Dig This Treasure!

On Friday, Sarah and I were eager to hit a sale in Farmington Hills because it had a bunch of Herend fishnet animals.  Ok, so I was more excited than Sarah, but she still seemed interested in the other items at the sale.  Everything in the photos looked high-end and collectible.  The sale was run by the same people who put on that amazing folk art sale where we scored some mega deals.

Sure enough, the person who owned this house had expensive taste.

That lamp was so badass, but it was priced $395 :(

As for the Herend I mentioned earlier, I didn’t buy any because it was all priced pretty close to retail.  I decided to return to this sale on Sunday when they were discounting.  Unfortunately by then someone had already scooped up all of the fishnet pieces!  That’s what I get for singing the praises of Herend on this blog!  Now everyone loves it.  Sheesh!

I did buy one piece of non-fishnet Herend.  This tiny rabbit box for $20:

I know, that is about the most precious thing you have ever seen.

One more story about this sale is that Sarah got busted by the police on our way home.  She made a questionable pass through a yellow/red light and a cop car started following us.  He didn’t put on his lights right away so Sarah and I were living in terror for a good couple minutes. 

Finally, the lights and sirens went on and Sarah and I sat in scared silence as we waited for the cops to approach.  I thought about asking Sarah what she was going to say to the cop, but I realized she was silently freaking out so I figured it best to just keep my mouth shut.  I’m sure she appreciated that gesture.

Then the weirdest thing happened and this young, cool dude cop strolled up and said all nonchalantly, “Watch those yellow lights ok?"  And then he started to walk away!  Sarah was like, "Do you want to see my stuff?” (meaning her license, etc.)  He said, “No, I already know who you are.”

So then the BEST thing happened.  I said really loudly and shocked to Sarah, “YOU KNOW HIM?!?!"  In my brain, they were like high school buddies or something.  Sarah pointed out that I was in fact the dumbest person of all time and that the cop simply meant he had already run her license plate and knew her name and info.

DUH.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin covered this sale expertly. The only thing I’ll add here is… yes, these people are very nice and get lots of very nice high end sales. But sometimes I want to take items up to them and say, 

For example: 

Yo, dawg. A full sheet set should cost about $10 at an estate sale. FORTY FIVE DOLLARS? And we all know that Style&co. is the cheapo Macy’s brand. It’s not like those are some high quality Calvin Klein sheets. The things that are most offensively overpriced at their sales are things like this! Everyday items that do not need to be marked up a billion dollars. 

I did buy one item at this sale. A very cute, super fat "art glass” bunny (that’s what it said on the tag.) It was marked $20 which is a little steep for a brandless bunny but it’s still pretty unique and cool. 

She fits right in among all of the other bunnies that live in our dining room. 

And thank god that officer was so awesome! I would have totally deserved that ticket because the light was right at the questionable level. And thank god ALSO that Erin made the wise choice to keep her mouth shut during the whole transaction (until the very end when she thought we were long lost homies)… it’s a true miracle that she didn’t say anything else. 

Ev didn’t come with us on our adventure, and when we got back, it looked as if he was pretty pleased with that decision. 

Also, I feel sad that Erin didn’t get any of her fishnet pieces. That baby bear was adorable. 

You might remember the auction in Romulus that kind of kicked off Sarah’s auction fever.  Remember she bought that whole platter of dolls?  

We ventured back to this auction a few Fridays ago.  The wares looked really appealing.

We ran into a friend of ours at this auction and he was there scoping out some paintings.  He thought they might be mega valuable, like tens of thousands, if they were real.  Sarah and I explained to him that prices at this auction sometimes go really high (we saw a saxophone sell for $4,000 once).  Really though, to us, “really high” means something goes over like $60.  Our friend said he was willing to spend a couple grand on the paintings which made me be like 1. Are you secretly rich?  2. Why have you never told me you were secretly rich? and 3. Buy me those paper mache Santas because I don’t want to spend more than $50 on them.

[Spoiler alert: The paintings sold for over $2,000 each and our friend didn’t win any of them.  The Santas went for over $200, and not to me.]

There were actually two auctions happening at this place at the same time.  A back room was filled with all old, ceramic baby plates being auctioned off separately.  

