Yogurttown
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Last Friday, Erin and I had a lot of sales on our list of prospects. There were actually quite a few near her house, but only one looked good. Erin really wanted to go because she spotted a Selmer saxophone in the pictures online. If you remember, we once saw a Selmer sax sell at auction for over $6,000, so I can see why she was excited.
When we arrived, however, the Selmer was gone. The guy running the sale said it went for $3,000 and the guy who bought it was first in line, waiting at 5 a.m.
There were some other instruments but none that seemed as valuable, I don’t think. So Erin passed on the rest.
This house was a typical “old person” house with not a lot of fabulous things, but some treasures here and there. I came away with a few of my own to both resell and keep. To keep, I found this cute strawberry bowl (my kitchen is green and red) for two bucks.
To sell, I found this adorable Holt Howard kitty pin box with a tape measure for a tongue!
I only bought this because it was $1 and super adorable, and I had never seen anything like it. I didn’t know that Holt Howard was a collectible brand but it appears that it really is!
The thing that I have is from his “cozy cats” line, but it looks like what sells best are his “pixieware” pieces, like the one above. Here’s a closer look at the pixieware:
Pretty cute! I can see why people collect these things. But they’re probably Erin’s worst nightmare because they’re so Mid Century/Retro looking.
Next up on our list was a sale in Dearborn that looked pretty good. I found some old Christmas cards right away, and Erin prevented me from buying this shirt:
I told her that it was so cute because it looked like something an elementary school art teacher would wear but she reminded me that that isn’t what I do for a living.
Erin spotted this portrait of me wearing my brown wig…
Right after that, she found that picture of herself that we posted on Friday.
I discovered these cool antique weights, but they had them marked $40 for the set:
I found some cool old records, including Disney’s Peter and the Wolf, which terrified me as a child. One of my earliest memories is of climbing out of my crib because the shotgun sounds on the record scared the sh*t out of me (I think my parents must have been listening to it with my brother, who is 5 years older than me.)
After we left this sale, it was lunch time, and Erin surprised me by having a craving for Mexican food. Let me tell you, ever since Erin’s had morning sickness, our food options on our adventures have been greatly limited. Normally, she only wants to eat somewhere if it has “family dining” in the name. We had some delicious food at Frida in downtown Dearborn, and then treated ourselves to some Yogurt Town. Here’s an action shot of me, delightfully planning my yogurt creation:
It did not disappoint.
Next up was a sale in Wyandotte, and on the way there were found ourselves at a completely different sale, which was where I found that Dave Grossman statue that Adam hates. To give you an idea of how these people overprice things, check out these book prices:
I’m not sure where a Reader’s Digest book is worth $15, but it’s not in this galaxy.
In the end, I also found some cute Christmas items at this sale, including a few knee hugger type guys, and a brand new vintage Holly Hobbie apron!
For the record, the woman tried to charge me $5 for each of those knee huggers. It didn’t work.
The last sale we hit was a doozie. These people had priced everything in the house as if it was a brand new item at a store, at 100% retail. They had a bunch of Jim Shore stuff that is Erin’s jam and not mine, but I did buy this beagle ornament because it was pretty cute.
Here’s a shot of all of it:
Nice stuff for sure, but not worth buying at an estate sale at its original retail price!
The only other thing I found here was a Zingerman’s book that was in great shape.
When I brought it up the lady looked super annoyed and/or confused. I said, “It’s supposed to be a dollar.” She said she knew, and then it occurred to me that she was probably upset because she thought she could get more than a dollar for it. COME ON!
-Sarah
Update from Erin: At the first sale, they were trying to sell opened food products, which is always so strange to me. I’ve come all the way to this estate sale, and ah yes, wonderful, a half used bag of sugar! Also, don’t any of you DARE touch the cake pop mix because it clearly belongs to Martina.
Look at that! THE SPAGHETTI BOX IS TAPED SHUT.
Anyway, at least there were some cute, non-edible items at the sale.
I found these little moccasins. One day I will force my baby to wear them, but for now I will just stare at them in admiration.
I also found this little trinket tray for $2. I gave it to Zach’s mom as part of her Mother’s Day present because she loves all things Mexico. This is from Juarez.
The second sale was kind of grody. I didn’t buy anything. You know what was NOT grody though? Yogurttown. I give a full endorsement to Yogurttown in Dearborn, MI. Hear that Yogurttown? If you are reading, I want some free froyo. And a t-shirt. Preferably one that says froYOLO.
After our froyo excursion, we hit a secret sale that happened to be really overpriced. I saw this rubber face reindeer as soon as we walked in:
Now, I previously sold a similar one of these guys on ebay for a hefty profit. I asked the guy how much this one was, and he started talking about how they are selling on ebay for $75, and how he’s not really sure, and on and on.
I wanted to say to him, “Are we on ebay right now? Is this ebay?” Seriously, we hear this all the time… “Well on ebay that’s sellin’ for blah and blah.” Cool. THEN SELL IT ON EBAY. I would have no problem if people running estate sales pulled the best stuff ahead of time and sold it on ebay for the best price. But once an item is in a sale, let’s be realistic.
In the end, we settled on $15 for this guy. And yes, I will be selling him on ebay.
Here is something I didn’t buy. Mostly because it has wings on the FRONT of its body, and a soulless face.
