Yard Sale Bloodbath

For the first time so far this year, there were a good number of sales listed for Saturday! Karl wanted to come along so we all met up bright and early at 8:00. Two sales near us started that early, both in the same direction, so we started heading that way. The truck ahead of us was driving super slow and Karl recognized the drivers as sale regulars, so when they turned right toward the estate sale, we went left to hit the garage sale.

Meghan recognized the house as the same place where she’d made her mindblowing Aveda score back in this blog’s early days. This time around, there were a few beauty supply type items (hairstyling books, bottles of haircolor, etc.) but only one lone Aveda item, which Meghan grabbed, maybe just for old time’s sake. I bought a vintage hairstyling head for $2. I already have three of these hanging out in my spare bathroom and lord knows I don’t need to add another member to the flock, but c’mon — two dollars! How could I not?

Meanwhile, it didn’t seem like we missed much at the estate sale. We did spot these elaborately hand-crafted chairs, but nothing much we wanted to buy.

After a quick coffee stop we headed to what we considered the day’s main event: a sale whose ad filled us with both anticipation and horror:

“Big time collector/horder must purge……..too much to list. We have not priced much because there are floor to ceiling boxes FILLED with things… Please enter at your own risk. There is not much light and there is stuff everywhere. CASH ONLY. LOTS OF MISC.”

We got there right about 9 and people were already crammed inside the garage. Stuff was everywhere, with shelves and tables leaving only tiny walkways to get through. Moving around was a bit challenging.

Sorry the photos came out so blurry, but at least you can get a little sense of the chaos.

The stuff was actually overall pretty cool. My guess is that the stuff had been purchased by someone trying their hand at reselling, who bought way too much stuff and then for one reason or another just gave up. Everything was vintage (or at least vintage-looking), and there were multiples of some items … like a big stack of velvety sombreros, or four vintage toasters sitting on the floor. Some items had antique mall price tags and others still had thrift store tags. There were also tons of clothes in just about all sizes (including a bag of crusty vintage baby items) and cool pieces of fabric. I snagged a big geometric print barkcloth curtain out of this bin.

The thing that was annoying was that along with all the sale-worthy items was stuff that was just plain junk. Boxes filled only with crumpled newspaper, or full of bottles (and not cool vintage ones). I could totally understand not wanting to go through and sort/price everything, but if they had gotten the obvious garbage/recycling out of there, it would have given everyone a little more breathing room. As it was, it was a little nuts. The sellers also refused to let anyone leave a pile up front (no room!), so people had to carry their stuff around (or buy an armful, dump in car, and repeat). A few times we saw people set things down, then freak out once they realized someone else had picked one of “their” items up and walked away with it. It was definitely every shopper for themselves.

We all paid for our stuff — nothing was marked, but they were pretty cool on prices. The sellers said they would be having “part two” for the inside of the house soon, which I’m sure we will try to hit. Meanwhile, the trunk was already starting to fill up! We then backtracked a little to hit the rest of our list. At one of these sales, Meghan made me take a picture of this pony whose hair had turned into dreadlocks.

At the next sale, Karl emerged from a box of records with a stunned look on his face. Turned out he had uncovered one of his holy grail records: an original copy of an album by pro wrestler turned musician Beauregarde! He was flying high on that score for the rest of the day.

We hit a few more unremarkable sales, then decided to end with what had been advertised as a huge fundraising sale. It was pretty big, but mostly had kid clothes and really boring housewares. Then I realized we weren’t all that far from another estate sale, so we decided to drive a little further and hit that one. On the way there we saw an unexpected sign and made a detour — to a different estate sale that I hadn’t even seen advertised. And it was full of stuff! I did overhear the sellers mention they’d brought some things in that weren’t part of the house, which explained all the “collector-y” stuff up front. The rest of the house was more typical estate randomness. Meghan mentioned there were some ancient toiletries in the bathroom so I went over to investigate.

Then I looked down at the bathtub, which for some reason was the location chosen to place these ancient unopened sample packs of feminine hygiene products.

My mind was blown by seeing a box of Rely — the tampon that was notoriously recalled in 1980 due to its association with Toxic Shock Syndrome. I had to buy that one. Left behind (and not photographed) was a box marked “Colon Tube.” Ick.

