5/25/18 Antique photo album find!

My most recent acquisition from a local auction is this photo album. U.S. Army Clarence A. McMullen’s trip around the world on U.S. Army Transport Heffron in 1920. And various others. Many USS and USAT ship photos. My favorite part is all the photographs have brief description, locations and dated backs. Old photographs are truly something special.

Been neglecting my blog but I will be updating more often now.

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6/20/2015 Yard Sale Finds

  
I really love old sheet music. The graphics and colors give you an amazing look back in time. I got several hundred of these from an flea market for $20. These date from mid 1840’s-1940’s. I haven’t had a chance to go through them all or look up any values but there could be some real gems in here😍   

           If you see something you want let me know by commenting below😉 

 
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2/28/15 Yard Sale Finds

This was the weekend of advertising signs! I rarely ever see signs for sale at a yard sale because most of them are snached up already or are part of a collection. I got 3 from the same yard sale! I love signs 🙂

   

 

CHECK OUT MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT. Pictures posted daily, most items for sale. Click the button below👇👇👇 Instagram

1/03/2015 Yard Sale Finds

As to be expected there were no estate or yard sales this first weekend of 2015. I went to a few antique stores looking to get lucky and believe I did. See below.

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I snagged these 2 antique Oak school desks for $20 each. They are marked Moulthrop on the sides and the drawer pull under the seat stamped Langslow Fowler Co. Rochester NY Moulthrop. They are small desks and need some cleaned of the wood, but for $20 I had to buy them both. I have never seen desks like this before, so cool.

 

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I am a sucker for World War 2 military memorabilia. This is a US Military ID dated 1942, also includes 2 patches, 2 pins and his letterhead stamp. I purchased this for $40 so It’s not like to got a great deal but it came in this nice shadow box also. This will most likely stay with my personal military collection which is why I didn’t mind paying retail for it. I was able to find his obituary online, here is an excerpt on his military career: “An Army veteran of World War II, Mr. Marsh served as a captain in Europe during World War II and as a major in the Korean War. Later, he joined the Army Reserve and retired as a lieutenant colonel.”

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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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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3/29/14 Yard Sale Picks

Here are a few of the items I found at this Saturdays Estate Sales…

This is a German leather bag WW2 era..
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Here is a 1960s Wham-O Air Blaster toy gun..
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These are a vintage set of 3 Chinese “Wedding boxes”..
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9/21/13 Yard Sale Picks

WW1 (I believe) era “Venereal Prophylaxis Unit” Chest. Venereal disease was widespread in both WW1 and WW2 so apparently they had units specifically for STD’s. They also had campaigns such as posters and pamphlets to warn soldiers of unprotected sex overseas. I purchased this very unusual chest Saturday morning in Blue Bell at a yard sale. Normally militaria goes first thing or even more often before the sale is scheduled to start. But even once in a blue moon someone will not advertise they have such items and you can get lucky if you are a picker like myself. As far as I can tell from limited research this is WW1 because the WW2 era chests look very different and not as aged as this one.

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