Sun's up. It's spring. I've got 8 sales identified. Granted I'll have to go 17 miles West to Edina, and then backtrack 30 miles to the northeast in White Bear Lake, stopping here and there in between, but it's the first day of the season, so I'm up for it! Janie had to work, but she'll be out with me a lot in April and May.
Oh, no cash. Rats. We just switched banks and the new cash card doesn't work right, and as a matter of principle, we don't know how to get cash out of any of our credit cards. I ended up drawing down the two old bank accounts ($20 in one, $40 in the other), but at 10 a.m. time was a wastin' and I made my first visit to the check cashing store we can see from our balcony.
Price - They wanted proof I was employed, and then after they photocopied two forms of ID and I filled out the paperwork for an account, they'd give me $50 for a $56.95 check and see if I was good for it.
But really - (pfft) - what was I expecting?
No sale.
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Find of the day:
1935 Wheat-ear penny
Price - a penny
sold
To round out my bag of cash, I stopped by the grocery store and dumped in a can of dimes, nickels and pennies I'd colleced over the winter. It came to $24.36 - but the machine rejected one penny it didn't like.
Least interesting thing I saw:
Road-salt-encrusted metal stool.
Price - $10.
No sale.
The other tag on it says, "Old."
Other things I did or didn't buy today:
Rocker needing help
price - $10
no sale
The person running the sale was lamenting how he had recently bought 3 houses in the neighborhood, and before he could flip them the media got out fear mongering about the economy and now he can't sell them. I looked at his new SUV and thought, "Good."
Pop bottles
Price - 25 cents each or make and offer for all
well . . .
I bought four.
They were all 1961 Canada Drys. And while they aren't that classic, I didn't have any in stock.
Wooden elephant puppet
price - 25 cents
sold
The strings only operate the trunk, but the price was right, and I'll sell it in my own sale later in the summer for a couple dollars.
1946 Orange Crush
price - $2.50 (it was in a half-off box)
sold
Now, this pop bottle is a classic. In my mom's gift shop, I usually price them around $15, and I don't think she had one in stock the last time I visited.
Bank bag
price - $1
sold
They're great for carrying a wad of ones and a couple pounds of quarters.
French book
price - 50 cents
sold
I'd given up on the used book store because one of the buyers lowballed me twice, and I don't remember which one he was. I'm thinking I'll try another store or if I have to I'll take the owner aside and have him do the buy. I know what they need, and I hate being treated like I don't.
Book in English, German and French
Price - 50 cents
I might even add this to my collection. These books are great for linguistics fans. I would read the French and guess what it was saying. Then I'd check the German for additional clues (my German is much better than my almost nonexistent French); then I'd check the English to see where I was wrong.
9 lbs. of aluminum scrap
price - $1
sold.
The thing with the red handles was free, but I don't think I can get them off without a struggle. I'll sell it as what in the trade is called "dirty aluminum" (10 cents a pound). The rest will net me about $5.
And finally, I looked in a little drill bit case at an antique sale and saw it had 5 sharp bits in it.
price - 75 cents
Sold!
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I'm sooooo glad the season is underway. It's been a long cold lonely winter.
Would You Buy This or Not? is my weekly blog about yard sales. This will be the third season of the series on Gather. If you'd like to read previous installments, go here, and scroll down to the yard sale section. The first season is there also, when it was still called To Buy or Not to Buy.
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Comments: 46
Marianne, I'm taking the elephant puppet to rural Colorado, where it's going to be unusual indeed. I'm glad to be started with a new season (you may notice a bit of snow in one of the pictures).
Thank you, Tabitha!
Jennifer, it's been a long winter here. Usually I get in 3 or 4 weekends in March, but this is my first.
Good to see you too, Shannon. Thanks.
Thanks, and take care.
it never really ends here.... take a look at my fifteen dollar new window that is 5'x7' and prolly weighs over 200 pounds.
just click my name here, it's one of the last articles.
Lloyd, nice window for sure! I see some remarkable construction materials at sales. What with a lot of people changing homes over the last decade, many of them are doing their own renovations and ending up with things left over (like buying too many windows).
Debra, I recemmend gotting some good raingear, possibly even a good cowboy hat would do. Some of my most outstanding yard sale finds came on rainy days when the competition decided they didn't want to get wet.
I think your articles are interesting. But none of that stuff would interest me in the least.
Karen, the predictions are for over 6 inches of snow today . . .
Priscilla, the elephant seems to be the hit of the day.
And I'm looking forward to having you come along, Sue!
heh. glad to see the series return, ron.
George, I sell a lot of old bottles, and by far the ones that have the most devotees are pop bottles. They evoke childhood for just about everyone.
Roxanne, the rocker was a good deal. I don't know if Mr. SUV would have gone down to $8. Why not I don't know, but he seemed to have a little bit of a sociopath streak.
Diana, I'll be interested to see how much of this stuff is melted by Saturday. It's been coming down hard all day.
Kathryn, your quarter is worth about $3 or $4 for the silver content. Silver was running about $18 an ounce the last time I checked.
Thank you, Lori. I'm glad to be back at it too.
Your Micro economics group will be spotlighted on the Tuesday Edition of Today On Gather.
Thanks again.
The warm weather will return, and I'm so looking forward to it!
We'll retail the Canada Drys for $1.50 probably, Jill. They'll be picked up by people trying to get one of everything. The Orange Crush should bring about $12. I'm not the refinishing type, so I avoid older painted chairs.
Maybe you can just get a pair of tin snips and cut off the red handles on the scrap aluminum and then it wont be "dirty" anymore.
It took me about 5 minutes to figure that out and make it happen, so it wasn't a horrible return on the effort . . .
Again, just working with my hands and brain together makes the recycling worth while. I used to work in the woods, and I miss figuring out how to get creative with limited tools and materials.