Dig This Treasure!

Sunday morning I was sitting at my desk doing some work, and Zach rushed in the room all excited about some nearby estate sales.  They were apparently packed to the brim, and both 50% off.  We rushed out the door and headed first to Redford.

The sale was kind of packed, but you could tell that it was also picked over.  And it was super old lady.  Zach kept looking for a “man’s room” but found none.

There was a lot of porcelain, but most of it was cheap or chipped.  I bet there were probably some good pieces in the sale days before.  This person certainly was a collector.

I did find some marble eggs, which I had been looking at recently on ebay.  I wanted some of these to put on my egg scales.  What’s interesting about marble eggs is that they are a good alternative to Victorian glass eggs, which many people collect.  Victorian glass eggs were placed in chicken coops as decoys, and would provoke the hens to lay their own eggs.  Isn’t that neat?  I love these glass eggs and hope to one day own some, but for now, marble eggs are much easier to find and to afford.

I also found this little piece of Jasba pottery, which is a company out of Germany.  Some of their pieces are really collectible, but others are more common.  I took a chance on this because it was $2.

The last thing I bought at this sale was an old toy stick horse.  When I grabbed it, Zach looked at me like I was insane.  

But look! These things sell!  I only paid $4 for him, so my chances at a high profit margin seem good.

The second sale we went to was at a super rich person’s house in Farmington Hills.  The house was a mansion, and the sale was listed as having Chanel items.  I recently bought a fake Chanel bag in New York, which fell apart in less than a week, so the chance of owning a real one was exciting.

Upon arrival, Zach and I were whisked into some sort of time travel machine and taken back to the 1980s.  This was cool because I was born in the 80s and don’t remember much about them.  Here was my chance to get a taste.

All of the furniture was like a white formica substance, and the carpets and walls were white.  We had to wear little booties on our shoes to protect the carpet, which turned out to be silly because the carpet was filthy.  And my little booties kept snagging on things and falling off.  Zach ended up just taking off his shoes because the booties were too small for him.  Shopping in your socks is embarrassing.

Check out that banister.  

I asked the people working here if all of the Chanel stuff was sold, and the woman paused and looked at me for a good 5 seconds before answering.  I know she was thinking, “You Miss, didn’t shower today.  AND you can’t afford Chanel.”  Both of these things were true, but still, how rude.  The Chanel items were in fact sold, but I did buy one treasure here:

This my friends is some 80s-ass modern art.  It’s a big heavy sculpture which Zach contends is of aliens riding an alien horse.  I refer to it as “tribal.”  I’m sure Sarah would refer to it as ugly.

Ok, last thing of note.  On the way home, we passed the craziest set of old abandoned buildings I’ve ever seen.  In the middle of Farmington Hills!  So weird.  Apparently, this was an old commune that got shut down or something.  How sweet would it be to go explore?  You could tell there was still stuff inside of all these buildings.

-Erin

I’m almost scared to write again about the Plymouth auction that Zach and I frequent on Saturdays.  I don’t want all of you marching up in there and bidding on my goods.  So far, this place has been like my own personal ATM machine, only it is linked to someone else’s bank account.  Buying and reselling from this auction has seriously been a goldmine.  Last Saturday was no different.

When we arrived at the auction, it was so packed.  The seats were all taken and you could barely stand anywhere without having to bear hug someone next to you.  We decided to stay though because the items looked pretty good.

My first bid was on this illustration from 1968, which I bought for Timmy because it was Tigers and World Series related.  This is original art, not a copy, although probably not worth a TON of money.  It was just too cool to pass up.

Zach won an amazing cast iron bank for $17, when others go for upwards of $150 on ebay.  It is really neat and living on our bookshelf.

I then won the quilt squares that were mentioned here on the blog a few days ago.  I panicked that I had made a bad buy on these ($20) but they already have bids over that on ebay, so I am relieved.  

At this point, I noticed an old charm bracelet in one of the display cases at the front.  It was LOADED with charms, and when I looked closely, most of them were marked as sterling silver.  The rest were also silver but not as pure (marked 800).  My sister started me a vintage charm bracelet a few years ago, and I learned from her that sterling silver charms alone can sell for $20-50 each!  Sometimes more.  A whole bracelet full of them had to be super valuable.

I told Zach that I wanted to stick around for this bracelet, and so we waited and waited and waited.  During that time, people bid crazy amounts on crazy items.  $30 for a Superhero poster that you could get at Toys R Us, $50 on an old stereo receiver that no one knew if it even worked.  It is seriously unpredictable what people will pay for things.

