Yard Sale Bloodbath

When I was at the “Eclectic Vintage Freakout” sale in Berkeley last Saturday, I came across something that really made me laugh. It made the sellers laugh, too, but they were ready to get it out of their house. It was only a quarter, but I decided not to buy it, asking instead if I could just take a picture. They said sure — although they did try to convince me that I really wanted it. I told them I’d give them 50 cents to take the picture and not bring it home, but kindly they didn’t make me pay up.

I am having a teensy bit of regret at leaving it behind, but I think just having the picture is really good enough.

It’s not just the wacky gag-gift nature of this item that cracks me up. That hair! That pose! That wacky copywriting! Ah, what a fine piece of ’80s debris. I didn’t take it out of the box, but I think it’s basically some kind of two-balloon apparatus that you can inflate on demand.

My almost-sincere apologies to anyone who ended up here because they were looking for real super boobs.

I spent just over a week in Berkeley, California, visiting family. My parents are long-time yard sale shoppers (yes, it’s in my blood) so they were up for hitting a couple of sales as we made our way to do other things on the first Saturday I was there.

The first sale was a block sale right where a friend of mine used to live, but there was nothing good. The second was an estate sale on a street that I don’t think I’d ever been on before (sort of a rare thing considering I spent the first 26 years of my life there). The front room was very organized and full of relatively nice things. As you made your way through the house it sort of devolved into more and more chaos, culminating in the back patio where it looked like the house had just sort of vomited up its more sketchy contents.

At one point heard my mom call to my sister, “Hey, come in here!” Thinking there was something good (or at least photo-worthy), I followed. It turned out to be a framed picture of my sister’s old first-grade teacher on the dresser. It must have been her parents’ house. Nobody found anything, and on the way out the door I decided to look through the jewelry piled on the checkout table — I ended up finding a really nice pair of pink rhinestone earrings for $2.00.

We decided to hit more sales the following Saturday. I looked on craigslist and found a few in our neighborhood. As we were getting ready to leave the next door neighbors came over and asked my mom if she could move her car from in front of their house since they were having a yard sale! This seemed exciting, but unfortunately it was their “we-decided-not-to-have-a-third-kid” sale, so it had nothing but baby stuff.

I was really intrigued by this one elaborate ad titled “Crazed Collector’s Clean-Out!” There were photos showing a house full of packed bookcases and all kinds of random junk stuffed in various nooks and crannies. As we were driving to it both of my parents said, “I hope this isn’t that one sale that is always there.” Sure enough, they recognized the house as one that has a sale going on nearly every weekend.

There must have been rooms in the back where the people lived, because the whole front of the house was set up with sale stuff.

It was kind of like being in a mini-Urban Ore, since there was just so much stuff. The sale was on the sidewalk, in the front yard, inside the house, down both sides of the house, and continued in the back yard.

I looked around for a while, and saw a few interesting things, but there was nothing that really grabbed me. Plus, these perma-sales sort of annoy me on principle, so I wasn’t exactly predisposed to shop there. But most of the stuff just wasn’t all that great. And I didn’t need any plants, lumber, or sculptural metal.

We went to a few more sales where I found various things that I might have bought at home, but weren’t worth dragging back on the airplane, like framed paint-by-numbers and one lone Russell Wright bowl. If I had really loved them I would have picked them up, but my suitcases were already pretty crammed and I didn’t think I’d really be haunted by leaving any of it behind. The most amazing thing I had to pass up was a terrific green ’50s formica/chrome table, complete with three chairs. They were only asking $35! It was actually kind of good that I wasn’t at home, since I don’t have any place for it in my house anyway. But if it had been in Seattle, I would have been really tempted. Even my mom was trying to figure out if there was somewhere she could put it, but eventually we just walked away, figuring that someone in Berkeley was going to be really stoked by their table & chair score later that day.

The only sale where I bought something was one advertised as “Eclectic Vintage Freakout!” This was a fun sale, with the winning combination of interesting stuff, cheap prices, and nice people. I purchased the book “Gentleman of Leisure: A Year In The Life of a Pimp” for 25 cents, as a gift for my husband. (I just poked around online and discovered this book was recently reissued in a hardcover version. Who knew?) It was at this sale that I also saw one of the most fascinating items ever. I didn’t buy it, but I did take a picture, which I’ll share in the next post.

My mom did end up with a few items, and even though I hardly bought anything, I had a great time making the yard sale rounds in my old stomping grounds.

