Dig This Treasure!

Sarah and I have been super lazy bloggers, but luckily our disciple Zach has been much more proactive.  Husband Zach collects and resells vintage watches, so lately he has been scoping out estate and garage sales in hopes of finding some. 

On Sunday I got a Facetime call from him, which looked like this:

He explained that he bought this doll because it was only $1 and he thought it might be valuable.  I told him I thought so too!  At least more than $1 valuable!  Zach also bought this crazy Knickerbocker doll because he knew we had blogged about that brand before:

This doll is amazingly weird.  It is a baby and a Santa.  A Santa Baby…like the song, except I don’t think the song literally meant a baby that is also Santa.  Anyway, we are going to stick it on ebay and see what happens.

So while on this call, Zach explains that this sale he was at had tons of old train stuff but he didn’t know what to buy.  He described this “service station” thing and I convinced him to go back and buy it.  It sounded like something we should take a chance on.

It turned out to be way cooler than I imagined while talking to Zach on the phone:

I could tell this was crazy old because it was wood and not tin.  It was in great shape.  After doing some research, we figured out it was made in 1949 and sold at Sears.  It is up on ebay now and already has a $50 bid.  It has 18 watchers too, so hopefully it will go a little higher.

So then flash forward to today and Zach gets home later than usual after work.  Turns out he had stopped at an estate sale.  I was just about to nap with Everett when Zach informed me that I REALLY needed to get up and go to the sale he was just at.  “It was like a hoarder and there was all this stuff and I know we could resell some of it and blah blah…”

Well, his assessment was right on.  This place was packed.  And the stuff was good.  The prices seemed fair.  I had apparently taught Grasshopper well.

They even had a doll of Sarah’s future child there:

Check out those teefers.

I ended up buying the following:

An Ohio Art tin buggy which seems like it should be an easy resell:

A cool old ice bucket by Hazel Atlas Glass company:

And this hilarious watch which was only $1.  People like Duran Duran don’t they?!

(Zach seemed very skeptical of this purchase.)

I will probably go back tomorrow with Sarah because there were other things I was interested in but wanted to wait and barter over.  Prices today were pretty firm.

When Zach was at the sale, he got this cool toy wagon for $15.  It was really dirty and he cleaned it all up.  It is all wood and super cute.

So good job Zach!  You have officially earned the ranking of DTT Scout.  We are so proud :)

-Erin

Alright ya’ll! We’re back in action. Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. The holidays definitely caught up with us and there was very little treasure-seeking happening.

This past Friday, Erin and I ventured out to a couple of sales that looked pretty good. One in particular, my mom had told me about the night before. It looked pretty packed in the pictures so we hit it first. When we arrived, I could tell it was going to be mass chaos. There were so many cars on the street. There weren’t a whole lot of sales happening on Friday–I think things slow down at this time of year for everyone. Anyway, we obviously weren’t the only ones who thought this sale looked like the best option:

I can’t even describe how crowded it was in this house. The pictures don’t even capture it. The house was small to begin with, but it was mainly filled with people trying to check out and buy stuff! I don’t know if it was already picked over or what, but there wasn’t much there that was worthwhile. You couldn’t even get into certain parts of the house because of the sheer quantity of people inside, and let me tell you, they were NOT happy about having to let other people walk by. Thankfully, nothing caught on fire. We all would have died.

That blonde lady is on to us!

Here are some of the offerings at this sale that we did not buy. This first one is something that was actually really awesome looking and decently priced, in my opinion ($125)…

Those are some very organized bulbs and towels.

I called my mom to let her know that it wasn’t worth her drive, and that I was about to have a panic attack from the quantity of people in the house. Our next conundrum was to figure out how the hell to get out of the house without having to wait in line. The line literally weaved throughout the front room, through to the back sunroom, and then looped back on itself into the front room again.  Since we each only had like two items, Erin asked a guy working the door if we could just throw some cash money at him and leave. Thank goodness he said yes or we both would have had a meltdown.

I had found a bunch of greeting cards–all used and none of which were very great. Here they are:

He asked his wife how much the cards cost and she told him $.50 each. WTF?! I know those first couple look good but they’re deceiving–the rest were not nearly as awesome and they were all used! Anyway, I told him I didn’t want any of them, but then he ended up giving me a (sort of) deal. I got everything for $25. Here are the other things I purchased:

I’m not sure if that’s a tablecloth or a lightweight blanket but it sure looks awesome, doesn’t it? Erin found the exact same one at the house where I found that corpse picture. I’m not sure why she never posted a picture of it.

I also found this Joan Walsh Anglund figurine. Even though it’s a little “Precious Moments,” I’ll probably still keep it.

Next up was a sale all the way across town. It was also a pretty big dud. Every room looked like this (not good):

I ended up finding more greeting cards–this time, unused. Erin found a trash can covered in pictures of pennants:

I have a confession to make: I also found a sort of cool looking decanter but while I was carrying it around, the top of it fell off and broke. I felt guilty about this but was too scared to admit my wrongs.  Also, the top was really loose, so this accident was unavoidable.

This sale was depressing because everything was cheap and old and polyester or plastic. Here’s a bunch of stuff we did not buy, but laughed about:

I’m pretty sure if you’re dressing like that dude above, it’s probably why you’re still single.

Erin also decided against buying this little Tigers guy for Timmy after he told her that it was clearly homemade (how she didn’t know this until he pointed it out, I have no idea!)

We did hit up one final place after this sale, but there’s a lot to say about it, so we’ll save that for another entry.

Thanks again for putting up with our holiday hiatus! It’s good to be back!

-Sarah

Update from Erin: WHAT THE HELL?!  Of course I knew that tiger was handmade!  I don’t know where Sarah comes up with these allegations.  What I didn’t know was whether my dad would WANT this thing because it is homemade and one of a kind.  Anyway, here is what I have to say to Sarah:

Sarah is right about one thing, and that is the fact that the photos above do not do justice to the mass of people at that first sale.  I was outraged at the irresponsibility of the people running this sale.  Pretty much everything in this house was glass, and here we are, a mass of people bumping into every surface area possible.  Why there wasn’t some crowd control at the door is beyond me.  

I knew from the photos of this sale that there was some high end stuff I was interested in but instead of looking for it, I spent my time repeating the phrases, “Excuse Me” and “Sorry, sorry, oops sorry” over and over again as I groped my way through people.  At one point I bumped a lady in the kitchen and the look in her eyes was ferocious.  Honestly, I would have taken all the money out of my pocket and given it to ANYONE in that house that didn’t bump one person. It would have been a feat.

I ended up buying this cool metal box for Zach.  It’s an old souvenir from Washington DC.

I had been carrying around some Christmas plates, but put them down after I almost dropped them 4 times in the crowd. 

The only other thing I bought this day is the tin wastebasket that Sarah mentioned earlier.  I am going to sell it on ebay because old NCAA stuff is usually collectible.  Plus I think it is made by Ohio Art, which made old tin toys.  Which, now as I am looking at photos of Ohio Art stuff, I am getting slowly obsessed.  I might need to buy some of these cute things.

-Erin