Yard Sale Bloodbath

With Jenny out of town, I had sent a mail to Karl to see if he wanted to come out to the north end and hit some sales. Then I logged off my email and hit some yard sales on Friday. Nothing blog-worthy, with the exception of the sale that was selling a used Speed Stick. I am okay with some questionable stuff at sales, but deodorant? G-R-O-S-S.

Later on in the day I received a phone message from Karl saying he wanted to come to sales, but only if his friend Krista could come too. We decided to meet at 8:30 and I said I would organize a plan.

In the morning Karl was running late and we really didn’t start hitting anything until around 9:00. I had written a list of sales that Karl seemed unable to follow and even Krista at one point said, “Karl you’re a really bad navigator.” It didn’t really matter, since there were so many signs up all over the place.

At one of our very first sales I saw an older woman buying a Night Kings 7″ and I made a comment about it right away. Turns out she was the wife of a record squirrel. He had sent her over to buy records for him while he was digging in a box of LP’s across the street. She started acting like she had found this prize. I tried to explain to her that it’s pretty specialized and 1) she probably wouldn’t like it, and 2) it wasn’t worth much to someone that doesn’t like that style of music.

In typical Karl “get in the car” style, Krista and I had to wait while he was chatting with someone at the sale. After a moment a car pulled up, the folks got out and went to the yard sale. All of the sudden this friggin’ huge Great Dane popped out of the sun roof and started to whine.

We hit a few unremarkable sales, then a pretty large block sale. Jenny and I had been to this block sale a few years ago and it was great. This time around was a little more “eh.”

After grabbing a snack we saw a sale that looked pretty good. Karl came up to me and quietly said “hey, that guy was working the ‘collectables/vintage’ sale a few weeks ago.” To be honest I hadn’t really noticed him at first. I looked around for his wife, but didn’t see her. Now, Jenny and I have had a couple of talks about that sale. We made a choice to not blog about it, since we didn’t want to say anything negative — even if it sometimes seems like that is the purpose of this blog. Let’s just say there have been some things about her sales that were not cool, and leave it at that.

So, I asked him the price for clothing. Make an offer. I ignored him and kept looking through the sale. I then found a little girls ’50s sewing machine in the original box. I was very point blank about pricing with him. “What do you want for the sewing machine? And do I really have to make you an offer on the clothes?” He looked at me and said “Well, you know who my wife is” — um, yeah. So, I said “Yeah, I know your wife, but I am only going to offer you $2 each on the clothing” — LAST TIME I CHECKED THIS WAS A YARD SALE.

Of course I spent the next hour randomly saying “Well, you know who my wife is.”

One thing that always gets me about sales is how you remember bad (and good) sales from years before. As we drove by a sale, I could remember that it was a woman that had priced everything at her sale like it was an antique store. I didn’t want to go, but Karl wanted to check it out. I was right on the money. Tons of overpriced crap. She did have this huge ass Zippo lighter that I would have wanted to own about 15 years ago.

We decided to hit a new area. Overall that was a bust, but one sale had the best books. The guy that was selling them was a hoot and he told funny stories about some of the books (in a non-annoying way). The books seemed like a mix of pinko, liberal, and high brow intellectual selections. Considering how late in the day it was he still had good stuff.

We started to wind our way back home, hitting a super junky sale. Everything looked this messy.

It would have been great if I had wanted to stock up on knives … for 2$ each (or is that $2.00 each?)

After that another block sale that was making everyone free lattes out of a vending machine! I spotted these two choice videos there.

We knocked off around 1:00. All in all it turned out to be a decent day.

So, two weeks ago there were a ton of great sales, one week ago was kind of sparse. This last Saturday was in the middle, with a decent number of sales, but not as many as I’d really expect in the height of summer. We decided to get an early start and I was at Meghan’s a little before 8:00. As we headed out we noticed that the Ballard Eagles were already putting stuff outside for their sale that wasn’t supposed to start until 9:00.

I jumped out of the car and asked if they were open and they said sure. It was great to get there way ahead of time, but unfortunately the stuff was mostly unexciting.

Meghan found a few things and wasn’t sure if she would have enough cash, since we hadn’t stopped at the bank yet. She fished out a ten and the woman counting up her purchases said, “Okay, how about ten dollars?” Meghan paid it, but was a little perturbed wondering if that was really how much her stuff came to, or if the woman noticed she had a ten out and just went with it.

We then headed a little ways north to a sale I’d been curious about, since their ad promised tons of vintage fabric and clothes. They did have a lot, but most of it wasn’t really my style … a little too heavy on the country/cutesy. I did love this mannequin who beckoned everyone to the sale. I was tempted to buy it, but passed, which I half regret now.

Meghan got a shirt for a buck and I thought I might walk away empty handed, but at the last minute I spotted a five-dollar box full of vintage wrapping paper. I love this kind of stuff but have way too much of it, so I flipped through to see if it was worthy or not. When I got to the psychedelic girls, there was no question that it was coming home with me.

