Dig This Treasure!

Two Saturdays ago, I drove out to Grass Lake, where my friend Sarah lives, to check out some local resale and antique stores. She wanted to take me to one store in particular that’s located in (tiny) downtown Grass Lake, The Copper Nail. Before that, though, we had to stop at the Grass Lake Diner for breakfast. Look, all I’ll say is that I had the most amazing “toast” of my life. I don’t know how I didn’t take a picture, but I did find one online. Basically, they take banana bread or pumpkin bread and toast it so it’s nice and crunchy on the outside and cakey on the inside. Then they slather it in butter. So it looks like this: 

My mouth is watering just remembering it. 

When we finished breakfast, we went across the street to the Copper Nail and started digging. The store is community/volunteer-run and gives all of its proceeds to local nonprofits. Very cool. The store is a mix of vintage and new items, and the first thing I saw when entering was a rack of Halloween costumes. Nothing really struck my fancy, but I was a bit horrified by this:

… and then fortunately while recovering from that visual, I noticed a marionette hanging from a shelf.  

There were TONS of books at this store, which, as I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear, made me incredibly happy. I found some with pretty chuckle-worthy titles. 

They can? I guess they can. 

One nice touch about The Copper Nail is that they offer their guests cookies. Sarah said they’re normally homemade cookies, so she was disappointed by the selection that day, but free cookies are always good no matter their origin, if you ask me. 

Check out that moose butt. I just noticed it. 

I was hopeful that I would find some old paper goods, and got really excited when I spotted this Santa box, which I recognized right away as being a card or stationary box. 

While these Santas are super cute, all I found inside was a bunch of birthday cards with ducks on them. Whomp whomp. 

In the end, I did find some cool treasures. Here’s a group shot. 

A little bag of vintage cards, a Linus and Sally figurine, an adorable vintage Paddington for $1, a vintage pitcher, and a cool old copy of The Westing Game! I already have a copy of the other book, but I bought this one to stick in our neighborhood Free Little Library, which happens to be across the street from my house. Paddington will fit right in with the rest of the stuffed children’s book (and TV) characters I’ve got on one of my office shelves. 

I also purchased this ultra cute ceramic Christmas guy. 

He looks like he was made by someone at home with a kit–probably a lot like those Holland Mold heads I wrote about a few weeks ago. He was only $2. Adam was thrilled because we are super short on Christmas decorations. Right, Adam? 

I also purchased these two chalkware lambs to resell. 

Do you notice anything weird about one of the lambies? 

So let me explain what happened. After I paid, the nice little old lady who rang me up started wrapping my breakables in newspaper. But she was balancing the paper bag she was putting all in on a wobbly chair behind the checkout desk. When she was loading the last few items in, the bag tumbled to the floor (with all breakables inside) and Sarah and I just looked at each other and made an “EEEK” face. The lady took out the chalkware sheep and looked up and said, “Well. What do you want to do?” as if *I* had, through psychic powers, willed the bag to fall to the ground. I told her I didn’t want the sheep for $10 since one of them was now legless. They ended up selling them both to me for $5. 

Finally, check out this cute baby blanket with bunnies on it. I like buying cute, soft old blankets to put in the various pet beds around the house. Another habit that my husband loves.

As soon as I took this blanket out of the bag, Scout decided to kick back on it. 

If he looks a little somber, that’s because this picture was taken a day before we discovered that scout had eaten a 13-inch piece of cellophane that was stuck in his stomach. What happens when your cat gets cellophane stuck in his stomach, you ask? Well, you pay $1600 and then your cat looks like this: 

Now he gets to wear a more stylish, clown-like collar, and he seems to be doing a lot better. 

I know it seems out of place for me to be writing about this pet fiasco on a blog about treasure hunting and reselling but it DOES relate! The cellophane that Scout consumed was the backing from the adhesive on a plastic book mailer/envelope that I had used a few days earlier to ship something to an eBay buyer. So our family has suffered even MORE injuries from the treasure-hunting/resale business. 

This is getting a little long, so check back in a day or two to hear about the second part of our Grass Lake adventure! 

-Sarah

A couple of Fridays ago, we were out and about again.  The sales looked just alright, but actually turned out to be pretty good.  I was determined to find some stuff to sell on ebay because I have had quite the dry spell.  I can’t remember where the first sale was, but I’m thinking it was Dearborn or something.  It had lots of cutesy vintage stuff.

There were a ton of these placemats made from pieced-together magazine clippings.  Super cute.  

Anyone know what these weird old glasses are?  The clear glass parts separate out from the colored metal bottoms.  But the glass parts cannot stand alone, so I am not sure why they separate out.  They look to be from the 1950s or 60s.

Guns guns guns.  These were cool but really pricey…I think like $40 each.  

Here’s something interesting I learned about selling cap guns on ebay.  Remember last week when I bought one to resell?  I listed it on ebay in the vintage toy section and clearly labeled it as a cap gun.  However, ebay instantly pulled down the listing because it looked too much like a real gun.  To sell a cap gun on ebay, you have to attach an orange tip to the barrel, so that it is obviously a toy.  I don’t know where to buy such a tip, so I am thinking of photoshopping my photos so it looks like my gun has the orange tip on it.  Blargh.

Anyway, Sarah found this cute apron thing to wear when she cooks, except that she doesn’t cook…so maybe she will wear it while sorting through vintage photos and slides (more on this later).

My first find were these tiny gold spoons, perfect for feeding a baby.  I texted Zach and asked if we needed gold plated baby spoons and he responded with a “YESSSS.”  At $15, these were a little steep, although they are real gold plate.  Only the best for future baby I guess.

