Just by chance I ended up finding out about the Crown Hill Neighborhood Sale on Saturday. We were intrigued, even though nearly all of this area is devoid of sidewalks, and as faithful readers know, our extensive years of sale experience have taught us that these areas usually don’t have the best sales. Still, we figured even if most of them were bad, there were enough sales in a condensed area that we’d probably hit at least a few decent ones.

So with handy map in hand, we set out on Saturday around 8:30. Sure enough, there were a lot of really terrible awful sales. Like this one:

Balloons were present! While this sale at least got points for organization, the stuff they had organized was nothing anyone wanted to buy (really – we drove by again hours later and it looked about the same).

We drove way into an alley to get to another sale which also turned out to be a complete waste of time, made even more so by the fact that we were nearly trapped in by another car – we only made it out safely thanks to Meghan’s shrewd maneuvering. She wanted to take a photo to commemorate how bad it was, and this dude walked by right as she pressed the button.

Thankfully, the whole day was not like this. We actually hit a lot of really good sales. Meghan was on a super roll and got a ton of stuff. I got to witness her buying one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen her buy: vintage fishing rods! They were obviously very old, and kinda cool-looking. Her logic was, “They have to be worth more than a dollar,” and I couldn’t argue with that. Still, it kind of cracked me up, especially when we realized they took up the entire length of the car and had to be lifted up every time she switched into reverse gear.

My other favorite moment came when Meghan discovered an amazing crazy-ass ’60s jacket with red, white, and blue graphic lettering reading “Vote!” and various other kooky sayings. It was only three dollars and our minds boggled at why it was still sitting there at 11:00. She bought it excitedly, then we went across the street where she scooped up a leopard print coat and about three vintage ’60s cheerleading uniforms. She then put on the wacky jacket (which looked great!) and ran back to the people who’d sold it to her, waving the uniforms at them excitedly.

Another cool thing she picked up was this framed picture. It’s probably about two feet square and the price-tape on it read “A Must For the Mt. Room!”

The last sale that we went to was in a slightly different area. The ad made it sound intriguing, listing strange and exotic items like “Vintage Indian bugdi earrings” (I am sure the actual word was something other than “bugdi”, but I don’t remember it now). It took us forever to find it since it was in the middle of a bunch of dead-end streets. Finally we got there and it turned out to be really good – it was probably even better earlier in the day, but then again the hidden location might have prevented it from getting completely picked over. I didn’t see any earrings, bugdi or otherwise, but I did pick up a crazy polyester shirt, some lovely note cards with a “J” design, and three books. One of them was this one, which I had just been admiring new in a store not too long ago. She wanted $10, which is a ridiculous price for almost any book at a yard sale, but I decided to splurge on it anyway (encouraged because the other stuff I got from her was really cheap).

Here’s the obligatory trunk photo – I should also note that the back seat was packed so full that when you opened a door, stuff would move around.

Bad yard sales can be so disheartening. Like the retirement home sale Meghan wrote about last week. Or this one, which just sounds like the worst:

As I wondered through this home, the more I witnessed the less I understood. Why was this stuff here in Morningside? Who were these scraggly looking men who sought to sell these useless goods? Why would anyone think anybody wanted this stuff? Perhaps this sale was not a sale at all but a provocative display depicting the banal evil and waste of planned obsolescence?
I left feeling dirty and disturbed.

The write-up is from Yard Sale Addict – definitely worth taking a look if you aren’t familiar with this fine site! (I secretly think it should be renamed “I Bought Nothing.”)

I also love this totally dead-on Official List of Garage Sale Bummers and this related list of Things I Can Do Without (at thrift stores, but I think they apply equally to yard sales).

Anyway. Thanks to a somewhat flexible work schedule, I occasionally get to hit a few Friday sales. The last few times I’ve done this, they have been so pathetically lame as to not even be worth blogging about. Just the most typical unwanted crap, crap, crap … total waste of time.

Today, finally, I had a worthwhile time at sales on a Friday! I hit a couple crusty estate sales with not a lot of stuff but a few cool and cheap items. The most fun was at the sale of Liz, a gal who came to OUR sale a couple weeks back, where I got a fantastic dress she’d made from vintage fabric (visible at left of trunk photo below). It might fit or it might not, but for a dollar I could not possibly pass it up!

Please note the crazy decorating-with-tinfoil book (with scary ostrich-like beast on the cover). Sure enough, someone out there in internet-land has saved me the trouble of posting some of the most demented photos from this gem.

Total spent was $11 and I bought at least one thing from every sale I went to – except for the estate sale with a sign on the door saying “Open When It Stops Raining.” (Uh, it’s Seattle. Good luck with that.) I even bought two books (including “Why Wait Till Marriage?”) at a sale I meant to avoid based on their ad – “Moving To Paris” intrigued me, but “large lot of Mary Kay products” was a turn-off – but ended up at accidentally since it was on the way from one stop to the next.

And for more Friday Fun we are heading off to a very exciting Friday Night Pre-Sale at a friend’s place momentarily – woohoo!