There is a cool neighborhood near us called Olympic Manor, which is filled with incredible ’50s modern houses and, more to the point, has an annual yard sale day. Every time we’d drive by Meghan would ask me, “When’s Olympic Manor?” I couldn’t quite remember but I seemed to think it was late in the season and sure enough, we discovered that their sale day was happening on Saturday. I had been thinking about skipping sales this weekend, but how could I pass that up? In past years we have both found amazing stuff there (even though there are always a ton of boring-new-crappy-stuff sales to weed through too). Karl wanted to make another guest star appearance (he’s practically a recurring character at this point) so we invited him along for the ride.

Our first stop was to try to find a sale Meghan had been tipped off about, where a friend of a friend had been cleaning out his grandmother’s old stuff. She had the address written down, but somehow it was missing one of the numbers. We found it pretty easily though and there were some great things there. I excitedly scooped up a starburst wall candle holder for $1 and a couple of cool books, then allowed myself to splurge on 8 vintage glasses. And when I say splurge, I don’t mean because of the price (they were $1 each), but because I really don’t need more glasses. But I have definitely reformed my previous excessive glass-buying ways, and since I’ve broken a few of them lately I figured I was allowed to pick up some cool and usable replacements.

Just as I was marveling at the good finds, Meghan and Karl both pointed out some other guy who was leaving with a bunch of really good stuff. Talk about harshing my vibe! I was glad I didn’t actually see what he scored, but it was still frustrating to think about. In any case, we all walked off with enough stuff that after only one more sale, we decided to make an early drop-off to clear out the trunk for the scores to come. Note Meghan’s cool magazine rack and Karl’s extremely huge Heidelberg beer bottle. (Extra funny since he doesn’t actually drink.)

We hit a few more random sales before heading into Olympic Manor, where the action supposedly started at 10 but had obviously gotten rolling earlier. We grabbed a map, but ended up just driving around rather than taking any kind of methodical approach. The first couple of sales were pretty unremarkable. We turned a corner and Meghan said, “There’s that guy who has his sale every year and it’s always the same stuff.” I remembered this too, and even though it is always bad, I couldn’t resist going over to take a look. The acres of boxes just called to me irresistibly, even though inside was nothing I even remotely wanted.

You just know that he hauls those same boxes in and out every year — maybe a few pounds lighter, but still.

We walked away and realized that Karl was nowhere to be found. “Karl!” we yelled. “Come on!” Getting no response we tried other tactics like yelling “Hey nerdlinger, move it!” and “Wow, Sonics records!” with no effect. Finally he came out of the garage holding one crappy record that I can’t even remember.

We went to one sale had a garage practically full of Barbies and various other dolls for $2 each. None of them were old enough to be obviously worth money, but some of them were interesting. There were also some really bad clothes, including a t-shirt that said “Crazy About Dolls.” Yeah, I guess so. As we trudged up the driveway I heard Meghan say “How about if I buy these and wear them around for the rest of the day?” I turned around to see this.

We probably spent an hour in Olympic Manor, all of us finding some things, but without any truly phenomenal scores. After a while we decided to head out to a different area. There was one sale advertised as “retro clean-out” that sounded interesting. Their taste turned out to be a bit odd. I mean, this bar thing kind of gave me the creeps.

This was about the best thing left — really.

We continued hitting a variety of not-that-great sales before stumbling onto one where the woman had a ton of vintage stuff that she didn’t fit into anymore and was finally getting rid of. It was here that I saw by far the largest number of pairs of vintage black velvet pants that I’ve ever seen in one place, which Meghan now owns. I bought a really cool winter coat (that is really too big, but it’s so nice) and a pair of Giraudon shoes for fifty cents! Yes, they are beat up, but I think with a good polish they can be saved. Many of my very favorite shoes are Giraudons (my sister has a shoe store and hooks me up) so I was pretty happy to get another pair on the dirt-cheap.

“Okay – one more sale,” we said. Unfortunately, the sale we found had completely ridiculous prices. Crappy CDs: $5 each, or 5 for $20! Japanese stuffed toys: $12 each! Other boring crap I can’t remember: at least 5 or 6 times the amount you’d expect it to be! I really had to restrain myself from telling them rudely, “Have fun packing all your stuff back up, because nobody is going to buy it.” I just walked away and said we needed to hit another sale so we could end on a happier note. We found one at a house where I’d been to a sale years ago and bought tons of great fabric. There was fabric again (it looks like they were chronic quilters/crafters), but I didn’t buy anything. Karl noticed some plums (from a tree in their yard) on the table, and the sellers invited us to take some. We each ate one right then and there. They were great! And a fine way to end the day.

