Dig This Treasure!

I was unable to go sale-ing on Friday, so Erin and I decided to go on Thursday instead. There were tons of sales, but I had to work until the early afternoon, so we only made it to a few. I started off the morning in an awesome way–working from Erin’s house & cuddling with her usually shy cat. Proof that Sebastian loves me the most: 

We were able to get rolling as soon as I was finished working, and we started off at a sale located pretty close to Erin’s house. It didn’t look too promising from the pictures, but they had listed that they had a bunch of HO slot cars, so I was interested in stopping by. 

When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a bunch of jewelry, and I scored by finding some pretty cool cat earrings (but not cat lady cat earrings–they’re cute), along with a baggie of various pins. I don’t know what my deal is with pins. I cannot resist them and I need to start resisting, because the quantity I now have is out of control. Anyway, this is one of the cuter ones in the bag–an Idaho potato! Get it? 

It’s hard to tell how big that is from the picture, but it’s pretty tiny. Also, Erin kept talking about this pin so maybe I’ll give it to her one day. She even asked about it when I saw her again on Saturday. Get a room with the potato pin, Erin. 

A little while later, I watched on as Erin riffled through the slot car stuff–they had two boxes of stuff and it was all sort of crappy and they had it marked $300 for the two boxes! WTF?! Anyway, Erin didn’t notice that sign and started tearing through the boxes. After watching her and laughing to myself for a few moments, I let her know that she should probably stop doing that since it was being sold as a lot. 

The person who lived at this house loved cats, and had many cat-themed items. I will admit that I purchased some of these items, but I am too ashamed to show our dear readers what those items were.

The only other real item of note that I found that I’m pretty pleased about was this: 

Original Gizmo!!! He looks a little rough in the picture but he really just needs a good run through the gentle cycle. 

Besides many cat items, the person who owned this home also had a lot of old computer stuff, including the following, which I’m mainly posting for my brother, whose first computer was a C-64 if I’m remembering correctly: 

Snokie? Who dat? 

I also somehow managed to spend about $40 at this sale–probably because everything was overpriced and I cannot resist original items from the ‘80s. 

On the way to the next sale, Erin asked me what took me so long, and then started grilling me about what I had purchased. I mentioned that I found “vintage Harry Potter wrapping paper” and then we both started cracking up. What I meant was that it was old–probably from around when the first book came out… but that was 1997. Which definitely does not make it vintage. 

I’m having a hard time remembering where we went next, but I know it was in Warren. There were multiple sales in Warren, which always excites me because it means we can stop at Tringali’s. 

So I think the next sale was what I’ll call “The Tacky Sale” because everything in the home was tacky. 

I think that’s supposed to give the illusion of a horse in a stable. 

You can’t really tell the scale here, but that is a gigantic cocktail glass that says “I BET YOU CAN’T.”

Here are some authentic, hand-crafted Native American items. 

What any classy lady needs: A Wal-Mart Shopping Fund jar. 

If these items were not enough to convince you that it was the tackiest sale ever, hopefully this will: 

Still not convinced?…

Nothing like some old lady’s panties for $.50 a piece. 

The worst part of this sale was that there was a young woman, probably my age, walking around the sale and excitedly pointing out every item in a loud, southern drawl. You would have thought she was taking a tour of the Queen of England’s home, she was so impressed by all of these items. She was most excited about this book. I’m not joking. 

Anyway, I left this sale with a vintage Stroh’s beer stein and some weird thing for Adam that’s not even worth trying to explain. Erin left with some extremely overpriced tissue paper that I’m sure she’ll say more about in her update. 

The last sale we went to was the most interesting of the day, by far. It was at the home of the former President of the Scarab Club. Turns out she was the president back in the late '70s, and was quite the artist in her day. I purchased some pretty cool stuff a this sale, including a Masonic Bible in its original box, some vintage National Wildlife magazines that seem like they might sell, and some adorable K-Mart wall art from the '60s. 

