A Three Day Weekend In The Middle Of March

Warning! This was a completely unsuccessful saling weekend and if you are looking to see some great treasures we may have found or looking to see the insides of some great houses we were inside, turn back now! You have been warned!

On the weekend leading up to St. Patrick's Day, we decided to plan a vacation day on the Friday to make it a three-day weekend. There was no particular reason for it other than that we each have four weeks of vacation each year and in those months that do not have a built-in holiday, it is good to create one. This was March's creation.

We hoped it would be a Friday that might have some estate sales as Friday has become a very popular day for estate sales and, under normal circumstances, we do not get to go. So what happened? There were no good estate sales on Friday. In fact, there weren't much the entire weekend. We had some errands to run on Friday and we figured we would supplement those errands with trips to two thrift shops nearby. The first was in town (technically, the next town but we live three minutes from the border). It is only open on a few days during the week and we rarely get to go. We have, occasionally, found good things there. As we pulled up, we saw the "closed" sign on the door. As it turns out, they are no longer open Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They are now open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. This was Friday. No good. The second thrift shop is a newly opened one in our town. As we pulled up, we saw that it was closed, too. They open in the afternoon on Fridays. We arrived in the morning. Oh well. We went home and Monica cooked the corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. It is a four hour process and so we spent the remainder of the day at home. It was delicious and we have enough leftovers to last the weekend!

On Saturday, we had three sales on our list and none appeared to be run by estate sale companies. Like Friday, none of the major companies were advertising sales of interest to us. None of the three sales had pictures to accompany the ads. We would be going in blindly and we would be hoping for the best.

The first sale was less than fifteen minutes away and was advertised as a "50 year accumulation". That sounded promising. Seeing pink elephants sitting on the porch excited us a little that there might be some odd things inside.

The house had a number of rooms but there was not a great deal of things in any of those rooms. This was the basement which we had to access through a storm cellar door from the outside. It was, obviously, in use at one time as it had a fireplace. 

If we were on an archaeological expedition, we would have been very successful here as we evidence of large dinosaurs. Unfortunately, our purpose was saling and dinosaurs were not on our list of things we wanted.

One day too late to obsess over The Ides Of March so this stayed right where we found it. We left empty-handed.

This was the second house on our list. It was described as "all must go" and listed "antiques" and "holiday decor" amongst the items for sale. There were several rooms. There were lots of books, albeit newer books. There were some older items though we nothing of interest to us. The only thing we picked up was an unopened Boris Karloff DVD for $1. Oh, and a fifty cent bag of sugar cookies which the daughter had made and was selling.

Our third and final sale was advertised as a "big garage sale with hundreds of household items". This was exciting simply because it was a garage sale and it would be the first garage sale of 2019 to us. Sometimes, you can find a buried treasure at garage sales and, of course, they can stretch out a saling day when worthwhile estate sales are few and far between. There were some old things here. We saw a box of Life Magazines and a few would have been of interest to us if sold separately but they wanted $25 for the box. No thanks.

After a very uneventful saling day, we visited Monica's dad for a few hours and then went home to relax. On Sunday, we had one sale on our list and it was run by a major estate sale company and, for the first time all weekend, there were pictures to accompany the sale. It was not a very interesting house and there were only a few things of interest. We arrived just after its open to find about 30 people on line waiting to be the next round of people to get inside. We cut our losses, turned around and went home where we had breakfast, did some food shopping and managed to get a few things done around the house. It may not have been a great saling weekend but it was three days off spent together and that is always what counts most. Oh, and...

...we will have this DVD to watch in the future! 

We're Back!

Hello! It's been a little over sixteen months since our last post so where have we been? Well, the short answer is that we're exactly where we have always been; adventuring and enjoying life together. We have just been so very busy. When we last left off, we were spending a lot of time cleaning out Uncle Bobby's house; a project which continued many months after our last post. The house is still there and it is not yet sold but our involvement lately has been minimal. Rob's job got incredibly busy about a year ago and twelve hour days, Monday through Friday, were the norm and there was phone work to be done over the weekends.
Things have finally slowed down and we have had time to breathe! We were still going to estate sales last year but they were fewer in number, partially due to our busy schedule and partially because the quality of the sales went down a bit last year. In any case, we are back. We hope to catch up and, possibly, even catch up the past sixteen months in condensed form. Here we go...Post #280 in Our Adventures Amongst The Ducks...sixteen months after Post #279.

It was the weekend of March 9th and 10th. It would be a busy weekend. Daylight Savings Time would begin on Sunday at 2am and that was good as we inched closer to the end of winter. On Sunday, we had plans for an early St. Patrick's Day dinner at Monica's sister and brother-in-law's house with corned beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes and Irish soda bread on the menu. We also had estate sales. It was a decent sized list compared to recent weeks. We had three solid sales in mind for Saturday and would try to go to at least one more on Sunday. It's time to tell the tale!

Our first sale on Saturday did not begin until 10am and that was a fairly late start for a Saturday sale. Some towns around here are very strict with estate sales, tag sales, garage sales, etc., and the town to which we were heading was one of those. A permit is required to have a sale in that town and no sale could begin there before 10am. It would be a 45 minute ride to get there and we targeted this one as our #1 sale so we left nice and early to have a chance to get what we wanted. 

So we arrived at our first sale a full hour and fifteen minutes to find this line. We were not going to be amongst the first to get in.