I wish I could have bought some of the Jim Shore stuff at the last sale, but it was all priced sooo high. I’m talking $25-$50 per piece. Here is one piece I took notice of. It appears to be Santa praying over the body of a dead child. Am I right? The child has a halo! Not Jim’s best work…
I did enjoy shopping this sale though because it was one of those times where peeking into someone’s house turns out super interesting. Usually we see messy hoarders, but this was the complete opposite. This person was so neat and clean that they kept all of the tags and plastic on the house lamps!
Mommy Dearest
Last Friday, Erin and I were pretty excited because there were two sales that seemed sort of promising…FINALLY. We ventured out a little late, as Erin mentioned, but got on our way shortly after noon and headed to Fraser, which is really far away.
When we got to the house, we had to park in a parking lot behind it, and walk through a very, very muddy backyard to get inside. The house was on a main road, so I realize that this makes sense, but what does not make sense is not laying down some cardboard or something so that people didn’t have to track mud into the house. Turns out that it didn’t really matter if mud got tracked through the house, because it was in pretty rough shape. Here are a few examples:
That is a ceiling, if you can’t tell. Lookin’ good. Here’s what that wall looked like from afar:
That is no environment for newborns!
This sale looked enticing because there were a lot of old toys and dolls, but they were outrageously priced. For example, I really liked these guys:
But guess how much they cost, each? If you guessed $20 you are wrong. They were each marked $375. Crazy times. There was an employee in each room of dolls, monitoring the situation. There were no thieves in these rooms–just crazy old ladies speaking to the dolls. At one point, I did find an exact replica of Baby Erin. This doll manufacturer must have obtained some photographs from her parents of her as an infant–it’s just so spot on.
Not tired of looking at dolls yet? Ok!
Shortly after we took this picture, a lady holding a different doll turned around and exclaimed to us, “This baby has a penis!” Ok, awesome.
How many people do you think this baby has killed?
There was even a man doll playing air guitar.
And some terrifying baby masks that I tried to convince Erin were “sort of cute."
As you can see by my arms, I found a bunch of records at this sale. They were all children’s records, and I asked if I could just buy two whole cases of them because I’m always too lazy to sort. Many of them were Peter Pan records from the ‘50s and '60s, which ended up being super awesome. The coolest ones in the bunch, though, were these picture discs:
Overall, the sale wasn’t fabulous, but it was definitely an interesting house with some crazy stuff inside. And I was happy with my purchases.
After we got out of Doll Land, I convinced Erin that we needed to pick up some cupcakes, since we were near my favorite cupcake place in Michigan. Just a word to the wise–lemon yogurt cupcakes ARE good. Next, we hit up a sale that Erin was excited about but based on the pictures, I was not. I ended up buying a children’s book and a small vintage piggy bank. I don’t think Erin bought anything at all. Whoomp Whoomp.
-Sarah
Update from Erin: The first house had some cool stuff, but it was all just so filthy. It made me sad, and annoyed to be honest. A man working the sale told me that some of the dolls they had there were worth up to $2,000 each, so I can’t understand why you wouldn’t try to take care of them. Oh well, things happen.
Sarah didn’t mention that the house also had a Doo-Wop motif, which was interesting. Look at that plastic diner food in the corner.
I unearthed a great treasure pretty early. It was hiding in a box under a table, or else it surely would have sold before we got there. At the time, I didn’t know if this was a Rushton bear or not, but really hoped it was.
I put this guy up on ebay and explained that I didn’t know the maker. Silly me, it said "The Rushton Co” RIGHT ON HIS CHIN. I didn’t even see it.
This guy is doing amazing on ebay right now, currently selling for $74.99. And he has 34 watchers! The auction ends tomorrow, so I will keep you all posted. I only paid $3 for him!!
I should also note here, that while doing some rubber face animal research, I found the best blog all about them. Everyone should check out Grubby Rubbers. This girl’s collection is seriously incredible. She has about 500 old rubber toys in her collection.
Ok, so back to the sale. At one point, we were in the basement, and it was just a nightmare.
You could hardly move, and everything was so dusty. I started to feel all asthma-y. And then I got MEGA thirsty. Just then, I looked over and saw this hiding among all the treasures:
A giant bottle of Coke! I laughed mightily to myself when I saw that. Also, how did that man get back there? A true mystery.
Later in the house I found Mrs. Beasley. Remember her? Sarah and I were fools for not buying her the last time we came across her. This time, when I found her, I scooped her up immediately. I will have her up on ebay shortly, but in the meantime, I am trying to get her hair in order.
Her hair was sticking straight up, so I wet it down and then made that little Beasley-bonnet. Hopefully her hair will stay down when the bonnet comes off so that I can sell her.
The last item I found was for keeps. This stuffed Santa is hilarious and adorable. He was pretty grody, but I washed him. He was $3.
His hands move up and down, so he kind of looks like he is raising the roof when they’re up.
I didn’t buy anything else. Not even this baby doll that looked exactly like Sarah:
Those eyebrows are spot on.
The second sale, like Sarah mentioned, was a total bust. They were trying to sell this old washing machine, which was cool, but useless. And totally huge.
They were also selling this “Merry Christmas” garland that only had the letters “M-E-R-R-Y C-H-R.” I wanted to take this up to the people running the sale and say, “Excuse me, but you are literally selling a piece of garbage at this sale. This piece of garbage literally has a price tag on it.” Astounding.
They were also selling this:
Although, I shouldn’t be too hard on this one. All you need is a really giant button and that doll is as good as new.
-Erin