Yard Sale Bloodbath

A “museum of things”? Sounds like what we see every weekend … But it’s a real place that I was able to visit during a brief stay in Berlin. Intrigued by the brief write-up in Time Out (and knowing we’d be right in the neighborhood) I decided I had to check it out.

The museum mainly consisted of case after case of things … all kinds of things.

The first thing it made me think of was being in an antique mall … a very tidy, well-curated antique mall. (Without price tags, of course.)

The things were displayed in lined-up cases – there were probably at least fifty of them, each with a different, specific selection of items inside.

It was cool, but kept wondering how they decided what to include in the collection. I mean, it seemed to span every conceivable type and style of item. How did they possibly narrow it down, when more artifacts could presumably obtained at any moment from various thrift shops or flea markets (not to mention newer items still available in stores)? I mean, why these bars of soaps and not others? Why so many soaps, and not a corresponding number of shampoos or deodorants or combs (which were all represented, but in smaller quantities)?

My next thought was that it was sort of like if you went to an estate sale of someone with hoarding tendencies, then carefully cleaned, arranged and displayed all the items. Because it felt almost like that amount of rhyme or reason as far as what was included: a somewhat random selection from all the “things” in the world (or even Germany). I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it was a mystery to me. For the most part, there was no information about the items on display to clue visitors in to the thinking behind the exhibits, aside from each case’s label which gave a brief description of what it contained. (This one said something like “yellow and black things”. Of course I still wondered how they chose these out of every possible yellow and black things.)

My husband said that it reminded him of going to the Hobby Hall at the Puyallup Fair, where people’s collections of various things are displayed (always running the gamut from lame to amazing), and I could kind of see that too.

Maybe I was just thinking about it all too much. Or maybe looking at that much stuff was giving me flashbacks to those huge antique malls that would take hours to really get through (but you know there’s something good somewhere, so you scour through as best you can before running out of steam). Eventually I decided to just enjoy the crazy ride … and then discovered one of the most amazing things there, and one of the very few items not enclosed in a case: this mind-blowing television, complete wiith stereo components in built-in slots. Whoa!

Here’s a great post I found about the museum that actually digs into more of its philosophy, structure, and design aspects … way better than I could manage, and worth a read (great photos, too). Though I was happy to see that the author stlil reached somewhat the same conclusion that I did:

… on a purely surface level it’s just the coolest, best-organized thrift store you have ever seen.

It was an interesting, if somewhat baffling, experience. I’m glad I went! And I do think that everyday things should be preserved and admired. That’s often the subcurrent in my brain when I find something cool or strange at a yard sale … but then I think, do I need to be the one to preserve this? Usually, the answer is no. So it’s kind of nice to see someone else taking up the cause … and sharing the bounty with anyone who happens to be in Berlin (with four euros and a little time to spare).

I spent last weekend in Northern California visiting my family — great timing, since the town of Point Richmond has their annual garage sale day on Memorial Day.

I’m not sure how long they have been doing this, but the first time I went was in 1993 or 1994, so it’s been a while. My parents and sisters try to go every year and usually find good stuff, so I was pretty happy to get to go for the first time in ages! We agreed to meet up at 9:00 near the “main event” out in front of the Masquers Playhouse.

Approaching from down the street you could see there was tons of stuff. It was only when I got a little closer that I could really witness the chaos of people digging into unopened boxes — putting the “rummage” into “rummage sale”!

Yes, it can be a thrill when you know you’re gonna be the first person to look at stuff, but it didn’t seem like anything was that great … so we avoided jumping wildly into the fray.

Instead, after a quick look around the perimeter (and a nice fresh donut) we meandered on to check out the other tables set up nearby. Maps were being sold for a quarter, which might explain why this one was being guarded.

The stuff ranged from antique-y and fancy …

… to random and odd.

None of us found much of anything, so we walked up a hill into the residential area. Lots of sales were happening and I remembered some spots where I’d scored in previous years, but we were striking out all over. Between this and Meghan’s Phinney experience last week, I was starting to wonder: after a place does community-wide sales for years and years, do they eventually just run out of good stuff?

