Dig This Treasure!

Remember a few weeks ago, when I posted that image of that giant collection of VHS tapes at an “antique” sale"?… 

Well, that same week I left it up to Erin to find the sales we would be attending, and the first one she took me to was THAT EXACT HOUSE. When we pulled up, I recognized the company’s sign and started dying laughing. I typically avoid this company’s sales because they overprice everything and it’s usually a giant pile of garbage. We had some luck at their sales when they first started up, but since then, they’ve been pretty bad.

So anyway, apparently some of the pictures of this sale “looked good” to Erin, which is why we ended up there. Here is a sampling of the selection of wonderful goods available. 

(Though this would have been a great gift for Erin, I passed on it.) 

I honestly can’t think of anything grosser than used men’s tighty whities. It’s even grosser than smelly snake skin. 

The selection of gross dolls was off the chain. Here’s the freakiest. Best thing is that Erin and I BOTH took a picture of this creep. 

He has fangs, yellow eyes, and a soul-sucking stare. HELP. 

$360? Excuse me? Made of gold? 

Alright, so here you go. I took one look at this slipper and shouted, “Free Willy!” Erin and I were dying when we realized it said Fred Willey. Also, you must have some serious slipper thievery happening in your hood if you have to write your name in dry erase marker on your footwear. 

Turns out there was one lone collector who hit a jackpot here–so many VHS tapes to choose from!

I did find one cool thing at this sale–a single vintage Minnetonka boot. I looked everywhere for its mate and came up empty handed. WTF? Erin bought a woven purse that had no price tag. When she went to check out, the man looked at it and said, “Oh the woman who lived here traveled all over the southwest… she probably got this at an Indian reservation. The freakin’ purse had a manufacturer’s tag inside and Erin was super polite while pointing it out. She got the purse for $4. 

Next up on our agenda was a sale in Redford that looked pretty good. We didn’t end up with much, but at least there were more cool things to look at. 

I loved this lamp, wig, hat combo. 

That is some old-ass peanut butter. 

I don’t know what this thing was but it sure looked cool. 

Holy moly! Anyone need some lightbulbs? 

In the end, I left with some vintage cards and wrapping paper, and Erin left with a handheld steam cleaner that ended up not working very well. Here is some of the wrapping paper–pretty cute. 

When we got back to their house, I made Zach take a picture of Erin and I with that bun still in the oven. I had panicked a few days prior because I realized that the whole time she’s been pregnant, I never had my picture taken with her and her giant belly.

She wasn’t kidding! Good thing we captured this when we did, because that little boy wasted no time arriving! Two weeks later: 

-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. 

Last Thursday, Sarah and I were diligently setting up for our annual garage sale.  We decided to take a break though because we saw a sale listing that looked particularly intriguing.  The sale was clearly of a hoarder, but it looked like a neat and tidy hoarder, similar to Best Sale Ever.  Even though the sale was all the way out in Troy (about 40 mins. away) we still made the trek.

The upstairs of this sale was really promising.  These old flags were BOSS, but each one was priced between $25-$55.  They must have known this was pricey because look at that little sign they stuck on the wall near the flags: “VISA M/C DISC.”  Yeah, we get it…people can charge their expensive nautical gear.  

There was also an entire wall of old salt and pepper shakers, and they were all cute! I don’t collect these, but I imagine that someone who does would be in hog’s heaven.

I immediately found these cute vintage sunglasses.  They had no price and the guy running the sale told me $5.  This turned out to be awesome because later I found more vintage sunglasses and they were all priced over $20 each.  Here’s me wearing the specs in a totally non-embarassing selfie:

As we got further back into the bedrooms of the house, things started to get a little more freaky.  The quantity of items was overwhelming.

Look at that blue man above screaming for help.  LOL.

Literally every single person at this sale was trying to make sense of all the stuff.  We all kept saying, “She must have owned a store.  Yes, that’s it.  She had a store, and it closed, and here are all of the things left over.”

But you guys, the lady who owned this house DIDN’T OWN A STORE.  Heartbreaking, I know.

The basement was worse.  Kudos to the people who ran the sale though, because everything was organized impeccably. (This is where we found the art capes.)

It was literally as though every single item in this house was secretly a tiny family of rabbits that just kept multiplying and multiplying.  The woman probably only bought one of each item and then through some obvious witchcraft there was suddenly 24 of everything.  

Obviously, the comparison to Best Sale Ever was shot.  Everything here was newer and seemed very dollar store-esque.  I breezed through the sale pretty quickly and then found Sarah in a mountain of greeting cards.  I knew then that we would be here awhile.

Sarah did find some treasures buried in the rubble here, so I’ll let her tell you all about them.  I ended up with a giant metal rolling clothes rack for $15 (we used it for the garage sale), the sunglasses I mentioned already, and a giant box of bubble wrap.  

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin is right–in general, there was a lot of organized garbage at this sale. I did find some treasures, and some funny stuff. First the funny stuff. 

In the book area of the basement, I found a whole sexy section of shelving (tongue twister for you): 

And the award winning book, Hugs for My Wife: 

Not only was the house super organized, but it was organized by holiday, which was very helpful. 

Some of it was dollar store quality, but other stuff was Hallmark store quality, which is one step up. Some of the stuff I found was vintage Joan Walsh Anglund stuff. Some to sell and some to keep. I want to keep these little plates–they’re cute!

They’re really tiny–don’t worry–I’m not going to start collecting commemorative plates. 

I also found lots of vintage greeting cards, but most were ‘70s and '80s. Unsurprisingly, many of them were sealed packs. Hopefully I can sell some of these. 

Erin found these Easter knee huggers–they’re so cute!

It was very nice of her to give them to me. 

I also found some cute vintage ceramic Christmas items. 

These were little plates made by Josef Originals–very cute. 

This cute little house is hollow inside so you can put a little light or candle in there. Made by Lefton. 

I also found some very cute wrapping paper and these old Gummi Bears Easter egg wrappers: 

All in all, a very successful trip! 

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?