I told Zach that my limit for the charm bracelet was $100.  I was hoping I would only have to spend about $50.  Finally, it came up on the auction block.  The charm bracelet was placed in a lot with a bunch of other bracelets, so I assumed that would kick the price up pretty high.  But then the auction started at $5 and it was only me and one other woman bidding!  When the price got to $18, the lady backed out.  EIGHTEEN DOLLARS.  

I went up to collect my bracelet lot and was shocked to see that not only had I just won the charm bracelet, but THREE other vintage sterling silver bracelets.

I will probably scrap these 3, which should pay for my $18 investment.  As for the charm bracelet, you can follow its progress now on ebay.  

Zach and I sat at the auction for a few more minutes because I was all sweaty and flush. I had gotten so worked up about the score I just made, and when I get excited, I turn into a beet.  A sweaty beet.

-Erin

My mom came along on Friday again–she’s turning into a true estate sale junkie, which is fabulous. She especially likes to come with us when the sales are really far away so she doesn’t have to drive all the way from her house on her own. I don’t blame her. 

Both sales we were going to were in St. Clair Shores, which is pretty far away. On the way there, someone in the car mentioned that they had read that one of the sales had an update on it that morning that said the house the sale was in flooded and everything was moved to tents outside. Sounded shady to me, and sad, because it was raining. Sure enough, when we got there, the woman running the sale looked familiar, and then half of the stuff in the garage looked familiar. Turns out, some of the stuff was from that duddy sale we went to a few weeks ago. Part of me wonders if the sale wasn’t just at the house of the woman running the sale and she was just fibbing about the flood. The quantity of stuff in the garage was definitely not the entire contents of a house.  

Anyway, we still found a few treasures. I found a huge lot of vintage cards and I can’t remember what Erin found but I do know she bought a really dirty (as in filthy, not sexy) book. Here is one thing we chuckled about: 

They’re so versatile! 

The only thing I remember my mom buying was a rubber faced monkey that she has up on eBay now. 

The next sale looked more promising because it was overwhelmingly packed with stuff. At this sale, we discovered that my mom likes to take her sweet time, while we tend to be able to get in and out of sales quickly, even if they’re packed. You can sort of get a vibe in terms of what sort of stuff is there, and these people didn’t have a ton of the type of stuff that either of us are interested in. Still, of course, I bought a lot of things. 

Before I go on, allow me to complain: One particularly disappointing thing that happened at this sale was that there were a TON of cast iron figurines and larger statues, but they all ended up being reproductions. As Erin has discovered, original cast iron can end up being really lucrative. Still, I found one cast iron thing that I bought for myself because it was cute: 

It looks big here but it’s a tiny little dish.

UPDATE: Since writing this, Adam pointed out to me that it’s an ashtray. GROSS.  

I also found ANOTHER Max statue! 

Erin cannot deny that this looks like Max. 

One other fun thing I found was this mug, that I got to surprise Adam with. 

He recently bought me a Keurig machine for my birthday and he started drinking “coffee” out of it (these weird coconut mocha cups) but I was horrified to discover the other day that he uses the same mug every morning. (Note: We have many, many mugs at our house. He just likes this one particular mug.) Now he can alternate. The “Paw” part is appropriate because I often call him “Daddy” when he’s acting like a dad (paying for dinner with coupons) or wearing dad-ish clothes. I hope he loves it. 

One strange thing at this sale was the abundance of depressing decor. Here are just a few examples: 

Worth noting: That is the second time I’ve seen that exact nervous breakdown plaque at a sale. Someone needed to give the man who owned this house a big hug. 

Ok, back to happy times: I also found this weird doll. It’s by a Japanese brand called Senpo, probably from the late ‘60s or '70s. I know that dolls with these sort of faces can be valuable thanks to all of my stalking of Becky’s Flickr and asking her various questions, but I still can’t identify which ones are the most valuable. But this one is sort of cool because it’s also musical and rotates. Last night while trying to describe her clothing in my eBay listing, I got sucked into a Wikipedia hole of pages of fashion from various time periods. Whatever, I called it “Victorian”… 

I found some other treasures, one of which I’ll write about some other time. The really excellent part of this sale was that everything was priced reasonably. The people running the sale were the same ones that gave us some good deals when we found Timmy’s Santa. 