After a quick “tea and pee” stop, we split up – some called it a day and went home while the rest of us forged boldly ahead. I drove up to a church sale and dropped everyone off while I looked for parking. It was a traffic jam from hell as people tried to worm their way through streets barely wide enough for one car. I finally parked two blocks away and passed this box on the way back to the sale. Whatever had been free was already long gone.

We consulted the map and headed further uphill, away from the center of town. Most of the stuff was just typical boring household items and baby clothes. I laughed at this pairing of board games. Welcome to California!

And we all marveled at the oodles of ceramic poodles.

My mom had mentioned that there was a “new condo area” which had a parking lot full of tables last year and seemed to have fewer people hitting it, so we decided to check that out. The short drive over had gorgeous views of the bay, and sadly that was the best thing about our little excursion. This year it was three tables filled with a whole lot of nothing.

We backtracked through town and hit some sales we’d missed, then felt like maybe our day was done. But wait! Driving back through we spotted this display on a hillside.

You may have noticed that I can’t resist taking pictures of mannequins at sales, so that was enough to make me pull over. There was a lot of stuff, tending toward the junky and bizarre — promising! Plus, there were even more disheveled mannequins lounging around on a tabletop.

It was here I made my one purchase of the day: a Sirius satellite radio portable receiver that looked new and intact, priced at $25. The guy said it had belonged to a friend who had decided to move out of the country, and said it worked fine. I have sort of been wanting to do the Sirius thing, but wasn’t sure if there were going to be any hiccups getting a used one activated. When he said he’d take $20, I went for it. I haven’t determined whether this will turn out to be a total waste of money or an amazing score, but I figured I’d take a chance … especially since I hadn’t found anything else and was itching to buy something.

Other family members made a few purchases throughout the day — a Bodum teapot, a turntable, some outdoor seat cushions, and some plastic jewelry display hands — but it wasn’t exactly worth a trunk shot.

Next week, back to Seattle sales … are we due for some magic yet? Fingers crossed for some good scores heading our way!

A few weeks ago I was vacationing in Palm Springs. A little sun break in the middle of Seattle winter and the possibility of estate sales in the mid-century modern capitol of the west coast. FUN!

I hit the Angel Thrift Mart, a large thrift store right in the middle of the Palm Springs on Indian Canyon Drive. I had blogged about this store last winter and ended up having the best luck there this year, buying a Louis Vuitton Epi Purse for $69 along with a Gucci ’70s bag and a killer pair of shoes. That store rocks!

On Saturday morning I talked Dan into driving with me to hit a few sales. He even looked some up for me on Craigslist. There really didn’t seem to be that much, but it’s also December. As we pulled out of the parking lot at the hotel I spotted an estate sale half a block away, so we re-parked and walked up to the house.

The garage was full and the yard was packed with statues, shells, and even a rabbit in a suit playing a fiddle.

As we walked in I was honestly freaked out by the amount of items crammed into this house. I kept saying “OH, GOD” and Dan bumped me, whispering “stop saying God in front of a nun!” I hadn’t even noticed that the sale was being run by Orthodox Jews or Orthodox Catholics (or Orthodox somethings). I felt very uncomfortable taking photos and just snuck a few.

The place was huge. I could have taken hundreds of photos. A long living room with three chandeliers, china on every surface, tapestries all over the walls along with large painting of the woman that had died. There was so much stuff! Dan was a little freaked out when he spotted a mounted kangaroo head. I was freaked out by the Christmas dolls.

Please note: I had to take two photos to try to really show how friggin’ much there was.

AND I heard later that the neighborhood association had to ask her to tone down her Christmas decor a few years back. One can only imagine after seeing the amount of stuff already on the lawn.

She did have a stuffed peacock and I found that sort of sickening, but not as bad as the stuffed swan. I am from the Midwest, been in homes filled with taxidermy as a kid. Hell, when I was growing up my home town had one of the largest taxidermy schools, but a swan?! Come on!

Dan was excited to hit a mobile home sale after that. I was less excited, since I know that folks that have downsized to a trailer probably don’t own very much. This was the most literal “drive-by” ever. We just drove around the Mobile Village and looked at the sales, then drove away.

