Dig This Treasure!

Adam’s grandma passed away last week, so we spent the Friday and Saturday in Buffalo for her funeral. I’ve only been there a handful of times, and it’s an… interesting place. On our way from the funeral to the luncheon, I spotted this sign and made a mental note that we should hit the place up on our way back home. 

The place is called Miss Josie’s and obviously, they specialize in 1970s gear. I learned recently that this is because Buffalo, NY hosts the “World’s Biggest Disco Party” each year. I’m not sure that’s much to boast about but… I guess they should be proud of what they have! 

Apparently this store is normally a regular vintage resale shop but before the disco fest (November 30th this year), they specialize in disco gear. 

Had enough? Wait… there’s more. 

They also had a ton of vintage jewelry, but a lot of it wasn’t my style. 

Though, if you look close, there’s a vintage Jorgen Jensen necklace on that table (bottom row, five necklaces from the right). It was too beat up for me to buy it, but I was happy to see it! 

I asked the owner (I think) where he gets all of his stuff and he said that “it walks in the door.” Hmmm… there must be a lot of disco fanatics in Buffalo. I guess if they host a giant party each year, people probably sell a lot of it back after they’ve worn it once. 

In the end, I did find one treasure. A vintage Pendleton coat that’s in super good shape! All the gay men at the store were raving about how good it looked on me so I had to buy it. In fact, when one guy told me it looked fabulous, I said, “I know.” I didn’t realize how b*tchy that sounded until a few minutes later! 

I also got this cute set of vintage transfers, and a yummy bag of chips in Canada. 

-Sarah

P.S. from me: I forgot to post a picture of this crazy record player we saw in the window!

Oh my gosh. I know it will be hard to top Everett’s debut on the blog, but we have to keep things rolling here. Right?…

OK, FINE… I’ll show you ONE more picture of him… 

Squeeeeeee!!!!! 

Ok, back to our adventures in Grass Lake a few weeks ago. So, after Sarah and I left The Copper Nail, we decided to drive to nearby Chelsea and hit up the Chelsea Antique and Collectibles Mall. I tend to forget that antique malls are places where I might find cute things, so I was glad to have the opportunity. There were actually a lot of cool things at this place, one of which I already blogged about–my adorable pose dolls! Here are some other cool booths & things: 

Below you’ll see a little Cairn Terrier figurine that Sarah spotted. She has a Cairn Terrier so she was interested in this little guy but he was priced outrageously. I just looked online and it seems these are fairly abundant on eBay, so Sarah–go get one! 

Even though this sign includes improper punctuation, I loved it. There were a stack of these small signs for sale but again, they were priced $15 or $20 each, which just seemed to steep for a piece of paper. 

I LOVED this baby quilt but it was also priced a little high and even though I’ve bought things for my non-existent baby in the past, I couldn’t really bring myself to do it here, but now I sort of regret it. 

I really wanted this book but figured I could find it cheaper online. I think it was marked $12. Turns out I was wrong about this one! The cheapest one on Amazon used is $23. Whomp whomp. 

If you look close at the prices, you can see this is a baller collection of mason jars. I was just taking note the other day of the fact that hipsters enjoy drinking things out of mason jars, so maybe this is where you go to get a jar that is different from other hipsters’ jars. 

Sarah was interested in learning more about old things and what draws me to specific items. I gave her a perfect example of something that is tempting to buy (cute, cheap, different)… 

….but that I need to start training myself not to purchase. In this case I did ultimately decided that I did not need to purchase a miniature figurine of a beagle wearing a dress, playing a harp. You’re welcome, Adam. 

There were lots of funny things to see here, but I’ll save that for a rainy day. But before I go, you want to know what I came away with, right?!

I couldn’t resist this mug–since I love hounds and love coffee. The sexist rating scale on the side sealed the deal. 

I got this little piglet for my miniature shelves. He’s cute and weird. 

I also got another vintage baby blanket but I forgot to take a picture of it. 

Oh I forgot to mention the best part about this place–it’s connected to a bowling alley!

Fun here for SURE! 

-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

Holy moly! This is a late update!

On my birthday (end of August), Adam and I stopped at a book & treasure store in Ann Arbor, located in what’s called “Kerrytown.” He actually wanted to go inside and I did not, because I had a vague memory of having a semi-bad experience at this place in the past. But the store is my kind of place–a huge space filled from floor to ceiling with books, paper, and collectibles, so I agreed to go. 

The guy who runs this place is my kinda guy–besides old books, he has TONS of old postcards, greeting cards, and stereoviews. 

Check out that creeper. 

These are all semi-organized in card catalogs throughout the store. I started really getting excited because I found whole drawers of Christmas postcards…

(Note–this was the day after Erin and I got manicures for my birthday. Check out those nails!)

