Dig This Treasure!

A few weeks ago, Sarah and I vacationed together in South Haven, MI.  It was glorious.  Lake Michigan was not only surprisingly warm, but super clear.  I’m down with being a lake person, but you bet your ass that I wear water shoes.  In Lake Michigan, I didn’t even need to!  It wasn’t gross at all!  Yay nature!

We spent a lot of time swimming and lounging, but also made time to go antiquing.  The go-to strategy among dealers here seemed to be setting up shop on your front lawn.  We saw a lot of antiques just laying in people’s yards, with little explanation to how they survive the elements or if any effort is even made to protect them from rain or theft. 

It looked like American Pickers, where the dudes just drive around and look for people with junk outside.  They call it “freestylin” on the show, but because I am a disgusting and juvenile person, I kept telling Sarah we were “freeballin.”  We just drove around until we found places to stop.

And boy did we find a place…

The place we found was called something like “Junktiques” which was a fair and honest assessment.  It turned out to also be some dude’s life work of creating arguably insane art.  In true Sarah fashion, she told the guy that his sculptures made her laugh, which the guy reacted to with a blank stare. 

TBH, the sculptures were funny and also totally delightful.  I would put one in my backyard in a heartbeat.

All I bought from this bro were some cookie cutters for Everett to use with Play-Dough. I did not buy this life-size wood carving of Sarah.

Also did not buy this hilarious elephant.

And I did not buy this mask, even though I looked great in it.

We also stopped at a nice little shop inside a house, which was clearly geared towards shabby chic moms (me, basically). 

I wanted to buy that big metal ball and put Christmas lights in it, but decided not to because the woman revealed it was from a wholesale gardening place.  I figured I could find one cheaper online since that was the case.

I did end up buying some cool wooden slats that I plan to put in my garden.

And I got this neat old egg carton to put up by my egg scales.  It was so darn cute and only $8!

Zach and Adam went out shopping too, without us.  Zach bought this giant painting of a dude yelling? crying? who knows…

If someone can identify this man, that would be awesome.  I want to know so badly who he is and what he is doing.  He lives in our living room now.

I am lol’ing hard at the amount of bags I have hanging on the dining room chairs.  Apparently I need two purses, a gym bag, and a backpack to exist in life.

And just for a little life update, here are our dudes!  Everett will be 3 in October! Arden will be 2 in November!

Cheers!

-Erin

You might remember my family’s trip to Holly, MI last year.  It was full of Dickens characters, steampunks, and Skookum dolls.  This year, we all returned to Holly and it was noticeably less full of all of the above.  Despite being advertised as the annual Dickens festival, there were very few Tiny Tims and Jacob Marleys.  It might’ve been because it was cold as, well, the Dickens.

Zach suited up in the Baby Bjorn because Holly isn’t suitable for strollers.  All of the stores are mega cramped.  

The baby seemed to love the bar, which is both adorable and unsettling.

I drank a fancy candy cane martini since Everett was eating formula this day.  I was very pleased about this.

Timmy, Lindsay, and I did end up antique shopping.  Holly really brings it hard when it comes to antiques.  They have some of the coolest stuff around.  

For some reason, there is a TON of Native American stuff.  All of it high quality.

Those moccasins remind me of that time I got in a fight with an auctioneer over moccasins.  Seriously, curse that dude.

I did buy a Native American item, but it is a Christmas gift for someone and therefore I cannot disclose it yet.  I’ll be sure to blog about it after the holiday.  

I really want one of these old German paper mache rabbits.  One day I will pony up and buy one.

Ok, so you should also know that Holly is apparently haunted.  So while I was shopping around for cool antiques, I kept running into this group of people who were ghost hunting.  This was frustrating for many reasons.  One, it was the middle of the day.  Ghosts do not come out and say hello in the middle of the day.  That is like Ghost Knowledge 101.  

And like I mentioned, the shops in Holly are super tiny and hard to maneuver.  I kept trying to look at things in glass cases inside the antique stores, and all of a sudden like 4 people are in the way trying to take photos of the cases because “you can see a ghost’s reflection in them!”  No.  That is a lie.  There is no ghost face reflection in these cases, just old sh*t that I am trying to look at and possibly buy.

The crowds tired me out, so I didn’t buy much.  I did get Timmy a baseball bank for Christmas, which I am disclosing here because he accidentally caught me buying it.  It kind of looks like this (I forgot to photo it before wrapping).

-Erin

Update from Sarah: First of all, Everett doesn’t EAT. He only drinks. Second, why did you not buy that Rasta Santa? He even has a sunburn from his most recent trip to Jamaica, mon. 

I mentioned last week that when I went to the Chelsea Antiques Market a few weekends ago, there were many things to see that were very hard to resist. Here are a few of my faves. 