We hit a few more sales – I loved the huge palm trees at this one.

Sadly, we did miss the “wifes gone and every thing she left must go to” sale. Sounds fun, right? Maybe she wanted someone with better spelling and grammar?

What would you do if you saw this just sitting out on a street corner in San Francisco?

Well, if you are a member of my family, you would put aside any concerns that it might be full of mangled body parts, and go pick it up. My sister did just that, bringing it over to my parents’ house. If you saw the post I wrote about their house a while back, you will understand how logical this was. My mom sent the photo above knowing I would appreciate it, and when I was visiting them last weekend I was able to see a few of the actual hands in their new home: the garden.

Apparently there were also some feet. We’re not sure why someone had these, or why they parted with them (my favorite theory: ex-boyfriend’s abandoned art project), but I don’t think they really could have found a better home.

Also, remember how I “amended” that yard sale sign a couple weeks back? Turns out I might have been subconsciously channeling the Family Circus. Look what I found on my parents’ fridge!

I guess they did a whole yard sale series that week … culminating in a big spread of the family’s sale itself. I recommend the “improved” version by Yard Sale Addict.

This is a week overdue, but getting ready for the holiday season and coming down with some wacky flu bug has kept me from blogging (and I’m lazy).

My boyfriend and I went on a whirlwind southern California and Arizona trip. I didn’t plan on doing any major junking, since it can be difficult to find yard sales in towns that you don’t know very well and we planned on doing most of our travels during the week.

Our first two days we bummed around San Diego with friends, mostly eating, drinking, and sleeping. I did go to one really great store — Wear It Again Sam. Everything in the store is high quality and she has a nice clean layout.

We drove all over Anaheim, CA and saw tons of signs, but since it was around 4:00 on a Sunday it didn’t even seem worth it to go. I’m guessing that it could be a good town to hit, since it was pretty easy to get around and signs seemed plentiful.

I hit a few vintage/junking stores in LA: the full on cowboy and Levi’s store called Chuck’s Vintage on Melrose, Shabon Mint Condition, and Wasteland. I really do like the Wasteland in San Francisco better. I spotted these 2 signs and the “bygone era” sale sounds right up my alley.

After two days in LA we drove to Palm Springs. It was sunny and beautiful, but I didn’t expect to find any super deals there. I did find one thrift store called Angel Thrift. The sign said to go around back, so I walked into the back and the place was a total dump. I mean we are in one of the most expensive places to live in the US and I couldn’t find one thing of interest there. I did think that the clothes hanging station was pretty cool.

After walking around the store for a few moments, I found the Angel Thrift Boutique. Now, this is the place that “good shit” went.

I didn’t really find anything that I needed, but they did have good stuff. They had one case filled with higher end purses and vintage finds. I did spy these photos that made me smile, but I already have enough stuff like that at home.

In the morning I tried to go to Room Service -– I had seen their ads in Atomic Ranch Magazine and the place looked great, but they are only open Wednesday through Sunday. My boyfriend made some crack saying he wondered where he could get a hanging bubble chair on a Tuesday.

I was able to hit a wonderful store called Route 66 West with tons of vintage Bakelite, ’50s Lucite purses and other really nice vintage costume jewelry.

After Palm Springs we drove to Arizona for a couple of days. On our last day there I went to one garage sale, the only one that I went to in the almost ten days that I was gone. If this blog is all about the odd shit that people try to sell at sales then I hit pay dirt. First someone came to the sale in a golf cart — although that really isn’t all that strange, since it was in a “retirement community” built around a golf course. The sale itself was pretty craptastic, but then I got the gross-out factor times 100: sitting on one of the tables were two boxes of Summer’s Eve douche. Ack!!!

About 30 minutes later we hit a Goodwill that was super modern outside –- if a Goodwill can be considered fancy, this one was pretty fancy. Then I noticed that they sell food. Really. When I made a comment, a woman told me that if something gets a dent while on the truck they can’t sell it, so they sell it at the Goodwill. Hmm … We don’t seem to have any dented food in Seattle, since I have never seen this before.