With Jenny out of town, I asked Leslie if she wanted to drive over to Ballard to hit some yard sales. I had printed out some sales and one of them was listed as having hundreds of patterns, antiques, vintage fabric, and on and on. So, I had put a star on that one to hit first. At first I thought we had the wrong address, then we drove by one of the saddest apartment sales and all I could think was “it can’t be” — we didn’t even get out of the car or even slow down!

We headed to a church rummage sale. This was also a bust.

As I was looking over some of the books I saw a woman with her bar code scanner. She was like a zombie, scanning a pile of CDs. I hate people like this. Leslie commented that booksellers have spent years learning about books and a few people scanning crap isn’t going to change that.

At the very next sale we saw more people with scanners. They didn’t even have any good books. I did sneak this photo of a scary clown figurine.

As I was paying I made a comment about the two guys scanning her books. She gave me a baffled look and said “Why are they scanning my books?” I explained that they were scanning her books to see if they are worth any money, so they can resell them. Let’s hope she charged them double!

In the car I asked Leslie, “Isn’t Scanners a movie where people’s heads explode?” I am making it my personal goal to rid the planet of “The Scanners.” At my next yard sale, all books and CDs will have the bar codes blackened out. Really, you will not get rich by being a fucking moron.

We then hit a few more unremarkable sales and then one of the most bizarre sales I have even been to. It took both of us about ten minutes to figure out that most everything in the sale was free.

There was an old Mexican woman standing by like 8 boxes of stuff she and another woman had taken from the sale — we saw them packing up their car an hour later and I still wasn’t sure how they would be getting it all home.

The first thing I found was a Quisp Quaker Oats Spaceman Doll. They had tons of stuff and I think we both had that dreaded feeling of “why didn’t we hit this sale at the start of the day!” We both grabbed tons of stuff that was either free or dirt cheap. I managed to get one box of Princess House glassware, some dishes, a boxed Intellivision II 80’s gaming system, some crazy vintage Christmas items, old books … I took two loads to the car and I think Leslie did the same. Grand total? Me - $5.00. Leslie - $1.00.

I think we were both a little shocked that we had spent an hour at the sale. So, we headed to an estate sale that had been going since 10:00. The second we walked into the house you could tell it had seen about 45 years of smoking. The house reeked — Leslie almost went back to the car, but she was a trooper and trudged on. We hit the “Christmas bedroom” — does every single estate sale have one of these? You know what I’m talking about, right? The room filled with card tables full of some old lady’s Christmas crap.

Then from the window, Leslie spied an old shed filled with lawn ornaments. Her arm shot out into a pointer finger. “LOOK!”

We headed outside and saw Fred and Barb (from the sale I went to last week), who had just purchased two large 1950s bullet planters. RATS! We both were glad that at least it was someone that we knew who had just bought them. I had a moment and purchased a concrete chicken.

We wrapped it up after this. Here is the trunk photo, and we had the back seat filled too. A great end-of-summer sale day!

I posted about finding these photos a while ago and I finally scanned them. They were taken at the Tin Hat Bar in Seattle in the late ’60s or early ’70s. Enjoy.

I had received an email about Fred & Barb’s annual “Green 55″ garage sale, with Lizretros and Leslie as participants. After going to a few of their previous sales and always getting something good (or at the very least getting to look over some fun and interesting items) I knew that would be my first stop.

The sale started at 9:00, but Leslie had mentioned that I could pop over before they opened. I was happy for the offer since I secretly wanted to be at the Ballard Eagles Drill Team Rummage sale at 9:00, mostly because the flyer for the sale was so bad/funny and I also really wanted to see if any of them would be in their drill team outfits for the sale.

Fred and Barb’s sale was great (as usual) and I grabbed tons of stuff from Liz’s stash. I have seen her at sales and I can just tell we have a similar style. I got a cute dress that she made that I’m hoping will fit, along with some curtains that she made — I’m never going to make curtains, so this is the next best thing, right?

The photos do not tell the amazingness of the sale — sorry, I was too busy grabbing stuff. I think you can get the basic idea.

At 8:55 I made my way to the Drill Team sale (I drove by another sale on the way that was a bust). I parked across the street and saw two people standing out front — wow, a line? No. It was two people from the drill team, wondering why the door hadn’t been opened. Ehg. What to do? Wait for the door to open or hit some other sales?

After a few minutes, I bailed for some other sales. Here is the thing about this Saturday: I never once looked my sheet that I printed out. I either just drove down a street and spotted a sale, or saw a sign.

I did go back to the drill team sale. It was pretty much a crap-fest and I was sad to see not one girl in a blue and yellow outfit with matching hat!

I had blogged about another sale at the same Eagles Hall in an earlier post. This photo of the table looks just as bad as it did then.