They were sold as a pair, but I really wanted the one on the right, because it’s just so damn cute. But I am also really interested in/do research on bedroom culture, so I just sort of fell in love with both of them immediately. 

I found one item from my youth (and, as it turns out, Adam’s as well): 

As well as this item–also from Adam’s childhood:  

And finally, a miniature roulette game! To add to my tiny home casino. 

We tried to go to one last sale where I had spotted a Mrs. Beasley doll in the pictures online, but some asshat dropped a bunch of lumber in the middle of the road, so we were delayed and didn’t make it in time. 

But all in all, it was a pretty eventful, interesting trip. We topped it off by stopping at Tringali’s, where Erin and I decided that no matter what it is you’re asking about at an Italian bakery, the answer is always “cannoli cream." 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: The first sale was pretty unremarkable, except for the outrageous prices.  For awhile, I carried around a Pachinko machine from the 1970s still in the box.  It was an American version though, and made of plastic.  On ebay it only sold for about $15 out of the box.  They were asking $25 for this one, so I dumped it pretty quickly.  I ended up buying a Christmas pin featuring a fuzzy bear on ice skates.

The "tacky sale” as Sarah named it, was really painful.  I am generally a big fan of Native American artwork and jewelry, and I have a good amount of it at home.  However, I have never and will never claim to know a ton about Native American culture, or be one of those white people who claim to have a distant Native grandmother.  There are a lot of white people like this, who say that somewhere down the line they have Indian blood and blah blah.  Then they collect a bunch of things made in China that feature dream catchers and noble Indian warriors and other stuff that is probably sacred and shouldn’t be on a plastic picture frame.  

Like this giant resin wolf marked $100.  Worst.  Also worst was that I went to buy some half-used wrapping paper and a little package of tissue paper.  The seller lady was looking around all frantically for someone to help her because there were no prices on either item.  She finally came up with the price of $3, which is crazy, and I asked if she would take $2, which is still crazy.  These were clearly 50 cent items.  She accepted my offer, but then said, “I’ll probably get in trouble for this.”  Uh, no, you definitely won’t.

Whew, ok. This entry is getting long.  Bear with me because the following is pretty sweet.  At the Scarab Club sale I found a TON of Laurel Burch earrings and bought them for $1/pair.  The earrings have DAYS left on ebay but are already cleaning up:

I’ll keep you posted on what these end up selling for!  

Lastly, it is important to note that I found a super amazing treasure that is not for re-selling.  It is a Pendleton knockabouts coat and it was MADE for me.  Here I am after a nap, modeling said coat:

Only $10!  When I tried it on at the sale, all these ladies were like, “OHHH you have to get that! It’s sooo cute.”  Sarah agreed (which is rare) so I bought it.

Update from Sarah: Just wanted to add two things after reading Erin’s update: First, I hope none of you with Native American blood are offended by Erin’s strong stance on the issue. This includes my sister-in-law, who is actually very white, but does have Native American ancestors. However, she does not keep plastic statues of wolves or canoes in her home to represent that heritage. Second, WHO in God’s name is crazy enough to get into a bidding war over those ugly Laurel Burch earrings and why wasn’t I smart enough to find them? 

Sarah and I decided to head out for an adventure on Friday, our sights set on two sales in Grand Blanc, which is just past Lansing.  We were excited because both sales looked pretty good.  Spoiler alert: they weren’t.

On the way to Grand Blanc though, we stopped in Whitmore Lake, and good thing because we found lots of treasures.  I picked up this cool ceramic pitcher for Zach.  It was some sort of promotional item for Cutty Sark scotch.  I liked it because it looks really New England-y, and knew he would dig it.  

I also got Zach this little box of old flags, but turns out that he wasn’t that interested.  I might try to sell them on ebay, but I am not even sure what they are or how to list them.

Cute right?  I might just leave them on the bookshelf like this as decoration.  Anyway, the best part of this sale is that everything was priced SUPER reasonably.  And despite it being the first day, the sellers were really fair on reducing prices for us since we ended up buying a lot.  I love sales like this, obviously.

