Last Saturday Janie and I got in a pretty good rummage sale.
Then she hung out for a while as I checked out an estate sale (as usual, all the good stuff was downstairs).
And we rounded out the days with a few far-flung yard sales. The season is about to explode with action. You can feel it in the air. I think the rule of thumb is, if the buds on the trees are starting to swell, there ought to be good yard sales happening.
Find of the day
Fireplace screen
price - free
sold
Yes, I know the car needs a wash really bad, but I brave the shame in order to convey the scale of this piece. As you can tell, I took out the back seat long ago for more payload. This is good, because otherwise we could not have gotten this in the car.
For the last stop of the day we went to Minneapolis for one sale. When we got there they'd already called it quits, but they put some of the stuff out with "free" on it. Apparently they didn't think they could give the fireplace screen away, because they had it sitting with the recycling. I loaded it up.
Removing brass and steel that has been screwed together and then submitted to extreme temperatures over a period of decades - this is not such an easy thing. I struggled with it for a while before I remembered a rule I seem to forget every winter: Don't get intellectual about it. Bash, twist, grind, break. It's not a pair of ruby slippers.
In the end, I had 15 pounds of brass, 3 of which is bulky and will be sold now for 60 cents a pound. The other 12 is more compact, and I'll store it away until the price gets back up to $1.
My favorite picture of the day (not counting the one I didn't dare take)
Worst-garage-sale-sign-ever candidate
They got one thing right, and that's make the sign big. However, the backside of this was completely blank, and they could have started over (or something). My pointers: no spray paint, no white-on-white, preferably a white backing, rather than cardboard. Still, with this much size they could have made it less busy, and made the letters bigger. It could have said: "Sale Today Only. 4117 26th" (then an arrow pointing down the alley). The last thing I would add is a one is a very simple letter which can be clearly expressed as " | ". There's no need to make it look like a seven or a poorly-drawn Spoungebob Squarepants.
The picture I wanted to take was of a real working-class guy - clearly on an infrequent day off - wearing only longjohn tops and bottoms as he was walking around his sale talking to customers about his stuff. My theory is all week long people micro-manage him to death, and on his day off he follows the Ray Charles rule: "I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, and I don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about it." Still, I have a rule about avoiding taking pictures of people at sales (except for crowd shots). He looked like he could get a bit surly anyway. "Hey, big guy in underwear. Can I take your picture and post it to the internet?" No, not a good idea.
Other things we did or did not buy
Onesies
price - 10 cents each
no sale
I just liked the word.
Psychological magnetic poetry kit
price - $1
sold
The door to our condo is steel, so I've arranged the words on the back. For now they are not completely alphabetical, but they are in columns beginning with the same letter, unless:
- they are pronouns or word denoting a generic thing, or
- they are "connector words" or prepositions, or
- they are suffixes.
Each of those get their own column. They all are a little tilted, and I do want to straighten them, but first I need to alphabetize them better. Perhaps I'll separate the nouns from the verbs, with a special category for the ones that could be either an noun or a verb (alphabetized of course).
Garage door remote
price - 25 cents
no sale
Originally priced a dollar, this is a really curious offering. Perhaps a random garage opener can be made to open a specific garage, but if so, I'd be more inclined to unplug my garage door than I would be to get a backup remote.
Stuffed animal resembling roadkill
price - 50 cents
no sale
I don't have a very good sense of what is "cute", but this brings out the nurturing spirit in me, I suppose.
Polaroid camera
price - $1
no sale
What people did for "instant" pictures before digital photography. I suppose these are still used. Does anyone currently use a Polaroid?
Lawn-poking shoes
price - $2
no sale
You wear these while you're mowing your lawn and it pokes holes for air and worms and such. I think that's the theory. Janie and I don't have a lawn. We do have a garage door, but we share it with about 700 other people.
Dining table
price - $20
no sale
If we didn't already have two dining tables, this could be of interest. Hey - anyone without a dining room table - don't pay retail. There's an abundance.
That's it for the rummage sale; on to the estate sale.
Pressure cooker
price - (half-off day, so $1.50)
no sale
This only has $1.20 to $1.50 in aluminum scrap in it, so I passed.
Industrial sewing machine
price - $185
no sale
Actually, if I were going to do any serious sewing, this would have great appeal. I once bought a perfectly good White brand sewing machine for $40, and it confused me, so this is not for me, but I think it's a gem for someone.
Broken wind chime
price - $1.50
sold
The wood is weathered and the string is string. The value in this are the tubes, which are tuned and ring like school bells. I'll sell it in the sale we have while on vacation, but I'm not letting my mom buy it. If I do I'll be hearing it all night long the whole time we're there.