As I was driving away I passed an estate sale that had one of the best rec-room-style basements ever. They had a shuffle board set into 1950’s linoleum!

They also had built in bar that had a sink and a built in 2 burner stove. I have dreams of having a basement like this.

The sad thing about the sale was that you knew she must have had cool old junk that was already picked clean either by relatives or the folks putting on the sale. I bought some kitchen items, but not much more.

I went to about 15 more sales in the next hour.

From this huge mess of clothing I bought a great black crepe ’40s dress, a ’20s dress, and a few other items.

I knocked off at 11:00 and still managed to fill up my truck. Not too shabby for three hours of sales.

Do you remember about a month ago when I ended up with a bunch of junk in my trunk, including a book chock-full of extremely demented and disturbing decorations to make out of tinfoil?

Well! I did not know how much that book got around. Sweetheartville left us a comment that she’d seen the book and was appropriately horrified (particularly by the mermaid). And our pal and occasional guest-star Leslie told me she had a copy, too. Not only that, but she said she owned a painting based on one of the photos. This seemed too good to be true, and I demanded proof. Which I am so thrilled to share with you now.

Here’s the original photo from the book:

And here’s the painting:

The fact that this painting exists is fantastic. Even better is that it was painted by Lamont Mudd, local artist and occasional-dude-about-town. I’m already quite familiar with his work, since we actually have a couple of his paintings in our house, too. (None based on tinfoil crafts, however. You can see one of them here - it’s the third one down.)

Lamont’s paintings are somewhat elusive these days, but rumor has it that they sometimes turn up at Sugartown Vintage. I don’t know if he takes commissions for custom work based on your own favorite horrifying tinfoil art project, but I suppose you could ask!

Saturday at 5:00 a.m. our dog started crying to go outside and I was unable to get back to sleep. Not the best time frame for yard sales, if none of them start until 9:00.

I know both Jenny and I have mentioned some of our regular salers we run into almost every Saturday. One of them we both call “furniture guy.” I have also referred to him as “Yugo guy” since he drives a tiny car. It’s actually a white Ford Aspire. I know, because I looked. So, “furniture guy” goes to sales and the first thing is does is ask if they have any furniture, buys it, and then leaves it to come back later in the afternoon with a truck. Anyway, for some reason today I couldn’t get away from the guy — he was either at each sale before I got there, or he was there within a couple of minutes after I showed up.

It was an interesting day, but not really the most fruitful. I get some really great jewelry for $10 at a sale early on — some old Mexican Silver, a Caro set of yellow stones, and a brass and white enamel Matisse choker.

One sale had so many old beer cans, and I only took a photo of a small amount. I’m sure some guy thought this was “kitschy” at some point, but when you have like 200 it’s overkill.

In typical form, I ended up at a baby sale — with nothing that wasn’t for the new baby with the exception of a Tonto action toy, with his horse, from the Lone Ranger TV show. The woman was really trying to get me to buy it for $25. I had to decline, but I did tell her the story of how when I was 4 years old, I thought his name was the Loan Arranger and he helped get people money.

I went to some seriously bad sales. Bad paintings, bad furniture, bad books — how do people get this much crap?

One sale was to help a group of folks get to Burning Man. I bought nothing.

I took a photo of this huge TV that was probably broken. The sticker made me laugh.

I didn’t even open the trunk, but I did take a photo of my purchases.

I look forward to next week.

Since I was in San Francisco for the weekend, I had thought I would be able to get to a few stoop sales or at the very least the huge Alameda Swap Meet on Sunday. Due to some late night drinking and lack of organization we couldn’t get up and moving to do either of these things.

SF does have a huge amount of what I like to call “crazy-homeless-person-on-crack selling-dumpster-dive-items on-the-most-filthy-corner-of-the Mission” sales – I saw many of these, but didn’t take the time to peruse their wares.

So instead of going to the Alameda Swap we went to Urban Ore in Berkeley. Urban Ore is similar to Seattle Re-store and has many of the same items: doors, windows, sinks, toilets … the list goes on and on.

Where these two places differ is that Urban Ore is 4 or 5 times the size, and they pretty much have everything else too (clothing, art, furniture, books) along with tile, bricks, tools and many, many other items. Like old pharmacy signs.

The first thing that I saw (and would have purchased in a second) was a 1930’s or maybe 1940’s mint green metal cigarette machine. As a ex-smoker (and let me stress I was an avid smoker. I loved, loved, loved them and if I knew the world was ending tomorrow I would be at the corner store buying a pack), owning a cigarette machine would be like the next best thing to smoking. It was $350 and if I could have thought of a way to get it back to Seattle without breaking the bank (and my back) I would have bought it right then and there.

