Flashback: The First Weekend In November, 2016

Back in early October, we took a break from blogging for a few months after finding ourselves so incredibly busy. It was a break from blogging but not from adventuring. When we returned in early March, we posted a few "flashback" posts which covered our adventures for the second half of September and for all of October. Now, it's time to start flashing back to our adventures from November through February. This post is all about the first weekend in November. Here we go! 

Our Saturday saling would work from a list of five potential sales that we had gathered during the week. All were in the next county but none further than 40 minutes away. The closest did not begin until noon and that was way too late to begin our saling so we pushed that one to the back of the list with the thought that we might stop there on the way back. We chose the second closest as our starting point and hoped for the best.

Even as the air was beginning to get cooler week by week, the trees were getting more beautiful as they made their final stand of the year. We never fail to notice their beauty as we drive among them.

Sale #1 was run by a tag sale company that we know and we arrived a little before its opening and found a very small line. There were a lot of sales on this Saturday; none of them standouts so we didn't expect big lines. We knew we would get inside as soon as it opened. There was nothing that we necessarily liked about this sale other than some pictures of older furniture in the ad. You never know what else may be there.

This couch, as well as the lamp behind it were very cool. We loved how it was covered in plastic. Obviously, it would not be very comfortable like this but this was a common thing to do back then. We're glad we had a chance to see it but it was the highlight of our visit. It was a small house and there were few rooms and we found nothing to bring home.

After getting some breakfast, we made our way to our second sale which was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. It was described as "entire contents" and the pictures in the ad showed some old stuff though nothing specific to our interests.

The house had a Florida room and an old door and we appreciated the looks of it. We normally take a lot of pictures at this company's sales and email them to the owner who loves to save them (and use some in his brochures). The family of the owner of the house was at this sale and we felt a little uncomfortable taking a lot of pictures so we didn't this time. We left with a few books, pamphlets, postcards and a few other things.

Our third sale was also run by a tag sale company that we know quite well. It would have been our first priority had this not been the second day of this sale. It was a "collector's home" and we knew that there was lots of Christmas here the day before. 

This was one of the pictures in the ad. We're glad we saw this picture because we were unable to see any of this when we got here. This was all gone.

We spent a lot of time in this house because it was a mess and there was lots of stuff to dig through even though it was the second day of the sale.

As scary as the basement was to search, the basement staircase (this is a view from below) was even scarier. We took our time here to uncover anything not discovered before we arrived. In the end, we took home a record, a hat for Monica, a ceramic flamingo, a ceramic turkey, lots of vintage New Year's Eve noisemakers, two old Christmas mica houses and a few other things. Although the bulk of the Christmas escaped us, this was still a worthwhile sale.

Our fourth sale was another run by a tag sale company whose sales we frequent. It was a sale whose pictures showed old stuff but not anything for us and that is what we found...a sale with lots of old stuff but not anything for us.

It was getting late by this time and we crossed the last sale off our list, instead spending that time at Monica's dad's house. When we got home, we relaxed and took some time to look at our finds. This is what we saw:

A Captain Kangaroo record album

Pamphlets and books

An old Lake George pamphlet and some vintage postcards

A hat for Monica

A honeycomb Thanksgiving decoration, a ceramic flamingo, a tiki mug, a ceramic Thanksgiving salt shaker (missing its mate), an old Charlie Brown doll (which cleaned up nicely), a deck of playing cards and an old hockey puck in its original box, The two ceramic pieces are marked Japan.

Vintage clown New Year's Eve noisemakers

More vintage New Year's Eve noisemakers

Two Christmas mica houses. Both are marked Japan

We have several more flashback posts left and we will get to them all. Life became too busy for posting for awhile but life will never become too busy to spend our lives beside each other; always hand in hand. 

Memorial Day Weekend - 2017

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer and we always look forward to its arrival. It is never a great saling weekend simply because there are never a lot of sales. Many of the tag sale companies take the weekend off knowing many people will have other commitments this weekend. Garage sales are also few and far between. They will start heating up next weekend. We hope the weather will, too. We had a few record-setting temperatures earlier in the month but, for the most part, this May hasn't reminded us that much of summer. We've had lots of rain and lots of overcast days and maybe that will help us appreciate the warmer weather when it arrives...if it arrives. The forecast for the weekend was going to be more of the same and rain was going to be a threat all weekend. What were we to do? We had no control over it. We would make the best of what we were given and what we were given to start the weekend was one good sale. That is how we started the weekend.