I also purchased a sealed package of Big Mama pantyhose for 25 cents. The packaging makes an awful big deal about how they are “Aerated,” going into an alarming level of detail about the specific types of problems that an aerated crotch will prevent. Anyway, they will go great with the other package of (non-aerated) Big Mama pantyhose lurking somewhere in my basement.

We headed back toward our normal stomping grounds and went to a multi-family sale that promised to have vintage and newer items. One of the sellers saw me taking a picture of this oddly sawed-off mannequin and joked about what might have happened to the rest of the body. (Unlike the mannequin at the last sale, I wasn’t at all tempted by this one.)

I thought the cover of this bath pillow was pretty funny. I love how it makes a big deal about how it’s the “only 3-way bath pillow” because you can fill it with hot water, cold water, or air. That is some advanced bath pillow technology there, I guess.

We each picked up a couple of items, then moved on to another sale that sounded good. They had some amazing custom-built furniture, including one lovely wooden item priced at $1500 that I couldn’t quite figure out. Was it a table? A coat rack? Finally the seller revealed that it was … a sculpture.

I didn’t get a picture of the furniture because one of the sellers reacted a little strangely when she saw Meghan taking a picture of this table.

“Why did you take a picture of that?” she asked, sounding a little suspicious (or maybe just baffled). Meghan just rambled on about how it was unusual to see a table full of geodes, and that they looked cool, or something innocuous along those lines. She didn’t mention that she was documenting the fact that someone seriously expected people to wander up to their yard sale and drop up to $200 on one of these. (Or $1500 on a sculpture, for that matter.) I mean, I have no idea what that stuff goes for, but even if that’s a good deal, it’s probably not going to happen at your yard sale.

I did manage to sneak a picture of this odd item tucked away in the garage. The guy explained that he made a business trip to Las Vegas and for some reason, this was waiting in his hotel room.

I think the company he worked with had some tangential connection to Hugh Hefner or Playboy or something like that. He seemed a bit embarrassed by it and it had obviously never even been unpacked. Who knows what else was lurking in that box!

Another sale that I’d been optimistic about was advertised as avid yard-salers getting rid of some of their finds. They must have been the people who buy all the other stuff at yard sales, because their sale was boring. The only interesting item was a hookah (oddly juxtaposed here with gun and foot spa) and it turned out it wasn’t even a previous yard sale purchase! The seller said that it had apparently been in their basement when they moved in and they finally decided to get rid of it.

So far the theme of the day seemed to be sales that sounded better than they actually were, and while we had each picked up a few things here and there, we weren’t really feeling the sale groove. The next couple of stops were more of the same. One had a bulletin board covered with printouts about the furniture they had for sale (mostly from Pottery Barn and the like, priced to reflect that), along with some overpriced clothes. The other was billed as an estate/moving sale and had meticulously labelled items at antique store prices, ranging from $20 pieces of mod fabric, to fine china, to this disturbingly freaky monkey toy.

Meghan did score here with some fifty cent MAC cosmetics items. These are always worth picking up no matter the condition since you can turn in 6 packages for a free lipstick via their recycling program.

We then fell into some kind of vortex with one awful sale after another. Right when we would decide it was time to head to a different area, we’d see another sign and get suckered back in. I mean, how could we not stop for signs like this?

Eventually we managed to break away to what we hoped would be a better area. We hit a couple of duds there too, and then went to an estate sale that we figured would be pretty picked over at that point. Turns out they had a ton of stuff left. There were some clothes on a rack inside with a sign reading “Clothes: 50 cents - $25.” This baffled me — with a range that big, why even bother? I think no sign would have been just as helpful.

Meghan headed out to the back yard while I got suckered into checking out the “book and holiday room,” which was a total bust. When I walked out back I could barely see Meghan underneath two of the poofiest light blue crinoline skirts I have ever seen. She was also carrying a pile of crazy vintage girls’ costumes, probably formerly used in baton twirling performances or the like. I heard her call out, “I’m gonna need a box!” Turns out all the clothes out back were a buck apiece. She spent about $30 and filled up a huge moving box that was too big to even go into the car, so we ended up emptying it all out into the trunk and giving them their box back.

We were stoked to finally hit a sale where at least one of us found more than a couple of good items. Then right around the corner we saw this sign, which looked exciting too! Unfortunately, it was only after driving down their lonely block that we figured out that the sale was on Sunday.

We decided to end the day by heading up to the Half Price Books warehouse sale, where everything was going to be priced at $1 or less. It had started at 10, and we figured it would be way too crowded then, but by 11:30 it shouldn’t be so bad … right?

Wrong. The line was way longer than you can even see here, wrapping all the way up the block. Screw that!

(Meghan did end up there later that afternoon and e-mailed me, “I went to the sale at around 4:00. Still crazy, but you could walk right in. I bought 3 books. I saw some stupid ass woman scanning the CDs - IDIOT. Does she think that Half Price doesn’t look stuff up?”)

We were ready to call it quits, but we found one more sale on our way home. When we pulled up we were greeted by some of the more fascinating items we’d seen all day, including this huge traffic light.

They had fun stuff.

And some sad stuff too.