Frankly, I don’t understand this terrifying plate, who would want it, or where it came from. I hated it so much–it just made me feel icky inside. Clowns are already scary enough but this one has a SAW in his doctor bag, a hammer in his hand, and golf clubs for no reason. WTF? 

Sarah and I were dying when we saw that someone had, with a red sharpie, made poor Big Boy’s eyes super bloodshot. Either that or he smoked some powerful ganja. 

I enjoyed that this seller didn’t know for sure whether a) the doll was very old or b) it was even a doll at all! 

I hope the Ultimate Punk finds this vase, because it was especially made for him/her. 

I call this masterpiece Terrifying Zombified Ceramic Hunter Boy, with Dog.

Some special anniversary cigs. 

NUDE LOVERS.

Ok, I saved my favorite for last. Every time I look at this picture, I LOL. 

This is what Erin looked like when the nurses told her it was time to push. 

-Sarah

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

Last week we gave you a little tasty taste of our trip to Charlevoix, MI.  When we left off, I was dead of heat stroke while Sarah and her family were perusing an antique shop in Petoskey.  At some point though, I drank a slushie from an ice cream hut and then came fully back to life.  Just in time to meet this dude:

We hit a few antique shops in Pellston, MI.  They were all pretty neat and the prices seemed fair.  

I’ll let Sarah share with you her finds, which I think included a really amazing Vernor’s cooler.  I didn’t buy anything.  This cooler could have come in handy the next day when we went back to Petoskey.  We bought some beer to bring home for our husbands but then realized that it would have to sit in a hot car for hours while we shopped around.  Sarah had already unloaded the cooler into the house, so we drove instead to a Walmart and bought one.  Anyway, the beer was from Beards Brewery, which has a really nice logo, and these cool hats:

Also in Petosky, I bought a Zuni fetish.  I’ve wanted one of these for a long time, and was happy to have this rabbit now in my possession.

Sarah found a fetish too, but it was this onion ring in the shape of a dinosaur:

The last day there, we went to Traverse City. While we were there, we hit up that huge antique mall from last year’s trip.  This is where I found some of Zach’s lead soldiers I wrote about recently.  This place is the best.  Some of the prices are high, but it varies booth by booth.  

I wanted this paper mache Easter rabbit, but Sarah vetoed it.  I usually try to ignore her, but I texted Zach a photo and he was also disapproving. 

I think they thought it was “scary.”

This Skookum doll was THE BEST.  But he was $195.  Whomp whomp.

$195 was out of my price range, but $40 sure wasn’t for this gnome head.  And yet, I still didn’t buy it!  I’m kicking myself for this.  It would be great for Halloween.

Again, Sarah will fill you in on all her treasures.  Until next time, Northern Michigan!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I need some Crest White Strips.

While Erin was recovering from heat stroke, I was looking at this huge hand-painted Joan Walsh Anglund Christmas scene. Of course it was too giant to buy, but pretty cool anyway! 

At this store, I bought a small crib quilt for a chair at home. I spent too much on it but that’s ok–it’s very nice and in excellent shape. And I love this color of yellow. 

There were lots of cool things to look at at the bigger antique shop in Pellston. One of the first things I went through was this huge group of old portraits. I was of course looking for dead people but would have been cool with anything interesting. I came up empty handed. 

I did find this funny picture of a baby, though. 

There were also lots of books in the basement of this place.

I got excited, but they turned out to be pretty bad. 

In the end, I only ended up with an ornament and a very cool Vernors cooler. As I’ve mentioned, I love Vernors. 

It’s in excellent shape and was only $49, which I feel is very reasonable. I am not quite sure what I’m going to do with it, but I’ll figure it out one day (no eye rolls, Adam.) 

The next day in Traverse City, I saw a lot of cool things, but didn’t buy much. Here are some of the funnier things I saw. 

These little buddies love frenching. 

Ok this isn’t funny–it’s cool. I absolutely loved this clock, but it was $75. So awesome, though. 

In the end, most of the stuff was out of my price range, or something I felt I could find online for a bit cheaper. I just bought a small cast iron bear and two photographs. Still, lots of fun things to see! I would go back in a heartbeat. 

Sarah and I headed up to Charlevoix two weekends ago for a much needed vacation.  We shared some photos of our trip already on Facebook, but here now is the full dish.

We were staying in a home rented by Sarah’s parents, Cindy and zzPopps.  This is the second time I’ve vacationed with this crew, and it is kind of like being in the opening scene of Home Alone.  We all move pretty fast, pack a lot into one day, and talk at audio levels much higher than normal conversation should dictate.  It makes for a hilarious and fun time.

