Yard Sale Bloodbath

This weekend my mom and aunt came down from Bellingham, WA to hit some sales with me. It was crappy on Friday night, so I knew that some folks would cancel due to rain. Then Jenny called to say that she needed to have some down time and was going to stay home.

Leslie had sent me some listings for sales, including one at the F.O.E. about 15 blocks from my house. Two years ago at the same Eagles Hall I bought a rare ’80s skateboard for $4, so I definitely wanted to go there again.

Let me start by saying that my mom is the worst navigator for sales. She will give you three addresses at the same time, doesn’t look at what time the sales start, and can’t read signs if they are too small. A total nightmare. Then add in sales that are listed, but aren’t really happening! Frustrating.

We hit three of these nonexistent sales, then finally went to the F.O.E. hall. The usual cast of characters was waiting out front including my sale nemesis: the guy that can’t close his car door.

The sale was not what I expected. One woman was selling her “collectibles.”

Another lady was selling her figurines and some other assorted junk.

We left and hit a sale for a couple moving back to New Orleans and I purchased a plug-in fireplace for $6. Really, what was I thinking?!?! They did have these wonderful unicorn pictures.

We drove to a sale that was supposed to start at 9:00 that wasn’t happening. We drove by again at 10:00 and it turned out to be the best sale of the whole day. They had great books, some cool clothes, my mom bought furniture. It was great that they didn’t open on time, since we must have been one of the few people that went to the sale. I filled two paper bags for $15 total.

My trunk photos turned out badly, but we filled the whole car. Over the course of the day we hit about 15 sales. Some were crap, some were overpriced, but for a rainy day in late September it turned out to be pretty good.

There was a nice mention of our blog in the comments of this post about online yard sale maps from Metroblogging Portland. (We haven’t tried any of these newfangled mapping dealybobs yet. I keep thinking we should, but I guess I’m just lazy. Plus, there are some sales that we deliberately skip based on their description, and I don’t know how easy it will be to weed these out. I guess I will get around to finding out sooner or later.)

Anyway, I had to laugh when I read this remark about us:

What I can’t figure out is what they do with all their finds. I don’t know if they run a store, or just collect things like those crazy people who have to clear out paths in their homes through the piles of newspapers and styrofoam meat liners that have been building up for years.

Well, we certainly don’t run a store, although we do resell some of our finds through various venues (often referred to as “supporting our habit”). And we are not crazy hoarders — granted, both of us do have more stuff in our homes than is strictly necessary by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not like we’re anywhere close to this.

So, what is the deal? The junk in our trunk photos don’t lie: we bring home a lotta stuff. The reality is that much of it ends up going through what my sister termed the “yard sale catch and release program.” (Genius!) It goes something like this:

1. Buy something at a yard sale.
2. Bring it home.
3. Keep it around for a while.
4. Sell it at another yard sale.

This isn’t about reselling for profit. Occasionally I’ll price something a little higher than what I paid for it, but more often than not it’s just about the same. Knowing that something can go into a future yard sale does provide some (not entirely logical) justification for some purchases I’m not sure about. Meghan’s been known to say “Hey, if I decide I don’t want it, someone will buy it at my next sale.” And she’s usually right. I have even bought things already knowing that they will likely end up in my next sale, but somehow deciding to get them anyway. Maybe just because even if it’s not something I need to keep forever, it’s nice to spend a little bit of time with an interesting (if not objectively valuable) treasure. Until I’m done with it and ready to send it on its way.

This might be slightly demented, but we are definitely not the only ones participating in this program. More than once we’ve sold something at one of our sales, only to see the very same item again later — at the yard sale of the person who bought it from us.

Why? I don’t know. It’s kinda fun though.

Meghan summed up our Saturday pretty well in the last post, but I wanted to chime in and talk about some of the cool stuff I got. From that one amazing sale in the mostly-empty house I scored three pairs of shoes for a buck apiece: Fluevog boots, green/tan Born shoes and — can it be? — another pair of Giraudons! Unfortunately, they all ended up being just a tad too small, but I am sure I will find them some good homes. I also got a cute “A Is For Alligator” print, two vintage bowls, and a bunch of books (most of them were okay, but not quite as enthralling as the Heavy Metal one). At other sales I grabbed some cute cloth napkins, yet more books, and some free magazines that ended up smelling like cat pee. (Ew.)

Karl’s scores included a bowl from Tai Tung Restaurant, a very long and skinny landscape painting in lovely ’70s shades of brown, and a box of Star Wars trading cards that he somehow talked the empty-house-sale guy into giving him for free as a “commission” for bringing us to his sale.

I think our most amazing scores of the day came from the Sweet and Savory bakery. Karl promised us he knew where to get some good baked treats, even going so far as to “stake his reputation” on this place. Well, I am pleased to report that his reputation is intact — maybe even elevated a notch. Everything we had was delicious: coffee cake, a plum/almond tart, a chocolate croissant … yum! Perhaps tastiest of all was the homemade salt bagel with cream cheese. Meghan claimed it was the best bagel she’s ever eaten (and let me tell you, she’s eaten plenty of bagels in her day). We couldn’t stop thinking about the pastries all morning, and we ended up making a second stop later to get even more. Those are a couple of fresh baguettes that you can see poking up in the back seat of the car.