In one of the upstairs bedroom we found this handcrafted dog plaque that we all sort of loved, but no one ended up purchasing.

Meghan got sucked into a room full of clothes for a while and I ventured down into the basement. It was full of guy stuff – tools, crusty books, and a few wacky old signs.

There was also this shelf full of various adhesives and cleaning products that didn’t seem to have been touched for some time.

After what had to be about forty-five minutes we finally dragged ourselves out of there. Then we continued on to the original sale we’d planned to hit, which was a total bust! It was lucky we stumbled across the other one to cap off the day.

Now, would you look at this trunk full of junk?! For early March, this is pretty dang good.

Jenny sent me an email on Friday afternoon with a few sneak peeks of upcoming sales. “Just Moved Sale: All Christmas,” “Original steampunk sculptures at large discounts,” and “GRANDMA NEEDS BAIL MONEY.” Yard sales in February sound great, huh?

Even better when we drove up to our first sale and they had a Churro holder.

Unless it’s for a business, why would you have that? And they didn’t have much else – about six books and some clothing.

Then we hit a sale that started on Friday, but honestly, beggars can’t be choosers. I had been to a pretty good yard sale run by an older woman at the same house a while back, and picked up some pink depression glassware for pretty cheap. When we got there it hadn’t quite opened, so we had to stand around with the line-up of estate sale regulars talking about all their great scores this week. This almost always gets on my nerves and I spent most of the time looking at Jenny saying “grandma needs bail money.”

Once we finally got in, the sale was just “eh” – not really enough stuff to make it worthwhile. Jenny did spot this box filled with a “muscle builder” and I purchased some old Ball jars.

We drove across town to hit an estate sale in a ritzy neighborhood that seemed like it could be pretty good.

I took more or less the same tactic while standing in line, this time mostly demanding that folks not purchase an enormous peppermill that we could see through the kitchen window. As folks started to come out they kept saying how there was tons of stuff, enough for everyone. Enough for Seattle: good sign.

Sure enough, the sale was packed. PACKED. P-A-C-K-E-D. Two closets filled with old lady clothes. Living room full of crystal and silver. And a kitchen filled with food, utensils, dishes, and a giant clam broth dispenser.

While I was digging through some shoes, Jenny came over and commented that it was odd how they had displayed stuff on a bedroom shelf like it was in a pharmacy. She asked me to get a photo of it, and I hung around the room for about ten minutes but someone was always standing in front of it. Jenny managed to get a photo a bit later.

All was well and good until we went into the basement. I first noticed the huge amount of cleaning products. I can’t really point fingers, under my kitchen sink there is a little more than I need, but still.

Then we hit the room with the built-in bar.

There were bottles of OLD beer (really, Rheingold Beer?! They haven’t even made that in my lifetime, I don’t think) and open booze from 40 years ago.

I spotted a bottle of Coke in what looked a glass half liter. I remember those from the ’70s. Jenny found a really cool Trader Vic’s bottle of pomegranate grenadine syrup. I wanted to purchase it, but it was sticky. We both seemed to be sticky after touching it.

This room also had some books – not a big deal, we both talked about how she had a few too many cookbooks. Little did I know we would then head into another room with hundreds and hundreds more.

Most of them were just boring, the type that you would see anywhere. Although a few were more unusual.

Later that day I said to Jenny that it seemed odd to have 400 cookbooks and Jenny said “400, NO WAY. There had to be at least 600. Maybe more.” It was frightening.

Off to the side of the cookbook room was the wine cellar.

All bottles were being sold for $2. We both poked around, but it was scary and the room wasn’t temp controlled. I purchased a bottle of red from 1958, mostly just because it was so bizarre. Later on someone broke a bottle, so the whole basement reeked of wine.

In another room I told to Jenny to look behind me. For some reason she hadn’t noticed the shopping cart. How the hell does someone this well off have that in their basement?!

After an hour (yes, an hour) we made our way to the cashier. Jenny only got a couple of old cooking pamphlets and a 1970 “RAP WRAP” folder covered with crazy astrological hippie art. I had crammed stuff into an ugly tote bag just to carry it around at the sale, and the cashiers somehow got me to buy it for $2. At that point I didn’t really care and just wanted to leave. That sale had wiped us both out.