I was visiting my parents in Berkeley the weekend before last. As I’ve mentioned before, I got my love of yard sales from my folks, who have been loving the wacky second-hand stuff since before I was born. We hadn’t originally planned to hit any sales while I was there, but when Saturday morning turned out to be free, we decided to stop at a few. Every time I look at the East Bay garage sale listings on Craigslist I appreciate how good we have it in Seattle, and I would say that is both in quantity and quality — granted, there are occasionally some super blowout great sales in Berkeley, but they seem to be way too few and far between. Still, we rustled up a short list and headed off.

My mom was navigating and she said that she recognized the address of an estate sale from having seen the house recently on a real estate tour. She said it was almost certainly going to be bad and we should just skip it. While I figured she was probably right, I was a little sad since the ad had made it sound pretty good. Meanwhile, we stopped at boring sale after boring sale and hardly bought anything. As we were navigating back from the last stop we drove right past a sign for the sale she’d recognized, and since we were practically there already we decided what the hell.

The house looked cute from the outside, but inside it was just yucky. Everything was dingy and there was a super strange vibe. It felt like something bad had happened there … or at least nothing good had ever happened there. The rooms appeared to have been decorated in the ’70s (in a pseudo-hippie bad taste kind of style), and their stuff was all terrible. The last straw was the basement, which could have been a testimonial for why you should really get rid of things, rather than stack them up in the crawl space (mattresses) or keep them in open cardboard boxes (newspapers) or just dump them on the floor (Easter baskets) and then not touch them again for about 25 years.

I did take some pictures, but I hope you will not be too upset to hear that I ended up deleting them off my camera. I just had such a weirded-out vibe from the place, I really didn’t want to see anything from that sale again.

So, my mom was right, thanks to her inside real-estate scoop. She mentioned how getting to know the city streets so well from her job was useful when trying to navigate to yard sales, or find an obscure address for some other reason. I’ve certainly been able to use my yard-sale-gained knowledge of Seattle’s streets to get around quicker. Granted, a lot of our streets are numbered, which makes it easier, but there are still enough oddball nooks and crannies that it helps to have driven through a whole lot of different neighborhoods already.

And then I started thinking about other aspects of being a real estate agent that have something in common with being a yard sale regular. Like the stuff factor. It’s obvious that you go to yard sales to find stuff. But did you know that real estate agents occasionally end up with random unwanted stuff left behind when a house is sold? My mom has ended up with furniture, rugs, planters — all from houses that she helped people buy. And while I was in town, she actually had to run out to pick up her latest score, which she had described as “stained glass art with a naked lady on it.” I guess the previous owner had been a stained glass artist and left a few pieces behind, and the new owners decided they could live without that one. I was kind of scared of what it was going to look like, imagining some kind of tawdry raunch, but it turned out to be rather pretty.

I think that real estate agents are also very tuned into the concept of value being fluid. That is, an item’s value is really whatever someone is actually willing to pay at a given time and place, and not some well-defined number that can’t be argued with (no matter what some “collectible price guides” would like to think). Haggling (or “making a counter-offer”) is a completely normal thing to do in both activities — though I’m glad to say that having someone offer more than the asking price is practically unheard of at yard sales. This price fluidity can be really great or really frustrating when you are dealing with secondhand items. Just like people might have a hard time accepting that their house isn’t going to sell for what they think it should, there are yard sale sellers who think that if something sold on eBay for a certain amount, their similar item should get the same price at their yard sale. On the other hand, when you find something that’s priced fairly to you, it’s a beautiful thing (even if the person next to you wouldn’t have paid half that much for it).

And of course there’s the fact that both of these activities involve going into a whole lot of strangers’ houses. That’s interesting in and of itself. Sales have taken us into some of the coolest houses around … and the creepiest ones too. And I think along with getting a glimpse of the insides of houses, there’s also the opportunity to see a lot of interesting outsides of houses too. Although maybe this last part is a stretch, because you can also see a lot of interesting houses just by driving or walking around. Like this one, which we were excited to stumble across randomly.

Now, granted, this is Berkeley, where you are about as likely to see a Republican as you are a leprechaun. But even so, it was cool to see so much enthusiasm for a presidential candidate. It’s pretty well-painted, too (even if I do keep trying to figure out if the hand is coming right out of his ear!)