…but then I started noticing the prices located on the backside. Each of these awesome postcards cost between $15 and $40. What the heck?! 

Amid the adorable postcards, I also found some hilarious and scary ones. 

If that’s what Santa looks like, I’m not sure I want him coming down my chimney. 

Have you ever seen a kid so scared to hear Santa? That dog sure is excited, though. 

In the end, I did buy a few postcards and greeting cards–the ones I selected were between $3 and $5 each. 

I went to check out, and when I was doing so, the store owner started chit chatting with me, asking if I saw all the other postcards. I told him that I did see them, but that they were super overpriced. He started lecturing me on rarity and how you determine the value of something–like I was a total dummy. Then I immediately remembered why I didn’t want to go in the store in the first place. The guy was so condescending and thought everything was worth a billion dollars! Many things in the store had tags like this: 

One of his favorite words was “scarce”. 

I told him that I knew they were valuable, but I’m not sure they were worth THAT much… I think in the process of talking to me, he realized that I was not a total idiot, since I do collect paper. So then he insisted that I look at a special box he had behind the counter of his most prized postcards. I went along with it because Adam was giving me The Look (he wanted a good story), but really, some of the postcards in the drawers were way cooler than the ones in his special box.

Then I happened to mention that I collect photographs so he insisted that I look at these groups of photos he had. Well, it turns out he had a whole envelope filled with people and their pets, so I was actually pretty excited. Here’s what I bought: 

Sorry for the darkness/quality–I took those pictures in my dark living room.

The big prize was this cabinet card: 

It was marked a hefty $16 but I really wanted it. 

I brought up my second round of treasures to the checkout desk and he seemed very impressed with my selections. Then he took one look at that cabinet card and said, “This is a $30 photograph.” I said “NO WAY DUDE.” Those words exactly. He said “Oh no I’m going to honor the price on the back but I want you to know this is a very rare, valuable photograph." 

But then things changed. He started telling me about his dogs. If you know me at all, you know that all you have to do is talk about an old dog around me and I fall apart. He went on to point out the freakin’ professional photo/glamourshots he had of his three pugs hanging on the walls. There is so much crap in this place, I hadn’t noticed them until then. He then told us the story of Taz, his oldest pug (16), who he had to put down this year. He and his wife do community theater, and when they took him to the vet, it was Valentine’s Day. He sang "My Funny Valentine” to his 16 year old pug, as the vet euthanized poor little Taz. Oh my gosh. 

As he told us the story, he got a little teary, and I could not help but end up liking this guy. I think he must just be really attached to all of the things in his store. The high prices seem to be a way to allow him to keep holding on to all of it. He asked me to send him a photograph of the cabinet cards, and I haven’t yet. I should go do this now. 

-Sarah

Ok, so last week I had some crazy bad ebay luck.  I’m going to blame this on bad karma I racked up by telling this guy on my street that he “looks more pregnant than me.”  (I’m huge.)  I know, I know, so awful.  In my defense, his dog chased George and I across the street and this is the second time it has happened.  This guy refuses to leash or fence his dog.  And he told me to “Get a Life,” when I asked why he can’t restrain his animal.  Before you all give up hope on me, I am remorseful and did cry about it.  ANYWAY, that still didn’t stop the bad ebay karma.

The good news is that my bad ebay luck has some good lessons for all of us.  So hold on to your butts, here are my takeaways:

The first item that was a huge bust for me was this Captain Hook marionette.  You may remember him from this sale.  I paid $10 for him and he sold for $8.  While only $2, a loss is a loss, and losses add up.  The lesson here is that condition matters…a lot.  When I saw this guy at the sale, I thought he had the right amount of age and wear to make him look extra vintage-y cute.  

Except that I didn’t notice he is completely missing his left hand…you know, the one with the hook…the one that makes him CAPTAIN HOOK.  Oy.  Seriously people, take the extra 30 seconds and look things over closely.

Last week, I also bought this cool porcelain bathing beauty lady.  She had this mark on the bottom which I figured I could just google and find the maker.  No such luck.  This mark proved impossible to locate.  I spent $20 on her and she sold for $26.  Not a loss, but I really thought this lady would end up as one of our “money makers.”

The lesson here is that if you don’t know what you have, no one else will.  I couldn’t properly advertise this item on ebay because I didn’t know the maker.  To top it off, I didn’t even realize that this was actually The Little Mermaid, which one of our readers pointed out to me in our comments section.  A double whammy.  I could have taken this to a porcelain store, or asked about it on a message board before I listed it, but I got too hasty.

Ok, so seriously, know what something is before you buy it.  Or try REALLY HARD to figure out what something is before you list it.  I bought the metal sign (?) above for $10 and it sold for $9.99.  Again, I didn’t know what I had.  This thing is obviously Stag Tobacco related, but is it a sign?  Or is is an uncut sheet of metal used to make tins?  Is it a mold of some sort?  Who the hell knows.  I sure as heck didn’t, and I paid the price for that.  

