Yard Sale Bloodbath

There really isn’t much to say about last Saturday’s sales. First off, some things we didn’t buy.

These were all from the same estate sale, which we hit a half-hour after it started (and were sad to see many cool items being carried away). We each ended up making a few purchases, so it wasn’t a total loss.

The rest of the sales — they were okay, but nothing special. The only thing that’s really worth mentioning is another stop we made, billed as an “estate sale” but it was clearly just a bad yard sale … Meghan started muttering about how maybe it would turn into an estate sale after we killed the people who were having it.

Here’s the trunk shot, where you can spot a few worthy items.

Perhaps foolishly, neither of us believes that the sale season is over yet. Expect a few more reports before we pack it in for the year!

It’s starting to get a little more rainy, overall more spotty weatherwise –- in just a couple of weeks it’s started feeling like Autumn. Jenny said she wanted to take her daughter to the fair this weekend on whichever day seemed least likely to rain. When that turned out to be Saturday, she sort of bent that rule so that she could do two and a half hours of sales first, then hit the fair. I have been sort of spaced out and have had so much to do lately that two hours give or take sounded fine.

Karl came across town to join us. The first sale looked like it could be really good and he had pretty cool stuff, but wacko prices.

KCMU flyers from the mid/late ’80s – you are never going to see that. Yes, they had been free and all he did was yank them down, but not everyone is going to keep them for 25 years.

The price? $30 each. Ouch! Books? $5 each for stuff that I don’t know if I would call special. Plus, the whole time I was looking around this woman is in my ear:

“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes.”
“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes. It’s very much a guy sale.”
“Well, do you think he has any woman’s jewelry?”

I had to go sit in the car. Karl hung around and managed to talk him down a bit on a few items.

The next sale, Jenny mentions that the ad said they are selling vintage stuff from her former resale business -– what vintage? It’s kids toys and other odds and ends.

If this is what we are dealing with, I need a baked good.

The next sale had listed records -– they did have those, but mostly picked over and squirreled out. One guy was tossing 45s and inside jacket sleeves all over the place. Just being an ass. I really hate this behavior at sales.

They also had this — for $7. What?

We hit a church rummage sale and once again something was just “off” about it.

After paying for my one item I was told I would have to leave from a different exit. I get why they do this, but it was busy and I couldn’t find Jenny. I yelled to Karl about how I would meet them. Then I was like fuck it — I don’t want to deal. I told the woman that my friends had already gone out the other door and I would be following them. I pretty much told her to go ahead and stop me. Maybe I was just easily agitated that day. This stuff doesn’t usually bother me or I just make fun about it.

As we drove around we kept seeing signs for the Hugh sale.

OK, do you mean HUGE sale? Or what? I get if you misspelled it once, but over and over … Jenny remembered we had seen a similar sign about six months back, not far from here (but not the same house). Anyway, we didn’t go to this one. Friday sales on a Saturday that are Hugh are not for me.

We hit a little sidewalk sale where I guess the woman’s best friend was a rep for gourmet spices, sugars, and other items — she was selling sealed packages for $1 or less and we all scored some good stuff.

At this point it was pretty much time for Jenny to head off to the fair. We all ended up with a few things, and I guess it wasn’t bad for such a short run, but definitely not one for the record books.

Meghan and I attempted to make an early start on Saturday, but there wasn’t much to hit early. Perhaps that was because it looked like it could rain at any time. We made a couple of stops and hit the bank, then drove up to this sale, where the sellers had just finished hanging this enormous banner.

Meghan remembered shopping here years ago and told the sellers that they had helped her get a record cabinet home — which she loved for years until her basement flooded and it got ruined. I think she actually got a little re-traumatized while telling the story. They offered to help again if we made any large purchases. We each bought a small item or two — nothing we needed assistance with. We also laughed at these intriguingly wacky nail clippers.

There was a church rummage sale around the corner but it wasn’t supposed to open until 10. “Too bad, or we could just walk,” Meghan said. Then when we drove past it, it seemed to be open already!

