Saying Goodbye To September

The last weekend of September...October rolls in on Tuesday and that is truly an autumn month. The trees will soon be changing colors. The air conditioner is not likely to be turned on again this year (it hasn't in almost a month anyway). Coats will soon be worn regularly. Halloween decorations can start going up! 

It also means that outdoor sales will soon be disappearing and all of our saling will be indoors. We like indoor sales better simply because it means more stuff and we can unearth stuff that no one (except maybe other salers) has pawed through yet. Hidden treasures. An unguided tour through older houses. It probably also means less sales but quality over quantity anyway, right? We can always fill in the gaps with Thrift Shops. We always do. On this last Saturday in September, we made a list of 19 potential sales, knowing we would never even come close to stopping at all of them but it is always nice to have options!

Our first stop was at this three level house. They dragged anything they had from every floor, except the main floor, outside. Lots of old salt and pepper shakers of all kinds of birds, all marked "Japan" or "Occupied Japan".. They were also all marked with pretty high price tags. We really liked an old set of Thanksgiving turkey salt and pepper shakers and they wanted the stuff moved so they dropped it to $1 for the pair. We also got a metal drink serving tray, designed for bridge players, for $1. 

The next four sales were quick stops within close proximity of each other and we spent little time at any of them and walked away with just a record and an old deck of cards in total....but we did see a pencil sharpener mounted in the garage of the fifth stop...

...and mounted pencil sharpeners are a sign of old houses. They owner said that there was lots of stuff in the attic that he had not gone through yet. When he does, THAT sale might be worthwhile. This one wasn't.

Our sixth stop and a familiar sign...one of our favorite Tag Sales Companies

There was a really cool bar downstairs and Rob made sure to search through everything behind it

Look at the cool handles on one of the storage closets downstairs!

A piano built into the wall

It had a really cool old floor

A great view of the bar and the cool bar stools

Monica saying Hi!!! She loved this basement!

Some old batteries on the shelf. Black cats ahead of the Halloween month! We got a few great things here and had fun walking through the house. On to stop#7

This was a small Estate Sale with not much for us though walking through the house was fun.

Starburst on the top level of some cool two-tiered 1950's end tables. They wanted way too much money for them and, truth be told, at least for now, we don't need any more end tables.

An old baby food jar sitting in the basement. Macaroni & Bacon? With vegetables (see the small print)? That's quite a combination, isn't it? We left the house with a pair of mini Mica Houses and a book on preparing for nuclear war. 

Our eighth stop was also run by a Tag Sale Company that we know quite well. Look at the cool old door!

The kitchen floor tile was similar to the one that Monica's grandparents had in their house. 

A great starburst doorknob plate. We have a few of these too. We got a few great things here too and a good price. 

Our final stop was an outdoor garage sale that advertised 50 years of accumulation. Maybe, but not our style. We got two records there. We made it to nine sales on the day, most of them outdoors, with a stop for breakfast and an afternoon stop for sweet tea at McDonald's, mixed in between. Lots of fun, some goodies to bring home and lots of smiles....a perfect end to September.

Here are some of the things we brought home today:

Some records

Some magazines and books. The Handyman magazine was behind the bar at one of the stops. They designed the entire basement to look like the cover of the magazine!

Playing cards, thermometer wall plaques courtesy of the local oil company (with pull down calendars, one from 1959 and one from 1962), an Elmer Fudd Christmas ornament, plastic cocktail stirrers  (all but two are airline cocktail stirrers...Pan Am, TWA, etc), a metal drink serving tray for bridge players and an old Budweiser hardstock coaster.

Metal serving trays from...we don't know. They both reminded us of Tupperware's Millionaire line but we don't know. Even our kitchen chef looks perplexed.

Christmas items, a Tweety Bird Pepsi glass from 1973, a Tiki idol from Hawaii, a pair of Thanksgiving salt and pepper shakers made in Japan and a Buster Brown plastic magic hat (when the hands are pushed aside, a rabbit pops out) that Monica had as a kid.

Halloween stuff

Easter stuff

Oh...and on Friday, we found what we had been looking for the last two weeks...

All five Monster cereals! Target is the only store that is selling the limited edition cereals with the original artwork from when they were first introduced! We went to two Target stores last week and they did not have them. Not only does Target have them but....

...now we do too! :)