We started our first day by driving to Petoskey and visiting some antique shops.  The first was the kind of place where Kanye West buys his Le Corbusier lamps.  Probably the most insane antique store I have ever visited.  Also, infuriating because we could afford nothing.

That’s Sarah with a $2,000 wooden deer.

Sexy and expensive.  

We hightailed it pretty quickly out of this place and headed to a consignment shop down the road.  This was a MUCH better shopping experience.

This diorama reminded me of how badly I want to decorate my kitchen like an old timey general store.  Seriously, it would be so cool.  TRUST.

This consignment shop was where I found my Native American porcupine quill box.  With the help of all of you on Facebook, I decided to return to this store a few days later and purchase the box.  

The box itself is birch bark.  The quills are softened by boiling and then woven to make the sides and rabbit design.  The center is wrapped with sweetgrass.  There are no markings to indicate the tribe or anything on this particular box, but I’m guessing one of the Anishinaabe of Michigan.  

This box is definitely one of my most prized possessions.  I have wanted one for so long!  Remember when I almost bought one awhile back at a sale, and then passed on it?

I also found some of Zach’s lead soldiers here, which I wrote about last week.  Here are a few things that Sarah and I didn’t buy:

Sarah and I debated whether this drawing was of real women or dolls.  Why it matters I’m not sure.  It’s still hideous.

At some point, we stumbled across a garage sale.  And it was a super nice one.  I didn’t buy anything though because I was really busy dying of heat stroke.  I think I even told Sarah I was literally dying.  And then I did die.  I’m a ghost blogger now.

Sarah found some cool things here, so I will let her tell you all about them.  And in the Part Two Charlevoix entry, I’ll tell you about the next antique shop we hit.  Guess who was there?!?!

Can you believe it?!  Sh*t is getting real spooky.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Man, that first place was THE WORST. It was a real letdown because from the outside, there were cool things! 

I think that’s how they lure people in. They’re like, “Hey! Check out our ‘junk shop’!!!” but then you go inside and want to punch the owner because the prices are so ridonk. Actually, they must be used to this because they provide disguises so you don’t get caught while punching the store owner. 

Thank god the next stop was fruitful, because that was a bad intro to treasure hunting in Petosky. At the next place, I found a few awesome treasures. First, this cool salt and pepper set: 

I’m not sure if I’m going to keep them but they were only $5! I also got this cute dish towel: 

I just loved HOW SAD that cat is to have to go to church. 

I also purchased this ADORABLE watch. It needs a new battery but it’s so insanely cute. 

It has little dogs and dog bones up and down the band! Here is a close up: 

That was priced at $12. Good deals all around. 

The garage sale had some very cool stuff. I actually am not sure what sort of sale this was because the whole thing was set up like an antique booth. So maybe those folks just keep it open all summer. There were lots of things at the sale that I wanted, but I exercised some self control. The only bad thing is that I did a poor job of documenting my purchases, so I’ll have to rely on the Internet. 

I got an old metal milk crate (solid, not wire) that looks like this but is marked Petosky, MI: 

The other cool thing that I purchased that I did take a picture of was this old ash tray that I’ve repurposed as a sponge holder: 

Using old ashtrays for other things usually grosses me out but this guy was too cute to pass up. 

Finally, I got an antique match holder. These things were ALL OVER the house we were staying at and I temporarily became obsessed with them. The obsession ended when I brought mine home and Adam complained about it being useless. It looks like this but someone painted over the stencil: 

I still think it’s cute.

Here are some things we didn’t buy. Creative reuse of old kitchenware: 

An old prison gate: 

And finally, I was obsessed with this: 

Someone made this out of old wood and cheese boxes. I have always wanted to own a card catalog and this thing was very reminiscent of those. It also had Bakelite knobs that all matched. It was marked something like $400, so that’s why it’s not in my house right now. Whomp Whomp. 

Sarah and I will have a longer entry soon about our vacay to Charlevoix, MI last week, but in the meantime, here is a preview of some of the treasures I found.  These were so good that they deserved their very own write-up.

The first two treasures are part of a larger lead soldier set, which was being sold at an antique-filled consignment shop in Petoskey.  The set was unusual because not all of the soldiers were holding weapons.  Here are some pics I pulled off the internet to give you an idea of the scope here:

It’s like these little dudes each had their own little dude job to do, and they all did them well.  The detail is amazing.  The shop we were at didn’t have all of the figures shown above, but did have two that struck my fancy.  First was this guitar playing man:

He’s having a grand ol’ time for sure.  Also, I suppose that is a banjo and not a guitar.  Whatever.

The next figure I bought was a real tough boxer man.  He is probably my favorite.  The set is made by Manoil, which is apparently pretty collectible.  Most range in value from $20 to $70.  Some, however, are so rare that they are worth almost $200 each!