We parked the car again and went to check it out. It was nice getting in there a half-hour before it was advertised to start, with only a few other shoppers.

There was a lot of stuff. Some of it required closer inspection — I’m not sure you can tell how large these are, but they were kind of amazing.

Meghan carried around two vintage men’s shirts in fantastic patterns — like stripes made out of a belt motif, each in different color schemes — but ultimately deemed them too musty and stinky to deal with.

I was eager to check out the book section, as I remembered it being really strange and interesting at past sales here. This time around it was similarly entertaining.

Outside there was a free pile sort of spread around the trunk of a tree — an interesting choice, but I guess practical, since it was about to start drizzling at any moment.

Meghan grabbed some magazines and an envelope of promotional photos from some Arnold Schwarzenegger movie … ? The details are vague in my memory. We passed on this item.

One of our next stops had this fantastic sign out front.

The sale was actually pretty good, but very strange — lots of original screenprinted art, a megaphone (new and sadly too expensive to buy just for kicks), a few books and CDs, and a bag of old photos — I looked through and almost all of them were boring. Meghan did purchase a few that had groups of ’40s girls in bathing suits.

Next was an estate sale that Meghan had spotted a sign for earlier. It hadn’t been advertised and hardly anyone was there. We walked in through the garage, equally intrigued and repelled by this amazing painting that we could see through the doorway to the basement.

That was not the only portrait they had.

As we walked in, Meghan muttered, “smells like tinkle!” It was a bit much, but it didn’t stop us from checking out their stuff.

Meghan considered buying a set of vintage suitcases — there were something like five of them and they were in good shape but felt a bit … sticky. We did each grab some jewelry and I got a great vintage kid’s dress. Meghan found a cool lampshade and few other items, then spotted an old Singer sewing machine. She asked the seller how much it was and got the whole story of how it had belonged to her mother … “Do you want to keep it?” Meghan asked, but the seller said no, and charged Meghan $30 for all of her items, sewing machine included. Meanwhile, I was browsing through the records — mostly unremarkable schlock, but I had to go ahead and purchase this gem.

Next was another estate sale. We walked in and I started to browse, then I heard Meghan ask the seller, “”What in god’s green earth is that?” There was a pause, and then she added, “Is it a rat?” The seller said, “No, I think it’s a mummified mouse.” I was aghast — how is that ever going to be something you want to hear? Not only that, it was a mummmified mouse painted gold and stuck onto a piece of glass.

This should have been our cue to run away screaming, but apparently neither urine odor nor petrified rodents are enough to keep us from digging through an estate sale. Although our determination wasn’t exactly looking like it would pay off.

We saw people coming up from the basement and went to check it out. Someone was really into glass art. This was one of their sculptures. I think it is a jellyfish.

There were boxes of all kinds of stuff down there — none of which I needed anything to do with.

I went back up and didn't get anything else, except for a picture of this scale. (It was not accurate, at least in pounds. Can't speak to the kilograms.)

The next sale was outside. Annoying Jewelry guy was there. After muttering about what a turd he was and taking a quick look around, we got back into the car. Meghan started to pull out and realized he was standing in the street. “I could take him out right now,” she said. “Should I?” We ultimately decided against vehicular manslaughter, but it was nice to dream for a moment.

One thing I have realized after over four years of doing this blog is that for as many sales as we have been to, there is still always something new to encounter. Like at this next sale, where they had a pair of “greeters” perched on a chair, waving politely at every car that passed by.

We had actually been to a sale here before, but I think it was before last Christmas. Or maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to attempting to sell their holiday gingerbread display that time.

We were winding down at this point, but made a few more stops. One sale had gone for the “imperative command” style label on their free box. Not sure it was working.

And another had this box of fascinating faces.

They were newspaper printing blocks (I’m sure there’s a technical name for them that I don’t know), all pictures of Masonic dudes! Pretty cool — I’m actually still surprised that neither one of us ended up buying them. I hope they found a good home.

All in all, not too bad for a wet September day.

