Dig This Treasure!

Last week, Erin wrote about that awesome folk art sale we went to twice, and I wrote about one find that ended up making me some serious money. But I forgot to tell you all about the cool things that I bought to keep!

The first day we went there, I was really overwhelmed because things were priced on the high side and there were so many things I wanted. I came away with two dog carvings. Erin spotted both of them for me. I love this one so much:

Looks like a Brittany Spaniel, and that’s close enough to a beagle for me!

The other dog statue I think Erin also found, and it’s mechanical:

When you turn the crank, the dogs mouth opens and closes, and his tail spins. Adam loves anything mechanical in nature, so I thought he might like it but I was unsure of the face. He ended up loving it, so score for me!

I also bought this two-drawer box. I’m not sure how old it is but I really like it and will probably put it in my living room and keep junk in it.

I’m sure Adam is thrilled to hear that.

On the day we went back, I mainly bought stuff to resell, and once I saw that the woman there was making deals, I stepped up my game. I came away with a poster I saw on the first day that I thought was funny.

I also bought this doll that was priced $95, but sold to me for $30.

I also bought these adorable wool dolls to resell. Here’s a picture that I took of them cuddling.

Besides the Tigers slides that I sold, the case of slides I purchased also had a ton of other slides in it, and I sold the case and slides for $150. I separated the slides into groups by theme—adults, kids, cars, etc. So that was my most fruitful purchase. If you ever see a bunch of those slides for cheap, snatch ‘em up! People collect them. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the group.

Love me some kids being weirdos.

Finally, Adam dropped some major bones at this sale. But we’ll save his find for another day, because it was really unique and interesting!

-Sarah

While I’m incapacitated, there’s a whole lot of stuff I want to catch up on writing about. The first is something I discovered yesterday! At that folk art sale, I had purchased a big slide case filled with old stereo slides from the 1950s. It was marked $65 but that awesome lady sold it to me for $20. 

I started sorting through the slides yesterday afternoon, since it’s easy to do that while you’re laying on a couch. Most of the slides were family pictures of holidays and vacations, but toward the end of my sorting, I found this box: 

Unlike Erin (thanks to Timmy), I know nothing about sports or the Detroit Tigers, but thought this sounded promising. After a little digging, I discovered that Denny McLain was a pitcher for the Tigers in the 1960s, and is famous for winning 30 games in a season. Now he’s famous for a scandal involving gambling and broken toes. Oh the irony. I guess Denny and I have more in common than I thought.

Anyway, the slides in that Kodak box are of that winning/record setting game in 1968, and the pictures were taken very close to the field. 

Pretty stinkin’ cool! Anyway, if you’re a fan of the Tigers, they’re up on eBay right now! 

-Sarah

A few Fridays ago, Erin and I hit up a handful of good sales that were spread out across town. The first that we stopped at was a sale that looked very granny-ish, but was PACKED, so I insisted that treasures could be found. Turns out I was sorta right!

When we walked up, we discovered that the sale was 50% off, and prices were very reasonable to begin with. There were some cool old things in and around the garage area: 

I liked this cart but decided I didn’t need it. 

(Erin took a picture of that dolly so I think she must have thought it was cool.) 

I thought this Census box was really cool but Erin convinced me that I had no need for it. In retrospect, I should have ignored her and purchased it. It’s cool!

Inside, it was quickly apparent that this was the owner’s motto: 

And I’m cool with this, because it meant that there was a lot of stuff to sift through. 

The basement was overflowing with stuff–most of it pretty useless. But we did find a lot of cool old party supplies and wrapping paper. Here are two of my finds: 

Y'all know I can’t resist old Holly Hobbie. 

A lot of the basement looked like this: 

Lots and lots of patterns all over the place. While we were down there, we ran into our #1 Groupie. This lady was following us all over, asking, “Where did you find that?” and told us that she had been in the basement for two hours. Well, if you’ve been in the basement for two hours, how did you possibly not notice this dumb felt ornament kits that I saw sitting out in the open? 

One very cool thing we saw in the basement, but had no use for: 

That is one sweet children’s table and chairs. I think it was really reasonably priced, and at half off it would have been a steal. I honestly have no idea how it was still there. 

I spent a hot minute or two being convinced that I needed this terry cloth cape: 

Erin’s voice of reason actually came in handy this time. 

