did we ever!  You might have noticed that over that past couple months, I’ve barely been buying anything at sales.  It’s really been a bad streak for me.  So on this day, I was ready to drop some bones.

The rug was still there on Sunday.  On Friday, I had actually talked to the woman running the sale about the rug.  I offered her $150 if no one bought it by the last day.  I was super honest with her and told her I didn’t mean to lowball, but it was just what I could feel comfortable paying.  She was SO NICE and actually remembered me when I came back on Sunday.  She said that there was one bid higher than me, and so I flat out asked what it would take for me to be able to buy the rug.  She said $205.  

It’s a deal!  $205 was a great price on this rug and it was now ours!  Here it is in our living room:

The rug is a “dhurrie” rug, but I am not sure how old.  Rug people!  Help me out if you have any hunches on this!

So after buying the rug, Zach and I found a couple more cool items to buy:

Mexican folk art of David in the lions’ den.  This is a larger piece, even though you can’t tell in the photo. $30.

This wooden crest to hang somewhere outside.  $10.

And this Stag tobacco metal sheet, which I am guessing was used for stamping out the tobacco tins.  I got this to resell.  It cost $10.

So before we are about to leave, the woman running the sale stops me and says, “Make me some offers on other things.  Come on, I won’t be offended.”  I was apprehensive because, while I really loved a lot of things left in the house, I really did NOT want to lowball her.  I told her that and she said, “No, come on.  Lowball me!”  Seriously, SO NICE.  I wanted to hug her.

I immediately went to the giant carved horse I saw on Friday.  It was originally $395.  I offered her $80, and she accepted!  I was so thrilled.  Here it is again, in our house:

We are going to put this in the baby nursery once it’s ready.  My dad suggested putting rockers on the horse but I’m going to keep it as a decorative piece.  Maybe when Antiques Roadshow comes back, I’ll bring it there.

The Iroquois pin cushion was gone, so I couldn’t make an offer on that.  It will have to be a new “holy grail” item.    

Sarah bought a lot at this sale too and got some great deals, so hurry up and email her some get well cards so she can blog all about what she found!

-Erin

A few Fridays ago, Erin and I hit up a handful of good sales that were spread out across town. The first that we stopped at was a sale that looked very granny-ish, but was PACKED, so I insisted that treasures could be found. Turns out I was sorta right!

When we walked up, we discovered that the sale was 50% off, and prices were very reasonable to begin with. There were some cool old things in and around the garage area: 

I liked this cart but decided I didn’t need it. 

(Erin took a picture of that dolly so I think she must have thought it was cool.) 

I thought this Census box was really cool but Erin convinced me that I had no need for it. In retrospect, I should have ignored her and purchased it. It’s cool!

Inside, it was quickly apparent that this was the owner’s motto: 

And I’m cool with this, because it meant that there was a lot of stuff to sift through. 

The basement was overflowing with stuff–most of it pretty useless. But we did find a lot of cool old party supplies and wrapping paper. Here are two of my finds: 

Y'all know I can’t resist old Holly Hobbie. 

A lot of the basement looked like this: 

Lots and lots of patterns all over the place. While we were down there, we ran into our #1 Groupie. This lady was following us all over, asking, “Where did you find that?” and told us that she had been in the basement for two hours. Well, if you’ve been in the basement for two hours, how did you possibly not notice this dumb felt ornament kits that I saw sitting out in the open? 

One very cool thing we saw in the basement, but had no use for: 

That is one sweet children’s table and chairs. I think it was really reasonably priced, and at half off it would have been a steal. I honestly have no idea how it was still there. 

I spent a hot minute or two being convinced that I needed this terry cloth cape: 

Erin’s voice of reason actually came in handy this time. 

The upstairs of this house also contained a few treasures. When I noticed how much crap this woman had, I kept thinking, “Where are the greeting cards???” Well, at the top of the stairs to the upstairs/attic, I found them! Two huge boxes. I haven’t finished sorting, but they’re not fabulous. But the woman charged me $20 for all of them, which is an excellent price. 

It was at this sale where Erin was reunited with her snowmen. As you can see, this woman loved her some googly eyes and crafts:

The face Erin was going for here was “spooky” but I’m not sure she succeeded. You be the judge.

While we were checking out, #1 Groupie stood behind us and once again, kept asking “Where did you find that? Oh that’s a lot of greeting cards, what are you going to do with them?!” I have a hard time lying to people and Erin does not, so I just said, “If they’re old enough they sell online.” Erin said she just kept thinking to herself, “Say scrapbooking, Sarah. Say scrapbooking.” Oh well! I’m an honest lady. 

We high-tailed it outta there and made our way to a sale that was super far, but looked to be filled with TONS of photographs. It was here that I found those amazing pictures of dogs that NOBODY IS BIDDING ON on eBay right now and that I decided to have end on THE FOURTH OF JULY because I’m an idiot. 

Here’s an action shot of me hyperventilating over the awesome pictures: 

Here’s more picture shots: 

Midway through exploring this sale, the woman running it came out of the bathroom, swearing up a storm. She proceeded to let us know that she allowed a shopper to use the bathroom and the woman “sh*t all over the place.” Cool, lady. Now we both want to barf. 

Ok, back to the pictures. All of the photo albums (there were TONS) were priced extremely high ($60, $75, $100, etc.), and all of the 8x10 pictures were either $2 each or had prices on the back. Considering the extreme number of pictures remaining on the second to last day of this sale, I figured that there was no question that she’d negotiate with me. My plan was to just gather everything I wanted and ask her to give me a flat price. However, she proceeded to tell him that they would have to count all of the pictures in the basket. Here they are, doing just that: 

I tried to reason with this woman, but she was not having it. I said, “The reason I’m willing to just pay you a set amount for all of this is because I DON’T want to go through this box of pictures here in this house. If you’re going to charge me for each one individually, I don’t want all of them.” She told me, “I can’t give these away for free.” Did I ask for anything for free?!