Here is a plate showing me on the day that I got chased by another dog while out walking George and then in anger called a man fat:

Sarah and I hung out in this baby plate room the most because items were selling really affordably.  In the main auction room, things were quite different.  You see, this auction is great because they have really nice things all the time.  However, the auctioneer is, to be frank, super obnoxious.

He does this whole act with EVERY item in which he says, “Ok we got this [insert item] and clearly this is very old and it must be WORTH AT LEAST [insert some crazy high price].”  This gets so frustrating because sometimes he doesn’t even know what an item is, and yet he makes up some fantastical price for it.  And then the item always sells for around that price.

Kudos to him for having such a trustworthy audience, all of whom are going to be so sad when they do some research on ebay later.

Ok, so back in the baby plate room, I scored two items.  Both of these are Roseville pottery, a brand I bought and sold recently.  These plates came together in a lot that I paid $40 for.  I am keeping the rabbit one for future baby’s room:

I love this because the rabbits kind of look like weird martian rabbits.

The second plate has chicks on it and I am going to list it on ebay:

Other than these two things, I didn’t buy anything else at the auction.  

Sarah tried to buy some things but kept failing miserably.  After the baby plate auction, a third separate auction started for a bunch of old postcards.  There were literally thousands of postcards, all stored in huge albums.  Each album was selling for $80-$200 each, depending on the content of the cards inside.

It was sad to watch.  In my head I was cheering for Sarah, and visibly holding my breath each time she was bidding.  But this SAME WOMAN each time would outbid her.  This woman bought nearly every album and spent a ton of cash doing so.  

There’s Sarah looking forlorn in the crowd.  I wanted to yell out, “Come on! Just let her buy one!!” but there was a whole crowd of people wanting to just buy one album and they didn’t get to either.

It turns out that this woman owns an online store in which she scans vintage postcards that are past copyright and turns them into “new things”–probably prints them on a ton of sh*t.  To be fair, this is a genius idea.  Still though, she could have shared a little bit of the bounty.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Before I get amped up with postcard talk, let me show you a few things that were cool at this auction that I did not purchase. 

I’m really kicking myself for missing out on that sign because Adam realllllly liked it when I showed him the picture, and it would fit in very well in our kitchen. 

That plate is so stinkin’ cute but I could not rationalize buying it because I do not have baby boys. 

Giant shelf with tiny drawers? Yes, please! 

These aren’t cool–they’re super ugly and look like ducks with alligator heads. But I think they were Roseville and I wanted to show them to you. 

Ok, postcard time. What that lady does with her postcards is what Adam has been begging me to do with all of the paper goods I find that are past copyright. There is something about this that really bothers me and makes me feel bad–that I’d be turning someone’s old artwork into something mass produced. Also, in case you forgot, Adam–I have a full-time job. I don’t know–good for her. But it’s not something I’d want to do. Also, I actually felt hatred toward her while the auction was happening. I mean come on. These albums had HUNDREDS of cards in them each–do you really need 10,000 postcards?! 

They were really cool cards and in very good condition. Here’s an example of why I wanted just ONE album to sort through. 

Oh also at one point, when they were letting people choice out the albums of cards (there were so many albums that the auctioneer would say the winner had to take 4 or 5 at the high bid price) and she won, she looked at her loooong list of what she wanted and said, “Where’s 41? I want that one.” The auctioneer was like, “You already bought that one.” WTFFFFFFF?!!!!! Clearly, she didn’t even know what she did or didn’t have in her possession! 

I wish we had gotten a picture of her because she had a little minion/friend with her who was in charge of her book full of notes about each album. Erin said that when we get older, that’s going to be us. But *I’m* going to be the a$$hole buying all the postcards. :(

I did end up buying two things. First was this baby plate with hounds running on it. I’m not sure why I wanted it so bad but I did, and it was only $20. 

The second item was this set of baby plates that I really loved. Shockingly, Adam also really loved these. 

So cute! 

What Erin explained about this auctioneer is true. This experience really just made me not want to go to his auctions again. We had a surprise run-in with him the following week, though, which we will tell you about soon! 

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. 

Last week was chock full o’ sales for me, as I ventured out Tuesday and then again on Thursday with my sister Lindsay and dad Timmy (and again on Friday with Sarah).  Timmy was super excited because there were like 6 sales within a 5 mile radius on Thursday, so our prospects for treasure looked good.