Our one and only sale was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and was advertised as a "large, old hoarder house". That sounded okay to us. It also sounded okay to a lot of other people. There was a line to get in. Monica was thrilled.

About 45 minutes into our wait, we were welcomed inside and Ron, our tag sale company host, was happy to see us and urged us to explore each and every room.

The downstairs was the first area we explored and Dennis was there to greet us.

We didn't see anything amazing in the pictures for this sale. We were just hoping that it wouldn't be a bust! 

The main floor had this really cool door...four small diamond-shaped windows

One of the rooms had this really interesting window covering. We hadn't seen anything like it before and we both thought it was really cool! 

The kitchen had cabinets set so very high. Monica, who is tall, could not even reach the back of them. Rob could but with a little effort. The kitchen also had old metal paper towel and aluminum foil holders (or wax paper). We don't see these all that often.

The house was a fun one and we loved seeing our friends running the tag sale. We didn't find all that much but we did find a few things which we would look at later. Our next task was to go home and get ready for a Memorial Day Weekend barbecue at Monica's sister's house. 

Master Barbecue Chef, Lenny, got all of the cooking done before any rain presented itself. Everything was great and we have Lenny to thank...

...and, of course, Little Lenny, his barbecue mitts!  

After we got home, we had a chance to look at what we brought home from the sale earlier it the day. This is what we saw:

A pair or records

Horror magazines from the early 1970's

More horror magazines from the early 1970's

A few more scary magazines from the early 1970's

An old homemade birthday corsage. It has styrofoam sugarcubes and Monica remembers having similar ones made for her when she was a little girl and wanted to take this one home. Monica suspects that this is a "sweet sixteen" corsage. There was a fake diamond ring with it.

A Knickerbocker Beer can opener, an old burro for our annual Cinco De Mayo parties, a Star Wars R2-D2 eraser and a set of Old Maid Ed-U-Cards from 1959

A vintage metal pocketbook for Monica

This is the inside of the pocketbook. 

The weather dominated the remainder of the weekend. We had some sunshine in the beginning of our Sunday and we got some household things and a little gardening done. By early afternoon, the sun was gone and it would not reappear over the weekend. We were somewhat productive on Sunday but we relaxed inside most of Monday. The outside world was dominated by rain.

A few months ago, we found this vintage Luster Craft kit at an estate sale. Monica thought Monday was the perfect time to put it to use.

Here is her finished product

We framed it and hung it beside some of the other clown pictures hanging in our bedroom...

...and near these other clown pictures hanging in our bedroom. 

Whether our time is spent saling, working together around the house or just clowning around, we look forward to every moment we spend together in our life's adventures amongst the ducks. 

Two Shots At The Elves

It was the third weekend of May and we were ready for saling. There were lots of sales out there and our list was comprised of eight of them. Eight...that was our plan but things didn't exactly go according to plan. We brought Monica's car into the mechanic on Friday night for some work on Saturday. This would have worked out fine since we didn't have to pick up the car until 5pm...or so we thought. In the morning, before we even left the house, the mechanic called to tell us what work was needed. That was fine and we authorized the work. However, what we did not know, until that moment, was that he was now closing at 1pm on Saturdays while the weather was warm. This would considerably shorten our saling day and now it would be a race to get to as many sales as we could. That is all we could do...and, so, we did.

Our first sale was located about twenty minutes from our house. It was the second round for this sale (we missed it the first time around) and we could see that there was Christmas stuff here. It was listed as a "clearance sale with vintage stuff" and it was run by a company that was completely new to us.

There was a drunk on a pole in the front yard but he was of no help in trying to help us find out what was inside.

The garage was searched, thoroughly, and there was a great vintage crib. We always love the decals that were on these vintage cribs! 

Yes, there was a room that had Christmas (as the pictures in the ad showed) and there was also a cool Magic-Plastic Title Set in that room which we did not get. Spoiler alert...we did get that styrofoam Santa head in the background.

This was a very cool stereo unit whose top had been damaged but replaced. We did not buy it but we did buy some cookbooks, some records and that foam Santa head.

Our second sale was listed as "furniture only" and was at a house we had visited a few weeks ago. We came here because we saw, in one of the pictures, a Heywood Wakefield nightstand that would match our bedroom set. We have a 1947 Heywood Wakefield Rio bedroom set but it is missing the nightstands. Although the nightstand was not from the Rio line, it was close enough, in appearance, to our set. We got here at the open so we could get it. Once inside, we found that it was gone. We suspect that it was removed once the seller realized what they had and were probably selling it on eBay. It was a quick stop with no purchase made.