They have everything that you can imagine. Some of it is really cool and some of it feels like “the bins” in Portland. Some of it is just too crusty.

Did you need a tube for your TV? They have like 2,000 of them on a shelf.

What about a 78 RPM record?

What about an old tape dispenser?

My favorite thing that I saw was a church’s pulpit stored outside between the tile and old bathtubs.

For once I managed to not purchase anything (my suitcase was already past the breaking point), but I loved seeing the recycle movement taken to a whole new level.

Okay, now here is a book that is both entertaining, and about entertaining. Ostensibly, anyway. I think it’s really more about freaking people out, because this charming little cookbook pamphlet is chock full of seafood breakfast dishes.

The disgustingness just doesn’t stop with this one, with recipes like “Fluffy Salmon Omelet” and the gag-inducing “Peachy Scallops.” To be fair, a few of the recipes aren’t that bad; some, like pan-fried trout, sound perfectly tasty (although not necessarily for breakfast). “Clam-Corn Griddle Cakes” seem like an okay idea, in a savory-fritter kind of way … until you get to the part where they suggest serving them with cran-applesauce.

I bought this at a thrift store many years ago, but recently decided to send it on to a new home. I gave it to Rakka Deer at her recent retro food party. I apologize in advance to any future attendees if she actually decides to make and serve anything from this booklet.

I don’t mean books that are about how to entertain people; I mean books that are entertaining to look at.

On the left, we have The Munchies Eatbook: or how to satisfy the hungries without eating everything in sight. I’m guessing that most people in a “munchies” situation aren’t really going to take the time to break out a recipe (when busting into a bag of Doritos is so much more convenient), but what do I know. Also, the little inset graphic of the strawberries shared between pairs of Rolling-Stones-logo-ish mouths is really pretty strange - I’ve spent way too much time pondering how they decided to go with that particular image.

On the right, we have a perfectly normal photography book … except for the squirrelly-looking dude on the cover. Those glasses! That mustache! Those beady eyes! That wrapped-around-the-camera posture! I’m not sure I want to know what he was taking pictures of.

These books were seen (but not purchased) at a sale the Saturday before last. I didn’t go to any sales at all last weekend.

First we got Karl’s take on Saturday … now we get Cathy’s write-up. It’s double-guest-star-riffic!

Back when ebay didn’t take such a big bite out of sales with their fees, I got the fever and was hitting garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores regularly. For every two things I bought to sell on ebay, I’d keep at least one gem for myself. And I got some great stuff.

Then life with small children set in, and making time for garage sales dwindled. UNTIL … a few weeks ago when Jenny & Meghan had a sale of their own and turned me onto their blog. I was inspired and begged them to let me tag along on their next trip.

I had every intention of being responsible about keeping my early-morning commitment. Then I got an unexpected last-minute invite to a party (that I couldn’t refuse) the night before. Stumbling to Meghan’s at 8:30 am with only 4 hours of sleep and alcohol oozing from my pores wasn’t what I had envisioned. I wanted to be PERKY! But instead I clung on for dear life as her car zipped through the streets of Ballard & Greenwood while Jenny flipped through their (very organized) pages of listings saying, “turn here”, “I think it’s at the end of this street”, “oh, we’ve been to this one before” … If I had thrown up the night before, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so much like throwing up at the end of those 4 hours …

My experience was way overshadowed by my hangover, which is most likely why I lack enthusiasm looking back on the day … I remember a lot of stuff I wasn’t looking for (clothes, books, records) with some selections of merchandise that surprised me when I looked at the people running the sale. That’s always been one of my fave things about garage sale shopping — getting a peek into the lives behind the doors of strangers (or sometimes neighbors). One of my favorites was the chick with the huge collection of cheesy Elvis memorabilia for sale (and a really odd grouping of surplus corporate gear — tees, pens, hats, bags, etc — in the back yard). When we were leaving, I glanced in the window of the living room and saw an Elvis lampshade and bust on the end table. That sort of shattered the story I had imagined of her outgrowing the Elvis collection and moving on. I guess she was just thinning out some duplicate pieces. Hunk-a, hunk-a, and all that.

My friend Leigh had given me an address (at the party the night before) for her friend Heidi’s sale. Luckily, she wrote it on a sticky and put it on my dashboard, so it was there when I got in the car to head to Meghan’s. I bought my only real purchases of the day at Heidi’s — a pair of poodle mosaics and two little chalkware poodle heads.

Next time I promise to spend the night before on the couch watching a movie instead of drinking mystery champagne cocktails on Tasha’s porch until 3 am …

Thanks Cathy! We’ll get you out with us again soon … hung over or not!