Dig This Treasure!

As planned, after the secret doll auction last week, we headed over to the Michigan Modernism Expo.  Sarah already regaled us with a new obsession she cultivated at the expo, but this entry will share all of the other goods we saw.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m really not into modernism.  That said, there were some pieces that really caught my eye.  The more rustic pieces in particular were interesting to me.

These are old pommel horses.  Not very practical, but very cool!

If I remember correctly, this woodcarving was by Leon Kroll, who was mostly a painter but dabbled in sculpture apparently.  I loved this so much, but alas, it was $500.

I would put both of these in my house, and I would display them side-by-side as you see here:

I also loved this, but wasn’t sure what need I have for a REALLY EXPENSIVE shopping cart:

In fact, “really expensive” seemed to be the trend of the expo.  I kind of expected this, but figured there would be at least some affordable jewelry or smalls.  Not so much.

Even this thing was like $600:

Doesn’t that look like something I would make fun of Sarah for buying at an estate sale?

Now this is the kind of stuff we came to the expo for:

To me, this is a museum piece.  And it was cool to look at pieces like this in person.  I have to hand it to the exhibitors here, they really did haul in their best stuff.

Here is Sarah (napping?) in a chair.  We call this a “statement piece." 

Another statement piece:

Ok, one more.  This little turtle was the best. Both Sarah and I saw this and were all, "Look at that turtle!”  I love his dumb little face.  I would totally buy this if I was rich:

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I’ll admit it, I didn’t want to go to this thing because I knew it was going to be expensive. Admission itself was $10 but we got in for free because “we’re both students.” Thankfully we both look younger than we are. I think I actually have the same disease as Benjamin Button. Anyway, once I knew I could go for free, I was game. 

Right away, we saw those Charlie Harper prints, and they were also selling Charlie Harper decorative tiles. Even though Erin is the Bunny Master, I also am fond of rabbits and bought this cool tile: 

There was a lot of neat stuff to look at, but like Erin said, sort of disappointing that there wasn’t much to purchase in our price range. I did find a cool vintage shirt for $15, but besides that, pickins were slim. 

At one point, I went to find a bathroom indoors and found myself following a woman with a newborn baby in a 1950s Saks Fifth Avenue stroller. Really? You need your baby to ride in style? 

If Erin does something like this to her child, I’ll walk about 10 feet behind her when we go out together. 

After I got out of the bathroom, I was able to capture the buggy so y'all know I’m not makin’ this up. 

I want to say I’d be less judgmental of this if the poor thing wasn’t screaming the whole time but really, regardless of how happy the baby is in that thing, it still looks ridiculous. 

Here are some other cool things I saw that I’ll never be able to afford: 

I don’t even really like peanuts… I just loved that watch! 

And finally, here are some things of questionable “modern” creation that were for sale:

I will say, however, that that’s exactly what I look like when Erin and I watch scary movies together, so mad props to the artist!  

I’ll just start a new category of post here, with this one. The last time I had an obsession like this, it was my teenage girls on the phone obsession. I’m not over that obsession… it’s just on the backburner. My new obsession, after attending the Michigan Modernism Expo this past Saturday with Erin, is with 1960s Jorgen Jensen necklaces. Jorgen Jensen worked for Georg Jensen, but they are in fact not the same person. This is the necklace I found at the expo. 

The woman selling it had it marked $85 and said it was a Georg Jensen piece, and went on and on about how famous he was. She said she’d sell it to me for $75 and I started debating. I put it on and Erin said I sort of looked like a rapper because the chain is a little thick and it hangs low. I’m cool with that look. But then Erin started doing a little snooping around online and discovered that a) the identical necklace was for sale on eBay for less money and b) it was Jorgen not Georg. I told the lady I’d pass and spent the next few minutes obsessively looking at others like it online. Here are a few of my faves: 

I’m debating on that last one.

I also started freaking out last night because I saw a completed online auction for a whole lot of Jensen necklaces. So jealous of whoever won that!

Now it also appears that good old Jorgie had a sense of humor/goth side because he also made this necklace. 

I think it’s cool but a little too creepy. 

It’s also worth noting that last year, Erin did find two Jorgen Jensen necklaces at a sale for like, $2 each, and made a sweet profit on them. At the time, I liked them but wanted to let her maximize her profits and didn’t think to look on eBay for other designs, so I totally forgot about them.

Anyway, I did treat myself to one so far, please don’t judge. 