Most people are way too smart and/or sane to try to have a sale in January, but there are usually some estate sales here and there. Since it had more than two months since Meghan and I had hit sales together, we figured we’d take what we could get.

The first one we hit had put about five listings up on Friday, each including the phrase “ALL MOST GO.” By Saturday morning, they had figured out that the word they were looking for was “must.” In any case, I suspect most of it didn’t go anywhere. There was a ton of stuff and it definitely tended toward the junky side. We got there right after it opened and Meghan snagged a psychedelic vintage bathing suit from a box in the living room, but all the other clothes seemed to be old lady styles from the ’80s. Both of us had the feeling there had to be some good vintage finds stashed elsewhere, especially because there were boxes and piles that seemed like no one had looked in them yet. We kept feeling like we were about to uncover something great, but finally had to accept that she had probably gotten rid of all that stuff long before.

I ventured downstairs to the basement where more piles awaited … all seeming like they might have undiscovered treasures, but mostly just turning out to have crap. I saw a 7″ record case out on top of a box, and flipped it open to check out the contents.

Notice that this is “Side 99.” There were also some Book of Mormon flexi-discs scattered nearby. Who knew?!

Most of the basement was just junk. A lot of it was taken up by the dreaded tool area, but the rest was a mixed bag. Ancient cleaning supplies, horrible craft stuff, Depends … it was grim. Though I did think these toilet seats were rather festive.

Meghan discovered this sign in what apparently had been the “computer area.”

I picked up a little round vintage lamp and carried it around for a while … putting it down at least twice, then deciding maybe I’d get it. Since nothing was priced, I didn’t know what to expect, but I figured it would probably be cheap enough that I should just go for it. Sure enough, the guy charged me $1 for the lamp and my only other purchase — a piece of Yogi Bear wrapping paper.

Our next stop was a moving sale. Walking in we were greeted by this inflatable monkey and a leg lamp (a la Christmas Story)! But they wanted $100, which is freakin’ ridiculous.

We walked on into the main room where things were laid out looking like an antique mall or something. The seller was sitting in a chair in the middle, just watching us make the rounds. Her prices were out of hand and we left quick.

We headed over to a moving sale that we couldn’t find, until we saw the seller putting up a sign on the corner and she pointed us toward the house. Inside was a guy strumming a guitar, and one of the lamest sale spreads I’ve ever seen. And you know that is saying a lot! There was a huge pile of old computer monitors and keyboards on one side of the room (stuff you’d have to pay to dispose of), and about four worthless items on the other side. “Is this it?” we asked the guy. He said there was also a lawn mower outside. Great! Then he said “Yeah, I was a little surprised when I came over to help out.” It was truly pathetic.

Our next moving sale was a little better. There were a ton of books there, mostly an odd mix of new-age-self-help and gun collectible guides. I didn’t think I’d find anything I wanted, but I ended up getting a copy of Charles Krafft’s Villa Delirium for $1. I also picked up a tiny little plastic refrigerator that I first thought was a kid’s toy. The seller pointed out that it was actually for your desk, with plastic food-shaped office supplies (push pins, tape, clips) inside. Odd, and cute — I bought it (for another dollar). Meghan got some kind of weird fur coat for $5.

Next was an estate sale in a pretty nice area. When we walked in they had some cool antique-y stuff, but their prices were crazy. Then in some of the other rooms stuff was really cheap. The people running the sale really seemed to be all over the map. Upstairs was pretty much “elderly people with refined taste.” Downstairs is where it got weird. Most of the walls were bare, but there were a few things left up that were sort of funny.

In one room were tons of CDs … almost all classical, but with the occasional recent techno or swing title thrown in. We also spotted these stickers.

Then there were a bunch of crazy goth/raver clothes that did not seem to fit with the rest of the stuff at all. Platform boots, fishnet tops … and these out-of-hand fuzzy blue pants.

The label on these is FunkyFit. How great is that?

We figured there had to be a grandkid responsible or something, especially after we saw these ads taped up.

I said something about the clothes to the lady running the register, and she claimed that they all belonged to the old man. I have my doubts … but if true, that’s kind of awesome. Meghan and I each bought a few books here. She also got a cool pair of vintage shoes; I got some ’80s red boots, and a crazy pair of purple/gold platform boots that I can’t really even describe (or explain why I was compelled to buy them).

