This week's episode of Would You Buy This or Not will be more in story form. The challenges I encountered trying to find yard sales in November were, I think, just as entertaining as the things I found.
First of all, we slept in an hour - this was a good thing - and I didn't hit the road until 9:15. Janie had to work at 11:00 and didn't feel well anyway, so she passed, which is good for her because she would have found all of this journey terribly annoying.
I'll put up with anything; she puts up with me.
Sale 1
For starters I worked my way into Northeast Minneapolis around 36th and Lincoln. This required a 15 mile trip, finding a bridge across the river in an industrial area with lots of dead-end roads, and then weaving around large parks (I didn't have a map and relied on my goose sense). A half hour later, I arrived at the sale to see it began at noon.
That's not what the ad said, but I thought I'd let others blow their horn. Life's too short.
Sale 2
. . . made up for sale 1.
Trolls
price - 25 cents to $2
no sale
They've by and large left Gather (or at least are not as active as they used to be). This is where they went, apparently.
Teapots
price - $3-$10
no sale
I thought someone might like to see them though. I'm done buying teapots, I think.
(warning - clown picture)
Clowns
price - 25 cents to $2
no sale
You have to admire the collecting spirit, regardless what it seeks out.
Mexican bird figurines
price - 50 cents to $3
Bought one for $2. They collect clowns and trolls. Janie and I collect birds.
Ornament.
price - 50 cents
sold
Sorry the picture is blurred. I'm not really taking a picture of the ornament here. Rather, I thought this was a nice shot of Janie.
Sale 3
Out of respect I took no pictures in this house, though I was tempted with the box holding hundreds of mis-matched scissors. The place stunk like having your nose pressed right into a cat box. On the way out, I met a man coming in who had bent down to pet a cat. I too petted the cat, saying "I thought there was a kitty around here somewhere."
Sale 4
There was an American Cancer Society benefit, and the line was long, I mean Soviet bread-line long. After it goes around the corner it stretched a good 50 yards to the door. I patiently waited, enjoying the crisp fall air. Oddly enough, I didn't think to take pictures inside, where an area of some 5 basketball courts was loaded with mostly junk, but in that much space, there has to be something, right? After a hour and a half, I emerged with four pictures and two purchases.
Hello Kitty pillows
price $3
no sale
These looked cheap, even by things-made-for-children standards.
Old drills
price - $1
no sale
I wanted them all of course, but I can't start collecting drills. I have three, and one is like the green Rockwell in the lower corner. All four of these pass my rule of thumb: If there is no wear where the cord leaves the drill, buy it; the original user hardly used it, and it probably runs great.
Shirts for resale
price - $1 each
sold
These are over 50% silk, a quarter cotton and the rest wool. Incredibly soft and warm. Nice workmanship too.
M
ixed scrap - almost 3 lbs
price - $1
sold
I could have gotten a lot more brass in the fireplace section (yes, they had a fireplace section), but I forgot to bring a magnet. Some of the items looked like they might be gold colored steel.
Sale 5
It turrned out to be a perennial yard sale. At least, I knew I'd been there just a couple weeks before.
Sale 6
Family-run estate sale. Everything overpriced. For example,
Plastic doll head
price - $3
no sale
This is not one of those collectible porcelain doll heads, but rather just some ripped off doll head. If it is worth something - which I'd lay money on that not being the case - I'm afraid some of the paint will come off with that tape.
Sale 7
Another sale I'd been at two weeks before, now obvious to me a retail store run out of the person's garage. They didn't have bad stuff, but it was enough for me to call it a day.
Or so I thought.
I stopped for groceries, and there's this one item Janie and I buy quite a bit of. (Roll over grammarians. Revel in the horror of that past sentence). I question the honesty of saying we're saving money on something that has been "on sale" for almost two years now. Just my two cents, as a former retailer.
Then it was off to buy bread, and in the juice bar next to the bakery, I saw a familiar sight.
I looked it over and there was no price.
I asked how much it was, and the owner of the store barked, "Just a minute."
I walked over and got in line for bread.
She came over and looked under the bottom (as though I was slow, and didn't know price tags are sometimes located there).
"I'll have to look in back."
She returned a minute or so later.
Citrus juicer
price - $99 "plus tax" (again, as though I was new to shopping and did not know there was a sales tax in Minnesota)
no sale
Sale 8
One last stop at the liquor store. But as I approached I saw one last sign, for a sale that was on my original list. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, but I gave it a whirl.
Sheet metal elephant piggy-bank
price - $1
sold
Again, deja vu. I got the pig version last week for a quarter. I'm always hanging on to one kind of coin or another, and having ways to keep them categorized and separate is welcome.
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So, it turned out pretty good after all. Of course we've had better weeks. To see some of those, go to erroneous.gather.com and click on "Ron Hall's favorite tags: yard sales".
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Comments: 46
Thanks for sharing Ron.
Thank you, Janet. I know there are several teapot fans among those who follow these posts. I could collect owls, but stopped at two old bottles that have owls on them.
Suze, I don't hold to any tea ceremony at our house, so a teapot is basically useless. We heat water in the microwave in a pyrex measuring cup and then pour directly from there to our cups. I bought teapots for a third party both times.
It's way to easy to start a collection, isn't it Michelle?
You are right about the drills . . . you should have bought them. :-(
Why is it that things are so over priced at Estate Sales? Whenever I complain about collecting too much junk and not having the heart to get rid of it, my son tells me not to worry, he will be able to get twice as much for it at "THE" estate sale. LOL Glad I am leaving him something to do when I am gone.
Not that you didn't already know that.
I love heavy silk shirts, and these fit the bill. I really dislike thin silk shirts, which feel to me like I got a bad sunburn and am peeling all in one big layer.
Susan, I can't draw, but I've often wanted to do a cartoon on pony-tail signals. When a woman wears her pony tail very low, this is submissive mode. Up high, like for jogging, is dominant. On top of the head means, "I want to grow up to be a troll."
Michelle, in a way I know what you mean. I've been taking orders from friends and coworkers, and the moment they tell me they're looking for something, I don't seem to see one for the rest of the summer!
Thank you Dogs. Most of my posts of this type are heavy on the pictures and not so much on the writing, but as the weather gets colder, I've needed to do a little filler. When I post on other topics, I tend to write more.
I'm glad you could find some treasures though :)
Thank you, Kirk.
Kathryn, I have trouble imagining it actually costs $99. I think the woman had no intention of selling it, and it was just for display.
I have to tell a story about clown collecting -- my parents (and others) kept buying clowns for my niece's clown collection when she was a tot. She probably had a room full of them. When she grew up, she told us that she never liked them; they had scared her! Everyone kept them for her because she had so many that they assumed she liked them.
Clowns have alway just annoyed me, I don't get being afraid of them. But fear is it's own creator.
I'll pass on 99$ though.. haha!