While I was browsing around I heard Meghan asking, “Is this the house with the bowling pin in the back yard?” I had no idea what she was was talking about, but the sellers said yes indeed it was. They said we could peek around the back and take a look, and we were greeted with this beauty. They had somehow acquired it after a bowling alley went out of business years ago. (Meghan had spotted it once while driving down the alley behind their house, and I think she just put two and two together between the location and the cool kitschy schlock they had for sale.)

I bought two old books from them for fifty cents each and was happy to end the day on a good note.

It was the 4th of July weekend (a.k.a. another reason that people aren’t having yard sales) so we didn’t necessarily expect much, but we headed out Saturday with a list of sales.

Jenny wanted to head to a sale in the Cascade area (a part of town that used to have old homes and character, but has slowly been turned into a condo and developers wet dream). The sale was listed as two guys passionate about antiques and vintage stuff who are finally moving in together and need to downsize. When we pulled up to the house I recognized it from a sale I went to about three years ago. I still regret not buying a ’50s metal bread sign at that sale … while I was hemming and hawing about it, a dealer grabbed it and bought it. Lesson learned — stake your claim if you want something.

Here is the odd thing: it was the same house, but different guys. The house was broken into two apartments and this was the other side of the house. To me this felt really strange. They had pretty good junk and mostly very decently priced. I mostly bought books — something that I had told my boyfriend that I wouldn’t do just that morning. Doh! Jenny found some Fashion Plates, something we both loved playing with as kids. I was a little jealous, but felt better when she said I could come over and play with them.

Jenny somehow channeled Karl buy purchasing a huge bin of CDs and DVD for $50. She later sent me this update …

OK, I’ve sorted through the big scary tub of THE WORST MUSIC EVER (with a small percentage of not-the-worst-music-ever). Here is what my $50 bought me … I think I will come out ahead for sure, but it definitely wasn’t as great as I was hoping:

• 3 “gay interest” DVDs (not porn, but lots of shirtless guys on the covers)
• 26 home-burned or otherwise useless CDs
• 12 cases without CDs (this is the saddest part … a lot of the CDs that looked good and perked up my interest ended up not having their discs)
• 35 CDs without cases
• 5 CDs in their cases, but without booklets
• 16 single/giveaway CDs in paper sleeves
• 17 CD singles in jewelcases (some without their inserts)
• 1 4-CD box set
• 110 “normal” CDs (including a few double CDs)
• 2 of those that I’m keeping (Beastie Boys “Licensed to Ill” and a Smithsonian Folkways CD of songs from the Caribbean. yeah … really amazing scores there)
• 51 songs put into my iTunes from CDs I’m not keeping, including many of the caseless ones. Note that I will almost certainly delete some of these once the novelty wears off and/or I decide the songs aren’t that good … for example, I’m not really sure how many times I will actually need to listen to “Shiny Shiny” by Haysi Fantazee.
• And of course: one large blue plastic storage tub.

The place was very small and super packed, so I only felt comfortable taking one photo, but I think you get the idea.

The guys told us we seemed like fun girls and should come back when they have another sale in a couple weeks.

We hit a few more sales with mixed results. We found signs pointing to an alley sale, and when we turned into the alley we were confronted with this.

There was nowhere to park without blocking the whole alley and the guys said we should just park on the street and walk back. After driving past their stuff we decided to just skip it, since it mostly looked like furniture and we didn’t see anything we had to have.

We hit one sale where we were really annoyed at how little they had. Six books, an air hockey table and some patio furniture isn’t really worthy of having a yard sale is it? Seems like a craigslist ad and a trip to Goodwill to drop off the books would have saved a huge chunk of time.

We hit a woman’s sale that I know we have been to about four times, but she seems to move around. When I asked her if she had a sale in Ballard a few weeks ago, she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Jenny found some cute red flats and I picked up a complete set of 1940’s My Bookhouse books.

We hit a few more sales and while looking for one, encountered this scary assortment of free exercise equipment on someone’s lawn. EEK!

We knocked off pretty early, since we had already hit every sale within a 15 mile radius. It was pretty much the complete opposite of the awesomeness of the weekend before, but at least we each found a few cool things.

We had originally planned to head back to the south side of Seattle on Saturday, so we could hit that neighborhood sale that we’d been way too early for last time around. But when I started looking at the sale listings to put together a plan, there were a ton of sales listed right in our neighborhood. I felt like it would just be stupid to head all the way across town for that one group sale and only a handful of others that looked decent. I mean, we are fully in yard sale season, the weather was great, and our neighborhood really does rock when it comes to people selling weird and cool stuff. Really, that’s kind of what it’s all about. So I consulted with Meghan and Karl and they agreed — we made a plan to meet extra early, at 8:00.

I had about 20 sales in our neighborhood listed, plus about 20 more further away. (I always have way more sales on our list than we could possibly hit. I think it’s like going to a buffet and taking more food than you can really eat.) The only damper on our morning was that due to some completely non-sale-related circumstances, Meghan was super stressed out … about as bad as I have ever seen her get. Karl and I shifted out of our usual shit-talking mode in order to try and smooth things over, but she was really upset. I even wondered if she would end up bailing out early, although I knew she would do whatever she could to make sure a bunch of b.s. didn’t ruin her saling time. So we forged ahead, making a quick stop for cash and then starting to move through the sales on our list.