Next was an estate sale at a ritzy condo, which turned out to be way more massive than we’d expected from the outside. Everything there was pretty high-end.

I will note however that this was the second sale of the day with packages of adult diapers. I’d like to propose that if you are an estate sale professional and come across any of these, you should forego the possible couple of bucks you might make if someone actually buys them (which seems really unlikely) and just donate them to a worthy cause.

I didn’t purchase anything here, but Meghan bought a few schmancy sweaters. She also found an ’80s magazine clipping while flipping through the cookbooks — it had a poached salmon recipe on one side, which was presumably why it was saved, but the other side has captioned photos of various punky youngsters. If the stars align correctly, you might just see it in a “book report” here soon.

After one more stop at a very crappy estate sale, it was time to call it a day. None of the sales were spectacular, but for January I think the haul was not bad!

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?

Jenny and I had spoken about trying to hit some sales on Saturday morning and I had sent her a listing for a sale at the large Goodwill called The Glitter Sale. That just screams the blog, right? Okay, it’s not a yard sale, but we do veer into Rummage Sales and Thrift Stores once in a while. When I say “large” Goodwill, this place is HUGE –- I am just guessing, but this place is probably 40,000 sq. feet. This was the 26th annual glitter sale. I’m not sure how we had missed this up until now?!? I’ve hit some special sales there before — The Shoe Sale and The Record Sale — but they have a whole web site and blog dedicated to this one sale. Seems a little crazy, right?

In the morning, Jenny was feeling like crap and had to bail. Honestly I was feeling pretty good about staying in PJ’s for a while. We might have dodged a bullet on this one as far as not going in the morning. People camp out hours before to go to the sale. I like shiny stuff too, but not that much.

I was hemming and hawing about even going, but curiosity got the better of me and I went with a girl friend at 2:30. The parking lot was still a total zoo and it took us 20 minutes to find a space about a block away. Then the line just to get into another larger room was about 60 people deep. I can’t even imagine what this was like at 10 am. Nightmare!

The ten jewelry cases had flocks of people all trying to get a look, racks of leather jackets, bedazzled jeans, blazers and many other craft projects gone awry.

Tons of prom dress from the ’80s, and tons of wedding dresses.

And shoes. Tons and tons of bronze, silver, gold and sparkled shoes. Plus, tons of those little girl glitter shoes from the Wizard of Oz.

Honestly, for the crowd it wasn’t that great, but I did pick up two items.

In line I met possibly one of the most annoying women I’ve ever encountered. She spent the entire time name-dropping different lines that she had items from. She had found a pair of Ferragamo loafers for $79 at the sale and went on and one about her “Prada this” and her “Ferragamo that” — it was pretty irritating and the line was long. I was pretty happy when I finally got the hell out of there.

Okay, who else has been watching that Hoarders show on A&E and getting a little freaked out? Granted, I’m nowhere near the folks on this show, as far as having that much stuff … but once in a while it hits kinda close to home. I mean, who among us hasn’t bought random unnecessary items and then held onto them way longer than space or need required?

Let’s face it, a lot of us yard-sale fans probably have a wee touch o’ the hoarding. I’d even venture to say it’s one of those “spectrum disorders” — some people might have a few symptoms yet still live completely functional lives, while others (like most of the folks on the show) are severely affected by what seems to be a true psychological problem. I mean in those cases, it is severe, and it’s not a matter of “they should just stop” — it seems like a lot of them can’t stop.

But for the rest of us, when is it that things get taken too far? What if you collect bottles. You might have a lot of them. Is that hoarding?

Probably not. But what if there’s more?

And more? Along with other glass items. Lamps and beads, anyone?

Maybe there’s too many to have out on display. You might need to just start filling up boxes. Hey, is that a crap-ton of polished rocks over on the right?

Maybe you need some boxes to store all of your decorative Avon bottles, too.

As you may have guessed, these photos are all from one estate sale, which we hit last weekend (after a several-week-long sale break). What you also need to know is that there were more bottles, more rocks, more Avon, more beaded necklaces … lots and lots more. Enough that it was definitely starting to feel a little hoardy in there.