The first sale was in Redford, and was actually a repeat of a sale that happened a few weeks ago.  This time, there were even MORE items, and the basement was opened.  I forgot to take pictures at this sale, so here are some I pulled off estatesales.net:

This sale had some GREAT dolls, but they were all priced pretty high.  I carried one around for awhile, but it was $70, so I don’t know who I was kidding…I put it back eventually.  As you know, Sarah and I are on a doll kick as of late, which has been SUPER successful for both of us.  Here’s what I ended up selling that little “idiot doll” for last week:

The first item I did find to buy was a Stangl pottery box.  One of my newer estate sale tricks is to buy things that I personally like and would be happy to keep if they end up not selling on ebay.  

The box did sell after all.  I paid $4 for it and it sold for $20. 

A funny thing happened when I was looking at this box.  I was all alone in a bedroom, examining the piece.  A window near me was open, so I could hear people outside.  All of a sudden I hear a woman ask one of the sellers about a particular item, and the seller responds, “Oh, I think it is in that room right there where that MAN in the plaid shirt is standing.”  Upon hearing this, I look down at my shirt, and I AM WEARING A PLAID SHIRT.  And I am alone in this room!  I AM THE MAN IN THE PLAID SHIRT.  Hilarious and sad.  To be fair, my hair was up in a bun this day.

I think my sister had the best scores at this sale, but I can’t remember all that she bought.  I know she found a Rushton rubber face squirrel and an old Monchichi monkey.  

At the next sale, everything was super high end, but the prices were fair.  My sister found a super cool item and was nice enough to give it to me:

This is a Knight head wine stopper, but when you lift its little face shield, you can pour the wine out through the spout!  How cool is that?!  I can’t wait to use it.

We stopped at a few more sales which were duds.  I did make one final purchase, which was a piece of cast iron enamelware.  It was brand new!  

These things are on Amazon for $120, and the lady had a price of $45 on it.  I bartered her down to $30 after explaining that I love rabbits and showing her my rabbit tattoo.  Embarrassing tactics, but they worked.  She said she would make the deal because I was “cute.”

I didn’t tell her that earlier in the day someone mistook me for a man.  

-Erin

So the New York posts continue…

While walking around the West Village with Zach and our friend Mary, I spotted this little basement shop called “The Porcelain Room”.  It seriously looked like the cutest place on Earth, packed full of tiny porcelain creatures and decor.  

I don’t think I realized my love for porcelain until I went in this store.  I wanted pretty much everything, especially this deer bowl:

I kept imagining what it would be like to have a party and serve something in this adorable dish.  It cost $2,500 though, so I guess I’ll never know.

I did find something a bit more reasonable in price.  It was this cute rabbit made by KPM in Berlin.  He was $310, which is still pretty outrageous for a porcelain anything.  I pulled this photo of him off the KPM website:

So the point here is that I want me some baller porcelain.  It’s something I am going to keep my eye out for at future sales, which I am sure Zach will be thrilled about.

-Erin

As mentioned, Sarah and I hit the road last week for a mini vacay up in Traverse City, MI.  We were sure that many antique stores, yard sales, flea markets, and more awaited us.  It turns out though that most of the antique stores in Northern Michigan have gone out of business.  And for whatever reason, there wasn’t a single estate or yard sale!  What a true bummer!  

We did manage to find some treasures though, as well as wacky things that I’m sure Sarah will blog about at some point.  

One antique store we did find was in downtown Traverse City, and was 4 floors of high-end collectibles (including antique gynecology tables.) Unfortunately for us, we arrived there 10 minutes before they were closing.  Before being kicked out, I spotted some old chocolate and ice cream molds:

Of course, I particularly liked this rabbit one, but it was too pricey.

Having a glimpse at this store made us plan a special return visit.  A couple days later we made the ½ hour drive back to Traverse City (we were staying in nearby Cedar) to find us some treasures.  When we got there, the store had closed early BECAUSE OF A PARADE.  Usually I love parades, but not when they ruin our fun.  We were so disappointed.  

I convinced Sarah that we should hike our way through the parade and its crowd to another antique store nearby.  Luckily, it was open.  They had some neat items, particularly this giant bear skin rug:

I was also pretty obsessed with this bird basket, but it was expensive.  I also don’t have any birds to put in it.