I was really curious about one of our first stops because of their ad: there were some pictures of some interesting items there, and I actually recognized one photo of some crazy glam ball gowns … it was the exact same photo used in a recent post on Fresh Vintage! It boggled my mind that this seller was using photos of other people’s stuff to advertise her sale. And what are the odds that someone (me) would see her ad, and know where they came from … it was so strange.

Naturally, there were no hanging dresses at the sale, although she did have some intriguing items, like these crazy chairs.

I had to ask. “Hey, where are those dresses from your ad?” The seller just laughed, but I wasn’t going to let it go. “No, really, where are they?”

She shrugged. “Oh … I think they sold already.” Yeah, right! I then revealed that I recognized the photos from Fresh Vintage and she said, “Yeah, that was just a joke.” I didn’t even know what to make of this response. I might have continued to harass her, but I was starting to get interested in her stuff. I asked the price of a great ’50s dress, and she said it was a dollar. My thrill at a cheap score outweighed my sense of moral justice, so I just dropped it.

Meghan also picked up a pile of cool stuff, then attempted to pay with a twenty, and the seller had no change. She seemed baffled by this, like it hadn’t ever occurred to her that she might need to make change. Between the two of us we managed to scrape up $6 in small bills, which she was happy to accept as payment for our $8 worth of stuff.

We hit one sale with a ton of cheap books and Meghan filled up a whole box (possibly attempting to shop away the pain … though to be fair, she got good stuff). None of her purchases, however, were from this box.

Then we hit a sale with ten cent records, which made Karl rather happy. He got a stack and said he was tempted to buy all of them, but figured he’d leave some for someone else to get excited about. This apparently granted him some big score karma at the next sale. As we pulled up he groaned, “Oh, man, there are two record squirrels I know going through the boxes …” and figured they had already picked up anything worthy. We all fanned out to different areas and when we walked away, he had managed to pick up a few records. I noticed he looked a bit flushed. He then excitedly showed us a rather nondescript looking record that he’d pulled out of the boxes — the ones that those guys had already looked through. You couldn’t really tell what the hell it was if you didn’t know, but I guess it was a rare bootleg that typically sells for hundreds of dollars. One of the guys had seen him grab it and asked, “Hey, what is that, anyway?” Karl just said “Uh, I really don’t know for sure,” saving his crazed gloating and freaking out until we were driving away.

We decided to backtrack a little to get some coffee and snacks (on Karl!) so I directed us to a few sales along the way. There was an estate sale which had just opened up that didn’t sound all that interesting, plus I didn’t know if it was going to have a line or what, so I didn’t really have high hopes. When we walked in, it looked pretty bland. Then I heard Meghan call out from a hallway, “Hey Jenny … can you get me a box?” She had unearthed a stash of ’80s boots and shoes in pristine condition. She then went on to find piles of amazing clothes, priced at 50 cents each. Vintage slips, dresses, shirts, a fur hat … there were some great things in there. Meghan ended up spending about $36 for two boxes of amazing stuff plus some lawn chairs. Her stress was completely blown away. Karl also picked up some dishes and a few other items. I picked up a few rolls of cute vintage wrapping paper out of the free box, but didn’t buy anything.

It was not even 9:30 and we had to go do a drop-off to empty out the car. Keep in mind that the back seat was pretty packed as well (and as is usually with the case with the fuller trunk photos, you can’t even see most of the good stuff.)

The sales had already been amazing, but if you are paying close attention you might notice that I have hardly mentioned buying anything. The hauls were made by Meghan and Karl, not me. But this didn’t put a damper on my day at all. I’ve scored more on other days, but I still felt like this was one of the best mornings ever. Rather than being jealous, I was thrilled to live vicariously through the stuff Meghan and Karl were picking up. I guess right now I just only want to buy something for myself if it’s really compelling, and I don’t have the energy or motivation to do a lot of resale, so I was being pretty selective. I was still feeling the happy score vibe though, kind of like getting a contact high off of their sale-induced euphoria.

We made our coffee stop and then circled back around to a bunch of sales that hadn’t been advertised, but had signs up. We stopped at one sale which we thought had almost nothing, but it turned out to have a ton of stuff around the back. There was a box full of vintage stockings (mostly ’80s, but I did grab one ’60s box of brightly-colored ones) and a tub full of crazy legwarmers and dance outfits that we were all fascinated by. Most of the stuff was bad, though … like this.

At another stop I heard Karl declare that there was “a surprisingly large assortment of Todd Rundgren records!” He grabbed one of them, and then we started digging through a huge box of old buttons and pins. The more we dug, the funnier they got. Here’s a selection of our favorites. (It’s hard to make out in the picture, but the green one reads “You Smoke, I’ll Fart.”)

We were laughing for quite a while afterwards about the one that read “I Survived the Wind Storm at the Fun Forest ‘93 Seattle Center.” None of us could remember any notable wind storm happening in 1993. And I actually pondered how odd it was that there was a wind storm there, then someone must have made the buttons after the fact, and how would the people who were there even end up buying them … we were just cracking up at how dumb this was. Then I did a quick search and found there was a roller coaster called the Windstorm that launched at the Fun Forest (an amusement park type area at the Seattle Center) in 1993. It’s actually still there. Duh.

