Dig This Treasure!

You guys! I LITERALLY slept through Christmas.  In the days leading up to it, I was feeling more and more ill, and sure enough, I was so sick on Christmas morning that I slept the whole day and day after.  UGH.  This was the ultimate in sadness.  Not only did I miss the magic of Christmas day, I missed a blog post all about my cool Christmas finds from the year!  So here it is now, deal with it.

One of the largest and most-Christmasy items we found this year was a giant wood Santa Claus.  Timmy had been on the lookout for one and when Sarah and I found this for a mere $20, we had to buy it.  

Here it is back then:

And here it is now…  (Don’t worry everyone, my dad bolted it to the house so that no one would steal it.)  

And here are some more favorite Christmas finds:

That ceramic wreath stayed lit for like a day before the bulbs inside burned out.  But it is still cool!

Christmas Garfield and a wooden Santa that kicks its arms and legs when you pull that string.

That cardinal cookie jar and plate were only $5, and I remember thinking at the time that that was a HUGE steal.  When I got home though, I realized there was a big crack in the back of the cookie jar.  I sealed it up nice with some glue, and you can’t even tell!  That dog stocking for George was actually found on ebay, and it cracks me up every time I look at it.  The holly on the bottom looks like gravestone art or something and the text is super weird.  

This roly poly tin is perhaps my favorite Christmas treasure.  Zach found it at the Midland flea market.  He had been talking for weeks beforehand about wanting one of these tins, but they were kind of pricey on ebay.  And then sure enough, he found one clean as a whistle and for only $8.  These old tins were made by the American Tobacco Company and come in all sorts of characters.

And here is our dining room on Christmas Eve, before I got the Plague.  I finally got to use all of the Waechtersbach Christmas tree plates I got at “Best Sale Ever.”  My mother-in-law, who got me started on collecting these plates, could not believe how many pieces of the set I now had.  Finding all of the set at one estate sale was an incredible score.  

You can’t see them in this photo, but I had all of the serving platters and bowls in this set too, as well as a whole tea set!  Very exciting!

Merry belated Christmas!

-Erin

We are a little behind on our updates. What can we say–the holiday season is upon us!

Two Fridays ago, Erin and I started off our afternoon by hitting up the sale where we found Beefy. As mentioned, this was the home of a party store owner. It only took about three steps into the house for you to realize that this was the case:

There was a major liquor theme going on.

We didn’t spend much time there.

Next up was a sale that had some cool stuff, but it was pretty overpriced. I don’t remember a lot about it–maybe Erin does. I bought a vintage travel Scrabble kit for $4 that I sold for $45 the next day. Whoop!

After this, we went to a sale in Warren that was advertised as having lots of antiques. I was a little leery of going to this sale because the pictures didn’t look that great, but Erin was obsessed. Turns out this sale was in a condo, and also turns out that this sale was just a glorified indoor garage sale. As soon as I stepped foot in the house, I felt creeped out. The guy wasn’t very old–maybe 40–and he seemed to be clearing out the contents of an antique booth, from what I gathered (everything had booth stickers on it). I bought another stereoscope and a printing drawer. It was impossible to take pictures because it was a cramped area and the guy was right there.

At one point, Erin was crouching down looking at some stuff on the floor and a little white cat came out of nowhere. This cat looked like a true crypt keeper–I would have guessed it to be about 16 years old. Erin asked the guy how old the cat was and he said she was two. I gave Erin some whammy signals and we booked it.

Erin has a habit of feeling bad for people really easily, often for odd reasons. For example, we will see an older man eating lunch by himself, and she will almost start crying because she has decided that he must be very lonely and sad. Maybe he just wants to eat alone! Anyway, she felt bad for the weirdo running an “estate sale” out of his home with a crypt keeper cat, and decided to be a Good Samaritan to him. The sign indicating where to go to find the sale was blown over and wouldn’t stand up, so on our way out, Erin fixed it.

TA DA!!!!

Next on our agenda was another house that Erin was pumped to go to, because it supposedly had Limoges boxes. When we got there, the guy told her that the family had decided to take all of the Limoges stuff out of the sale. Likely story, buddy! All I found at this sale was an old zodiac needlepoint. I tried to resell it pretty high, but after Christmas I’ll try again for less:

Pretty cute if you’re into ‘60s/'70s kitsch.