The upstairs of this house also contained a few treasures. When I noticed how much crap this woman had, I kept thinking, “Where are the greeting cards???” Well, at the top of the stairs to the upstairs/attic, I found them! Two huge boxes. I haven’t finished sorting, but they’re not fabulous. But the woman charged me $20 for all of them, which is an excellent price. 

It was at this sale where Erin was reunited with her snowmen. As you can see, this woman loved her some googly eyes and crafts:

The face Erin was going for here was “spooky” but I’m not sure she succeeded. You be the judge.

While we were checking out, #1 Groupie stood behind us and once again, kept asking “Where did you find that? Oh that’s a lot of greeting cards, what are you going to do with them?!” I have a hard time lying to people and Erin does not, so I just said, “If they’re old enough they sell online.” Erin said she just kept thinking to herself, “Say scrapbooking, Sarah. Say scrapbooking.” Oh well! I’m an honest lady. 

We high-tailed it outta there and made our way to a sale that was super far, but looked to be filled with TONS of photographs. It was here that I found those amazing pictures of dogs that NOBODY IS BIDDING ON on eBay right now and that I decided to have end on THE FOURTH OF JULY because I’m an idiot. 

Here’s an action shot of me hyperventilating over the awesome pictures: 

Here’s more picture shots: 

Midway through exploring this sale, the woman running it came out of the bathroom, swearing up a storm. She proceeded to let us know that she allowed a shopper to use the bathroom and the woman “sh*t all over the place.” Cool, lady. Now we both want to barf. 

Ok, back to the pictures. All of the photo albums (there were TONS) were priced extremely high ($60, $75, $100, etc.), and all of the 8x10 pictures were either $2 each or had prices on the back. Considering the extreme number of pictures remaining on the second to last day of this sale, I figured that there was no question that she’d negotiate with me. My plan was to just gather everything I wanted and ask her to give me a flat price. However, she proceeded to tell him that they would have to count all of the pictures in the basket. Here they are, doing just that: 

I tried to reason with this woman, but she was not having it. I said, “The reason I’m willing to just pay you a set amount for all of this is because I DON’T want to go through this box of pictures here in this house. If you’re going to charge me for each one individually, I don’t want all of them.” She told me, “I can’t give these away for free.” Did I ask for anything for free?!

So here’s the deal: I had at least 20 8x10 photographs (so that means $40+), I had an album marked $25 and an album marked $40, and then she said that the pictures in the basket added up to at least $200.

I was super annoyed and finally said, “I was going to just offer you $100 for everything here.” She looked at me and said, “You were? Well you should have just said that!” and proceeded to take my $100 like Tiny Tim snatching up a new pair of crutches. We ran outta there as fast as possible and just stared at each other in awe. I said, “Does she not know how to do math?” Erin was like, “I don’t think so. But you handled that like a BOSS.” So basically, I got $300 worth of priced photos for $100. Woo!

The last trip of the day was back to the DJ sale in West Bloomfield. They had opened the basement, which I thought would mean lots of treasures, but it didn’t. I did get a good deal on a glass head and a sealed Kool-Aid Dixie Cup dispenser. 

Both to resell, of course!

I don’t think Erin bought much this day, but I’ll let her tell you all about it. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Yes, that’s my spooky face.  Get over it.

The first sale, let me just say, was so fairly priced that I wanted to shake all of the workers’ hands.  They were going to clear out that house so quickly and still make a super fair profit.  Kudos.  The photo sale lady should learn from this because even after Sarah bought all those pics, there were still literally THOUSANDS left in the house.  And probably about 20 albums packed full too.  They are never going to sell if you price every photo at $2-$5 each.

Anyway, at the first sale, I got the cutest party decorations.  I am putting these away for future child’s birthday.  Zach was super skeptical that I was actually going to remember in a year that I had bought these decorations, but I informed him that I actually have a box in the basement labeled “PARTY SUPPLIES.”  I consult this box on every single birthday occasion, so these supplies will NOT go unused.

At the photo sale, all I found was this tiny ship figurine.  It had no price on it, so I was pretty leery after watching Sarah haggle so hard over the photos.  The women running the sale said, “This might be silver.  I have to be sure this isn’t silver.”  I said “OK” but I was really thinking, “There is NO WAY this is silver.”  It has no markings on it and is light as a feather.  It isn’t tarnished like silver.  At the very least, it’s pewter.  It is, however, most likely brass or tin.  After scrutinizing it, she charged me $2.  Phew.