So here’s the deal: I had at least 20 8x10 photographs (so that means $40+), I had an album marked $25 and an album marked $40, and then she said that the pictures in the basket added up to at least $200.

I was super annoyed and finally said, “I was going to just offer you $100 for everything here.” She looked at me and said, “You were? Well you should have just said that!” and proceeded to take my $100 like Tiny Tim snatching up a new pair of crutches. We ran outta there as fast as possible and just stared at each other in awe. I said, “Does she not know how to do math?” Erin was like, “I don’t think so. But you handled that like a BOSS.” So basically, I got $300 worth of priced photos for $100. Woo!

The last trip of the day was back to the DJ sale in West Bloomfield. They had opened the basement, which I thought would mean lots of treasures, but it didn’t. I did get a good deal on a glass head and a sealed Kool-Aid Dixie Cup dispenser. 

Both to resell, of course!

I don’t think Erin bought much this day, but I’ll let her tell you all about it. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Yes, that’s my spooky face.  Get over it.

The first sale, let me just say, was so fairly priced that I wanted to shake all of the workers’ hands.  They were going to clear out that house so quickly and still make a super fair profit.  Kudos.  The photo sale lady should learn from this because even after Sarah bought all those pics, there were still literally THOUSANDS left in the house.  And probably about 20 albums packed full too.  They are never going to sell if you price every photo at $2-$5 each.

Anyway, at the first sale, I got the cutest party decorations.  I am putting these away for future child’s birthday.  Zach was super skeptical that I was actually going to remember in a year that I had bought these decorations, but I informed him that I actually have a box in the basement labeled “PARTY SUPPLIES.”  I consult this box on every single birthday occasion, so these supplies will NOT go unused.

At the photo sale, all I found was this tiny ship figurine.  It had no price on it, so I was pretty leery after watching Sarah haggle so hard over the photos.  The women running the sale said, “This might be silver.  I have to be sure this isn’t silver.”  I said “OK” but I was really thinking, “There is NO WAY this is silver.”  It has no markings on it and is light as a feather.  It isn’t tarnished like silver.  At the very least, it’s pewter.  It is, however, most likely brass or tin.  After scrutinizing it, she charged me $2.  Phew.

At the DJ sale, I didn’t buy these giant phones:

I did buy this old biscuit tin though.  It was kind of pricey at $10, but I really wanted it.  Plus, I hadn’t bought much this day.  

So neat, right?  I’m a sucker for anything with sheep on it. 

Before I tell you this tale, I’m going to show you some of the best finds in my $400 box of pictures. 

Looks like Melody was a lucky, world traveler. 

And finally, my favorite, because this is so clearly one of my own cat’s ancestors:

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Erin and I stopped by a sale on a Tuesday. This was really abnormal for us, but we were prepping for our garage sale and the sale was right down the street from the Mexican restaurant where we ate lunch. It was advertised as being the last day, and it was 75% off. 

When we got there, I recognized the company as the same one that ran that sale where we found the giant Santa for Timmy. The sale was really picked over, but I stumbled upon two huge boxes of pictures in the basement. I got really super excited, because I figured that at 75% off, these would be a steal. Turns out I was wrong. I got up to the cashier and told her I wanted all of the pictures. There were at least 500 snapshots in the boxes, and then a ton of old portraits and cabinet cards. I really don’t care about either of the latter two things, because I mostly just enjoy sifting through snapshots. But again, I figured that two hours before closing on the last day of a sale would mean that you’d be thrilled to get rid of two boxes of crap. 

Anyway, the woman proceeded to tell me that yes, I could have all of the pictures, but that each of the pictures in the boxes was individually priced, and they would have to add them all up. I tried to explain that that defeated the purpose of me buying all of them–I only wanted the whole lot because I did not have the patience to sort through that many pictures at an estate sale. Eventually the owner, who Erin and I had complimented in the past for his fair prices, came over and I instantly felt relieved. Surely, this man was going to bring a sense of reason to the situation at  hand. As it turns out, though, Homeboy was not feeling reasonable. He told me that he would value the boxes of photographs at $100 total. I said, “Ok, so 75% off would be $25?” and he said, “NO, that’s after the 75%.” So what he was telling me, was that those pictures would have cost FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS under normal circumstances. Exsqueeze me? 

In the end, I told him that if he was going to be such a stickler, I didn’t want any cabinet cards or portraits, and that I was willing to give him $40. He would only take $50 and so I caved and high-tailed it outta there. I grumbled about this the whole way home. 

The silver lining is that it ended up being a decent price because there were a lot of cool photographs in the lot. I’ll share more soon! 

-Sarah

Last Friday (which we will wrap up shortly), Erin and I hit up a few sales. One of these was pretty far away–in Harrison Township, but I really wanted to go because it looked like there were tons of photographs there.

I wasn’t prepared for how cool some of these pictures were, though. It seems like one of the people who lived there must have been a photography hobbyist, because there were lots of 8x10s that were clearly made in a personal darkroom. I’ll talk more about the boolsheit I went through to obtain these photos, but for now, I just want you to enjoy them as much I have! 

The first is a Rat Terrier and the second is a Dachsund. There were a few actual portraits like these, and then many action shots: 

Do you like how the one is totally jumping off the other one’s head?

Here are some pics with their people: 

And other beasts…

My favorites, though, are these:

And finally, my #1 favorite: 

I’m not sure I’ve ever found an “old” thing that I love more than these pictures. I haven’t decided which I’m going to sell. I don’t need to keep them all, and they could, as I’ve found in the past, make me some money. 

I’ll keep you all posted!

-Sarah