Yep — another Saturday, another full trunk (and then some). I do have a bit of remorse over a couple of my more random purchases, but I also got some things I’m pretty dang happy about. And of course, I had a fabulous time!

Through our extensive years of yard-saling we have determined that the Saturdays of holiday weekends (Memorial Day/Labor Day) generally don’t have a ton of sales. Furthermore, the sales that are there are often lame. But did this keep us from heading out? Of course not! And though it was indeed true that there weren’t a lot of sales, and many of them sucked, we ended up with some good scores just the same.

The first sale we went to we found by accident. The woman quickly pissed us off by mentioning that there had just been a rush of buyers. “They bought the weirdest stuff,” she said. “All of the really old stuff.” Yeah, that’s really weird. Then as I started flipping through the books, she mentioned that those had been cleaned out too. I have never figured out why people think it’s a good idea to tell you about all of the stuff you missed out on at their sales.

We went to a few really bad sales with the most boring things. There was also this one where they had signs up, but when we got there all we found was this:

I guess they hadn’t opened up yet, but this really didn’t make us want to come back later to check it out.

There were a few sales that started at 10:00 that sounded more promising. One of them was a fundraising sale. In the ad, they’d said “No haggling allowed!” so of course we had to make numerous fake attempts to haggle, probably not entertaining anyone but ourselves. They had a few good things, including some crazy polyester disco shirts – I got one with a label that has the Saturday Night Fever logo on it.

Another late-starting sale was a moving sale advertising lots of vintage. It was in an apartment building and as we pulled up we realized we’d been to one of her sales last year where we both got some great things. We were just about the first people there and there wasn’t a ton of stuff out, but it was all interesting. I picked up a bunch of things including couple of men’s vintage shirts, some barkcloth and vintage fabric, a black vinyl ’60s jacket (that I thought would be cute, but I didn’t like when I put it on at home), and one of the weirdest things I’ve bought at a sale in some time: about eight little packets of vintage hairnets from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. I have no interest in the hairnets themselves, but the packaging is pretty great. I was also fascinated to see that a couple of the packages proudly proclaimed they were made out of real human hair! Meghan also amassed a pile at this sale – some vintage clothes and I’ve already forgotten what else. The prices were good, but we both ended up spending a little more than we expected here.

We went to one sale in an alley where I bought some wacky ’60s curtains. These people also annoyed me by mentioning that as they were setting up last night, someone came by and spent $300 on various items. Some of the stuff was in their garage, and at one point someone tried to purchase a box full of fifty-year-old letters from some relative that wasn’t actually part of the sale, which caused a bit of consternation.

Despite the low good-to-bad sale ratio and the preponderance of annoying sellers, I had a great time, probably because it had been almost a month since Meghan and I have made the yard sale rounds together. And we ended up doing pretty well. Some of the other things I got were a ’60s American flag motif sweater (that Meghan has threatened to wear along with her wacky “Vote” jacket for Halloween if we can find some appropriately star-spangled pants), a few cute kids’ clothes items, some brand-new Levi’s that actually fit, and a couple of interesting books. Meghan picked up a Le Creuset stockpot for $5 (!!!), an alligator purse, a white decorated box that says “Smoker,” and other assorted odds and ends. The trunk was filled at the end of the day — which shouldn’t really surprise anyone …

With Jenny out of town, I asked Leslie if she wanted to drive over to Ballard to hit some yard sales. I had printed out some sales and one of them was listed as having hundreds of patterns, antiques, vintage fabric, and on and on. So, I had put a star on that one to hit first. At first I thought we had the wrong address, then we drove by one of the saddest apartment sales and all I could think was “it can’t be” — we didn’t even get out of the car or even slow down!

We headed to a church rummage sale. This was also a bust.

As I was looking over some of the books I saw a woman with her bar code scanner. She was like a zombie, scanning a pile of CDs. I hate people like this. Leslie commented that booksellers have spent years learning about books and a few people scanning crap isn’t going to change that.

At the very next sale we saw more people with scanners. They didn’t even have any good books. I did sneak this photo of a scary clown figurine.