At the DJ sale, I didn’t buy these giant phones:

I did buy this old biscuit tin though.  It was kind of pricey at $10, but I really wanted it.  Plus, I hadn’t bought much this day.  

So neat, right?  I’m a sucker for anything with sheep on it. 

Before I tell you this tale, I’m going to show you some of the best finds in my $400 box of pictures. 

Looks like Melody was a lucky, world traveler. 

And finally, my favorite, because this is so clearly one of my own cat’s ancestors:

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Erin and I stopped by a sale on a Tuesday. This was really abnormal for us, but we were prepping for our garage sale and the sale was right down the street from the Mexican restaurant where we ate lunch. It was advertised as being the last day, and it was 75% off. 

When we got there, I recognized the company as the same one that ran that sale where we found the giant Santa for Timmy. The sale was really picked over, but I stumbled upon two huge boxes of pictures in the basement. I got really super excited, because I figured that at 75% off, these would be a steal. Turns out I was wrong. I got up to the cashier and told her I wanted all of the pictures. There were at least 500 snapshots in the boxes, and then a ton of old portraits and cabinet cards. I really don’t care about either of the latter two things, because I mostly just enjoy sifting through snapshots. But again, I figured that two hours before closing on the last day of a sale would mean that you’d be thrilled to get rid of two boxes of crap. 

Anyway, the woman proceeded to tell me that yes, I could have all of the pictures, but that each of the pictures in the boxes was individually priced, and they would have to add them all up. I tried to explain that that defeated the purpose of me buying all of them–I only wanted the whole lot because I did not have the patience to sort through that many pictures at an estate sale. Eventually the owner, who Erin and I had complimented in the past for his fair prices, came over and I instantly felt relieved. Surely, this man was going to bring a sense of reason to the situation at  hand. As it turns out, though, Homeboy was not feeling reasonable. He told me that he would value the boxes of photographs at $100 total. I said, “Ok, so 75% off would be $25?” and he said, “NO, that’s after the 75%.” So what he was telling me, was that those pictures would have cost FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS under normal circumstances. Exsqueeze me? 

In the end, I told him that if he was going to be such a stickler, I didn’t want any cabinet cards or portraits, and that I was willing to give him $40. He would only take $50 and so I caved and high-tailed it outta there. I grumbled about this the whole way home. 

The silver lining is that it ended up being a decent price because there were a lot of cool photographs in the lot. I’ll share more soon! 

-Sarah

Last Friday (which we will wrap up shortly), Erin and I hit up a few sales. One of these was pretty far away–in Harrison Township, but I really wanted to go because it looked like there were tons of photographs there.

I wasn’t prepared for how cool some of these pictures were, though. It seems like one of the people who lived there must have been a photography hobbyist, because there were lots of 8x10s that were clearly made in a personal darkroom. I’ll talk more about the boolsheit I went through to obtain these photos, but for now, I just want you to enjoy them as much I have! 

The first is a Rat Terrier and the second is a Dachsund. There were a few actual portraits like these, and then many action shots: 

Do you like how the one is totally jumping off the other one’s head?

Here are some pics with their people: 

And other beasts…

My favorites, though, are these:

And finally, my #1 favorite: 

I’m not sure I’ve ever found an “old” thing that I love more than these pictures. I haven’t decided which I’m going to sell. I don’t need to keep them all, and they could, as I’ve found in the past, make me some money. 

I’ll keep you all posted!

-Sarah

Last Tuesday, I had the day off because of doctor’s appointment mid-day, and I was really pleased because there was a crazy looking sale that started that day. Sales typically do not begin that early in the week, but there are a few boneheaded companies that do such a thing. The pictures of this sale reflected that it was: 1) very dirty and 2) full of old things–especially from the ‘80s. I am cool with both of those conditions, so I was excited to have the chance to go check out this sale. I was right on both fronts. Here is evidence in both regards: 

1) Mega dirty:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dirtier Sesame Street toy. 

2) Lots of '80s stuff: 

What you see here are boxes of cereal from the 1980s that are in plastic bags. They were each marked $10, I believe. Quite a steal. 

