An Early Start For The Sake Of Art

This post is for the weekend of April 25th and 26th. We are getting closer to being caught up. Wish us luck! 

Our saling adventures, typically, begin on Saturdays. We both work Monday through Friday and time does not allow for weekday saling unless we have a vacation day. This week, we had an early start. Well...Rob did. 

Early Friday morning, Monica discovered a sale on Friday that seemed too good to be true. We didn't see it earlier. Rob never checks the sales for any days that we are working. Monica does but she didn't see this one before Friday morning. Rob sent the link to Rob at work around 6:15 am.

It was one of those sales that had no business just being on a Friday. It was too good. The pictures showed a time capsule home that was frozen in time. Monica's focus was on the bullet planter in one of the pictures. Rob's eyes could not look away from the wall art in the living room. Of course, there was lots of great furniture in the house, too, but it didn't matter. It was Friday. We were working. We wouldn't be there...or would we? 

The sale began at 10 am. Rob texted Monica at 8 am. He was taking a long, early lunch. He would be there. It was 25 minutes from work. He would represent us. 

Rob arrived at the sale ten minutes before its opening only to find a line with sixteen people in front of him...on a Friday! The sale was run by a tag sale company who we have encountered before. They don't run too many sales but they have had some good ones and they are very nice. At 10 am, the door opened and they decided to let everyone in at once. This was a good thing. Rob would have as good a chance as anyone else to get some good stuff. He quickly moved from room to room and found the art work. He laid claim to it immediately. 

There were several rooms to search on the main floor and a very large basement. The basement was pretty empty and a thorough search of that floor took only five minutes. By the time that he emerged from the basement, the ladies running the tag sale asked if Rob was definitely taking the wall art. In just five minutes, three other people expressed an interest. There would be no chance to negotiate on the asking price. So...it came home to our house. The bullet planter was grabbed by someone else but a set of salt and pepper shakers and one Santa made its way into Rob's hands and the tag sale company through those in for free. 

Our wall art...Peter Pepper originals from 1956. The piece on the right (with the clock) is called "The Matrix". The company started reproducing this piece in 2013 for its 60th anniversary (with some changes). Its companion piece, on the left, has never been reintroduced. 

This 1950's Gund chime Santa and the whale salt and pepper shakers also came home to us from that sale. They are all marked Japan.

Saturday morning arrived and we had compiled a list of six potential sales; none of which looked like a sure thing. We always remain optimistic, though, and even if we found nothing at all, it would be a better saling day than the previous day simply because we were spending the day together. With hope in our hearts, off we went! 

Our first stop was at a sale labeled "Grandma's cleaning out". It was the sale that was closest to our house and, although it was its second day, we felt it was worth a trip. When we got there, we found it to be a garage sale being run by the family; one of whose members was a dealer herself. The prices were not cheap and there was not much there of interest anyway. We did manage to come home with one monkey pod for $1.

Sale #2 was run bgy a tag sale company that only runs a few sales during the year but we look forward to them. They are usually good and the people involved are nice. This sale was described as having the "contents of an older home". That sounded pretty good to us.

The kitchen, by far, was the highlight of the house. Look at these amazing metal cabinets! 

They were in amazing shape! 

The counter top was boomerang

Here's a closer look at that boomerang...amazing! 

The basement had this great, old refrigerator

This stop was a fairly quick one. Aside from the kitchen, there was not a lot to look at even though there were three floors. We went home with an old metal kitchen rack, a cookbook, some vintage gloves for Monica and one old matchbook from Manufacturer's Hanover (where Rob's mom used to work)

Sale #3 was a low key estate sale which did not seem to be have much advertising support. It didn't list much either but it was in the same neighborhood as the previous sale and hey...you never know. We arrived to find out that it was run by the family of the decedent and that there really wasn't a lot of things that interested us. We did find one record and a spare Ice Bird snow cone maker. You always need a backup! 

Sale #4 was run by a tag sale company that we have never met before. They have had several sales the last few years but none that appealed to us, at least not by description. This sale had a picture of an old stereo cabinet and its description told of a house that could have some old things. After searching two floors, the only old thing we found was that stereo cabinet. We walked away empty-handed.

At this point, we decided to pass on the final two stops on our list. They were a distance away and did not show any great promise. We were pretty close to Monica's old house and we decided to visit her dad for a few hours. It was a fun day and a fun afternoon even if we didn't get a lot of things.

Here are our finds for Saturday:

One record

One cookbook

An old metal kitchen rack, an Ice Bird, a monkey pod (marked Hawaii), a pair of vintage gloves for Monica and an old matchbook

Sunday was spent running errands and doing a lot of chores around the house. We were happy with what we accomplished. We did some find time to relax on Sunday evening and reflect back on the moments spent together...the moments that define our life and our adventures amongst the ducks.