That’s a No on Prop 8 sign there, too. I swear, it has been over 10 years since I moved out of California, but I keep sort of wishing I was still registered there just so I could vote against that shit.

There are certainly a lot of things that real estate and yard sales don’t have in common. For one thing, the general prices you’re dealing with are off by a factor of, oh … 10,000? And being in the real estate business certainly doesn’t necessarily mean one is inclined to like yard sales. But I do think it can give you an interesting take on things … and maybe even keep you away from some of the worst sales, if you stick to your intuition!

So … I caught you all up on my recent vacation to London. While I was there, I was able to sneak off with my husband for three days in Paris! It was such a short time that we didn’t do a ton of junking, despite my having procured some tips from the creator of the fabulous Visiting Flea Markets and Thrifts in France blog, which conveniently started up just about the time I was starting to plan our trip, and which proves that Americans do not have a monopoly on selling really odd secondhand items. So alas, I didn’t get to visit any crazy thrift stores or brocantes (town-wide group sales). If only I’d had more time!

Instead, we raced around town, strolling through as many neighborhoods and taking in as many sights as we could without driving ourselves crazy. I had to go to the Centre Pompidou to check out some of the modern art … tons of amazing paintings, drawings, and other creations. One of the rooms contained this … assemblage? diorama? installation? I don’t know what to call it. It was an arrangement of famous and not-so-famous paintings from their collection, mixed in with indigenous sculptures from different places and other odd objects (only some of which were described). I’m not actually sure what the point was, but it was cool … and it sort of reminded me of some of the artier estate sales I’ve been to, with interesting items all crammed together on shelves.

Of course we had to hit some record stores. This was my favorite.

And we did do one thing that’s relevant to this blog: we went the flea market — or “marché aux puces” in French. Puce means flea, so it’s the same term. This food stand there was actually named Puce. I can’t believe that their sign managed to make fleas look so cute.

This is the biggest flea market in Paris, at Porte de Clignancourt. And it was huge indeed! When we got off the subway we made our way through endless rows of outdoor stalls … filled mostly with new crap.

It was French crap, so at least it had that going for it. But really, it was mostly the same kind of new cheap stuff you’d find in flea markets throughout the world. After walking through what felt like miles of this we knew there had to be some secondhand stuff somewhere, and things took a turn for the better when we ducked into an enclosed area containing an antique mall.

I just dug up some online information about this flea market, and I’m reading through the descriptions of the different markets and realizing I have no idea where the hell we were. Sorry — I wasn’t taking good notes! But I did take plenty of pictures.

There were rows and rows of stalls, upstairs and downstairs, with all sorts of intriguing objects.

Some stalls had a particular focus, like this one which specialized in wacky stereo equipment. (The records here weren’t for sale, much to my husband’s disappointment.)

There seemed to be a little bit of everything. Really, when do you get to see a primary-colored ’80s chair next to a stuffed mountain goat (or whatever the hell that thing is)?

There were a ton of things that I loved but had to leave behind. Like these amazing (and huge) chairs. (Yes, that is the ghostly image of me and my husband reflected in the glass.)

Other stuff was small enough to bring back, but just too pricey. I mean, things seemed to have typical high-end antique-mall prices … then factor in a super-crappy exchange rate, and it just wasn’t worth it. Even though some of it was reeeeally cool.

There were some stands with tons of funky old books. I cracked up at “Le Crapouillot.” How great would it be if that really were the French word for crap?

I was intrigued by that box of vintage photos, but then realized they were movie stills. Which explained the high prices (I guess). Then I found a box of actual old snapshots. These were cheaper, but still over $2 apiece … not cheap enough to really go crazy. I dug through a little, but didn’t find any that I had to have. They were nice, but not any nicer than the domestic ones I see at sales for way less. (But of course, now that I’m not there, I’m thinking “there must have been some really cool ones in there somewhere!” Sigh.)