Those that have followed the blog for a while know that we have a “season closer” each year. This is sort of silly, since we still hit sales weeks afterwards, but they are less frequent. Since we have covered Olympic Manor (aka “Oly Manor”) at least four times now, here is a little information about the area.

Oly Manor consists of 350 homes all built in the 1950s and is one of the better architectural midcentury modern time-capsules you are bound to find in the Pacific Northwest. Many have wonderful views of the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. It’s considered to be one of the safer places to live in Seattle. Before it was parceled into lots in the early ’50s, it had been a large golf course.

Slowly most of the original residents have moved, sold, been put into nursing homes, etc. This means that quality of the items being sold at the annual sale can be spotty, if you are looking for older collectables. We have been to a few good estate sales and some bad yard sales in this neighborhood.

Most of the items are either stuff the seller carts out each year, or newer junk that the person puts a higher value on than they should. If it’s $9 at IKEA, it probably shouldn’t be $7 at your yard sale. Or if you treated a nice purse like total crap, maybe don’t ask $85. Then again, maybe you can ask it and “go down” later … or more likely, just take it back into your house.

I started out at 8:00, because there was a sale near my house that sounded good, but when I drove there they must have decided to not have the sale and that is a huge drag if none of the other sales start for 45 minutes. So, driving to get coffee and kill a little time I saw a sign for another sale starting at 8:00. This one turned out pretty good after I purchased a Marley Hodgson Ghurka bag for a dollar. SCORE!

The Ballard Cheerleaders had a sale (below) and I am not sure why cheerleader sales usually aren’t very good. Maybe because all of the clothing is size 4 and from American Eagle?!

This whole sale looked like the Ross Dress for Less “beach” section had exploded there.

Then I saw this “free stuff” sign. That makes me think you are having a sale and giving away stuff that no one will want.

I sort of wished I would have gone to this a little earlier, because they had just pulled everything into their drive way and folks were carting it off. This is just a sample of what was out front, all free.

I didn’t want any of the above items, even for free –- but I am sure someone would.

At another sale there were a couple of items I was excited to see. I once owned this van and love it.

And the Green Machine — the fancy big wheel from when I was a kid.

I went to tons of sales – nothing really amazing happened and my trunk shot isn’t that impressive, but I had a pretty good day.

Saturday sales didn’t look that great. Labor Day weekend (or any holiday weekend) can be sort of a drag, since most people leave town — including Jenny, this time. Karl was going to come meet me, but since it seemed like so few sales I told him that he shouldn’t even bother driving across town.

The first sale that I hit turned out to be really good. They had would I would call “high-end-normal-clothes” meaning stuff that I wear to my job, but I won’t pay $48 for at J. Crew. She had a bunch of nice stuff, so I filled a bag (along with getting a really nice Burberry belt for $20 –- something I would never purchase retail) I had spent $60 and it wasn’t even 8:40 in the morning.

The next sale that started at 8:30 wasn’t even happening, so I thought I would drive by one that didn’t list a time just to see if they were ready. The ad said “moving to Japan” (which usually means getting rid of everything) and tons of women’s clothing. Well, her taste was pretty bad (tons of clothing from Wet Seal, worn out H&M, etc.) but he was into horror/gore and good comic books and movies. Most of it wasn’t unpacked yet, so it was cool to be the first one there. The guy below spent the whole time on the phone asking a friend about the boxes of comics that he should or shouldn’t buy to resell.

In the very large free pile I picked up a free men’s tux. I figure even just for Halloween that was worthy.

I was also really into his bulletin board – I mean I don’t want to own stuff that someone saved like this, but to see the entire thing preserved is sort of cool.

I purchased a ton of books and movies here, but after this it was pretty much a bust.

Tons of kids stuff -– no thank you.

Great signs, but your sale doesn’t have anything good.

I finally gave up at 10:15.

We had a limited amount of time for sales on Saturday, but thought we’d get out for a quick run. Conveniently, our first stop was just down the street. I wasn’t sure if it would be that great, but the mention of multiple sellers getting rid of designer and vintage items sounded promising.