We saw this assortment of games at one sale. I am sure these could have led to countless hours of fun, but we passed.

At another sale we spotted this item. Yes, it is exactly what you think it is.

I considered buying it, but when I opened the box I was disturbed by how horrifyingly clinical-looking it was. Besides, I think it falls into the same “kind of fascinating, but you really just need a picture” category as Super Boobs. The weirdest thing was that this item (along with a couple of rather prominently displayed erotica books) was at a sale where a very nice ten-year-old girl was in charge of taking the money. Which really just seemed kind of wrong.

We hadn’t even made it to all of the sales on our list, but we decided it was time to head across town to go to a sale held by a roller derby friend of Meghan’s who was moving out of the state. By this time it was really pretty scorchingly hot. When we got there, the ladies were relaxing in a nice shaded area. They still had tons of stuff, including these tidy stacks of pretty decent books.

I picked up a couple of books, and tried to make Karl buy this Ewok mug. (At least I am taking someone else’s word that it’s an Ewok. I didn’t know what the hell it was.)

It was getting to be time to head home, but there was one other sale a little further out that I was really curious to hit, since their ad had proclaimed they were “estate/yard sale junkies” who were more interested in clearing out stuff than making money. Which sounded just like our sales! On the way there, we spotted some signs and made a turn … right into two of the worst sales ever.

They were both bad, and after a quick look we all piled into the car. Then the seller from one walked over to us. “Did you see my cake cover?” she asked, jutting her head back towards her sale. “It’s from the sixties.” We were all a little freaked out that she was actually trying to talk us into buying stuff while we were already in the car ready to leave. As well as by the insane amount of white cat hair that was strewn all over her black shirt. (I’m not talking your everyday “yes, I have a white pet” amount of hair. It was almost like it was her fur.) I don’t know why she fixated on the cake cover as the item that we must obviously have to have. We acknowledged that we’d seen it, it was great, but um … no thanks. And then we got the hell out of there.

The estate sale junkies sale had some good stuff, and we knew it must have been a great sale earlier in the day. Karl and Meghan both picked up some cool items at greatly reduced prices, and we all sat on an adorable and surprisingly comfortable vintage daybed, which needed some work but was a steal at $10. But none of us had the means or motivation to deal with getting it home (let alone room for it), so we left it behind.

By the time we got back, the trunk was pretty darn full again. It was a two-bagger!

And yet, my purchases were so few that I could get them all over to my car in one trip. Which is really, truly okay.

Regular readers might remember the debacle sale day when I drove to a huge neighborhood sale the week before. Really nothing makes a yard sale junkie feel like a bigger jackass, no?

Well, we headed out early Saturday morning to hit up the Mount Baker Neighborhood Yard Sale with our recurring guest star Karl. He and Jenny had both looked at the ad on Craigslist, we all made a date to drive out to the south end –- sounds good, right? Pretty much from the get go I could tell that something was up. No signs! I had done this before and very calmly said, “Karl, did you happen to notice if the sale was next weekend?” Oops. In the end it all worked out, but being in an area of town with no sales at peak time is a real bummer.

One of the first conversations we had was based on how to give directions. Karl is a fine navigator, but the discrepancy was based on how to direct someone to “go straight” or “go forward” — this is one of my personal pet peeves and I hate when people say stupid-ass-shit like “Never go straight. Only go forward” or “you might go straight, but I never will.” I told Karl that my car only goes straight.

So, we hit up the magical Sweet and Savory bakery and started to work out our game plan for sales. We hit a sale early on that at first just looked okay, but they kept bringing out more items. Karl found records and a turntable. Jenny snagged some ’50s glasses and men’s Hawaiian shirts. I was grabbing stuff right and left: ’80s patterned tights, ’50s tablecloths, an incredible ’40s or ’50s leather jacket, and tons more. When all was said and done we had filled the whole car at this one sale. This is also where the Babee Tenda came from.

One of the most sparse sales, but with the nicest people, was the church moving sale. It felt like they were just pulling stuff out of the church kitchen and putting price tags on it. They told us about how they are moving to a different church in a completely different part of town and how the neighborhood had changed. I am guessing there will be a condo in its place.

We hit a few more sales and even did a drop off at Karl’s to clear up some space in the car. A friend had called me the night before about a sale that was happening in the Queen Anne neighborhood. The woman was a handbag designer who is planning some huge move. She said she had tons of purses, leather, fabric and other crap for sale. We knew that it wasn't going to be Karl’s thing, but he was willing to humor us, so we headed across town to check it out.

One of our main goals for the entire day was to avoid any traffic around the Fremont Solstice Parade. It clogs up streets all around it and the nearby sales are usually offbeat in a bad way. One famous tradition at the Fremont fair is the naked bicycle riders. Each year they start off from a different area and sure enough … this year it was right on the way to our next sale.

Karl proceeded to yell out the window at them while Jenny was snapping photos.