My husband found a booth with stacks of records that actually were for sale, so I left him to dig through there. Meanwhile, I found one stall with tons of framed prints. Some of them looked like vintage fabric patterns and the woman told me they were indeed textile designs. I loved them, but they were like $100 and up. (And unfortunately, this booth had a “no photos” sign up.) I did find some cheaper framed 19th century hand-colored prints that were really cool, with old botanical and anatomical illustrations, so I picked up a few of those, including one as a gift for Meghan illustrating the anatomy of a mollusk. (Trust me, it’s cooler than it sounds.) The seller was really nice so I asked her if there was an area outside where people were selling used items, and she told me that you could find everything at the flea market. Everything. Then she added that she personally would never shop there.

Walking outside I felt sure that somewhere out there the junk bounty was waiting … and yet, I didn’t really want to spend our precious last few hours in Paris digging through crap! So that was the end of our French flea market experience.

There is only one more thing I must share with you and while it is not truly related to our blog, I feel certain that some of you will appreciate the odd display in this storefront window …

I guess they wanted you to know how well their rat traps work. And their rat poisons, too. (These ones look much perkier. Even though they’re, you know, dead.)

Freaky, huh?

So … it wasn’t the most junk-huntingest vacation ever. But until someone wants to sponsor us to go on a Yard Sale Bloodbath World Tour, it’s going to have to do.

I’ve been back from my vacation for two weeks now and while junking wasn’t the main focus, of course I got a little in! I went to London for about twelve days. I was really hoping to visit a car boot sale — having been fascinated by the concept ever since I first heard the term.

In the UK, the boot of the car is what we here in the US would refer to as the trunk. (So if this was a British blog, we’d have to call our Junk In My Trunk category something different … like Loot In My Boot. Ha!) Apparently rather than having sales out front of their homes, people drive to a set spot with all the crap they can cram into their trunk, er, boot … and then offer it up for sale. From what I gather there are regular sellers as well as people who come on a one-off basis to declutterify. I even heard some shocking stories about how the regulars will go around early and buy up all the good stuff from the newcomers (sometimes pretending to be befuddled average joe shoppers), then sell it themselves at jacked up prices! It all sounded quite fascinating, but unfortunately I was only in town for one weekend, during which I was way too jetlagged to make it out of the house before noon … at which point we had other stuff to do. Including hitting Old Spitalfields Market.

I went to this market on a previous visit and really liked it. There are stalls set up in two different areas. One of them is pretty much all craft stuff (with a lot of cool vendors) and one had some vintage stalls mixed in … although not nearly as much as I’d remembered from last time. (I see now on the web site that Thursday is antiques day, so maybe we should’ve gone then … oh well.) I drooled over some amazing vintage glasses frames, but with the sucky exchange rate I just couldn’t justify the cost. Sadly, my camera’s battery died right after taking the above shot, so I can’t show you any of them. There were also about a dozen sellers with stuff set out on the street a couple blocks away, but you’ll just have to take my word that it was all crap.

I did hit a couple of thrift stores — or charity shops as they are known over there.

These were much cleaner and smaller than your typical US thrift store, and seem like more of a place to find good deals on items you’d otherwise buy new than places to uncover crazy unheard-of junky treasures. In other words, useful but kinda boring.

I mean, look at these neatly sorted clothes racks. It has more of a regular retail vibe than secondhand, no?

One of them did have a pretty great book selection, and I probably would have bought a few if I hadn’t just picked up a couple of very random titles at these outdoor book stalls.

These rows and rows of tables (from a few different sellers) were located along the South Bank of the Thames river and seemed to have a steady stream of customers. Most of the books were about 3 or 4 pounds (which is about twice as much in dollars), although a few more desirable items were priced higher.

So, if I wasn’t junking, what was I doing? Lots of stuff, including eating some amazing food and visiting quite a few museums. Most of that had absolutely nothing to do with the stuff we talk about in this blog, but there was one art exhibit that I think might be of interest.

The Serpentine Gallery had a show by Richard Prince, who I knew nothing about before going in. I was thrilled to find that his Nurse series of paintings had drawn inspiration from vintage paperbacks — and the ones in this show were even displayed with the books themselves!

His site shows a bunch more of the paintings (without their books).

So, if I was gone for nearly two weeks, but only in London for one weekend … where was I the other weekend? You’ll just have to wait to find out!