After being out of town the last couple of weekends (and reading about the great scores and fun times Meghan had while I was away) I was happy to get back to our usual Saturday morning yard sale routine. We met up at 8:00 even though there were only a few sales starting that early. At our first stop, we were shocked to see this pair of enormous stuffed dogs in the front yard. (In case the proportions are not apparent, please note that they are resting on a full-sized futon.)

Meghan asked how in the world one ends up owning something like that, and the guy said that they had come from FAO Schwarz a long time ago. Which really doesn’t explain why they were actually purchased and brought home. He also told us their names (Penelope and something I’ve already forgotten) and said that he would split them up if necessary, but that he really felt they should probably stay together. I’m guessing that won’t be a problem (since I bet they were still there at the end of the day).

We hit a few more unremarkable sales and even made stops for cash and coffee to kill a little time before 9:00, when most of the sales were starting. We headed to one “block sale” which only had one house with stuff. False advertising, or did the neighbors just flake? Who knows.

A little past 9:00 we stopped at a sale where they were just getting stuff set up, but they said we were welcome to look around. Most of the things were still boxed up but they didn’t mind us opening them up and poking through. They kept bringing more stuff out and we each found a couple things right off the bat. Then we heard someone yelling out about who was parked in their driveway. It was us — we hadn’t expected to be there for more than a few minutes so we figured it would be okay. Meghan went to move the car and I heard the lady say “That’s not cool.” Meghan apologized and explained that she was just going to the yard sale and that she would move the car right away. The lady kept repeating, “That’s not cool” and bitching at Meghan, who kept saying “I said I was sorry and I’m moving the car now.”

Now, please note that this woman was not actually planning to pull her car out and go anywhere. I think it was more a matter of principle that her driveway should remain clear. Which is fine, but moving the car didn’t seem to pacify her. I’m really not sure what she wanted to have happen at that point. I heard the conversation get a little more heated, but what I didn’t know at the time is that the woman pulled out a camera and took Meghan’s picture! When Meghan asked why, she said something about how she could call the cops and have the car towed (which has no bearing on taking a picture at all … especially since the car was already being moved away). It was totally psychotic. Unfortunately, I was the one holding our camera so a reciprocal photo was not taken. When Meghan got back to the sale (after parking the car far, far away) she told us all of this and the people having the sale nodded sympathetically and implied that they’d had previous issues with this crazy neighbor.

Fortunately, after all that it turned out to be a good sale. Every time I thought we’d looked through everything I would turn around and there would be new boxes out on the lawn. We probably stayed there for about twenty minutes digging through their stuff and each left with a pile of items.

We headed to another street on the same street but about 5 blocks down (talking about the psycho driveway lady the whole time). The first thing I saw when we got there were boxes of records (and an assortment of oddball hats).

I started digging through the LPs and found some that looked good. I was almost afraid to ask how much they were, but the guy said fifty cents each! Stoked, I started making a pile. He had a ton of wacky thrift store records — religious nuts, failed comedy acts, wacky synthesizer/pop experiments, outdated exercise instructions — and some decent jazz and lounge stuff too. It was fun stuff, and I found at least five or six weirdo records that I either own, or owned at one point but have since let go. At first I was being pretty selective, but after a while I fell into that “throw it in the pile” zone and snagged anything that looked halfway appealing.

I had a feeling there was other good stuff there that I should be looking through, especially when a sea of pickers suddenly started swarming around out of nowhere. Even when Meghan called out, “Hey! A banana slicer!” I couldn’t tear myself away.

By this point Meghan had already staked her claim on this great marquee board with tons of letters. I can only imagine the things she will be spelling on it. (This picture shows it exactly as she found it.)

After I finally finished digging through all four boxes of records and started looking around the rest of the sale, I was impressed by all the wacky junk he had. I think it’s safe to say that he spent much of the last twenty years or so hitting the thrift stores hard.

I grabbed a stack of great books (mostly cult movie guides and that sort of thing) and started digging through the piles and bags of clothes, adding a few oddball t-shirts to my pile of stuff.

There was also a nice selection of fine art.

I was tempted by some of these, but considering that this arrangement looks alarmingly similar to what’s leaning up against one wall in my basement, I had to pass.

Finally we decided we were ready to total up. Meghan spent $50 and didn’t have quite enough money left. My purchases came to $40 and I was able to cover what she needed so we didn’t have to make another bank run. As we slogged our stuff to the car (parked well down the street, several feet away from anyone’s driveway) I noticed some freeboxes and started pawing through those. This is where I lost all restraint and started throwing anything remotely interesting into my bag, including some red Ikea starburst-y curtains, Richard Simmons Deal-A-Meal cards, and a promotional sperm (seriously) from Seed of Chucky.

