In Pursuit Of The Leftovers

Another Saturday arrived and that meant saling. It was the first truly cold Saturday of the new season. Garage sale season is over. All sales will be indoors now. That  means less opportunity, well, at least until the Church Christmas Bazaar season begins next month. For now, it is solely estate sale season. Those are always the best as we can search an entire house and, hopefully, unearth treasures that mean something to us... and maybe no one else but us. 

Our list was made up and it was fairly short. The two sales that looked best to us started on Friday. We have seen this "Friday trend" become more and more popular and we know we lose out on some things to the dealers who spend their lives chasing down the resale opportunities. Since we collect only for ourselves and don't re-sell anything, we work Monday through Friday. Well, we do hold a garage sale every year or two to get rid of duplicates or things that no longer appeal to us but we never make a profit. In any case, we would be in pursuit of the leftovers. 

On our way to get gas in Rob's car, we passed a garage sale so we stopped. It was outdoors and this may have been the last outdoor sale we would see for months! We picked up two pieces of early 1970's cheesy "Christmas plastic magic" for a $1 apiece. A good start.

On the way to the first planned sale, we passed an old Chinese Restaurant that is set for demolition. It has been around forever and this type of architecture is getting scarce.

The way many great Chinese Restaurants used to look!

Sun Ming. It didn't always have graffiti

The sign in the window says "Closed For Renovation". Unfortunately, it is closed forever. 

Next door, there was this cool statue of the Exxon tiger. He looked surprised to see us!

Here was stop #2, our first planned stop.  It was an estate sale run by one of our favorite Tag Sale Companies. They always ask Rob to do "Mr Ed" impressions and he always does. This Tag Sale started on Friday and, from what we were told, a few celluloid Christmas items were picked on Friday. Nonetheless, we had a great time talking to our friends who run this sale and we did get some records, a blow mold Santa cookie jar, a ceramic cat that was designed to attach to the outside of the house, a ceramic orange squeezer and a few other items for a great price. We were shocked to find the orange squeezer and the ceramic cat still here but we suspect that they were charging a lot more for them on day one and that the deep discount was set just for us. 

Our third stop was at another sale that began on Friday and we encountered, even on day two of their sale, the dreaded line. It was chilly outside and we were pretty happy that the wait was no longer than 20 minutes.

The house was old and had plenty of rooms and floors to check. We loved this old cabinet in the basement...

...and the "fake" boomerang pattern on the shelves. The boomerang was actually adhesive shelf liner paper but we suspect it was still quite old and enjoyed it anyway. The pictures of the sale in the ad showed many old vintage toys which were long gone by the time we got there but we got some good "leftovers" including some great old records, some books and some other miscellaneous items.

Our fourth stop was at an estate sale run by a Tag Sale Company that gets some of the lower quality sales but we usually find a couple of worthwhile items. We never know when the sales we visit are run by him until we get there since he never advertises his company's name. Actually, we don't think the company even has a name.

There were three floors to search and on the way down to the basement, we encountered it...the mounted pencil sharpener!

There was a great old cabinet on the main floor. We think that it would be perfect painted another color. Alas, we have no room for this.

Rob searched the bar area thoroughly...

...while Monica searched through the bags and boxes on the floor.

In the end, we did not find much here but did go home with some old cookbooks and some old engagement party cards (from 1962). What we really would have was this old screen door though we would chosen a different letter. 

Our fifth and final stop was at another sale run by a Tag Sale Company and another sale that began on Friday. Much of what was in the pictures from the ad was gone (though there was nothing we were in love with in the pictures). We left with two records.

Here are some of the things we brought home today:

Some cookbooks

Some MAD paperbacks from the early 1970's and a bar guide from 1957

Some records...

...and more records

Some 7-inch records

Some more 7-inch records

Some Christmas items

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln die-cuts, an engagement card and engagement party invitations (from 1962) and some hardstock beer coasters.

An old Fisher Price fire engine, a ceramic orange juice squeezer, a ceramic cat to be attached outside of the house and some New Year's Eve noisemakers.

Sunday was spent doing laundry, chores and housework and, since Monday was Veteran's Day, we had a third day off! 

We spent the day visiting Thrift Shops in the hope that Christmas items would now be on display...

...and they were (though the angel doll to the left seems none to happy to be here!). Unfortunately, of the seven Thrift Shops we visited, only two were open today and we did not find anything to bring home.

We stopped for breakfast / lunch (or...maybe it was brunch since Rob got breakfast and Monica got lunch) at the Sayville Modern Diner. The sign atop the diner is so very cool and this diner has been open for over 80 years!

The diner has been renovated inside and these are not originally how the bar stools or booths once looked but we can appreciate their effort to look retro even if they aren't truly vintage.

It was a day well spent because, even though we didn't find anything else to bring home, we spent the day together and simply because of that, we brought home smiles.