First things first–this sale was being run by our old friend, THAT GUY. That guy is a total scammer, and has no idea what he’s talking about. So half the stuff at this sale was overpriced and the other half was underpriced. In the end, it all worked out. And even though this sale was totally, disgustingly filthy, I found some cool stuff. Both to laugh about and to purchase. 

On my way upstairs, I spotted this box of naked Ken dolls. I don’t know why, but it really made me crack up. 

Once upstairs, I made my way into a room filled with possibly the most stuffed animals and dolls I have ever seen in such a small space. 

This doesn’t really do it justice. When I was in this room, a woman came in and asked me, “Do you think this is all one person’s?” How sad that this was probably her first estate sale experience. I told her yes, that this was one person’s stuff. She looked horrified. 

Most of the dolls and stuffed animals in these boxes were in sorta gross shape, but I still was excited about the quantity, because really… there are so many possibilities for treasures. It turns out that I DID find a treasure in one of these boxes. 

Tee hee, just kidding. I found an adorable Rushton mouse, who was in really great shape!

Like I mentioned–half of the stuff at this sale was overpriced, and the other half was underpriced. That mouse was priced the same as Chucky up above! 

Here’s some other stuff I laughed about: 

Look at that dummy! 

If anyone ever wanted to start a collection of California Raisins… here was a perfect opportunity. 

Huggabunch…what up?! Just in case you were wondering, his name was Hugsy. 

In the end, I found some cute things, including another Joan Walsh Anglund doll. She has heart patches on her knees!

I also found two GIANT boxes of photographs.They were marked $75 (for both), and the guy would NOT budge, so I decided to take a risk. As it turns out, there were over 1,000 pictures in the boxes and some of them were bulge photos, so I think I’ll have an update about the outcome of that find, sometime in the future! 

-Sarah

We’ve been having a lot of luck at auctions lately, but estate sales as of late, especially for me, have been disappointing.  Last Friday, I was hoping this would all change.  There were tons of sales, and some looked pretty decent.  We set out first to Huntington Woods because the house looked packed with old stuff.  

There was a lot of old stuff, just nothing very exciting.  This thing in the foreground above was a knitting machine, but it looked all broken.  It would be very neat to see it in action though.

Everything at this sale was just “stuff.”  Stuff we didn’t really have a use for, and stuff that we couldn’t resell.  I did see this though:

And a questionable coloring book page:

And this doll that looks like Sarah:

This doll reminds me of every Friday when Sarah says, “Can you tell I didn’t shower?” and then I say, “Yes, yes I can.”

Speaking of Sarah, she found this:

And can you believe she didn’t buy it for me?! RUDE.

I didn’t buy anything at this sale, or at the next sale actually.  This one was in Ferndale, at the same location as the Girl Scout sale a few weeks ago.

Looks like Sarah is holding some porcelain dogs in the photo above (shocking).  I don’t know if she bought them.  Everything else here looked like thrift store overflow.  And to top it off, our favorite jabber jaws (you know, “THAT GUY”)  was here shopping.  I overheard him telling a story about stealing from another sale.  In this story, he explained how his crime was totally justified.  Here was his logic:

“That guy” went to a sale and it was a totally packed “digger” sale.  He rummaged through a bunch of stuff, found something super valuable (I think he said it was something gold or silver), and took it to the register to ask for the price.  They told him a couple hundred dollars.  He then said to the sellers, “This is the last time I work so hard to rummage through stuff for you and find the good stuff you’ve missed.  How dare you try to rip me off with that price.  Next time, I won’t be bringing the item up to you after I find it.”  "That guy" then proceeds to tell his buddy how sure enough at the next sale run by these sellers he dug up a fine, fancy treasure and pocketed it.  

Not okay.  Not even like a little bit ok.

We left this sale and noticed a vintage store nearby.  We stopped in and I lounged on this spaceship chair:

Sarah tripped over a table in this place and knocked it over.  I looked the other way while repeating, “Don’t knock stuff over.”  We scooted out of there right after and headed to our next sale, which I don’t remember the location of.  The house was adorable though:

There were all of these dollhouse room diorama things:

This one reminded me of the style in our house:

Sarah made some good finds at this house, but again, I came up empty handed.  I couldn’t believe it!  I hadn’t bought anything all day!  We had one more house to visit, and when we got there, things didn’t look promising.

Hmm, I don’t need any bullets.  And we all know I hate shells.