Meghan had remembered hitting a sale here before, but this time there were multiple sellers. They had some great stuff and a huge selection!

They were just starting to bring out some racks of clothes — Meghan nearly screamed when she saw not one, not two, but three vintage Mexican circle skirts come out. She grabbed ‘em all up quick and dug through the rest. I scored a very cool winter coat (not that exciting when summer has finally rolled around, but I’ll be happy in a few months) and a windbreaker with crazy patches on it. We contemplated buying these matching green jackets and wearing them around somewhere, but ultimately passed.

The more I looked around the more I was picking up — Israeli boots, a Fiestaware butter dish, an apron made with Hawaiian fabric … I finally had to ask for a box. I had fully fallen into “sure, throw it in the pile” mode. Right after snapping this picture, I thought “hey, that lion is pretty cool” — into the box it went.

Meghan started getting rung up — it was a pretty slow process. While she was waiting, guess who showed up and started digging through the jewelry? Annoying Jewelry Guy! Apparently he started making weird and mildly pervy comments to her after spotting a pair of boots she was holding — “Oh, are those your go-go boots? Are you going to wear those with your go-go skirt?” I missed this whole thing, and I’m glad because I’m so skeeved out even thinking about it — not least because I have hardly ever heard him say anything other than “Got any jewelry?” I got in line to pay and one of the sellers came up saying “whose car is that?” Someone had blocked their driveway — one guess who the bad park-er was. When she asked him to move his car he was so odd about it and at first refused, then skulked away. When I finally had a chance to pay, Meghan started talking to some people she knew who revealed that they don’t call him Jewelry Guy, they call him “Ten-Dollar Guy” because they always see him make a huge pile of stuff at a sale and then say “How about ten dollars?” no matter how much the stuff was originally marked. He also attempted to buy the rings off of one of the seller’s hands. Have I mentioned we don’t like this guy very much? But not even his odd and obnoxious behavior could really dampen our sale high, and we both walked off in desperate need of more cash, but very pleased with our purchases.

Next was a “block sale” with only one sale (I couldn’t really bitch after pretty much doing the same thing at our last sale), and then an address that seemed vaguely familiar — egads! The sale at the creepy doll house is ON! Now, I don’t feel like my photo from last time truly conveyed the oddness of the doll display. Let’s have a close-up, shall we?

Scurrying away from those dolls before they could come alive and suck up our souls, we went around to the back … passing this fountain on the way.

I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for us back there. Dolls? Ax murderers? No … just a lot of junk.

Most of it looked like it had been stored away for a long, long time. Like this whole box of phones.

And hey, remember Toughskins jeans? Well, they had some.

Do you really have to ask? We didn’t buy a thing here.

The next few sales were mostly duds. I was glad I didn’t need anything from this sale …

And I’m pretty sure that nobody needs any of these VHS tapes.

We hit a sale that hadn’t quite opened yet, and as we were walking up to check it out, two women came walking away shaking their heads and muttering as a warning “hamster balls.” Yeah, that looked like about all they had — we didn’t wait around for to find out more.

We made a quick snack break, then hit a sale where Meghan purchased this item (surely inspired by the Ballard Driving Academy skit from Almost Live).

Later I purchased a cool vintage thermos and a 1976 pamphlet called “How To Make Your Own Moonshine.”

One of our last stops was mostly kid items, but we spotted this sign. I knew that mentioning Antique Roadshow was probably a bad sign.

Sure enough, it was CRAP. Worse, the seller forced us to listen to a verbal tour of all the craps, telling us how collectible her vases were (they looked like the kind that florists give you when you buy a bouquet, and that every thrift store is filled with) and trying to convince Meghan that some boring ashtray would be a great “decorative piece”, even when you don’t smoke. To be fair, I have seen ashtrays that could be considered decorative pieces. This was not one of them. We left muttering “more like Goodwill, here we come.”

And that was that for the day — we couldn’t resist spreading one of those purty skirts out in the trunk for you …

Of course we had to hit up sales, since it was National Garage Sale Day. When was this holiday created? I have no idea, but if we have National Talk Like A Pirate Day — why not.