I know this is a little crazy but I really love it and will feel like a true feminazi badass while wearing it.

-Sarah 

Like Sarah mentioned, things have been crazy in our real lives, so sorry for our random postings! Don’t give up on us, we will be back in order real soon.

Last Friday, we weren’t able to go out sale-ing, but Sarah and I did manage to get together for one sale on Saturday. We picked only one sale to attend because it was the ONLY one that looked remotely good. Seriously, I don’t know what is going on, but the sales as of late are just awful. Here’s what we look like every week when we read through the sale listings:

SAD AND CONFUSED. Where are all the good sales at?!

Anyway, the sale we hit Saturday was advertised as a mid-century modern “timecapsule.” When we showed up, there was a line outside. We were so shocked because 1. it was like 2pm on a Saturday and 2. it was FREEZING outside. Here’s Sarah about to cry as we were waiting:

(Interlude from Sarah: Erin thinks she is soooooo slick trying to sneak in a terrible picture of me. Thank god I actually added to this entry and got it out of there.)

When we got inside, we had to put on little hospital bootie things so that we didn’t track mud everywhere. I instantly realized that this sale was going to be out of our league. And it was.

That’s an $1800 silver bowl. And here’s some fish that were like $400 each:

Everything in the house was high end. It felt more like a museum than an estate sale. I don’t know if I even touched one thing.

I did find a bunch of little Dansk paperweight animals that were cute, but they were selling each one for $25. I noticed that I could get them WAY cheaper on ebay, so that was annoying, especially since this was the second day of the sale and things should have been cheaper.

I also found this book, which is basically my life story:

Am I constantly thinking about buffets? Pretty much, yes.

I didn’t buy anything at this sale, so I’ll let Sarah indulge you with her purchases. I did however buy an amazing smoothie at Swirlberry, where we hung out after this sale for awhile. Maybe we will start a blog all about going to Swirlberry instead of estate sales, because Swirlberry never lets us down.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: This sale really blew. I purchased a couple of books…

Oh my god I just noticed the author’s name. OH MY GOD. I’m not sure I’d trust her judgement on this topic—it’s an advice book for boys on how to solicit dates with girls.

I also bought this adorable “Jingle Pup” hat that ended up being too small for Betsy.

Anyone have a tiny dog who needs this?

The only cool thing in this house was a darkroom in the basement.

This made me sad and jealous. I used to have a darkroom in my parents basement when I was in college, because I was mega into photography. I still have my enlarger and other stuff… but I haven’t used my manual camera in years. Oh well.

Like I mentioned, I hit up an early sale last Friday while Sarah was at the doctor.  She and I met up later for some very interesting sales, which we’ll cover in another entry.

Besides the moccasin slippers, I bought lots of cool things!  The whole house was full of quality items, namely glassware and pottery.

I know what you are thinking, “how pricey!”  Luckily, not everything at the sale was priced so high.  These dishes though were handmade or something in Sweden.

More dishes!  And look at that gorgeous hutch!

And this one!  See what I mean?  Everything here seemed like good quality.  I was having a lot of fun looking around.  

You can’t really tell, but that is a really tiny couch.  It was so cute.  I assume it is for dolls.  It was only like $30, which seems reasonable for something like this, but it was also in bad shape.  Plus, I have no use for it, so I moved on.

I did end up finding this great Crown Devon mug, which I bought for $3:

When you look inside, there’s a little frog!  In fact, when I went to check out, the woman running the sale exclaimed, “THERE’S A FROG IN THERE!”  She sure got a kick out of it.

I have this up on ebay now, and usually these mugs sell.  However, no bites yet!

I also found this enamel on copper plate for $2.

When I first saw it, I got excited that it might be by Miguel Pineda.  Here’s a plate by Miguel that I watched on ebay for a long time, but never bought because it was $400:

I should have known that my turtle plate wasn’t a Pineda piece…I don’t think there are a lot of turtles in Mexican folk art.  It turns out though that my plate is by a mid century artist named Annemarie Davidson.  I have the plate up on ebay now, and so far it is selling like a champ.

Next up, I bought this reproduction cast iron Coca Cola man.  He was $5, and I saw that others sold on ebay for over $25.  I figured this was an easy resell, so I bought him.

He’s selling on ebay too at the moment!

Here’s a thing I didn’t buy at the sale, and kind of wish I did:

I don’t know what I would do with that little guy, but he sure is hilarious.  I’m not sure of his original use (why the long neck?!) but he would make a good shelf prop.

-Erin