I did find two treasures.  They weren’t magnificent, but they were treasures nonetheless.  First up was this set of vintage duck drinking glasses:

I put these up on ebay because I saw that others like them sold for about $30.

I also found this tablecloth, which if I remember correctly is Polish.

I only spent $8 this day, which is nice, but like I said, I am really itching for some better scores!

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Even I didn’t spend much on this trip, which is unheard of. At the first sale, I found the two best things in the place, which were this adorable sweater and a Napco planter: 

I could tell Erin was super jealous of this find. She made me promise to give it to her if I didn’t want it anymore. The Napco planter features Mary and Jeezo. It’s so cute! But I’m going to sell it. I guess Jesus was last week’s theme. 

When I parked the car at the second sale, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my mom crossing the street with her friend Joyce. As mentioned before, my mom and her friend have become estate sale junkies ever since my mom first came with us to a few sales in the summer. She had a giant box of stuff in her hands, which is more proof that we are related. I had never met Joyce and wanted to, so Erin and I ran across the (main, busy) road and I began waving my hands wildly to get my mom’s attention. You could tell my mom just thought I was a wild maniac stranger until she opened the car door and got a closer look. In her defense, I did have on a giant puffy coat and huge sunglasses. We actually bumped into them again later in the day, which tells you something about the sale quality–there were only a few good ones.

Anyway, I bought some dog statues and a cool vintage drinking glass featuring “Miss Miracle Mile” from Traverse City. It’s not dated but my guess is 1950s. 

At the cute house, I bought two things but one of them I want to feature separately. Here’s the other: 

Nothing in the house was priced, so when I checked out the woman told me these were $3. That’s pretty outrageous but I paid it because they were brand new in a box and one of my dogs recently chewed apart all of my cork coasters. And these ones are super adorable. 

At the last sale, I found a few cool things. A vintage Diane von Furstenberg plaid flannel shirt, some old colored vinyl children’s records, and some cool wrapping paper. 

I also bought another cool antique wedding portrait with something written in another language (Polish, Swedish, Slovak?) on the back side.

I tried Google Translate with no luck. Anyone know what it says? 

Back a few weeks ago, we wrote about a sale where there were lots and lots of magazines and books. In one of the boxes of books, I found an old oversize envelope filled with papers and photographs, so I just grabbed it and put it in my box of stuff. I forgot about it until recently, and when I finally looked through it, I got really sad. Here’s what was inside the envelope: 

Yes, there are lots of photographs, but if you look closely, every single one of them has been torn up and then re-taped. There’s a high school diploma that’s in the same condition. Here are some close-ups: 

It just makes you wonder what happened…

I realize it’s a little weird that I like other people’s old photographs (I especially like pictures of kids with pets), but I wasn’t expecting to find something so sad when I emptied that envelope of stuff. I guess that’s the price you pay for nosing into other people’s lives. 

On the bright side, it’s good that someone took the time to tape all of this back together.

Then again, I don’t know if that makes it better, or even more sad. 

-Sarah

It’s been a while since one of us has found a Thing That Freaks Your Husband Out (TTFYHO). Luckily, I broke that dry spell last Friday. The first house we hit up was the home of a retired party store owner, so there was a lot of “party paraphernalia” there. One of these pieces was Beefy:

Beefy is in inflatable dog, flexing his muscles and licking his lips. He cost $1. I know nothing else about him. When I found him, I was delighted. I immediately called Erin into the room and she snapped this picture. Even though I look pale and sickly, I’m willing to share this picture as proof of my delight:

Now, not only did we find this one Beefy, but we found two others that were identical and not inflated.

Of course, I bought all three–Christmas is coming! Duh!

Just like there were three Beefys, there were three best parts of this find:

1. Actually finding Beefy, which we’ve covered.
2. Going to Target the next day with Adam, forgetting Beefy was in the hatch, and watching his reaction when he went to put our bags in the back of the car.
3. Finding this picture of Beefy a few days later:

I had also (obviously) found some old family photos at this sale. I shoved them all in a box and had the chance to start looking through them the other night. Adam was working late, and when he got home, I was so excited to show him this picture. Not only is Beefy taking a ride on that trailer, but a real dog is too!

-Sarah

Update from Erin: Sarah’s nickname in high school was “Beefy.”

Also, that real dog riding on the trailer is so Romney-esque, I lol’d.  Did this dog ride like that for 12 hours too?