We knew we were in trouble when we finished going through the entire house and my mom had only made it into three rooms on the main floor. I told her we would go grab some food and then come back and get her and she was cool with that. On our way to find a Mr. Pita, we actually found a secret church rummage sale! I didn’t really think this was worthy of the secret sale chant but we did it anyway. The most exciting part of this sale was this sign, telling us that really excellent things were ahead: 

We quickly discovered that we would not need to go to Mr. Pita, because this was a Greek Orthodox church and the ladies inside were cooking up some badass spankamankapita or whatever the Greek word is for SPINACH PIE. It’s a good thing because the “Mr. Pita” on my map ended up being someone’s house in the middle of a neighborhood. I still can’t figure out why that happened but we got some good laughs out of it.  

Besides some tasty Greek treats, I found these two items at the church rummage sale: 

Look, I’m shocked that Erin didn’t grab those earrings. One year ago she was wearing bedazzled velvet Christmas shoes, but now she’s too good for Santabear earrings? Also just an FYI, if you have a secret stash of Sandra Boynton items, try to sell them on eBay because there is a crazy market of cat ladies out there just waiting to give you their life savings for your fat cat gear. 

We went back to the sale to pick up my mom, drove home, and then Erin and I had an argument about Christmas in her driveway that drove us both to tears. True story! Coincidently, I discovered this picture in a photo album last night while I was visiting my grandpa: 

Clearly, not much has changed since I was six.

You’ll be relieved to know that we’ve completely recovered from this argument and are still friends. I mean after all, SOMEONE has to run this blog. 

-Sarah 

Update from Erin: It’s true, Sarah and I went all Cash & Cari on each other in my driveway.  At one point I remember exclaiming, “JESUS CHRIST SARAH!” which means that I was both really mad and not scared of going to hell.  I’ll just blame the whole thing on a drop in blood sugar because I’ve heard other people give that excuse before when they are cranky.

ANYWAYZ, I got some neat things at the first sale.  The first was a Nippon gravy bowl that I had actually seen at a sale the week before.  It obviously didn’t sell, and had made it here to this sale.  Last week it was $15, but this day I got it for $4.  I plan to put gravy in this at Thanksgiving.

Speaking of the Fall time (my favorite season) I got this awesome table runner and set of placemats.  So cute!  I asked the lady the price on this set because the sticker was hard to read.  I think she thought I was asking for a deal because she said, “Well, it’s marked $3, but I guess I’ll take $2.”  I just gave her the $3 because right before we checked out, another shopper at the sale was relentlessly lowballing this woman.  It was awkward and sad.

The gross book that Sarah mentioned I bought was about flea market collectibles.  It’s a cool book with helpful tips on common collectibles and antiques.  When I use it to buy something valuable, maybe Sarah will be less apt to knock it.

The next sale was a nightmare.  Cindy loved it and found great things, but I have no idea how she did it.  The house was PACKED, but everything was awful.  I hate saying that about someone’s stuff, but really, it was so awful.  

Sarah mentioned this, but I’ll reiterate. The problem here was that almost EVERYTHING was a reproduction–and a cheap reproduction at that–but still priced like authentic items.  Here are a bunch of cast iron banks and door stops that I got excited about, until I realized they were fake:

The thing about cast iron is that people collect it because it’s cast iron, so when it’s NOT cast iron, well, you get the idea.

And also like Sarah said, this sale had depressing things.  Here was one I found:

Besides the sad plates abundance, the sale was also really crowded and hot, so I was happy when Sarah and I left to go get food and come back later for Cindy.  At the Greek bake sale I ate a custard pie and a bit of spinach pie.  They were good.  I also ate a pumpkin bar which was obviously the best.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: I didn’t knock the book! I said it was dirty, which you cannot deny. 

After the success of purchasing my first piece of Herend porcelain, I decided that it would be nice to start collecting this stuff regularly.   I imagine a little shelf in our house with all Herend pieces.  It will take awhile to get there, but why not start this endeavor with a bang…

I found this Herend seal box on ebay and decided to splurge on it.

LOOK AT HIS SAD LITTLE SEAL FACE!  I love him.

I don’t want to say exactly what I spent on this guy, but I will say that it was more than $128 and less than $130.  Don’t tell Timmy. 

-Erin

As I mentioned, the plans for my birthday last week were entirely based around treasure hunting.  Saturday night, Zach and I went to an auction in Plymouth.  I’ve mentioned this auction before on the blog, and the last time we went, we left empty handed.  This time though, things were VERY different!