As we finally drove away I ripped open one of my purchases — a $1 grab bag! Normally I am not at all interested in grab bags, but from the kind of stuff the guy had out, I figured at the very least it would be interesting. I was not wrong! Here’s a photo of everything that was hidden inside the paper sack.

Is that the best grab bag ever or what? I was tempted to go back and get more.

On the way to our next stop we happened upon an unadvertised sale. Sadly, when we walked up we were greeted by this very tidy yet completely unexciting assortment of items.

At least the prices were right. Digging through another area Meghan found six vintage ties. They were fifty cents each, but the man agreed to sell them all for a buck, especially since she didn’t need the coat hanger they were draped over. (Go figure.) I grabbed a vintage glass ashtray and a packet of old Christmas gift tags out of his free pile, which also included a paper bag with about a dozen assorted paper-wrapped straws in it and a paper bag with about a dozen assorted plastic utensils in it.

I had to knock off sort of early to head to a wedding, so we only had time for a couple more stops. We hit this huge rummage sale, which looked like just about every huge rummage sale in the history of mankind.

Meghan found a crazy plastic dog that was sort of pathetically cute. She hemmed and hawed over whether it was worth buying, until she noticed the hole in the back where you could insert a light. She tried to convince me to buy it (in the “someone should get this but I don’t think it needs to be me” school of thought … of which I am practically an evangelist). When I declined, she bought it herself.

There were a couple of other sales right near the rummage sale. Our last stop turned out to be the same sale where Meghan had purchased the poofy blue crinolines, wacky costumes, and other assorted vintage clothing items for $1 each a few weeks ago! We weren’t sure if we should bother going in again, but we figured it might be worth another look. Amazingly, they still had a ton of good clothes left that we hadn’t noticed before. Meghan amassed another pile, including a few ’60s men’s suits and a long velvety women’s coat, again for an incredible $1 apiece. I got one jacket, two singles (The Aristocats and Dolly Parton — good combo?) and a few unused vintage greeting cards — I think I paid $2 for everything.

Meghan had originally planned to continue on for a while without me since I had to leave early, but she decided she’d spent enough for one day. Here’s part of the haul (there was a bunch more in the back seat). For a short day, we did pretty good!

So, it was Round 2 of Karl and Krista coming over to Ballard for sales. I had started to work on a list, but knowing that Karl would probably ignore it I was only making a half-assed attempt. As I was peeking at the Craig’s listings I saw there was a large rummage sale starting at 8:00. I was thinking that I could run over there and be back in Ballard by 8:30 when they were supposed to arrive at my house, especially since they had been 20 minutes late last week.

The rummage sale was for Sage Connections, an organization that provides pet adoption services to low-income and isolated populations. The sale was a little hard to find (mostly due to the fact that I couldn’t remember where the street was exactly) and when I finally got there, tons of people had already started digging into the piles. I noticed a set of nesting cubes and thought maybe it was just display. I asked her what the price was and she launched into some story about a friend of hers who works at a local art and design store and had donated some stuff. She said she would give them to me for $20, but I should put them in my car fast, since her friend would come and probably want WAY MORE for them. She then said “Oh, and how about these cubes? I guess they are some hot shot designer.” I flipped them over and it was two bamboo green Jonathan Adler nesting cubes. EEEK!

I left there with three really nice new shower curtains, a tool bag, and the two sets of cubes, all for $60.

Okay, so now I needed to haul ass to get back to my house. We headed off and hit some so-so sales, nothing amazing. I ran into an old friend that said she had taken part in a sale downtown that was huge. It was also near the punk rock rummage sale where Karl said he had made some great scores on LP’s a few months back, so we headed over that way.

The Belltown Garden P-Patch sale had tons of stuff, but nothing really amazing to buy.

I love these 4 houses with the community garden and I have always been amazed that they haven’t been torn down. (Here is a link about the houses.)

After the garden sale, we hit the Seattle Punk Rock Flea Market. This is a bit more of a craft show with some “junk” tossed in. Karl did find some great 7″ scores.

We headed back to the north end and hit a few more sales in Ballard. On one street we found three goats just hanging out in the front yard of this house. I had heard there was a new city ordinance allowing people to have goats.

It’s not very often that we fill up the trunk twice in one day.

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.