The fabric and handbag sale was pretty picked over, but Jenny and I picked up a few things, and as a great bonus we all ended up with free spa passes to Banya 5.

We started heading back to the south end. We hit a garage sale with some of the lowest prices. 10 cent music? What can you really get nowadays with 10 cents?

Then we went the complete other direction hitting two estate sales where the prices were super high. I thought this pink ash tray was pretty great.

Although not everything at this sale was that expensive. I mean, you could really score if you wanted to pick up some old half-used toiletry items.

As for the junk in our trunk … you really can’t even see most of the good stuff in this photo, but here it is anyway.

Meghan and I headed out Saturday with a list of a ton of sales in our neighborhood. There was a fledgling annual neighborhood sale across town that we considered hitting, but since there were only about 15 sales on their map we decided to just stick close to home. (Sounds like it went pretty well! Maybe we’ll make it over there next year.)

So we set out to various sales nearby: block sales, moving sales, and one weird sale set up at a long-abandoned gas station, where Meghan quickly sniffed out the only two items worth buying (a vintage rhinestone jewelry set and a very old book which I can’t recall anything about now other than that it was cool — I think she paid $5 for both).

At one sale they had some pretty good books set out at $1 for hardcovers, 25 cents for paperbacks. I picked up a few things, then I saw Meghan had scooped up I Like You by Amy Sedaris! I have been meaning to buy this book (after flipping through a copy at Meghan’s house), and I think I made a little sad whimpering sound. Meghan said “You have it already, right?” When I shook my head no, she handed it over without thinking twice. Which is just one of the many reasons that she and I are Yard Sale Buddies 4 Life. The seller then asked us, “What is that book about, anyway?” There was an awkward pause while we both tried to think of a quick way to describe this somewhat indescribable book to someone who has never heard of it. Thankfully it was obvious she didn’t really care, as she continued on: “I have no idea what that is. It must be one of my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s books.”

Long time readers may remember us mentioning a yard sale regular who is famous (to us) for leaving his car door open when he stops at yard sales. Guess who drove up at our next stop?

This sale was pretty good, and Meghan bought three cool old dolls from the seller, who was really friendly and appreciated our inane running commentary on her stuff. All I ended up getting were some stickers out of her free pile (including, for some reason, Billy Idol stickers, which I found really entertaining at the time). But she did have a lot of other intriguing items, like these delightful artifacts of the ’80s.

We stopped at a lot of other sales, many of which had “kooky” lines in their Craigslist ads — I’ve noticed this is becoming more common. I’m not opposed to this; how can I be when I generally use the word “craptastic” for my own yard sale ads (even though this once led to the newspaper rejecting my ad due to “profanity”)? But with more people trying to make their listing stand out, interesting descriptions are becoming less indicative of interesting sales.

One sale we stopped at had advertised a tiki bar, but since I didn’t see it there I asked if it had sold. They said, “Oh, it’s in the back.” I knew there was no way I was going to buy it, but I was disappointed not to get to at least check it out. This sale had a ton of high-end men’s clothing at the amazing price of 25 cents each (10 cents for ties). We each picked up a few items just because they were so ridiculously cheap.

Another sale had advertised “Wine Rack - it’s huge and in the shape of a cow!” Amazingly, this was 100% true. Not so amazingly, they hadn’t sold it yet. Meghan asked how one ends up owning such an item and they muttered some story about an auction at a winery some years ago. Unfortunately, I wussed out on taking a photo of it. (But if you can picture a huge cow-shaped wine rack, you are probably not at all far off from what it looked like.)

We pulled up to another sale and Meghan groaned, “They have their sale every year, and they bring out the same stuff!” But this ended up not being such a bad thing, since they at least had the decency to lower their prices … and Meghan picked up a Bauer pot for $5 that she’d passed on at $20 the year before.

We were feeling pretty good hitting so many sales and the weather was even starting to warm up. I decided we should head up northward to an area that can be pretty hit or miss. Our first stop was an estate sale that sounded huge. There were a few items spilling out into the front lawn and the first thing I saw was this.

The second thing I saw was this.

My interest was up, and sure enough there was a houseful … but their prices were nuts! Most things were at least twice as much as you would ever want to pay. And the thing that got me was that it was also crazy disorganized. I mean, it is one thing to charge high prices when you have taken the time to sort and arrange the items. But it’s hard for me to tolerate anything more than bargain basement prices when things look like this.

That’s not so bad, you say? Well, what about this?

It was really weird … there were drawers in a vanity table that had things in them that were priced (ridiculously — like $9 for a fairly ordinary scarf), then just shoved back into the drawer all willy nilly. And you could tell it wasn’t that it had been orderly earlier in the day and then shoppers had run rampant. It’s not like I only want to go to a sale if it is neat and tidy. (I think that should be obvious by now!) But you sort of expect a price break when you are dealing with the likes of this.

There were definitely some interesting things strewn around. It was one of those estate sales where you could tell the person saved everything (and really shouldn’t have). This was one of several Valentine’s candy boxes I saw.

After perusing the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms, I descended into the basement, which was packed full of items in varying stages of crustitude.

