10/26/2014 Yard Sale Finds

Another early start this Saturday morning. I got up at 6am, fun fun. The first sale was a moving sale but it turned out to be a bit of a dud. Craigslist ad had loads of potential but it did not live up to its claims. I got some vintage Christmas things, but nothing worth sharing on here. Next sale was a very good sale. Was just a yard sale, but I was the first one to arrive as they were setting up. Very nice elderly couple, still active. This man wanted to sell everything. You could tell he was plain done storing things. You have to love when people are finally ready to let things go. You go to some yard sales and certain things are way overpriced with zero room for negotiation. I have come to the realization those people do not really want to sell these items.

Anyways, I got about 30 antique glass and porcelain insulators for $20 there. All different shapes, sizes and colors. Went around the back of the house and instantly saw a large crate full of old motorcycle trophies. He wanted $5 each, we negotiated down to $50 for about 20 trophies. By negotiated, I mean.. he said how about $75, I said how about $50 and he said “Yes!”, lol. Like I said, he wanted them gone, probably could have gone even lower. These were his trophies he won in the early 1960’s. Very cool to meet an old motorcycle racer from back in the day. I also purchased his fathers Horsehide leather jacket. In need of repairs to the lining but the leather itself is in outstanding condition. I paid $25 for this jacket. And those were the highlights from that weekend, All from that one yard sale. And normally it will be just the one sale that makes your day.

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Old front quarter horsehide leather jacket.

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1960’s motorcycle trophies

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10/11/2014 Yard Sale Finds

I was so excited about posting my super awesome yard sale finds last weekend that I skipped a week ahead on my blog and missed October 11’s finds. So the weekend of the 11th was the week that I got into the moving sale early. I had another picker try and chase me off the property yelling at me that the owner was asleep as they drove away. But I had emailed ahead of time instead of just showing up early in the morning. So where that picker was chased away I was welcomed in 2 hours early. It wasn’t as an amazing sale as I was hoping for though. Let me explain, The craigslist ad said it was a family who was selling all their possessions due to a major lifestyle change. Of course you read that and your blood gets pumping if you are a picker like myself. There was one picture in the ad and it was kind of dark and blurry but showed old wood furniture, vintage worn out leather couch and chair, duck decoys and other antique looking items hanging on the walls. When I arrived, I knocked and he said “come on it, everything is for sale.” Problem is there wasn’t much there. Turns out, he makes movies in Philadelphia and was moving on to a yacht. So it looked like he had gotten rid of  a lot already and was in the process of moving. I was able to find some cool things though from his office. A lot of the things I wanted he told me weren’t for sale. Which when you tell me everything is for sale, I make a pile and then you tell me well not this and that and that. That is frustrating for me, but it is what it is. So these are the items I snagged from this moving sale on 10/11.

This is an old aluminum movie reel where he wrapped carnival tickets around it. I kind of want to keep this, I think it would look cool hanging on the wall in my movie room.

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This is an old shipping box for a movie for the Philadelphia Civic Center.

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Below is a vintage child’s toy Punch puppet in its original box.

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This is my find of the day. An antique carpenter’s wooden box with copper trim. Very cool looking. It does not have the handle though, perhaps I could find something on ebay that would look nice with it.

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10/18/2014 YARD SALE FINDS

So I bet you are wondering what came of my yard sale day this Saturday. Such a long list I shared with you all. I did not make it to all of them, had to stop a little bit past half way through.

First sale showed a lot of promise in the craigslist ad but it turned out to be a dealer. You never know but you have to assume its not, just in case. My dad got a bunch of old plastic beer signs for cheap. I got a cool industrial thermometer, some antique photos, a 1950’s Relax-a-cizor which I just sold one of last week for $100 to the Gotham (tv show) Prop department for $100. I paid $5 for this new one.

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Next on the list was an estate sale. Had to wait in line for a little but I managed to get a large bin FULL of vintage Nintendo video game items. It was sitting off to the side just inside the front door, no one else saw it obviously. There was a NES system, N64 system, Gameboy color, an original Gameboy, about 15 Gameboy games, about 20 NES Game, and 5 N64 Games lots of controllers and some other accessories. I paid $50 for the whole bin, IF everything works its probably going to be worth $200-$300. Next sale got a box full of 1940’s games, puzzles and coloring/activity books for $10.

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After that was a moving sale, 2 elderly people selling off their unwanted things and moving out of the family house type deal. Not much there EXCEPT I just happened to see an old rolled up poster in the corner. Unrolled it to see and saw a pixelated Peach sign, mine- 0.25cents. It reads “March on Washington November 15. End the War. Get out Now!” This dates to 1969 and was a 500,000 Protest against Vietnam March, the largest up until that point. This has a value of $150-$300. Now that is a rare find indeed 25cents and worth a few hundred. Wow!