To resell, I bought some old 1950s/1960s sewing patterns which already have a bid on ebay.  As well as a Laurel Burch cat pin that started blowing up with bids the second I listed it!

I am actually a little bummed that the Laurel Burch pin has so many bids.  I told myself that I would happily keep it should it not sell.  I imagined it on my spring coat.  Oh well.  I guess with all the crazy cash it brings in I could buy a pin for my jacket.

As I mentioned, we headed to Lansing after this sale and were in for a whole afternoon of disappointment.  Things seemed promising at first:

I walked down into this basement and was excited by the volume of items before me.  It was a real nice moment.  I was all alone in the basement and Selena was blasting on the radio.  I was sure that good things were about to happen.  Then, Sarah came downstairs, announced that she didn’t know who Selena was, and things got worse from there.

I opened a box and started rummaging, immediately realizing that something was way wrong.  I started screaming in misery as I realized my hand was covered in some sort of ultra sticky goo.  

Yeah, that cup is filled with an ocean of melted candy, clearly decades old.  I assume this candy was one of those chewy old-time candies that rip out the fillings in your teeth.  Bit O’ Honey or something like that.  Whatever it was, it was sticky as hell and ruined the use of my right hand until I could wash it.

I found one thing at this sale, an old Napco salt shaker that I put on ebay.  We’ll see how that goes.

Stay tuned for our update tomorrow, all about some sales we hit on Saturday.  Don’t get too excited, but we did hit up a random rummage sale and I scored some ultra-cool vintage Nikes!  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: First off, sorry this is so late going up. I had a lot of work to do today, and am also getting sick. Anyway, Erin is right. The sales on Friday weren’t that great–especially not for how far we had to travel to get to them. The exception, as she mentioned, was the sale in Whitmore Lake. I just took pictures of all the stuff I bought and I’m horrified with myself in some instances. For example, what was I thinking here? 

There is only one pin here that was necessary to buy, and I think we all know which one that is. 

Besides those great finds, I found some other actually cool things. For example, these two cute dolls: 

The one on the right, I believe is a polish doll that matches two others I found at a sale a while back. I love the one on the left best, though. 

I also found some awesome vintage Peanuts Christmas cards. Here is a picture of me, hoarding the cards so that Erin cannot get at them:

Here is a picture of Erin with yet another Mouse King!

That one didn’t have smaller mice crawling out of its neck. 

When we got to the basement, I found a huge stack of vintage wrapping paper, which is always my favorite thing to find. Here are some of my favorites from the big stack I found: 

Two final items that I had to purchase: 

I wonder if the girl on the bench is as happy as she appears. 

I would like to say that both the wrapping paper and that small, vintage bear-shaped milk bottle pictured above were in a pantry in the basement that Erin had already gone through and told me there was nothing inside. When I got back upstairs and she saw that I had both of these things AFTER she already had first chance at them, she was sad. OH well! Finders Keepers! Plus, she already has a bear-shaped bottle. 

On our way to the first sale in Grand Blanc, we saw the first of a new chain of hotels–Dads Inn (not to be confused with the lesser known Days Inn). 

The next sale on our list was down a very treacherous road. Here is a picture of what it looked like: 

This sale contained a lot of garbage that was not worth the 80 minute drive to dig through. I found a stack of vintage cards, some vintage Tuco puzzles that may or may not be valuable (whatever, they were $.50 each, and then these adorable buddies: 

Finally, at the last sale, I found one cute thing, and then a couple of things to try to resell. This is my one cute thing: 

Probably an ash tray, and clearly needs to be cleaned, but it’s cute! 

I also got a few other things that may or may not be worth anything. First, a bunch of vintage Christmas carol pamphlets (I think they were things that places would hand out when you went caroling?) 

Next up, a vintage money counter. AKA, the Handy Adder: 

Finally, I found this weird pamphlet about Russian education: 

Tomorrow we will update about day two of sale-ing, which wasn’t much better.

P.S. I know who Selena is–I just don’t know her songs when I hear them.

P.P.S. That Laurel Burch pin is fugly.