Sale #3 was the one that seemed to have the best potential. "Vintage toys" and "loads of Christmas" in the ad caught our attention. We saw loads of Christmas in the ad pictures but we couldn't tell if it was older Christmas things. We would soon find out.  

This room had Christmas

This room had Christmas, too. It was a digger and Rob spent almost 30 minutes going through every box. By the way, that Santa teapot on the table was in the first Christmas room and we had already decided that it was coming home with us so it moved with us from room to room.

Creepy, scary doll alert! 

The basement had this great bar and we love great old basement bars! 

We spent over an hour inside this house and we found plenty to bring home (Christmas stuff, vintage owl lites, records, books, other holiday stuff and more). Amongst the Christmas stuff was a box of small knee hugger elves that we took home but did not take home the bigger elves on display on the main floor. The sign said that they were $5 to $15 apiece and that was way beyond what we were willing to pay. In discussing this with the owner of the tag sale company, she said we should come back on Sunday when things, if still there, would be drastically discounted. We decided to take our chances and plan a Sunday trip. 

By now, it was getting pretty close to 1pm so we called it a day. We called Monica's dad to tell him we would visit on Sunday and made a trip to the mechanic to pick up Monica's car. We spent the remainder of Saturday relaxing knowing we would be on the move again on Sunday.

Sunday arrived and we were back! The knee hugger elves that we had passed up were still there and we got all ten of them for $1 apiece!

Of course, we took our time to look over the house some more and found the remains of this old mounted pencil sharpener. It had been a good sale and we should have realized that one would be there! In addition to the knee hugger elves, we also found a few more records.

On the way to Monica's dad's house, we discovered a rummage sale at a temple and stopped by. We left with a few records from the late 1970's/1980's (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Bananarama and The Romantics). Then, we spent some time with Monica's dad and planned some time during the summer to help him get rid of stuff he didn't need. We helped him right away by taking a few things home from the basement but more on that in a future post.

Here is what we found this weekend:

A pair of 12-inch records. It was ironic that we found the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey record this weekend since the circus disbanded on Sunday after almost 150 years in business. The Red Foxx record was almost identical to the 10-inch record we found earlier this month.

Some Christmas 12-inch records

Some 7-inch records

We usually have no interest in records without their sleeves but hey..."I Want To Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles on Capital Records and a Batman record? We took them home.

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

Books. Dinosaurs from 1959, Popeye from 1955 and The Beverly Hillbillies from 1963

More Books. Babes In Toyland from 1961 and Captain Kangaroo from 1963

Christmas books. Christmas Is Coming (1952), The Chipmunks' Merry Christmas (1959) and Night Before Christmas (1958)

Owl Lites in their box

Gurley Thanksgiving Candles

Easter stuff: A pair of Easter Bunny honeycomb decorations, a honeycomb Easter egg, some old plastic Easter Bunny eggs from The Bowery Bank and a vintage Easter puppet.

Ceramic clown candle huggers. All are marked Japan. The middle one was taken before we cleaned up the vintage icing on his face! 

A vintage fish wall hanging, a ceramic bird egg cup, a ceramic squirrel, a ceramic Thanksgiving salt shaker (missing its mate which was broken) and a maraca rumba cup. The three ceramic pieces are marked Japan.

The maraca rumba cup, in the previous picture, was from South Shore Terrace which is long gone. Monica's dad used to go there.

Some bank Christmas club die-cut giveaways. There are seventeen of the first one, four of the second one and eight of the third one.

More Christmas club giveaways and six small vintage Christmas stockings

Snoopy Christmas...two plastic Snoopy decorations and a ceramic Snoopy decoration that is marked Japan.

Two ceramic Christmas candle holders, two vintage Christmas pins for Monica and a ceramic Christmas girl. The three ceramic pieces are marked Japan.

A large foam Santa head, two vintage spinner Christmas toys, three vintage Christmas pieces and a vintage Christmas electric Santa

A ceramic Christmas candle base, a ceramic Santa teapot, two Santa pins, a ceramic Christmas Santa sleigh and an old plastic Santa sleigh. The ceramic pieces are marked Japan.

Knee hugger elves. The one on the left is newer and marked China. All of the others are marked Japan.

Elves and pixies. All marked Japan

Elves and Christmas mice. All marked Japan.

In was a great weekend for saling and a great weekend spent together. That time, spent together, is more important than anything else.