I also found this Captain Hook marionette to resell.  I thought he was just so cute.  However, when looking him up on ebay, I couldn’t find anything similar.  Turns out, I was searching for “Captain Cook” instead of “Captain Hook.”  Some lady walked by me and said, “Oh cute!  Captain Hook from Peter Pan!”  and that made me realize my mistake.  I saw that these could sell for decent money on ebay, so I snatched him up for $10.

When I got home,  I realized he was missing his hook!!  Oy!  I am hoping he still sells.

Also to resell are these Ohio State glasses from the 1960s.  They were $3 each so definitely worth the risk.

So I check out and am ready to book it out of this place because it is getting increasingly hot and crowded.  I see Sarah and it looks like she only has a couple of things to pay for, so I figure our time here is almost done.  Sarah then informs me that she has just decided to purchase a serious megaload of old photo slides, and that said slides are IN THE BASEMENT.  For pete’s sake.  

Sarah’s still wearing a boot from her broken toe and I am a giant melon belly, so carrying slides up stairs (and doing so in multiple trips) sounds like a real sad time to me.  I immediately started sulking.

Luckily, the people running the sale helped us, so we each only had to take two trips up and down the stairs.  Maybe Sarah made more…I just know I made two and then gave up on helping.  YOLO.

That’s the backseat of Sarah’s car packed to the brim with slides.  At some point, she said to me, “I don’t know how I’m going to get these in the house without Adam seeing.”  I wished her luck on that, as she would surely need help from a magician or magic elf or strong sedatives to use on Adam.

We hit one other sale that was in a cute farmhouse, but I don’t think I bought anything.  It was pretty picked over.  

That blue stool caught my eye, but I realized I don’t have a place for it.  When I got home though, I remembered that I specifically want a stool to use in “Ebay World” where I photograph and list all my ebay stuff.  Ebay World has a high counter I usually stand at, but since I hate standing now, I could really use a nice stool.  Darn! 

After this sale, we went to a Middle Eastern bakery that is pretty famous in Dearborn.  Sarah can fill you in on the name because I don’t remember.  All I do remember is that we stood in line for 45 minutes because it was so crowded.  Worth it though, because the treats were pretty fly.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: For the record, I never even asked Erin to help me with the slides. I just told her she was going to kill me because there were so many and it was going to take a while to get them out of the house. You saw the backseat–there were a lot. No lying there. The reason I warned her is that when it gets over 70 degrees and she has to wait somewhere, Erin acts as if she’s in the Sahara wearing a snow suit, without water. Also, she was wearing LONG SLEEVES AND JEANS that day. I know we had quite the cool spell in MI but come on! Anyway, here’s what she looks like when she’s too hot: 

I found some cool stuff at this sale and actually went back the next day. The guy was a retired math professor and had all sorts of math-y sh*t in his house, so I knew Adam would be totally down with it. I did buy him a few things–the coolest of which were these Ford Motor educational posters. 

I also purchased a few things for myself but I’m cleaning out eBay world and can’t find some of them. Good sign, I know. But here’s a very cute cross stitch from the ‘30s that I bought that Adam was super thrilled about. 

I want to make a cross stitch wall somewhere in my house. Workin’ on it. 

So Erin left out the best part of the day, which was stopping at the Dearborn Farmer’s Market. While we were there we spotted a beignet truck that had a sign out front that they had CRONUTS. Now all you sassy hipsters are probably not impressed by this but we don’t have stuff like this in SE Michigan, and Erin’s been wanting a cronut forev. Here she is, losing her cronut virginity. 

My car was covered in powdered sugar by the end of this because we both kept laughing while eating them, which would blow it all over. 

At the second sale, I found an old Chorus Line tshirt from the '70s. 

As Erin mentioned, we ended the day at Shatila Bakery in Dearborn, which is pretty famous. One of our student assistants at work is from Jordan and he told me to go there. I wasn’t disappointed! Here I am later at night, displaying my treats. 

Each of these things only cost $1.50. The only downside is you have to wait for 45 minutes to get them. Also, never had better baklava in my LIFE, yo! 

Pretty much every Sunday Zach and I go out to breakfast at a place called Thomas’, mostly because I am addicted to their pancakes.  Last week, after breakfast, we decided to stop at a random estate sale nearby.  It was advertised as being 50% off everything, so it was definitely worth a look.

The house was completely full of random treasures, without any real rhyme or reason.  These people collected a little bit of everything, which was great!  

I know Sarah will look at the above photo and ask why I didn’t buy her that little German ornament guy in the middle.  She collects these, but I forget their names.  I didn’t buy this one because he was broken.

Most of the items in the house were unfamiliar to me, and I didn’t have the best reception on my phone to look things up.  Because of the discount pricing though, I took a chance on a few items.  The first was this old puppet, made by Hazelle’s.  I found out later he was called Teto the Clown.

I also found this cool punched tin box.  I don’t know how old it is, but regardless, it’s interesting and pretty.  I decided to try selling it, but knew I was happy to keep it if it got no bids.

I think maybe it’s a mailbox or something!  It mounts to the wall.  And for the record, it did get bids on ebay, so so much for keeping it.  Teto the Clown sold too.

Zach had the best find by far.  A piece of Native American pottery by artist Sally Garcia.  Neither of us knew of her when he found this piece, but after doing some research, it turns out she is rather well-known.  She is credited “as the first pioneer of hand etchings on ceramic pottery.”  Her large pieces sell for hundreds and even thousands of dollars.  The piece Zach bought is pretty tiny, and had its original price sticker on it marked $84.  He ended up paying $15 for it.

We both love this piece so much and will probably keep it forever. Definitely a fave find, so kudos to Zach for eyeing it!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I’ve never met another person so addicted to mediocre pancakes. Why didn’t you buy those HO cars?