But this person didn’t hoard everything. There were some vintage clothes that she’d kept around, but only about a closetful. Books, records, sheet music, kitchen stuff … positively reasonable in number. And the house was huge. If you have the space, and keep things organized, is it really hoarding if your collections have just gotten a little (okay, maybe a lot) out of hand?

Hmmm. Probably not. But what if you also have multiple containers of decades-old instant coffee in your basement?

And some equally ancient cans of food?

What about stuff you canned yourself … about nineteen years ago?

And what if all that was in an entire room full of about a hundred times more of it (plus a heaping helping of more glass bottles and other random crap to boot)?

I don’t know. Like I said, the house was big. It was probably all very organized (things were laid out on tables and such for the sale, but it seemed pretty tidy). Although the stuff did fill up almost every possible inch of the house — even a little nook on the back side of the furnace.

And it often didn’t seem like deliberate hoarding, so much as just buying stuff and storing it away and then never thinking about it again … for like thirty years.

Now, people in houses full of weird thrifted crap probably shouldn’t throw any stones. But going to this kind of estate sale does feel a bit like watching the Hoarders show (except that you’re left to your own imagination as far as the people involved). Both of those leave me with the urge to really pare stuff down. I mean, it’s fine to stock up on useful items, or have collections, or do crafty things like make jewelry or can food. But when you never use the stuff you stockpile, or you end up with way more than you could possibly ever appreciate or even remember you have? What’s the point?

I’ll leave you with perhaps the best and worst of this sale. This assortment of products and packages was presumably collected, not stored since their original purchase (though really, who can be sure). As with every single picture in this post, what you are seeing is just a small subset of similar items at the sale.

And finally, you know how sometimes people have a junk drawer? This house had an entire junk room. Here’s one little bit of it.

Phew. Time for us to start going through our own stockpiles and start planning our next yard sale! In between hitting some more of the always-questionable off-season offerings around town, of course …

My parents were in town last weekend. We had non-sale-related plans on Saturday, so we thought we’d hit a few Friday morning sales. Since there usually aren’t that many sales on Fridays I figured it was a perfect time to try out iGarageSale – an iPhone app that places sale listings from Craigslist onto a handy map so you can see what’s nearby. I found a couple in our neighborhood and a few more a little further out that seemed promising, and we headed off.

One of our first stops was a church sale, which ended up being the same church we’d been at as part of the Crown Hill Garage Sale Day. It had been awful then, but a different organization was having the sale this time, and there was a lot more stuff. I still figured it might be a bust, but then I wandered down the hall to a sort of hidden area and found a cute little box purse with a ’60s looking “YES” painted on it. I opened it up and discovered that despite its complete lack of bejeweledness, it was an Enid Collins purse, and even had a mirror inside. Score!

On the way out I noticed this box of “men’s shoes.” Um, if you say so …

After one boring sale and one that wasn’t actually happening we headed off to something billed as a “three-estate sale.” There was stuff spread around all outside the house. One of the first things I noticed was this sign up on the wall.

Don’t strain your eyes on the blurriness, I’ll tell you what it says: “If your reading this it probably means Im DEAD! Tell my family I love them. Good bye … forever (we can make love in heaven)”

Creepy, no? I asked the seller what the deal was, and she got sort of a strange look on her face. For a second I wondered if perhaps there really was a death story involved and if I shouldn’t have brought it up so casually. Then her look became one of pure bored irritation and she replied, “I’m pretty sure it’s just a joke.” Still no explanation why it was on the wall of the house, but I could tell that more questions were not encouraged.

There was definitely an odd hodge-podge of stuff. My dad made a comment about how these dogs were maybe a little too excited to see Santa.

There were a couple of stuffed dogs whose price tags included their names. I think sometimes you really can give a potential buyer too much information.

This lady was so lovely. Too bad about her arm.

There was more stuff set up inside, and it kind of felt like an antique mall space — I wondered if someone used to have one and was selling off what was left? Or maybe it really was from someone’s estate who was really into collecting glassware and such. Everything in the room was priced, and laid out very nicely.

Then there was another room down the hall that had more dishes … set up in front of a painted sign for the Amazing Alfredo, big enough to cover the entire wall.