We were #44 and #45 in line. Obviously, there were at least 43 other people who made this their #1 sale, too. The sale was run by a tag sale company which averages a sale or two a month and we find them to be friendly and their prices to be fair when we're have attended them. This sale was described as "a house full of treasures". It was the Holt Howard pieces and large quantity of sports and non-sport cards that caught our eye. We did not expect to see much of either today with us being so far back in the line.

After 45 minutes, we found ourselves inside and the Holt Howard pieces were still there. Unfortunately, they were not in the right price range for us. We already have the ketchup, olives and mustard pieces. The only one of these which we did not have was the mayonnaise one and that one, as the sign says, had been repaired. None of these came home with us.

This room had lots and lots of sports cards, non-sports cards, magazines and sports-related items. Some of the items that interested Rob were already gone by the time we got here. The set that interested him most was the 1961 Nu-Cards monster cards and they were still there. It was not a complete set but it was impressive set and in impressive condition. However, although not unfairly priced at $250, it was not a price that we were willing to pay. We heard that a collection of Wacky Package cards from the early 1970's sold quickly at $250. Rob still has the early complete sets from when he was a kid. No loss there. Aside from the sports room and the Holt Howard pieces, there was no much else of interest to us here. We left with several things from the sports room that made Rob happy. 

Sale #2 was what we refer to as a quiet sale. It was not listed in any of the estate sale websites. It was a quiet ad on Craigslist simply advertising "entire contents of house" and carrying no pictures of the actual sale. We make note of these and try to take a look at the house on google to see if it is an old house. It was. We went.

There were only a few rooms to see and there was not much inside. The best part of the house was the outside. The inside was pretty bland. We did find a vintage Tupperware deviled egg tray and a small slide viewer. Do we have slides? Not at the moment but Monica has always mentioned wanting one so we got it. We took no pictures of the inside but took one more picture of the outside of the house...

Look at that great side door! 

Our third and final sale was run by an estate sale company that we love and we try to attend their sales when we can. Not all of their sales are the kind which we like but the ones that are our kind are always fun. One of the owners is a personal friend of ours and it is always great to see her. The sale was described as having "lots of collectibles" and although it was the second day of the sale, we hoped to find something worthwhile.

Not only were we greeted by the owners when we arrived but we were also greeted by Buddha and when Buddha smiles, you can't help but feel that luck is on your side! In this room, we found a vintage Fu Manchu tiki mug and a pair of ceramic vintage candle holders.

The basement was groovy. In fact, it was Greg Brady level groovy! 

The upstairs was the best spot of all. There was plenty of Christmas here and, while a majority of it was not old, some of the items were vintage and they came home with us!

 Just before we were done, Monica mentioned to one of the owners that she loved the vintage room divider that was in the ad's pictures but guessed that it had been sold the first day. Monica has had her eyes on getting one for many years. Buddha must have still been smiling. The owner said that it was still in the garage where it could be ours...and it did!

There was only one problem with it. It measures 8 feet high and 6 1/2 feet wide which is far too large to fit either inside or outside Rob's Honda. We called Monica's brother-in-law and he said he could help transport it in his minivan. We drove home with all of the day's finds, except the room divider so that Rob and Lenny could return later to pick up this one last item. As it turned out, it didn't fit in his minivan either but they did manage to tie it to the roof with rope and a strap and safely transport it home. Success!

We did well on Saturday but that was not the end of the weekend's sales. We had one more set for Sunday and despite the rain that was coming down steadily, we went.

We didn't arrive early but we didn't arrive late either. We arrived right on time and found that we would be waiting on a line again. This sale was run by the same tag sale company who we visited at the end of the previous day. It was described as "Rock of Ages" and about 75% of the pictures were of rocks, minerals, fossils, etc. Evidently, its former owner was quite the collector. We were both wondering if that would be a big draw or whether this sale's success would be dependent upon two or three big collectors arriving and buying all those rocks to bolster their collections. It seemed to us that without those enthusiasts, this collection would have to be donated to a museum which would not be a horrible thing.

There were lots of rocks and it soon became evident to us that we were wrong because there was a line just to get an opportunity to buy the rocks! Who knew?

The previous liked rocks and liked Elvis. That became obvious as we walked through the house. The only thing we had interest in was the old salt and pepper shakers we saw in the ad's pictures. Most of our favorites were gone but we did find the indian salt and pepper shakers we liked and they came home with us.

We found lots of things over the weekend. Aside from the room divider, here are the other things that found a new home within our house:

A Fu Manchu tiki mug (made in Japan)

A slide projector (for future slides that we find) 

A vintage Tupperware deviled egg holder

Some 1965 Man From U.N.C.L.E. cards

Some early 1970's "You'll Die Laughing" cards

Lots of 1966 Batman cards

Some 1970 Topps Scratch Off cards. A couple are scratched but most are not scratched off! 

Some 1971 Topps baseball coins

The 1975 Mets photo album which was a giveaway at Shea Stadium in 1975

The 1976 and 1977 Mets photo album giveaways

An early 1970's Willie Mays button from The New York Daily News and the 1975 ASCCA Convention button

Carvel baseball comic books from 1976

A Dodgers comic book from 1979

A couple of miscellaneous cards (1969 Topps Deckle Edge Rusty Staub and a 1964 Topps Giant Ron Hunt)

A paperback book

Salt and pepper shakers (marked Japan)

Vintage Christmas things. Everything is marked Japan except the sputnik ornament (1960's), the plastic Rosbro Santa candy holder (1950's) and the flat snowman ornament (1960's)

It was a pretty action packed weekend and now we are back to share our adventures. We hope you enjoy! We'll be back next week!