Finally, we ended the tour with a sale that looked a little more high-end based on the pictures. It was, sort of, but the people running the sale also were a little big for their britches. This is what I mean by that:

What do you think this is? A museum?

They also obviously thought that Erin and I were hoodlums. I’m used to people thinking I’m young, but when people start associating that with me being a trouble-maker, I get super annoyed! I’m 34, people! And I want to give you my money! Anyway, the women running this sale kept following us around asking if we needed help. No, I don’t need help. I need you to back off! Still, I found some cool stuff at this sale–mainly to keep. My favorite find was this beautiful handmade quilt. My mom and dad helped me identify it as a “star of Bethlehem” design. It’s lovely, and I think it was a steal for $35! 

I also got a bunch of cool (newer) hardcover children’s books that were in great shape, and some other stuff that I’m forgetting. All in all, a worthwhile stop, despite the employee annoyance factor!

-Sarah

Update from Erin: At the first sale, I bought some vintage blow up Santas that I had planned to put up immediately on ebay and sell in time for Christmas.  I never got around to it, so these guys are now sitting in a bin waiting for next summer’s garage sale.  I hope at that time I’ll make my $2 back.  

I should note here too that these guys were partially blown up at the sale, and I proceeded then and there to blow them up the rest of the way.  Sarah commented how I was going to get a crazy disease, and as it turns out, I suspiciously ended up with a cold soon thereafter.  I should know better not to put my mouth on strange things after the time I put a child’s Mr. Potato Head mouth in my mouth (to pretend it was my smile) and ended up with near deadly norovirus.

I have no recollection of the second sale, except for this photo I snapped:

I felt bad for the guy at the condo sale because he mentioned that no one seemed to be coming to the sale.  The google map directions were really confusing, and when I saw that his sign was ALSO knocked over, I felt extra bad.  I fixed that sign so good though. It wasn’t going anywhere.

At the next sale I was horrified by that Aquarius cross stitch that Sarah bought and pictured above.  I think she spent $10 on it, and I bet the people running the sale had their own $10 wager going on whether anyone was going to buy that crazy thing at all.

I still hadn’t bought anything since my blow up Santas, and that trend continued through the last sale.  Sarah was right about the women working there.  When I went to look at this Mickey Mouse Seiko watch, as soon as I touched it, one of the women said, “OH! THAT’S $140 DOLLARS!”  Um, cool.  I have $140 to my name, maybe I will buy it.  Maybe not.  Now stop following me around.

Sarah forgot the best part of the day, which was our ride home.  Traffic was INSANE because it was rush hour and we were somewhere around West Bloomfield (extra traffic-y in general).  I saw this storefront though that I assumed was a cool holiday boutique, sure to be filled with great Christmas gifts for our loved ones.  I begged Sarah to navigate through the lanes of traffic so we could stop.  She agreed because there was a nearby Starbucks, and she said she would buy us some coffee with a gift card she had.

But then the “holiday bazaar” turned out to be a weird rich person grocery store.  After this realization, we chuckled, but then realized that we were blocked into our parking space by a long line of cars trying to navigate the nearby road traffic and the tiny parking lot.  Sarah got increasingly irritated by our entrapment and decided that in fact she would NOT buy our Starbucks with her gift card.  Instead, I had to pay for it.  It was a cruel punishment.

The last great moment of the day was me asking this teenage boy where he got his shirt because I was obsessed with it.  I didn’t realize Sarah snapped a pic of this moment.

Before responding, the boy looked at me like I was the mommy-est mom mom ever.  Sarah and I laughed about this the whole ride home, and used different hilarious voices to reenact the moment over and over.  "OHHH…HALLO I LUVVV YOUR SHIRT, WHERE IN THE WORLD DID YOU EVER FIND ITTT?“

UPDATE FROM SARAH: SLANDER! I did NOT buy that needlepoint for $10!!! I bought it for $1!!!!

Sarah’s last “Hard to Resist” entry was pure gold (pun intended) and it made me realize how many great items I had recently passed up buying at sales.  

