Our 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.