It was just jam packed, and after a while the mustiness in the air was getting to me. My hands were starting to feel icky from touching things that looked okay, but felt odd, like maybe they were in the process of slowly liquefying. One area which seemed better-preserved was a little closet full of handmade costumes. I would love to know what kind of wacky performances these were used for!

Meghan picked up a small pile of things and while she paid, I headed outside, gratefully breathing in the fresh air. When she got outside, she discovered that one old bedjacket she had purchased was actually discolored, but it had been impossible to see inside the poorly-lit house. Sad.

I felt like being at this sale kind of ended the good vibe we had going, so I was glad that the next estate sale we went to was refreshingly clean. Unfortunately, there was hardly anything left in it. The few things that were still there didn’t give me the impression we’d missed out on much. I mean, I am pretty sure I don’t need anything previously owned by the person who hung this over their bed.

We had a few more sales to hit in the area before calling it a day. One of them had advertised that they were having an “Economic Stimulus Garage Sale,” but remember what I said about oddball ads not necessarily meaning the sale was good? Yeah. I sort of liked these Sonny and Cher TV guides, but not enough to pay $5 each. I didn’t realize until looking at the photos that she was also attempting to sell contact lens solution and tampons. Yikes!

Meghan was flipping through the books and read the title of one aloud: “The Secret Lives of Teddy Bears.” The woman said, “Oh … it’s just photography of teddy bears.” As if Meghan had been thinking that in this book, the actual secrets of teddy bears’ lives would finally be revealed.

The last sale we went to had some good CDs, priced at $2 or $3 each — too high for just your average CDs (especially when we’d picked some up at three for a buck earlier), but the guy had really decent stuff. We each had a handful and I asked, “Are you going to give us a deal on these CDs?” He hemmed and hawed about how they were already priced, and if they didn’t sell for what he’d marked them, then he’d just keep them … “So, that would be a no,” I said, and cheerily paid what he was asking. Hey, sometimes you have to try.

It was definitely a little bit of everything today, but altogether not a bad haul!

Jenny and I tried to hit some sales on Friday, even though it was rainy and cold. After looking through the ads we found a total of three sales in our area. Eh, we ended up getting breakfast instead.

Saturday turned out to look much more promising, including a block sale directly behind my house. Most of the houses there didn’t even seem halfway ready for a 9:00 sale when we came by at 8:45. I did manage to pick up a couple of Votivo candles for a dollar each from the family that lives directly behind me.

We headed to an estate sale in Olympic Manor where they were giving out numbers, and ended up as #10 and #11. When the guy working the door started talking about no big purses and how everyone needed to take their coats off, I had a flash back to the sale we hit a few years ago that we had to take our shoes off for. There is no way I will ever take a my shoes off again for a sale!

One of the first things we saw was this riding costume with the fox mask. Directly next to it was a early ’60s prom dress, displayed with a photo of the woman wearing it at her prom. The price? A whopping $175 … good luck!

This was the sale of the smalls. Pretty much the whole sale was shelves of small stuff. The woman was a crazy collector and everything seemed to have a theme. Dogs, Bugs, Horses, Quilts. Add in the freaks with their loupes, all talking about what this item is worth and what is old and what isn’t. Ehg. This shit gets old really fast. We both managed to get a few cool items.

We went on to a sale in a woman’s garage and it was the most boring sale, but it’s worth noting just because a woman drove by and started yelling, “You’re blocking the driveway!” She said it again, really loud. There was a car parked in front of the driveway where the sale was happening, but the odd thing is she wasn’t trying to come to the sale, it wasn’t her driveway, so why did she even care? Both Jenny and I talked back to her while the woman having the sale was chuckling.

We headed off to something called the St. Margaret of Scotland Parish Yard Sale, Car Show and Polish Festival. We ended up being a little misdirected and went to a completely different church sale across the street. This turned out to be not actually a church sale, but a benefit for someone who had cancer and the church had offered up their parking lot.

It had tons and tons of books, most of them pretty good. The flip side was that nothing was priced — they said “pay what you want.” I don’t mind making an offer, but it’s a little loaded when it’s a benefit for someone that you don’t know. We each left there with a box of stuff, and they seemed happy with our donation.

We crossed the road to hit the Polish festival and it was just bizarre. Two tables of rummage sale items, tables set up for food, and we didn’t see one car that could have been considered as “car show” worthy, with the exception of three guys on Harley Davidson bikes.

The Queen Anne neighborhood had a huge block sale that had been advertised as 30+ homes. At 11:30 we didn’t have that high of hopes, but there were sure a lot of people making the rounds. One of the first sales we hit had a huge table of beakers and glass stoppers.

On another table were a bunch of old food and spice containers. Some of them were really great.

I was tempted by an old Ovaltine container, but when I opened it up it looked a portion of the 1958 classic The Blob had been contained in a jar. SCARY.

At one sale there was a lemonade stand set up which also offered comics at 25 cents. Jenny purchased one of these just because she thought it was cute that the kid was so enterprising (although her mom was the one actually running the stand). She was pretty entertained trying to read it and figure out what was going on. It helped when she figured out that “Monopile” was supposed to be “Monopoly.”