Are you feeling bad for me yet?  This is a lot of ebay failure for one week.  Hang in there, I’ve got more.  I bought these Ohio State glasses for $3 each and the pair sold for $6.99.  The lesson here is to know your buyer.  I bought these because Ohio State stuff is usually mega collectible.  What I didn’t realize though, is that it is specific Ohio State stuff.  

You see, mostly men collect sports stuff.  And I’m sorry to generalize, but it seems to me that men like old ticket stubs, programs, pennants, etc.  Not drinking glasses apparently.  So my cups just didn’t appeal to collectors like other memorabilia would have.

So to top it off, I also sold a pair of candlesticks for $9.99.  I paid $10 for them.  This was particularly frustrating to me because the same pair had sold the week prior on ebay for $40.  I blame this on my bad karma.  I also blame my karma for the fact that one of the candlesticks broke during shipping, and I had to refund the buyer.

Seriously, some bad buys (and bad luck) here!  I hope all of you are having much better ebay successes.  And to save my ego, be sure to take a look here, here, and here for some of my greatest ebay sales.  Trust me, I used to be the ebay master.

-Erin

After we left the overpriced sale from hell, Erin and I were ready for some num nums. On our way to find food, Erin spotted a sign that said “Sale” in front of a store. We had no idea what sort of store, but I did a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot. As it turns out, we discovered a tiny little gem in the middle of… wherever we were. 

There’s a picture of the storefront through my disgustingly dirty windshield. 

I’ll admit that the front looked a little janky but the inside was awesome!

The store was filled with lots of antiques, vintage clothing, and just nice, cool stuff in general. Here I am, about to annihilate this cabinet of goodies. I bought three things inside of it! 

You can also see that I’m holding an awesome red buffalo plaid jacket. I found it on a rack in the back and it was from J. Crew, in perfect shape. It looked small to me but ended up fitting perfectly! 

(Yes, I am married to this person.)

Erin was really interested in that Kewpie doll in the case above but it was priced too high. I ended up with the jacket and some other small items. Here are some of the cutest: 

Can you believe those puppies? They’re almost too cute to look at. They’re breaking my computer monitor with their cuteness. 

I bought one other item at this sale that I’m going to save for another day because I love it so much, I want to highlight it. 

The lady who ran this shop was awesome. She was a little old lady but was very cute and hip, and shared all sorts of gossip with us once we started talking to her. She also had reasonable prices and would negotiate. I’ll let Erin tell you about the gossip. 

She was also the perfect person to ask for a restaurant recommendation. After we left her shop, we went to River Crest family dining, per her suggestion. 

It was great. Good ranch dressing and chili fries are all I ask for in a restaurant. All Erin asks for is good cole slaw and egg salad sandwiches. This place lived up to our expectations. And they had free tootsie rolls. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: First of all, and most importantly, I got a BLT, not an egg salad sandwich, at RiverCrest.

Anyway, when we rolled up at this little shop, I mentioned to the owner that we spotted the store after visiting an estate sale in the area.  It was instantly clear that this woman was well aware of the estate sale we were talking about.  We were then told the following tale:

So apparently, the crazy woman running the $7 bra estate sale (here is the link again) had originally hired a company to come in and run the sale.  The company cleaned up the entire house (it was apparently chaos) and organized everything on tables, etc.  Once the clean-up was done, the crazy woman who owned the house CALLED THE POLICE.  She told the police some lie about the company and fraud and how they were now trespassing on her property.  The police forced the company to leave, and not return.  

So, if you’re not following, this woman got a free house cleaning and estate sale set-up, because she is absolutely bat-sh*t crazy.  I must say, though, this is kind of genius.

So I bought two things at this store.  First was a Johnson Brothers huge, heavy platter.  

It looks like a winter scene, but there’s a turkey hidin’ up in there, so this platter is now multi-use.

The store owner wanted $50, and I was about to put it back when she asked what I was willing to pay.  I said $30, but we settled on $35.

That kewpie doll in the case was really cool.  It had a little heart sticker on its chest that looked very old.  I don’t know a lot about kewpies, but I was guessing that this one was a Rose O'Neill because of the heart.  Anyone know if I’m right?  It looked like this one I found online:

It was marked $100, which I didn’t want to spend, but maybe it is worth that.

The second item I bought was a Navajo ring.  The stone is spiny oyster in a really cool color.

I’m really antsy to wear this ring, but I have to get it sized first.  It’s just slightly too small.  

Ok, stay tuned, because this day’s adventures are far from over.  Sarah and I had one more stop, and it turned out to be a doozy.