Dig This Treasure!

Well, it’s been three weeks since I last updated in general about the eBay World Purge that’s going on over here. 

Not a lot to report, though I am slowly but surely continuing to purge, moving my belongings out, along with a bunch of donations and garbage. There’s still a ton to sell, and I’m being REALLY optimistic because I’ve only got about 4 weeks left away from work. 

Here’s the state of the room this week: 

(bag on chair is garbage)

Lots of floor space now… 

Little Betsy even comes in and keeps me company while I work. Now that the dog bed I’ve had in here for her for a year is unearthed, she knows she’s welcome. 

Today’s project is to list some of the Real Photo Post Cards (RPPC) that I have that I think might we worth something. Who knows anything about these? 

Some seem to go for quite a bit, so we’ll see what happens. 

In the meantime, if anyone’s a big Warhol fan, I’m selling my three Best in Children’s Books that have Warhol-illustrated stories in them. You can find them on eBay now (willing to take any reasonable offer!) and here are some of the illustrations: 

I’ve got a lot more to update about, but that’s it for today! 

-Sarah

A few weeks ago, there was an estate sale in my neighborhood.  It wasn’t on estatesales.net but luckily a friend of mine spotted it and told me.  I am glad she did because the home was that of a former antiques dealer.  Everything in the house was high quality, and even better, there was tons of it. 

As you can see, it was a lot of paper stuff.  I had Everett with me so it was pretty much impossible to look through any of this.  I decided to come back the next day with Sarah.  Before I left though, I struck up a conversation with the women running the sale.  They seemed really nice and kept repeating that they were willing to make good deals.  Nearly everything in the house still had price tags on it from the woman’s antique booth.  The ladies running the sale were her daughters and said they would NOT be charging what the stickers said.  Ok great, I LOVE DEALS.

So Sarah and I come back the next day and it seemed like Sarah was in hogs’ heaven.  One back room of this house was completely filled with old postcards. 

The day before, one of the women running the sale said that a giant box of postcards would be about $60, which she then explained was about a penny a piece per card.  I told Sarah that if she bought a bunch of cards, she would certainly get a good deal.

I found two postcards for myself and let Sarah have the rest.  These Santas usually sell pretty well on ebay.

In the garage there was a ton more paper.  All of it was old brochures, programs, ticket stubs–all your basic ephemera.  I started digging.

I found a plastic sleeve full of old railroad stuff and grabbed it on a whim.  I haven’t sold any train stuff on ebay before, but it seems like something a lot of people are geeky about.

It was really hot outside so I peaced out and went to meet back up with Sarah.  I could tell she was losing steam.  The house had no air and the amount of stuff to look through was getting burdensome.

Not to mention that something else was becoming very clear–these women were totally lying about their “deals."  There would be NO DEALS.  Something had happened since the previous day that made these ladies less than thrilled about parting with their mom’s stuff.  Fair enough.  It’s tough to do.  That said, from our perspective, this was very annoying. 

Sarah’s loss of joy over this sale was pretty clear:

That’s her "Let’s GTFO of here face.”

Postcards were now “individually priced” and some were $12 each.  TWELVE DOLLARS.  EACH.  Sarah had a stack of postcards about 3 inches deep and they wanted to charge her $75.  $75, which they explained, was actually a VERY good deal.  No.

After going back and forth for awhile on prices, I was able to get a small pile of stuff for $17.  It included that train stuff and Santa postcards above, as well as the following:

Don’t old Halloween decorations sell?  These guys are in okay shape and pretty cool looking.

And this horrible card:

No seriously, WTF.  This card isn’t even that old!  JFC.

The best score I got (which should make me not complain so much about the prices at this sale) was an old railroad schedule from the 1890s.  It sold for $100 on ebay last week, which was a huge shock.  It was hovering around $20 and then shot up in the last minute.  So awesome.

Poor Sarah only got some overpriced postcards, although she didn’t end up paying $75.  I think she paid like $25.  Hopefully one of them is made of gold!

Oh and P.S. I went back to this sale for a third time with Zach.  I thought maybe on the last day these women would have a change of heart and really price to sell.  (They didn’t.)  I found this Indian doll that I had a sneaking suspicion was an Armand Marseille.  I had seen a really similar doll at another estate sale in mint condition that was AM and was priced $200.  This one was far from mint but I got it for a mere $5.  It sold on ebay for $36!

Cute huh? If it’s hair hadn’t fallen off, I would have kept it!  Anyway, keep an eye out for these because they are Armand Marseille but are not marked! 

Ok and here is totally-over-it Sarah again.  Just because.

-Erin