I ended up buying a sterling silver rabbit ring.  I think Sarah bought some earrings.

No one bought these little mermaid cat statues though.  Whomp whomp.

-Erin

Update from Sarah:  I was very bad about taking pictures everywhere we went, but Erin summarized our disappointment fairly well. What the “antiquing” experience did affirm for me is that I love estate sale-ing and don’t really care for antique shopping. It’s so hard to get into it when you see the prices on stuff that we normally see at sales for about a 10th of the price. 

I did purchase a cute pair of sterling silver heart earrings and a copper piggy bank. The earrings were totally overpriced but I hadn’t really purchased a lot for myself on the trip, which is abnormal for me. So I splurged. 

In a day or two, I’ll give y'all an update about one “antique store” that found in Northport that contained countless gems. In the meantime, check out this treasure that Erin decided to pass on: 

Me, Erin, and my mom had an extensive argument about whether this was a beaver, squirrel or chipmunk mask. Feel free to weigh in. 

Here’s our latest installment of items we found pretty hard to resist!

The craftsmanship on this cottonball bunny is pretty remarkable.  I couldn’t find a maker’s mark on it, but I’m sure the artist was professionally trained.

I mean, look at that whisker placement!  Spot on!

P.S. I thought about asking Sarah how much she would pay me to eat one of those jelly beans, but then I realized that if I did that, I would feel obligated to buy this cottonball bunny.  You can’t eat pieces off an item you haven’t purchased.  I then realized that if I bought this cottonball bunny, I would want to throw it in the trash, which would make me feel guilty and sad.

Moving on, here are some body doubles from the movie “Children of the Corn”:

These guys were$10 each, which is half of the price I would need to be paid to take them home.

-Erin

By now you are all well acquainted with the “best sale ever”, and even though I got a million treasures there, the most lucrative by far were the antique metal molds.  

Like I mentioned, I’ve known for awhile that antique chocolate molds are collectible, but that’s about all I knew.  So here’s what I discovered after buying a bunch of them…

First off, not all old molds are for chocolate.  A few of the molds I bought were pewter, and actually meant for ice cream.  Fancy rich people in the Victorian era used to have their ice cream molded into festive shapes for parties.  Each guest would be served an adorable mini ice cream, all dolled up to look like Santa or a President or even other foods (vegetables mainly).  Here is one of the ice cream molds I bought:

The outside of the mold said “E & Co.” which I soon found out meant Eppelsheimer Company, one of the earliest mold manufacturers.  This was a good thing, because signed molds are generally more valuable.  This Santa dated to 1890!  

The chocolate molds I bought were thinner and not made of pewter.  Most of them were 2-piece molds.  One of the most interesting I found was this tiny Pope mold:

I almost didn’t buy this mold because of the rust on it, but one of the men running the sale mentioned that he had never seen a Pope mold before.  I bought it for $5, which turned out to be TOTALLY worth it.  This little guy is made by Joh. Fohn, which is apparently pretty rare because I can hardly find anything about that company online.  I do know that it is German and pretty darn old.  

I had a lot of people asking me questions about the Joh. Fohn mold and whether its sides matched up well.  Turns out that this is super important in mold collecting.  Molds should close up snugly and all edges should align, otherwise the value decreases drastically.  

Another tip in mold collecting is that the larger and heavier a mold is, the more valuable.  I found this out with my most favorite mold from this sale.  It is a super large Santa that weighs 3 pounds!

The heavy hinge, along with clamps that kept the mold shut tight, made this piece the most collectible.  It didn’t even have a maker’s mark, but its size and girth were enough.  It also helped that the mold had such impressive detail inside.  Reading about molds online made me realize that the more detail, the more desirable.  

I bought this mold for $30, which made me nervous at the time.  It ended up selling for $177!  I could not be more thrilled, obviously.  Here’s how all of the mold auctions went:

OK, so before one of you tries breaking into my house and stealing all of the cash I made on these, just know that the proceeds were used to buy George the otterhound.  

I also used some of it to get my very first tattoo, a rabbit on my right forearm, which I may or may not be disowned by my parents for.

That’s it in progress.  Also, I was totally THAT PERSON who wore a rabbit shirt while getting a rabbit tattoo.  UGH.

-Erin