We arrived at the auction and the place was packed with high quality items.  There were Le Creuset pans still in the box, Lenox serving pieces, cool art, and LOTS of porcelain.  If you’ve been following closely, I’ve been in the market for some baller-ass-rich-people porcelain.  Now was my chance to get some, and because it was my birthday, I could drop some mad cash on it and not feel bad.

I bid pretty regularly during the auction, and won lots and lots of things.  My first two purchases were Lenox:

You can’t really tell, but these pieces are HUGE.  And the edges are 24K gold.  The larger dish cost me $22 and the smaller one was $7.  Let me just say now, that this is INSANE for Lenox.  I was thrilled.

The low, low prices continued all night.  I bought a lot which included an antique silver-plated serving tray, an old silver trinket box, and a super heavy metalware cake stand.  I paid $5 total for all of it.  I bid because the cake stand is by designer Michael Aram, whose work usually sells for around $250 new.  I already have this on ebay. 

At this point, we had been at the auction for a couple hours.  The only negative about the auction is that it goes from 7pm until midnight, with no schedule of when certain items will go up for sale.  I told Zach though that I had my eye on a particular porcelain rabbit, and that I would stay there all night.

The rabbit in question was a Herend, and in the hand-painted fishnet style.  I had been coveting one of these rabbits on ebay, and even asked Zach a week before to buy me one.  It was fate, this rabbit was to be mine.

When the rabbit finally went up for auction, it was paired with a Limoges trinket box.  I was really worried because those dumb little boxes are SUPER collectible, so I figured a million people would bid.  

But then the bidding started, and it was just me and this dude a couple seats down from me.  I just kept my hand in the air, instead of raising and lowering it with each bid.  I really wanted to look at the guy and yell, “STAND DOWN.”  

But then he bowed out at $17.  SEVENTEEN DOLLARS?!  I was so shocked and thrilled.  Zach said that the guy gave me death stare when I went to collect my goods, which made me savor the victory even more.

Here’s my little buddy:

And in case you are wondering if I made a good purchase, here are some recently sold Herend figures:

As for the Limoges box, it is already selling on ebay.  

This entry is getting long, but the scores I had at this auction were never-ending.  The last item I bought was this Royal Doulton rabbit bank.  Ok, I obviously like rabbits, but look at this guy!  So great.

This bank was my most pricey purchase of the night…a whopping $30.  Obviously worth it.

-Erin

Over Labor Day weekend, I went to Canada with my family.  We’ve been making this annual trek since I was in elementary school, and our visit centers on two huge antique markets in Sarnia.  

Before I reveal my finds from the trip, I have to say that I LOVE Canada.  I love its fries slathered in vinegar, I love how nervous Timmy gets at the customs booth, I love Coffee Crisp candy bars, and I love Duty Free shops.  Canada is the best, and so are its antique markets.

Our first stop was Dale’s Antiques, a cluster of little booths and barns open every Sunday.

I spotted this scale in one of the barns and of course loved it.  It was huge and expensive though.

I did, however, buy a smaller kitchen scale for my collection.  This one was pretty rusted up, but it’s much older than my other scales and really unique.  I paid $20 for it, which is more than I usually spend on scales.  I kept telling myself that this was Canadian money though, and thus not really real.

I also found an old cookie jar that was in excellent shape.  I knew that I could resell it easily since it was classically “retro” and because it was a cat.  I paid $15 and ended up selling it on ebay for $38.  The jar is made by American Bisque which is pretty collectible among cookie jar people.

A helpful hint here is that American Bisque jars are often airbrushed, and the bottoms have raised wedge-like pieces:

After Dale’s, we visited a couple of small, independent antique shops, and then headed to a flea market called The Pinery.  The Pinery is great because you can buy beef jerky, dog bones, and antiques all in the same place–while drinking an ice cold beer.  I did all of these things.  

My best find was probably this old cast iron still bank.  I thought this was a soldier, but it turns out he is actually a boy scout.  He was made prior to 1934 by AC Williams Co.  I paid $25 for him, but auction listings online value him anywhere from $150-$295!  My little guy has a piece missing out of one leg, but I don’t plan to sell him anyway.  Right now he has a home on one of our collectible shelves.

Cute huh?  He has a little backpack that you can drop coins in.  

I’ll end with some treasures I didn’t buy.  I am seriously kicking myself over passing on these.  I have no explanation of what these felt banners mean or what they were used for, but they sure are hilarious.