I saw this Santa on my recent trip to Holly.  He obviously didn’t wear his sunscreen, which is a shame because we all know that the UV rays are mega strong up at the North Pole, plus all that white snow reflects the rays back at you for double burn (sounds right to me).  Anyway, this Santa is cooked.

So far so good?

Bedtime Buddy?  This looks exactly like the type of buddy you don’t want in your bed.  Mustache is red flag number one.  Lack of pants is red flag number two.  

-Erin

Sarah showed up to my house mega early on Friday because there was a sale in Trenton that looked BALLER.  It was packed to the brim, possibly past the brim.  And everything looked collectible and old.

This sale was run by our now favorite company, which will remain nameless.  They always have great full houses and are always willing to be fair about pricing.  I used to be kind of intimidated of these ladies, but turns out you just have to ask nicely and they will work with you on price.

When we showed up to the sale, there was a line.  Sarah and I are super impatient and generally try to avoid estate sale lines at all costs.  After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, Sarah suggested we leave and come back later, but I insisted we had already come too far.

Here we are waiting for our turn to enter:

Our hair in this pic looks like we are those Garbage Pail Kids.  

We finally got in the sale and it was indeed packed full, of both people and stuff.  There was so much to look at!  I immediately grabbed this old bisque Arranbee doll.  I recognized it as a “Dream Baby” doll because in the past I had unwittingly bought one in a lot of doll parts and sold it for quite a bit.

I have this doll up on ebay now, but I am secretly bummed about it.  I kind of want to keep it!  I’m not sure what my attachment is to this doll, but I think it has something to do with how TRULY ADORABLE it looks when you take off that gross dress:

Look at that weird little body.  It makes the doll look like a dumb little idiot, which I find kind of endearing.  

I can’t remember what else I bought at this sale, except for a little plastic King Kong from the 50s or 60s.  I also got some turkey salt and pepper shakers which I had to throw away because I washed them and all the paint came off :(

The next sale was in Troy and took place in a basement.  This person was certainly a collector, and everything was sorted neatly among their various interests.  There was a lot of Shirley Temple stuff, and a lot of glassware.  

At this sale I got a Ted Williams baseball bat (sold in Sears stores in the 1950s) and this little metal Santa.  He is skiing!  I got this guy for Zach because it combines two of his favorite things: old metal soldiers and Christmas.

Look! Zach already had some fellow skiers for Santa to join up with.

I think Sarah hated this sale because they were selling Garfield pins for $1 each and she wanted a million of them.  They refused to give her any sort of discount even though pins are universally a 25 cent item.  

The last sale was in Warren and it was weird.  Everything upstairs was newer ceramic and looked very Hallmark-y.  The basement though had a bunch of old dolls.  Clearly, as of late, Sarah and I are on a doll kick.  We weren’t the only ones though…down in the basement there was this lady walking around talking to each and every doll she picked up.  She would grab one and say, “Oh hello!  You look very friendly.  Looks like someone liked you very much! Oh look at you poor thing, you have no hair!” and on and on…

This lady was also some sort of self-defined doll expert because anytime I would go remotely near a doll she would interrupt me and say, “OH I didn’t see that one.  Let me see that” and then she would tell me all about it.  This was helpful in some ways, but it also seemed very clear that she might be making everything up.  At one point, she grabbed a broken doll and said, “Oh my, this poor doll was in the war and was injured.” And then she picked up a doll that someone had painted black and said, “And you are black now! Someone wanted you to be black!  But you aren’t supposed to be black!”  I almost died.  

Here she is, dollin’ it up:

This will be me in about 20 years, I guarantee it.

I bought two dolls at this sale, each for $5.  One has the coolest eyes of all time and is a Bye-Lo Baby, which are apparently collectible.  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: The first sale was so incredible–I knew as soon as I stepped foot in the house that I was going to find some extreme treasures. There were bags and bags of Victorian (and later) postcards at the front desk, and I immediately started looking through those and found a stack that I wanted. It was so crowded at this sale that I got pretty irritated with people pretty quickly. If you were looking at items on the floor, people would crowd you so much that eventually their butt would be right in your face. Not a recipe for a fun time. 

Anyway, the house was a tri-level and on every floor and in every room, there were tons of office boxes (the sort with handles and lids) filled with various items. When I went into the bottom floor, I spotted a box with a few random things inside, but when I moved some of it aside, I found a huge stack of 1930s/1940s greeting cards! Here’s an up-close picture of some of the best ones: 

They’re up on eBay now, if you happen to be interested in that sort of thing. 