Karl had invited Jenny and I to come to sales across town in his neighborhood on Saturday. I was feeling pretty iffy about going, since I had plans to have an end of summer party on Saturday night. But the pull of the last few sales of the summer was more than I could bear. A few party details can wait, no?

We never go to sales in this part of town — in the years we have been going to sales I think we have hit this area all of 3 or 4 times. It’s usually pretty good, but since it’s across town who wants to waste prime garage sale time in the car. Karl has a route that he does most Saturdays and he usually has some pretty awesome scores, so we thought we would check it out.

After picking Karl up we drove by a sale that was starting at 10:00 and wouldn’t allow anyone to look, so we headed four blocks south to a sale that at first looked like had the potential to be too baby, but ended up having some hidden treasures. At another stop we met this nurse who let me take a photo of her sweatshirt — the sale wasn’t the best, but they were cool folks.

We were definitely spending more time driving than shopping. Karl seemed to feel badly about the lack of signs (and even listings on Craigs) and for a few minutes this little excursion seemed like a bad idea. But what was lacking in quantity was sure made up for in quality at the next sale. The house was almost empty and it looked like it was going to be really crappy until we found some really great books. Both Jenny and I sat on the floor grabbing stuff. I was super jealous of Jenny finding an ’80s book about heavy metal music.

From one of the back bedrooms I heard Karl say my name once, then again — whatever he had found, I was sure it was going to be good, so I got up and went over there. Hanging against one of the doors were 6 vintage dresses and there was clothing all over the floor. Yes!

The owner was nice, but then he told us about a guy that “owned an antique shop” who had bought all kinds of stuff earlier in the morning. I groaned and Jenny said “Don’t tell us that!” Still, everyone found great stuff. I filled up three boxes packed full of clothing and books. I thought the guy would sit and count everything, but he just peeked into the box and said “How about 15 bucks a box?” DONE!

We hit a few more sales, nothing amazing, but a few were interesting. We filled the trunk and had some amazing baked goods that I’m sure will get the royal blogging treatment later.

There is a cool neighborhood near us called Olympic Manor, which is filled with incredible ’50s modern houses and, more to the point, has an annual yard sale day. Every time we’d drive by Meghan would ask me, “When’s Olympic Manor?” I couldn’t quite remember but I seemed to think it was late in the season and sure enough, we discovered that their sale day was happening on Saturday. I had been thinking about skipping sales this weekend, but how could I pass that up? In past years we have both found amazing stuff there (even though there are always a ton of boring-new-crappy-stuff sales to weed through too). Karl wanted to make another guest star appearance (he’s practically a recurring character at this point) so we invited him along for the ride.

Our first stop was to try to find a sale Meghan had been tipped off about, where a friend of a friend had been cleaning out his grandmother’s old stuff. She had the address written down, but somehow it was missing one of the numbers. We found it pretty easily though and there were some great things there. I excitedly scooped up a starburst wall candle holder for $1 and a couple of cool books, then allowed myself to splurge on 8 vintage glasses. And when I say splurge, I don’t mean because of the price (they were $1 each), but because I really don’t need more glasses. But I have definitely reformed my previous excessive glass-buying ways, and since I’ve broken a few of them lately I figured I was allowed to pick up some cool and usable replacements.

Just as I was marveling at the good finds, Meghan and Karl both pointed out some other guy who was leaving with a bunch of really good stuff. Talk about harshing my vibe! I was glad I didn’t actually see what he scored, but it was still frustrating to think about. In any case, we all walked off with enough stuff that after only one more sale, we decided to make an early drop-off to clear out the trunk for the scores to come. Note Meghan’s cool magazine rack and Karl’s extremely huge Heidelberg beer bottle. (Extra funny since he doesn’t actually drink.)

We hit a few more random sales before heading into Olympic Manor, where the action supposedly started at 10 but had obviously gotten rolling earlier. We grabbed a map, but ended up just driving around rather than taking any kind of methodical approach. The first couple of sales were pretty unremarkable. We turned a corner and Meghan said, “There’s that guy who has his sale every year and it’s always the same stuff.” I remembered this too, and even though it is always bad, I couldn’t resist going over to take a look. The acres of boxes just called to me irresistibly, even though inside was nothing I even remotely wanted.

You just know that he hauls those same boxes in and out every year — maybe a few pounds lighter, but still.

We walked away and realized that Karl was nowhere to be found. “Karl!” we yelled. “Come on!” Getting no response we tried other tactics like yelling “Hey nerdlinger, move it!” and “Wow, Sonics records!” with no effect. Finally he came out of the garage holding one crappy record that I can’t even remember.

We went to one sale had a garage practically full of Barbies and various other dolls for $2 each. None of them were old enough to be obviously worth money, but some of them were interesting. There were also some really bad clothes, including a t-shirt that said “Crazy About Dolls.” Yeah, I guess so. As we trudged up the driveway I heard Meghan say “How about if I buy these and wear them around for the rest of the day?” I turned around to see this.

