The First Special Sale Of 2015

This post is for the weekend beginning January 24, 2015

At times during the year, our choices of sales are almost unlimited but those times are attached to the warmer times of the year. There are no garage sales. There are no outdoor sales of any kind. January in New York is way too cold for that. There are always the thrift shops but it has become increasingly rare to find anything amazing at any of them anymore. Ditto the Salvation Army. At this time of year, only the estate sales offer any kind of hope for great things. Estate saling is still slow right now. There just aren't a lot of them out there. Perhaps, the thought of scheduling a January sale, when the possibility of inclement weather might keep prospective buyers off the road, scares some sellers off. Nonetheless, it is all we have and we scour the ads for anything worthwhile.

Still, even when estate sales are at their most active, this doesn't mean that they are better (though this increase the odds). During the year, we don't see all that many ads that tell us, without a doubt, that we are definitely going to a special sale...a sale that tells us that the house will be filled with things that we chase. We are often pleasantly surprised when we arrive at a sale which hints at such treasures but it is rare that we know it in advance. This week, although we found only three sales with potential, we found the first special sale of the year; so special that we were willing to arrive before the start of the sale to get a place on line...and so we did.

This was one of the pictures from the ad for the first sale on our itinerary. What Rob wanted, more than anything else in the pictures, was the Rudolph...the Rudolph with the record base beneath him. There were a lot of things in the pictures that showed potential...but this was Rob wanted most of all.

Okay...it wasn't as if we didn't have any. We have a lot of these Rudolphs including one with the record base but it would be good to have a second. You really can't have enough of them! 

The sale was 45 minutes away and we had to traverse a landscape littered with new fallen snow and across roads that were not yet fully plowed. Still, we arrived fifteen minutes before the opening and encountered the expected line. We were about twenty people behind the leaders and we knew that we would not be amongst the first wave of entrants. Typically, the initial wave consists of ten people. We will never be first on line. That "honor" is always reserved for the dealers who will camp out, if necessary, as early as 4am to get that coveted first spot on line. We enjoy our sleep too much for that. 

Our plan was for Rob to quickly search the main floor for the Rudolph which, according to the pictures, seemed to be there. Monica would quickly go to the basement where a few tiki mugs appeared to reside. Rob would meet her down there after his search. We were inside approximately fifteen minutes after the initial wave and we tried, as best we could, to execute our plan. 

Rob's search proved disappointing as the Rudolph that he so desperately wanted was nowhere to be found. He wasted no time finding Monica who managed to find two of the three tiki mugs in the picture. The basement area had so much to search and we searched it thoroughly. It was a great bar with amazing stools and we found several things here that would come home with us. In fact, after a one hour search of the three floors in this house, several things came home with us including lots of glasses, many vintage greeting cards, a vintage kitchen stool, many holiday decorations and much more! Although the Rudolph escaped our grasp, it was a great sale! 

Sale #2 was just twenty minutes away and was advertised as "vintage" and "Grandpa's attic". That is the tag line of a tag sale company that we have known for years. We haven't been to one of his sales in six months and it was good to see him. The house was large but not as large inside as we thought. We were able to search the basement, the garage and the main floor but the upper levels were not open to search... 

...and we were very careful to only search where allowed. 

By the time we had finished our search, we had gathered several 7 inch records, some great Halloween decorations, a ceramic turkey, a ceramic duck and a few other things. Both sales, to this point, were a success! 

After stopping for a late breakfast, we made our way to our final sale only to find that it was postponed one day due to weather. It had snowed overnight and there were several inches of snow on the ground. That was okay. We were very satisfied with the day's saling and, quite frankly, the sale did not show a great deal of promise. We didn't even consider making the trip back on Sunday.

As we try to do as often as possible, we stopped by one of the animal shelters to visit the cats and dogs. There were three cats, in particular, that we loved meeting; Rocky, Midnight and Felix. Monica is holding Midnight here. When we each held her, she purred affectionately and even licked our faces. 

Getting back to the day's saling, here are the things we brought home with us:

Some books

Some Christmas 12 inch records

Some 7 inch records

Some Christmas 7 inch records

Cocktail stirrers

Some old "Old Crow" keychains

Some old shot glasses

Two tiki mugs from Hawaii Kai (and marked Japan), an old Rheingold bar caddy, an old snack glass and a picture of two of the shot glasses from above who managed to make it into two pictures! 

Burger King Star Wars glasses. The first four were issued in 1977 for the original movie. The last one was issued in 1981 for Return Of The Jedi

Vintage glasses

A fake pineapple, a ceramic turkey planter, a ceramic duck planter and a cat squeak toy. The two planters are marked Japan. The squeak toy is dated 1960

A pair of old plastic nut cups, a pine cone Valentine's Day decoration, A pair of Robert Simmons ceramic skunks from the 1950's and a ceramic dog. 

An old Valentine's Day die cut and an old Thanksgiving die cut 

A St. Patrick's Day honeycomb decoration and an old St. Patrick's Day pick

New Year's Eve noisemaker horns; all marked Japan

Some more old New Year's Eve noisemakers

A plastic Otto The Ghost trick or treat bag (from Hicks Nurseries where each of us went regularly as kids), an old Halloween cake topper and a old Halloween candy holder. 

A pair of old Halloween bags. The one of the left is marked 10 cents. The one on the right is marked 13 cents.

Some old Halloween die cut decorations

An old Mica house and some old cardboard bank giveaways for Christmas

Vintage Halloween cards

Vintage cards for different occasions: Father's Day, Mother's Day and first communion

Vintage Get Well cards, Someone had their tonsils removed! 

Vintage Easter cards

Vintage birthday cards

More vintage birthday cards

More vintage birthday cards

Some more vintage birthday cards

And...some more vintage birthday cards

Vintage Christmas cards

Some more vintage Christmas cards

Even more vintage Christmas cards

And more vintage Christmas cards

A vintage birthday card AND Christmas card all in one!

Vintage Valentine's Day cards

More vintage Valentine's Day cards

Some more vintage Valentine's Day cards

A few more vintage Valentine's Day cards

A vintage kitchen stool with a cracked ice pattern

It was a great Saturday of saling. We spent the remainder of the weekend running errands, doing our chores and finding time to relax. We also had to make sure that we were prepared for the upcoming storm. The winter had been relatively tame thus far with only a couple of snow events but none of them dumping more than a couple of inches of snow. The forecast for Monday called for a blizzard to begin in the morning...a blizzard that would last through the greater part of Tuesday...a blizzard that could drop up to three feet of snow. The cars were filled with gas. The refrigerator was supplied with eggs, milk and bread, all of the ingredients necessary to make French toast which is, of course, the official food of blizzards. We were ready!

And then...it hit! It started Monday morning and we both left work early. The accumulation was only about six inches by the time we went to bed Monday night. The winds would kick in around midnight and the snow would fall at a much greater pace.

This was the view from our front door Tuesday morning after Rob shoveled the snow away from the door. It became a snow day for us and for just about everyone on Long Island. Travel bans went into effect overnight and only emergency vehicles were allowed on the road. No one was going anywhere. We got about nineteen inches of snow but there were spots on the eastern end of Long Island that saw close to thirty inches. 

We did our shoveling. We dug out our cars. We spent the day together. We weren't all that thrilled with the shoveling but...it was a day to spend together...and that always keeps the ducks smiling!