As I was paying I made a comment about the two guys scanning her books. She gave me a baffled look and said “Why are they scanning my books?” I explained that they were scanning her books to see if they are worth any money, so they can resell them. Let’s hope she charged them double!

In the car I asked Leslie, “Isn’t Scanners a movie where people’s heads explode?” I am making it my personal goal to rid the planet of “The Scanners.” At my next yard sale, all books and CDs will have the bar codes blackened out. Really, you will not get rich by being a fucking moron.

We then hit a few more unremarkable sales and then one of the most bizarre sales I have even been to. It took both of us about ten minutes to figure out that most everything in the sale was free.

There was an old Mexican woman standing by like 8 boxes of stuff she and another woman had taken from the sale — we saw them packing up their car an hour later and I still wasn’t sure how they would be getting it all home.

The first thing I found was a Quisp Quaker Oats Spaceman Doll. They had tons of stuff and I think we both had that dreaded feeling of “why didn’t we hit this sale at the start of the day!” We both grabbed tons of stuff that was either free or dirt cheap. I managed to get one box of Princess House glassware, some dishes, a boxed Intellivision II 80’s gaming system, some crazy vintage Christmas items, old books … I took two loads to the car and I think Leslie did the same. Grand total? Me – $5.00. Leslie – $1.00.

I think we were both a little shocked that we had spent an hour at the sale. So, we headed to an estate sale that had been going since 10:00. The second we walked into the house you could tell it had seen about 45 years of smoking. The house reeked — Leslie almost went back to the car, but she was a trooper and trudged on. We hit the “Christmas bedroom” — does every single estate sale have one of these? You know what I’m talking about, right? The room filled with card tables full of some old lady’s Christmas crap.

Then from the window, Leslie spied an old shed filled with lawn ornaments. Her arm shot out into a pointer finger. “LOOK!”

We headed outside and saw Fred and Barb (from the sale I went to last week), who had just purchased two large 1950s bullet planters. RATS! We both were glad that at least it was someone that we knew who had just bought them. I had a moment and purchased a concrete chicken.

We wrapped it up after this. Here is the trunk photo, and we had the back seat filled too. A great end-of-summer sale day!

I had received an email about Fred & Barb’s annual “Green 55” garage sale, with Lizretros and Leslie as participants. After going to a few of their previous sales and always getting something good (or at the very least getting to look over some fun and interesting items) I knew that would be my first stop.

The sale started at 9:00, but Leslie had mentioned that I could pop over before they opened. I was happy for the offer since I secretly wanted to be at the Ballard Eagles Drill Team Rummage sale at 9:00, mostly because the flyer for the sale was so bad/funny and I also really wanted to see if any of them would be in their drill team outfits for the sale.

Fred and Barb’s sale was great (as usual) and I grabbed tons of stuff from Liz’s stash. I have seen her at sales and I can just tell we have a similar style. I got a cute dress that she made that I’m hoping will fit, along with some curtains that she made — I’m never going to make curtains, so this is the next best thing, right?

The photos do not tell the amazingness of the sale — sorry, I was too busy grabbing stuff. I think you can get the basic idea.

At 8:55 I made my way to the Drill Team sale (I drove by another sale on the way that was a bust). I parked across the street and saw two people standing out front — wow, a line? No. It was two people from the drill team, wondering why the door hadn’t been opened. Ehg. What to do? Wait for the door to open or hit some other sales?

After a few minutes, I bailed for some other sales. Here is the thing about this Saturday: I never once looked my sheet that I printed out. I either just drove down a street and spotted a sale, or saw a sign.

I did go back to the drill team sale. It was pretty much a crap-fest and I was sad to see not one girl in a blue and yellow outfit with matching hat!

I had blogged about another sale at the same Eagles Hall in an earlier post. This photo of the table looks just as bad as it did then.

As I was driving away I passed an estate sale that had one of the best rec-room-style basements ever. They had a shuffle board set into 1950’s linoleum!

They also had built in bar that had a sink and a built in 2 burner stove. I have dreams of having a basement like this.

The sad thing about the sale was that you knew she must have had cool old junk that was already picked clean either by relatives or the folks putting on the sale. I bought some kitchen items, but not much more.

I went to about 15 more sales in the next hour.

From this huge mess of clothing I bought a great black crepe ’40s dress, a ’20s dress, and a few other items.

I knocked off at 11:00 and still managed to fill up my truck. Not too shabby for three hours of sales.