Jenny and I made plans to meet at 8:30, hit a sale that started at that time, then do the usual get our bearings, get money and get a baked good. Our first sale was a group sale that we have been to the last three years. They make these pretty amazing signs that are different each year. We didn’t manage to take a picture this time but they were in the same basic style as this and this.

The problem with a group sale is when some folks are ready, some haven’t even unloaded their car. We were both grabbing stuff as they were still bringing more items out of the house, and even came back an hour and a half later and picked up a few more items. I was stoked to get a pair of Frye boots in my size for $7 and Jenny purchased a really cute winter coat for her daughter. The second time there I heard a guy say, “I am surprised no one purchased the Wii” — but I heard “I am surprised no one purchased the weed.” I mentioned this to one of the sellers, who laughed.

After that we went to a sale that seemed to only have three things: DVDs, Sci-Fi books and kitchen items. I know we have talked at length about scanners, but there is another type that gets on my nerves: a person that buys every single DVD or CD at a sale. The first time this happened, I had 2 DVDs in my hand and then heard that I couldn’t buy them, because they had already sold. What? If you don’t have it in your hands and it doesn’t have a sold tag on it. Hmmm…. This has now happened to me three times with the same woman (and also with another guy in West Seattle). It seems to be very similar to scanners, but Jenny feels like it’s less bad since they take everything, even the crappy stuff. I am mostly irritated if I want to buy a couple of DVDs or CDs for personal home use. This time, I had a DVD box set in my hands and heard “sorry, I just purchased that … ” Oh, hell no. I just said “Possession is 9/10ths of the law” and refused to hand the DVD over. In fact I just gave the seller the money and got into the car. After I bitched about this for about five minutes even I was sick of my own voice and I dropped it.

We stumbled upon this sign — hard to miss since they used a whole door.

The sale wasn’t that great, but at least it wasn’t ridiculously overpriced like the next one where they wanted $25 for crappy clothes.

We hit up another sale that had a woman very carefully picking up each plate and then looking them up in a price guide book she had with her. It looked extra strange since she had bad eyesight, so she was putting the plates super close to her face and then the price guide super close to her face.

On the way to the next sale we had something happen that I can seriously tell you has never happened before: I accidentally drove into a cemetery. I know what you are thinking — “HOW???” This cemetery is very small and older, so there are no huge signs out front. It also has a small street that runs along one side, so when I whipped into the cemetery I thought I was on that street. Both of starting cracking up at how absurd this was. I do some pretty crazy driving on occasion, but this took the cake.

After getting back onto a normal street we hit a very strange estate sale. It seemed like it was really a garage sale that they called an estate sale. The old guy that must have lived there had kept all his nails in old beer cans. Both of us picked up a few that we could call “pen cups for the office” — this led to trying to find places to dump out all the extra nails.

We decided to hit the Maple Leaf neighborhood sale — which by now we have officially taken off our list as being a “neighborhood sale.”

11 sales is a couple blocks, not a neighborhood. The only exception would be if you lived in a town of 200 people!

One of our first stops wasn’t on that list, but had been advertised as a divorce sale. We have been to a few of these and I don’t recommend this. The vibe can be really bad. The first thing out of the woman’s mouth is “Who needs a wedding dress?” Let me just stop a second and say that this was the saddest wedding dress I have ever seen. It was made of that really horrible lace that 1980s prom dresses all seemed to use. Sort of like this monstrosity, but long and in a gross cream color. YUCK!

She did have a pair of shoes in perfect condition from the late ’80s that I remember seeing at the only shoe store in Omaha, Nebraska that was trying to bring interesting footwear to the mid-west when I was growing up. When I asked if she would go down on the price she said, “They are $5.” I just looked at her and said, “Yes, would you go down?” She mumbled something about it being early — sorry to break it to you lady, 11:30 isn’t early when it comes to yard sales. When we got into the car Jenny said “maybe she is getting divorced, because she had really bad taste.” OUCH!

