Dig This Treasure!

Zach went to an estate sale a couple of weeks ago.  It was family-run and at the door walking in, he was handed this:

He said that there was a huge box of these things and literally EVERY person who walked in the door was handed one.  He unrolled it to find:

An invitation to a wedding anniversary party that happened IN 2004.

Unfortunately they were not selling time machines at this sale, so the rationale behind this offering will remain a mystery.

-Erin

Wow, hard to believe I still have stuff to write about from my trip to South Carolina. But I do… one last entry. After we left the Summerville Antique Gallery, we headed over to this crazy hot dog place called Perfectly Franks that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. This was enough to make me completely sold! The hot dogs at this place were crazy. Just look for yourself. 

I don’t know why none of us ordered something super crazy. I just got a Chicago style dog. In retrospect, I should have tried something more adventurous. Still, it was a… 

After our hot dogs, we headed over to an antique store next door. There were some cool things to look at. 

There were four of these hippie hangers but I liked this guy the best. 

I thought this cool print by Hatch Show Print might be valuable but it was priced correctly. 

I also loved these little Frances invites, but when am I ever going to use something like that? 

Action shot of my mom and Ann discussing something important. 

Ok, so I’ll bet you’re wondering what the hell the awesome find was here, right? Well, I noticed these adorable bisque cake toppers on a shelf, but they were all priced separately even though it was clearly a set. 

When I brought them up, I questioned the price but the guy didn’t seem willing to bargain, and the price of each was $15. I wasn’t willing to pay $45 for all of them, so I left because I figured I could find them online.

We started driving to our next destination and I started looking these guys up on eBay, and they actually seemed to sell for more than that on there, so I felt bummed that I had missed out on something I really liked at a good price. So I did what any brave person would do–I made my dad drive back there, and I sent my mom in with some cash to haggle for me. I told her I was willing to pay $30 for all three and she came out with them in her hands! Yeah mom! 

In celebration, here is a picture of me and my mom sitting on a moon in the Moon Pie shop in downtown Charleston.

Moon Pies are disgusting, by the way. But that backdrop is dope! 

-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? 

We got a fairly late start on Friday due to the fact that I have a real job with real hours that need to be really worked in real life. There weren’t any exceptional looking sales (or even GOOD looking sales) once again, but we made it work.

The first sale we stopped at was very close to Erin’s house, and was clearly a “man sale.” But that’s ok! There were some cool things to see, along with a lot of chaos.

Cool things:

Chaos:

This guy obviously worked on cars, and possibly even planes. He had a lot of old literature on both of these things, but the space was so destroyed and crowded that it was hard to get a really good look without wondering if some structure was going to collapse on your dome. Erin decided to take a chance.

I saw a little crawl space that was filled with boxes and other nonsense. Of course, rather than sacrifice myself, I pulled Erin into the room and told her to get in there because she’s smaller than me. She obeyed and even had a mini flashlight. (Sidenote: I HATE when guys whip out their Maglite minis at sales. They’re always the SAME kind of guy–big, scruffy, and wearing dirty Hanes sweats. Do you think you’re on Storage Wars or what?)

Anyway, she pulled out a dainty keychain light (which is acceptable) and got down to business. She found a treasure of her own that I’ll let her tell you about, but she also unearthed this decent sized box of pictures and other paper.

She also found a few 8 mm and 16 mm films but the woman running the sale told me that she must have missed those–the family wanted to keep any and all movies (but apparently not still pictures?) I didn’t let her know she missed them because they were in the deep dark depths of the dirty crawlspace. But it left me wondering what was on those films–something scandalous, or just family memories?

I ended up getting the box of stuff for $10, which seems reasonable, though I haven’t looked through it yet. Erin spotted another big stack of photos in the garage, and the guy out there sold them to me for $5. All in all, an excellent deal.

One last thing that Erin considered buying:

The next sale on our list was out in Warren. We made the trek because it looked packed. Turns out, it wasn’t packed at all, and instead was primarily filled with cheap garbage. HOWEVER, I found one box of absolutely incredible items at this sale. I’ll maintain the suspense by first showing you some items that we did not buy:

Uhm. What? Wait… now that I think about it, why did I not buy this? Actually, I’ve got a new New Years Resolution: From now on, buy any and all ‘70s resin figurines with sad and/or nonsensical sayings on them. We see them so often that I think it’s a sign. We need to start collecting them.

I’m not positive but I think these guys are made of cotton balls.

We were LOL-in’ about that cover and byline for a good while.

Ok, so here is the gold that I found:

Ok, so I realize that for everyone else on Earth, this looks like kindling for your fireplace. However, this box of books made me squeal with glee. I’m a librarian at a university and I manage a children’s and YA collection. Some of the books in this box are things I’ve never even heard of. I think I might feature one of them every so often on here because the summaries on the back covers alone are amazing.

It turns out these are a combination of “problem novels” and “female junior novels,” all ranging from the late '50s through '70s. I know this thanks to my friend Amanda who is a children’s lit professor who wrote her dissertation on NEGLECTED female junior novels. There were a few books in this lot that were things she’d never even seen in paperback!

So if you couldn’t already tell, this was really exciting for me. It’s just another example of the serendipity that sometimes happens–connecting you with a perfect item. I could tell that Erin was pretty much like “WTF” about my excitement, but she hid it well, and I applaud her for her efforts there. 

The other thing I purchased at this sale was an antique 8x10 wedding portrait:

Isn’t it so cool? Also, there was a little note tucked inside that made me feel better about purchasing more old pictures of strangers.

Apparently even the previous owner had no idea who these people were.

-Sarah

Update from Erin: If Sarah sticks to her resolution of buying all 70s resin figurines, there are going to be a LOT more TTFYHO entries.  I feel like a better 2013 resolution for Sarah is to buy NOTHING from the 70s.  In fact, I was watching Market Warriors last night on PBS and the challenge this week was to buy stuff from the 70s and resell it at auction.  Everyone on the show lost money…like a lot of money.

Anyway, the first sale on Friday was pretty grody.  I came out of there covered in dust.  Like Sarah mentioned, my trek into the crawlspace was fruitful.  I found a bunch of boxes and inside one was an old Gruen automatic watch.  

What is so amazing about this watch is that it sat so long without ticking (decades for sure) and the metal hands left little tarnish marks on the watch face.  But because I had jostled the boxes in the crawlspace around, the watch started ticking again and was running great when I discovered it.  How automatic watches are able to do this is beyond me…even more incredible than putting a man on the moon.

I paid a mere $5 for the watch, and it is blowing up ebay now.  

Also, why didn’t I buy that dog portrait?!  UGH.  It was so great.  I will kick myself over this for a long time.  

The second sale was my worst nightmare.  There was nothing for me to even look at while Sarah practically read each book she found cover to cover.  I kept mincing around behind her like pacing animals do at the zoo when they are bored.  I’m sure she appreciated it.  

Our day didn’t end here though, stay tuned for a report on the auction we attended later that night.

-Erin