We hit a basement sale whose sign advertised “kiddie courture,”, antiques, and more. This sale sucked at a new level. Not everything old should be considered an antique, and just because you can sew doesn’t mean you should.

The 30-house sale stretched over about eight blocks, and since it wasn’t raining we had a nice walk. The sales were pretty picked over, but we did get to see some really great houses. Finally, we raided a free box that was next to our car right before we drove off.

It turned out to be a pretty good day.

Regular guest star Leslie tipped us off that there was a neighborhood sale near where she lives in nearby Bellevue last weekend. We weren’t sure what to expect, since this area isn’t really known for killer sales (high percentages of baby stuff and newer boring items), but it was in a part of town with a lot of great midcentury modern architecture and we hoped that the good would outweigh the bad. Plus, we just felt like doing something different. We got there a little before the official starting time and saw tons of signs, but we stopped at the Official Map Dispensing Location to pick up the Official Map. (Which turned out to be quite helpful — even though there were tons of signs up, the streets around there are awfully crazy and windy and dead-endy.)

The first few sales were nothing special; newer crap like framed pictures and exercise machines, and one with “antiques” that were boring and overpriced. Then we hit one sale where an older woman was still bringing things out. Meghan grabbed a few items off a table where everything was priced at 50 cents — for that kind of price, you don’t need to be too picky. She got two vintage board games (Finance and Scribbage) and a well-preserved stuffing mix box, now full of little muffin tins. She later confessed that she really just wanted to take a picture of it, but figured for 50 cents she would just buy it. I’m sure it will end up in our next sale.

We dug through some jewelry and then Meghan hit the score of the day, digging out a vintage Bulova watch and two 1930’s class rings from a box of stuff the lady hadn’t quite finished putting out yet. I think she paid less than $20 for everything!

Nearby was this sale with a ton of new home decor items. I wondered what the deal was until I noticed a stack of business cards for an interior decorator. Meghan and I both almost purchased sheets here, then rejected them at the last minute when it turned out they were $5 per sheet (not per set).

At another sale Meghan unearthed a kids’ book called The House That Crack Built. She didn’t buy it, but we couldn’t stop talking about it as we made the rounds. Aside from being a little startled by the title, it just seemed out of place among the other more typical kids’ books at the well-to-do suburban house.

We kept seeing signs for a “MEGA SALE” and eventually found it after a few twists and turns. Really, once you got in the general vicinity there was no way you could miss this.

The stuff was spread out along a large driveway and again, seemed to be mostly new, with tons of framed prints for sale. I didn’t think there would be anything there I wanted, but I ended up picking up a 1950s Betty Crocker kids’ cookbook (with suitably retro recipes like molded jello concoctions, a.k.a. “Satan’s Salads“).

We kept going to sale after sale after sale, most of which were sadly pretty boring. Even at the coolest-looking houses, the stuff tended to be mundane. Many sales had lots of stuff, but mainly newer home-decor type items that you just knew no one was going to buy. It was one dud after another and at one point I leaned over to Meghan and said, “A lot of these sales make me feel like I’m at Ross.”

Though to be fair, it wasn’t all run-of-the-mill stuff. There was this heartfelt work of art, for instance.

After a long stretch of not buying anything, we went to a sale outside a community pool where we were each thrilled to purchase a donut, a bottle of water, and a small pile of 50 cent CDs. (That’s the price, not the artist.) Just as we were leaving, it started to rain, with huge big drops seeming to come out of nowhere. The people running the sale started freaking out all their stuff was spread around completely unsheltered at all (it had been nice earlier). As we pulled away I grabbed my camera to take a photo, which was sort of a bad idea because as I was rummaging around for it I spilled my opened bottle of water right into my lap. I was concerned that people would think that I’d peed in my pants, but Meghan assured me that it wasn’t all that noticeable. (Even if this wasn’t true, I appreciated it, because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it at that point and I wasn’t about to stop going to people’s sales.) After all that, it wasn’t even that great of a photo.

The rain didn’t last long and we continued around the neighborhood, finding a few more things here and there: kids’ shoes, books, a Bodum tea pot, a crazy Hawaiian dress, and some Polaroid film (amusingly, the box showed a Polaroid of a man talking on a banana-phone). At one of the last sales we hit, a guy was selling crutches, and Meghan proceeded to tell him that you should never get rid of your crutches because that’s usually when something will happen and you will need them again. This thoroughly spooked him and I heard him say quietly to his wife, “Maybe we shouldn’t sell the crutches …” I should have just told him not to worry since it was really unlikely that anyone was going to come along and actually want to buy them.

As we drove away from this sale we noticed that their sign was bilingual. Probably just to be cute, since I didn’t see any roving bands of Japanese yard sale tourists (who surely would have understood “G-Sale” in any case).

We hit just about every sale on the map (over 40!) and then drove back to Seattle. What was really strange is that as we headed towards home, we went for two or three miles along busy streets and saw absolutely no yard sale signs. Closer to our houses we did find a couple, none of which were all that remarkable. So it seemed that we picked a good weekend to go off and explore new territory … not the most fruitful day ever, but not a bad haul either!