“Hold It Baby It’s Too Divine”

“No-No Lady Don’t Do That!”

“Cool Me Off, I’m Steaming”

Lines from 50 Shades of Grey? Who knows.

-Erin

Erin and I ventured out rather late last Friday, as I had a bunch of stuff going on at work in the morning and then had to take Betsy back to the vet. There were only three sales that looked remotely good, and they were all in opposite corners of town. One of them was in Flat Rock, one in Dearborn, and the other was in Troy–round two of the Valley of the Dolls sale from a few weeks back. 

We started out in Flat Rock, which is not close. The sale looked good and packed online, but when we got there, we realized that a lot of it was sort of junky. 

We probably should have been prepared for a letdown considering the sign that greeted us: 

I’m not sure the purpose of this sign… was it to tell us where all of the goods were? If so, not really necessary, bro. That’s generally where things are at estate sales. Or maybe there was a “side house” on the premises that was storing all of the good items. If so, we never found it. 

HOWEVER, I cannot complain too much. I found an insanely good lot of old greeting cards (we are talking HUGE lot) from primarily the ‘30s and '40s that the woman running the sale sold to me for $40. Total steal, since part of the lot (not even half of it) is currently on eBay and is already at $41 with 4 days left. I will do a separate post about these cards at some point, because it’s the coolest lot of cards I’ve ever found, period. Here is a sneak peak: 

Anyway, we did not find many treasures at this sale, but here is one item that Erin decided to pass on, after lots of deliberation. 

The only other thing I remember about this sale was that the basement was filthy and smelled weird. It was the sort of smell that makes you think, “I should get out of here." 

After leaving this sale, we decided that we really only had time to hit the Valley of the Dolls sale, and the third sale would have to fall off the radar. Turns out I went to that Dearborn sale the next day with Adam, but that’s a story for another time. 

Oh I also forgot to mention that Friday was Erin’s birthday, and I told her I’d take her out to lunch and to pick whatever she wanted. She picked National Coney Island. OBVIOUSLY I am rubbing off on her in all of the wrong ways. (For those unfamiliar with the way that chili cheese fries define me, I once chose coney island for my Valentine’s Day dinner.) Because Erin is such a good friend, while we were eating our lunches, she exclaimed, "Your hair is all grey and white underneath!” and proceeded to capture this on my phone. 

What is she even talking about? (OH MY GOD. HELP.) 

So finally we arrived back in Troy at the scary doll house and man, was that a mistake. The incentive was that they had opened the garage and basement, and the pictures did look pretty good. The basement in particular seemed like it might be hiding some extreme treasures. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The basement was filled with plaster of Paris sculptures made out of those molds you could buy at Frank’s Nursery (before the days of Michael’s), and then lots and lots of these: 

Or these…

OR… these (please no nightmares): 

Whatever. There is no way that these last two dolls do not have violent histories/criminal records. 

Everything in the house, particularly in the basement, was covered with a layer of grimy, semi-moist feeling filth. I don’t know what we were thinking going back, considering the state of Erin’s face after leaving the last time. Let me refresh in case you’ve forgotten: 

The silver lining is that Erin got to pose with yet another Santa: 

And we also found a one-of-a-kind collector’s item, tucked away in a closet: 

I left this sale with nothing more than about 40 extra miles on my car, and very, very dirty hands. 

-Sarah

Update from Erin:  Sarah shouldn’t be so sad about going grey.  My hair started turning grey about 4 years ago and I’m like half Sarah’s age.  Plus, she is blonde, so you only really notice the greys when they are under the truly unflattering lights of National Coney Island.

Anyway, the first sale was disappointing.  The pictures looked so good!  But then we showed up and they had stuff like this:

My favorite part of this sale though was walking upstairs and Sarah immediately yelling, “OMG WHAT IS THAT?!?!”  She pointed to this thing on the floor:

I informed her that “that” was a coconut.  She asked me why it looked like that and I told her because it’s a coconut.

I didn’t buy much at this sale.  One thing I did find was this old felt piece with an American flag design.  I am using it as a little doily:

Returning to the doll sale was truly a mistake.  It smelled really odd in there this time around.  Not totally awful smelling, but it felt hard to breathe in there.

I found this large Rempel squeaky giraffe.  Rempel squeakers are usually pretty collectible.  I took a chance on this guy for $1.  Looking back, I don’t think he will actually sell.  His squeaker is broken and he is covered in dirt and sadness.

Whomp whomp.

-Erin