And it looks like I scored with my two selections because I paid $17 each for them.  Here they are for sale on a toy soldier site:

Cool!

The toy soldier saga doesn’t end here though.  On the last day of our trip we stopped by that huge antiques place in Traverse City (you may remember it from last year).  There I found this great piece:

These soldiers aren’t lead, but instead are composition.  And they are so dope.  The detail is incredible.  Look at the blood on this man’s arm sling:

I kind of feel like that bro could’ve walked if he only had an arm injury.  Maybe there was a huge loss of blood.  Or he is super dramatic.

This set is made by Lineol Germany and dates to the late 1920s.

I paid $25 for this, which is what similar ones sell for on ebay.  

Definitely a nice addition to the ever-expanding soldier collection in our house!

-Erin

P.S. You can see more of our “Fave Finds” by clicking here.

Dig This Treasure is headed to Antiques Roadshow today!  

There are a few other amazing antique events happening also, so we wanted to be sure to share (with the fellow Michiganders on here).  

Head over to Midland for one of the LARGEST antique shows ever!  The Michigan Antiques and Collectibles Festival with over 80 acres of vendors!  Happening today AND tomorrow.  Here’s our DTT entry from last year.

Also this weekend is the Greenmead Antique Festival, in Livonia, MI.  This is happening tomorrow (Sunday) only.  Here is our DTT entry from last year.

So happy hunting everyone!  And maybe we will see you today at the Roadshow!

-Erin

Last Friday night, I drove out to my parents’ house (about an hour away) to stay overnight and attend the Utica Antiques Market the next morning.  I’ve been visiting this market since I was a teenager, and Timmy has taught me that it’s important to get there right when the place opens.  [For new readers, here is pretty much all you need to know about Timmy, and that time he was on Cash & Cari.]

So Timmy, my sister Lindsay, and I got to the market bright and early, and it really felt like the world was our oyster.  

Here is Lindsay scoping out the goods:

See those tiny fuzzy chicks in the bottom left corner of that case above?  I loved them.  But what are you supposed to do with a giant box of tiny fuzzy chicks?

Oh here’s a thing:

And another thing:

All jokes aside, this market had some GREAT stuff.  And the prices were really reasonable.  I zeroed in first on a booth that had a bunch of cast iron banks and molds. We all know about my love affair (and money-making extravaganza) with old chocolate molds.

The heavy mold with the two babies was really the best, but it was priced around $150. I stared at it for a good long while though.  And see that little cast iron pig bank at the top of the photo?  More on him later.

We moved through the show for a good 45 minutes or so, and I was yet to buy anything.  That’s not to say I didn’t see lots of potential purchases.

Like this creature:

He was priced at $100 and carved out of solid wood.  I WANTED HIM SO BAD.  But alas, where am I going to put a giant wooden monster?  Probably right next to a box of tiny fuzzy chicks.

There’s Timmy and one of his “peers.”  They are probably reminiscing about the good old days.

I like to imagine that these Santas are all drowning in quicksand.  Don’t they look distressed?

I probably should have bought this for llama-obsessed Sarah.  Also, LOOK AT THAT TINY HEAD STRAPPED ON!  I died laughing at this for a good 5 minutes.

Ok ok, so what did I buy?  My first purchase was a Skookum doll.  You might remember that I already own one Skookum doll, purchased last Christmas in Holly, MI.

The little one is my new guy, and the larger one was the one I already had.  I paid a mere $18 for the new one:

I also went back to that booth with the cast iron stuff and bought a cast iron pig bank.  I debated between the pig shown in the photo earlier, and the one I eventually bought.  This was a little steep at $30, but he’s just too cute.  And, he is full of old coins, so maybe there is a good one in there!  I have yet to open him and check.

And my last purchase was another lead figurine for Zach.  This time not a soldier, but a cool-looking Indian.  I paid $10, and it was originally marked $15.  In an ideal world, this would only be $5.

Timmy bought a Little League bobblehead to go with the rest of his collection.  He hemmed and hawed over this purchase for a good hour.  It was $35, which is kind of high for a later bobblehead (1970s?), and especially one that doesn’t have pro team markings.  He negotiated down to $25.  Here it is in the middle of some of his other nodders:

Tim seemed kind of bummed that he might have overpaid for the nodder, when all of a sudden he found this Tigers pin for $5!  What a steal!

And what did Lindsay find?  I know she bought a rhino statue (she is a zookeeper) and a ceramic pumpkin.  Her best finds by far though were these little charms:

That man is giving some sassy face!

-Erin

Update: So Sarah just texted me with the following:

I’m still skeptical that that carved thing is an alligator.  Or a crocodile even.  It seems like a pretty obvious, run-of-the-mill land monster to me.