Now on to some yard sales. Even though there was only one sale listed in the Minneapolis paper, we encountered about a half dozen watching for signs.
Outdoorsey overalls
price - $2
sold
Man. Yes. Of course I live in a highrise and work at a desk, but I'll give them a try on "vacation", which is a time I tend to dig holes and fight my way through thick woods. If they don't work for me, I'll sell them for $6.
The seller, by the way, asked me "So, you hunt?" I wanted to say "No, but I've been hunted if that counts." I refrained, because I'm trying to break the habit of telling people alarming things from my past.
Cartoon-themed Folgers can
price - 25 cents
sold
These pictures were not painted on the can by hand; rather they were the original graphics. There are no words and I see no tie-in to a movie or children's book. I like it because it was done for kids to appreciate it, and there was maybe only one layer of ulterior motive - getting the folks to buy this brand over say, Maxwell House.
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Would You Buy This or Not is published more or less April through October. If this is not that time of year, or if you just want to read about other week's in our yard sale adventures, check the "You might also like" offerings on this page, or do a search on "buy this on not" (remember the quotes).
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Comments: 39
I love it Ron. lol Thank you so much for submitting this to Frugal Living. That drop leaf table, by the way, is a steal at $20.
Donna, the poetry kit is as much fun to talk about as it is to use.
Sophie, I'm thinking about possibly organizing them in a spiral, or maybe alphabetically by the last letter. I'm not sure.
Thank you, Sandra!
Spartan, that's how I'd feel about a trip to Hooters.
Ashley - hmmmm - pressure cooking chicken. New one on me. Thanks for the tip.
Ted, it has major payload if things are packed carefully.
Thank you Marianne and Terri!
Lori, it was a major ordeal to disassemble - I mean bust up - but I need to exercise the part of my brain that supervises simple things. It's amazing how weak it can get on the caveman stuff, and yet there's great value in knowing how to get 'er done.
Good to know DesertDarlene, though I couldn't see myself buying a Polaroid under any circumstances (except maybe as part of a costume).
Thank you, Shannon!
Ms. Meacham, good job on knowing how to spell (or looking up) "aerate". Of course I was going to use the word, but got lazy. I think you have the right use for the camera. I'll save the Ron-being-hunted story to be publish postumously, lest I revive the whole mess for another round.
EM, this can says Folgers underneath, and doesn't have a bar code. I'm guessing it's from the late 60s.
Why, thank you Tina.
The long john guy was just too funny. Man, I was tempted to break my no-people-in-pictures guideline. I do get people in my photos, but I try to avoid it being "about them". and that photo would have been all about him.
I thought somebody would know what onesies are. I had an idea, but was completely
new to the word.
Seriously, something like that can make a big difference when someone is trying to sell it. I have a similar pitch for old wooden desks. If the middle drawer can be pulled out and turned upside down, it makes a great keyboard tray. Just about everyone I've shown this was pleasantly surprised.
Heather, I no longer have a desire to use a sewing machine, but I still think they are the coolest of devices. I would gladly buy and sell them if I had a truck and sufficient time to drive them across country.
I can't ID the garage remote, but there are basically two main types, and yes, they can be programmed for any opener of the same type, but you have to have access to the opener motor to do it. FYI, it is possible to electronically 'crack' garage door openers, particularly older ones, but it's not a common occurrence.
Also, for the electronics hobbyist, there are some pretty good components to salvage out of one for $0.25.
I wish I knew electronics, Pelagius. For the person who knows what they're doing, yard sales have as many boxes of random electronic stuff as they do boxes of old Christmas stuff - and both are routinely offered dirt cheap.
I am not certain I could sell them for what I believe I could, and that keeps me from hauling even one back to Colorado as a test. For the room it would take up, I can transport a couple hundred old bottles (and I know they sell for sure).
Looks like you found a lot of CARP as they say. WHY do people insist upon assigning unreasonably high prices to old sewing machines (c'mon, they're not THAT rare! Every home needed one).
And has anyone done an analysis of why people insist upon keeping old cameras? Sure, it's great to keep 'em out of the landfill. I speculate people attribute the good memories they've captured with the camera itself, so tossing it away becomes more painful...
Gotta love the overalls.
I think you're right about both the sewing machines and the cameras. I generally see great-condition console sewing machines for $30. This one above was a much larger industrial model. The cameras? Yes, I'll bet people get quite attached to them. Also, in lower-middle-class circles, a decent camera was always something of an expensive purchase; that makes it a bit harder to part with..