They had some nice stuff, but nothing I fell in love with, so I left empty-handed. But on the way there we’d seen signs for another estate sale, so we headed off to that one. This sign in front cracked me up, especially knowing how the hardcore estate-salers can get kind of crazed and bloodthirsty waiting for a sale to open up.

I walked into a bedroom and encountered this rather large school project on “The History of Reggae Music And Bob Marley.” All that work, and now it was on sale for fifty cents! I hope they at least got an A.

It’s always cool to come across old family portraits like these.

And I was delighted to spot this built-in file cabinet in another bedroom. We’ve seen some weird built-in stuff at estate sales before (the pull-out toaster is an all-time fave), but I think this is a first.

Since we’d ended up further afield than I’d expected, I whipped out the ol’ phone and consulted iGarageSale again … and discovered another estate sale just a few blocks away! I wouldn’t have even known it was there, so that was pretty cool. Most of their stuff was at once fancy and boring (a deadly combo in my book), but I did get a pink Russel Wright bowl for $2. Then right when we thought we were done for the day we stumbled upon an un-craigslisted block sale — but alas, all of the sales were lame.

The haul was pretty paltry compared to a typical Yard Sale Bloodbath Saturday, but we were all happy with what we got.

Me: Enid Collins box purse and pink Russel Wright bowl.
Mom: Pyrex dish.
Dad: Rainbow-colored outdoor hanging thing (that’s actually the real name. Look it up), hose splitter, Seabiscuit documentary DVD, The Spell Of The Yukon book, and three CDs.

This was a pretty big weekend, since the annual Phinney sale and the Olympic Manor sale ended up both being on the same day. I have been belly-aching about this for a couple of months, but I managed to have one of my best days, thanks to one sale.

After hitting a couple of sales on the way to Phinney Ridge, I was speeding down 74th Ave. Karl hollered out that I had driven right past a sale.

The first thing I saw were some amazing green dinette chairs. But they had just been sold — argh! We started looking through the rest of the stuff, and noticed the sellers hadn’t quite finished their breakfast yet.

They had tons of stuff, but sadly some of it had been set up on Friday and was sort of dewy. This didn’t seem to be the case for the clothing or shoes, but the cups and bowls were damp. There was a stack of old Look and Life magazines that had been under a towel held down by a large rock — not the best situation.

In the first couple of minutes, I grabbed three pairs of 1940’s shoes. Karl usually lets me have first crack at the clothing, but I usually let him take first crack at any box of LPs at a sale, so it works out. Jenny looked around some, but she quickly got sort of bored with the whole sale. I did make her come over and look into the strange box of vintage pills.

Not something you see on a regular basis. Especially when they still have some of the pills inside. Eek!

One of the guys at the sale said there was more stuff inside, so I asked him to bring out more clothing for me, which he did. So many coats, dresses, shoes, scarves and hats. All vintage, lots of it really great. The bummer? Only the older woman (named “Jenny” also, adding confusion whenever I called over to our Jenny) could work out the prices. And the prices made no sense. One dress that was just okay would be $7.25, then some amazing ’40s number would be $2.50. An extra large Bauer pot was $20, a box of vintage wallpaper $5. And this all took forever, even with our Jenny working a calculator, Karl handing the woman items one at a time to keep things moving, and me taking the stuff to the car. Jenny was really starting to lose her cool. I know that she was excited for me, but she was ready to get on with the other sales. We spent way too long at this sale, but it was so worth it. My “vintage adrenaline” was pumping hard!

Karl and I picked up enough stuff to fill up the trunk and half the back seat. The trunk photo doesn’t even do this justice. We had to drop everything back at my house before we could hit any more sales.

Around 1:00 both Karl and I ended up going back to the sale. Since I had told one of the guys helping at the sale what I was looking for, they had kept some of the clothing in the house for me and started bringing out piles of stuff. I ended up scoring a 50s vintage Hawaiian shirt. Karl was a little upset, but seemed to get over it when he figured out I was going to keep it. We both picked up a bunch more stuff. All told I spent around $200 at the sale and picked up some amazing items. The Phinney and Olympic Manor sales didn’t really pan out like I’d hoped, but after hitting the jackpot so big at this one, how can I complain?