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Got some random things from other sales not worth mentioning. Went to a block wide yard sale for the final sale for the day and saw I large packed bin full of old dirty and very abused magazines. Started taking them out and going through the bin. Started to uncover some not so beat up and not too abused. I decided rather than go through the entire bin I should just buy then whole bin. Why not, it will give me something fun to do later! I am very tired at this point I think it was around 1pm. We negotiated to $17 for the bin. The lady told me these magazines had been in the house when she moved there. I will share various pictures of the magazines below, at the bottom of the page. All from the 1920’s, we have the following publications “Collier’s”,  American Magazine, Harpers Bazar, The Saturday Evening Post, Hearst’s International, and Vogue Fashion Bi-Monthly. After doing some research I found that the value lies in the Harpers Bazar and the Vogue Fashion Magazines. Had these been in better shape I would be looking at $100+ PER magazine for those. Because they are from the early 1920’s and they are Fashion magazines. I wont lie, I am bummed that I literally almost hit the jackpot for $17. The problem is those 2 publications are among the poorest of conditions, I really don’t know what they are worth. But I think I should be able to get around $500 because the insides are in good shape and a good amount of the Collier’s magazines are in decent shape cover to cover.

On the way home we stopped at another yard sale which was not advertised. I got 2 local 1887 newspapers for $2 and sitting on the table looking sad with an old feather sticking out of it was a sterling silver and cut glass vase $1, of course even if the glass is broken you should buy sterling silver because the value of the metal is worth more than $1.

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This was an awesome yard sailing day for me. Literally almost every sale had a great amount of profit to be had and I was lucky enough to snag some great bargains. Very exciting and yes a very long day. But so worth all the hard work I had invested and so very glad it paid off in the end. When I look back at this year, this will be one of the days I remember as a special one. It is quite rare and I truly value these moments.

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My pre yard sale rituals

For those of you wondering what it takes to hunt down the best deals on Saturdays, this post is for you.

It begins with searching through all the Craigslist ads for garage sales in my target areas on Friday. This can take a while if there are a lot, which there were this weekend. I pick out all the sales I want to go to and email them to myself. I then use MapQuest to make my yard sale route. There are many factors which go into making the route. Many sales have different start times although most begin at 8am some don’t start until Noon. The most important thing to do is figure out where to go first, and how early. This is part luck and part experience. If you know things to look for in craigslist ads, you know what to avoid as well. I also recognize dealers addresses trying to pass off their yard sales as estate sales so I know not to go there. I factor in all the start times which sometimes, including this week means I have to circle back due to late start takes. This is very frustrating. When I am finally done making the MapQuest route, I copy and paste the addresses and print them. From there I double check late Friday night again to see what new sales are listed. There are always late posters on Friday night. I pen those in on my printed list, if they are worth going to. I also pen in start and end times as well a a few key words to remind me what it is and what I am looking for.

All of this takes a few hours but there is no avoiding it and in the end the extra work pays off. This is what the final product looks like before I go to bed. Which I am going to now. Goodnight.

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10/04/2014 Yard Sale Finds

For this weeks yard sale finds I have various things to share from different yard sales. The first being these two 1980’s Pee-Wee Herman and Chairry Dolls in their original boxes. That’s something you don’t see too often ( vintage toys in the original boxes) and was a nice find for $10. The talker string does not work anymore in Pee-Wee which is a common but unfortunate flaw. These are something I remember when I was growing up, being I am 30 now.  So I got a little flashback seeing these 1980’s toys.

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The last thing I have to share are 4 old stage lights. Cool thing about these old lights are they still work. The unfortunate thing is they are a little rusty in areas and quite dusty inside and out so it will take a lot of cleaning to get these looking nice again. But, I suppose I could just clean the dust off and leave them rusty as that is really IN right now. Oh and they super cool thing I should mention I only paid $5 each!!! I know, I couldn’t believe the price stickers either when I saw them! These are for sale except I am going to keep the small one and attach it to an old tri-pod I have for some cool accent lighting. That project is down the road but I will post pictures here when I get to it.

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9/27/2014 Yard Sale Finds

Again, I find myself behind a week in posting. It was a stressful week, one thing after another went wrong. Never the less, Here are some finds from 2 weeks ago. These items came from a yard sale of an ebay dealer who said she just had too much and needed to unload. Been there, done that. I got some neat items as you can see blow.  1970’s style plastic lamp, required a bit of cleaning but turned out to be in pretty good condition.

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Here is a set of retro Salt and Pepper shakers. Fun vintage colors and style.

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This is a large heavy glass ashtray. Picture doesn’t quite do this justice, it is quite big and has a cool vintage look to it.

 

 

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