At another sale I spotted this in their free pile and freaked out a little since I had one when I was growing up. Sadly this one was missing most of its pieces.

We hit a few more sales, nothing really amazing, and then our last stop in the area was at the Eagles — the guy there started grilling Jenny about how much she knew about the Eagles, and probably would have tried to get us to join up if we’d stuck around longer.

We hit a few more sales on the way back home, but managed to stay away from the Free Goddess Festival.

Over the course of the day we did see our share of strange and sometimes scary items …

And we ended up with a pretty good pile of junk in the trunk.

Last weekend was gorgeous and I had a list of more sales than we’d possibly be able to hit, all in or near our neighborhood. As we set off to hit the ATM around 8:30, Meghan saw a sign and made a sudden turn. “Oh, that one doesn’t start until 10,” I said after checking my list. But they seemed pretty close to set up, so we stopped and checked it out. Having first crack is always nice and especially when it results in a good score … I picked up a pair of worn-once-or-twice Fluevog shoes in my size for $10! Less excitingly, I also purchased a sealed package of rechargeable batteries. Meghan got a white Le Creuset dish and some other things that I’ve forgotten — I think Karl scored here too.

Feeling a little high on that first stop, we got some cash and then drove to our next sale, which turned out to be a big spread in back of an apartment building.

As we looked around it seemed like something good had to be in there … somewhere.

But after seeing a few too many old price tags (from the items’ former residence at an antique mall) and realizing they wanted similar prices on most of the stuff, the possibility of a great score seemed to fade.

Karl bought a few items and I did laugh at this magazine cover, but ultimately left it behind.

Also at this sale: a very dreadlocked dog. I couldn’t resist taking a quick pic.

Our next few stops were bad, including accidentally ending up at a sale we’d hit a few weeks ago in the rain when it was all tarped up — we decided to pass on a second round. Then as I was navigating us to the next stop on our list, we couldn’t believe it — it was this house we’ve long been obsessed with, with a permanent, mildly creepy doll display in its windows!

We got so excited at the idea of getting a closer look at this place … until we realized the signs out front said “Garage Sale Cancelled.” We can only dream that they’ll try again some other day.

We made a few boring stops, then found a sale with a bounty of interesting goods: records, CDs, books, magazines … and some vintage items. But not the type of vintage items I’m ever going to be looking for.

We have seen plenty of ancient food before, but ancient baby food?! They also had some very old SPAM.

After this we ventured into a different area, where we spotted some signs … we followed them for a few blocks, and then came to this.

Not sure if you can tell from the pic, but those arrows are pointing at each other. Where is the sale?? We laughed, then spotted it as we turned the corner — a janky-looking display in an industrial garage. (We didn’t bother to stop.)

As we moved along we were finding nothing but duds. With a few weird items to keep it interesting. Like, what the hell is this?

I dared to pick it up and discovered it was a scarf.

Another item we laughed at (for its dated packaging) was this.

Perhaps the strangest thing we encountered was this bottle of Merlot … from Conoco. Is that regular or unleaded?

We were starting to feel like we needed another good sale and then we found two sales in front of a newer townhouse building — these generally tend to be bad.

But as we dug into the items, we found some great stuff. I grabbed some vintage wallpaper — after our recent wallpaper freakout I was hesitant, but this stuff was old and in good shape. I limited myself to the one roll I liked best until I discovered they were 25 cents a roll — then I grabbed all the others that were halfway decent. Meanwhile, Meghan was looking through the shoes and clothes and amassing quite the pile after discovering the woman was about her size and had some great stuff for cheap — Camper boots for $5, anyone? I grabbed a few t-shirts, although I passed on this one.

We probably should have ended on that note, but of course we had to make one more stop. It was a multi-seller sale with a lot of stuff. The first thing we saw when we got out was this art display.

Um … that purple and blue one in the background … is that … uh …

Oh, dear.

We should have just turned around and gotten back in the car. The only thing we purchased here were some homemade cookies and they were terrible.

And that was it … most of our stops were pretty bad, but the good ones let us fill up the trunk and then some.