We probably spent an hour in Olympic Manor, all of us finding some things, but without any truly phenomenal scores. After a while we decided to head out to a different area. There was one sale advertised as “retro clean-out” that sounded interesting. Their taste turned out to be a bit odd. I mean, this bar thing kind of gave me the creeps.

This was about the best thing left — really.

We continued hitting a variety of not-that-great sales before stumbling onto one where the woman had a ton of vintage stuff that she didn’t fit into anymore and was finally getting rid of. It was here that I saw by far the largest number of pairs of vintage black velvet pants that I’ve ever seen in one place, which Meghan now owns. I bought a really cool winter coat (that is really too big, but it’s so nice) and a pair of Giraudon shoes for fifty cents! Yes, they are beat up, but I think with a good polish they can be saved. Many of my very favorite shoes are Giraudons (my sister has a shoe store and hooks me up) so I was pretty happy to get another pair on the dirt-cheap.

“Okay - one more sale,” we said. Unfortunately, the sale we found had completely ridiculous prices. Crappy CDs: $5 each, or 5 for $20! Japanese stuffed toys: $12 each! Other boring crap I can’t remember: at least 5 or 6 times the amount you’d expect it to be! I really had to restrain myself from telling them rudely, “Have fun packing all your stuff back up, because nobody is going to buy it.” I just walked away and said we needed to hit another sale so we could end on a happier note. We found one at a house where I’d been to a sale years ago and bought tons of great fabric. There was fabric again (it looks like they were chronic quilters/crafters), but I didn’t buy anything. Karl noticed some plums (from a tree in their yard) on the table, and the sellers invited us to take some. We each ate one right then and there. They were great! And a fine way to end the day.

Yep — another Saturday, another full trunk (and then some). I do have a bit of remorse over a couple of my more random purchases, but I also got some things I’m pretty dang happy about. And of course, I had a fabulous time!

Through our extensive years of yard-saling we have determined that the Saturdays of holiday weekends (Memorial Day/Labor Day) generally don’t have a ton of sales. Furthermore, the sales that are there are often lame. But did this keep us from heading out? Of course not! And though it was indeed true that there weren’t a lot of sales, and many of them sucked, we ended up with some good scores just the same.

The first sale we went to we found by accident. The woman quickly pissed us off by mentioning that there had just been a rush of buyers. “They bought the weirdest stuff,” she said. “All of the really old stuff.” Yeah, that’s really weird. Then as I started flipping through the books, she mentioned that those had been cleaned out too. I have never figured out why people think it’s a good idea to tell you about all of the stuff you missed out on at their sales.

We went to a few really bad sales with the most boring things. There was also this one where they had signs up, but when we got there all we found was this:

I guess they hadn’t opened up yet, but this really didn’t make us want to come back later to check it out.

There were a few sales that started at 10:00 that sounded more promising. One of them was a fundraising sale. In the ad, they’d said “No haggling allowed!” so of course we had to make numerous fake attempts to haggle, probably not entertaining anyone but ourselves. They had a few good things, including some crazy polyester disco shirts - I got one with a label that has the Saturday Night Fever logo on it.

Another late-starting sale was a moving sale advertising lots of vintage. It was in an apartment building and as we pulled up we realized we’d been to one of her sales last year where we both got some great things. We were just about the first people there and there wasn’t a ton of stuff out, but it was all interesting. I picked up a bunch of things including couple of men’s vintage shirts, some barkcloth and vintage fabric, a black vinyl ’60s jacket (that I thought would be cute, but I didn’t like when I put it on at home), and one of the weirdest things I’ve bought at a sale in some time: about eight little packets of vintage hairnets from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. I have no interest in the hairnets themselves, but the packaging is pretty great. I was also fascinated to see that a couple of the packages proudly proclaimed they were made out of real human hair! Meghan also amassed a pile at this sale - some vintage clothes and I’ve already forgotten what else. The prices were good, but we both ended up spending a little more than we expected here.

We went to one sale in an alley where I bought some wacky ’60s curtains. These people also annoyed me by mentioning that as they were setting up last night, someone came by and spent $300 on various items. Some of the stuff was in their garage, and at one point someone tried to purchase a box full of fifty-year-old letters from some relative that wasn’t actually part of the sale, which caused a bit of consternation.

Despite the low good-to-bad sale ratio and the preponderance of annoying sellers, I had a great time, probably because it had been almost a month since Meghan and I have made the yard sale rounds together. And we ended up doing pretty well. Some of the other things I got were a ’60s American flag motif sweater (that Meghan has threatened to wear along with her wacky “Vote” jacket for Halloween if we can find some appropriately star-spangled pants), a few cute kids’ clothes items, some brand-new Levi’s that actually fit, and a couple of interesting books. Meghan picked up a Le Creuset stockpot for $5 (!!!), an alligator purse, a white decorated box that says “Smoker,” and other assorted odds and ends. The trunk was filled at the end of the day — which shouldn’t really surprise anyone …