The best, though, was when I got upstairs–there was one room that was just FILLED with office boxes overstuffed with ephemera. I noticed right away that many of the boxes had greeting cards–and they were 1940s through 1960s era, for the most part, which is my most ultimate jam. I just started gathering them and shoving them in one box that was already overflowing with cards. The woman who owns the company running this sale knows us and knows that I collect cards, so she said, “I’m gonna make a judgement call–$50 for the whole box.” I was prepared to pay way more than that, so I was thrilled and agreed. She said, “Good. I figured you wouldn’t bitch.”

Anyway, I’m going to have to do a separate entry about these cards because they ended up being SO AWESOME. This sale takes the cake in terms of the best huge amount of GOOD greeting cards I’ve come home with. Can you tell I’m excited? I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of them before I sorted them, but here is a picture of some of them, post-sort: 

I bought lots of other stuff at this sale, but nothing quite as good as this lot. 

Erin actually forgot about one other sale we hit up downriver–I actually forgot too, until I saw this picture: 

That sale was full of garbage. End of story. 

The rest of the day was sort of uneventful in comparison to the first sale. I didn’t find anything crazy awesome, but I did buy a lot of buttons (Peanuts, mainly, NOT Garfield), even though that lady was a jerk about the prices. At the last sale, I bought some records and three-headed doll, after Erin and the crazy doll lady convinced me that it was a good buy. I forgot to take a picture of mine but it’s identical to this, except without any hair or clothes. The faces it makes are pretty amazing–especially the crying face: 

The crazy doll lady told me it was “in the doll books” and worth something like $500. I asked her why she didn’t buy it then, and she said it was because she didn’t realize it had three faces when she first saw it. That one above sold for $35 on eBay, which is good, but obviously she was full of sh*t. 

Time again for one of my truly favorite entries–items that we found REALLY hard not to buy.  Sort of.

First up, this adorable bear with a not so adorable hygiene problem.  Not sure how much bear diapers cost, but if they are anything like baby diapers, then I don’t want to know.

Next up…this sign:

A little presumptuous, no?  Shouldn’t it say something like, “Santa, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP HERE!”  If I was Santa and I saw this sign, I’d be like, “Yeah right suckers.  This year I DON’T STOP HERE.  Y'all got punked.”  

And then I would get that diaper bear to pee on the sign.

Ok, one more…

Wut?

-Erin

Sarah and I stopped at a random estate sale in Midland, MI on our way home from Traverse City a couple weeks ago.  It was nothing to write home, or blog, about.  For example, here is an empty Spode box they were trying to sell for $1.  

It kind of looks like there is something inside, but that is the plastic packaging.  Trust me, I checked.

What I also found for $1, and decided to buy, was a rubber face plush Rudolph.  I’m not entirely sure why I grabbed it, but I think because it was old, and because so far I had found no other treasures.

He is kind of cute, but kind of looks like he might kill you while you sleep.  For $1 though, he was worth a shot.

So it turns out that Rudolph man sold for FIFTY DOLLARS on ebay.  I couldn’t believe it when he got 1 bid, let alone enough bids to get him to fifty bucks (ha, bucks…no pun intended).

I did some research on old rubber face toys from the 1950s and 60s, and it turns out that they are quite collectible!  Some of the most well-known of these toys were by Rushton Toy Co.  Here are some examples from a fellow treasure hunter’s blog:

What I also found out in my research is that Sarah actually owns a Rushton Toy Co. Santa Claus, and she doesn’t even know it!  She got him at a sale recently (maybe even the same one I got my Rudolph at).  

I think she will be happy to know that he is most likely a money maker too!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: WHOA. Erin is the best. That is totally my bro! Actually two that are identical to him sold for the higher end of that range up there, so I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed! Double win because it could actually also be featured on Things That Freak Your Husband Out. So Adam will be thrilled if it is no longer hanging out on our kitchen table.

Strange coincidence: I also discovered The Rushton Toy Co. today–I was browsing eBay to try to figure out why Erin’s reindeer sold for so much. Check out THIS one.