The First Two Weeks Of August

With July behind us and summer moving much faster than we would like, we headed into August with hope that estate saling would pick up. For over a year, the number of sales that interest us has dwindled. We don't think there are fewer estate sales. We just see fewer of our type of estate sales. We've spoken to fellow salers and they say the same thing. We hope that we see more great sales in the future but, for now, we'll have to take what we can get. 

For the first weekend in August, there was only one sale of interest to us. It was the estate sale of Irv Gordon. Who is Irv Gordon, you ask? 

Irv Gordon is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest mileage on one single vehicle. He drove his Volvo over 3.2 million miles! Now, we would be at his home.

The sale was run by a smaller tag sale company whom we have known for many years but have not seen in about two years. They don't advertise heavily so we usually don't know when they are having sales. The sale's ad described the contents as "items from 5 & 10 Store stored in the attic". Vintage toys and vintage games were listed amongst the items. That sounded good to us. We arrived before the opening of the sale but so did a lot of other people. When the sale began, they let everyone in at the same time.

The first thing we learned was that was no attic. Almost everything had been dragged outside or was stored in the garage. There were things inside the house but they were limited to the first floor. This old barbecue, in its box, caught our eyes and we almost bought it but it was not the type with a top piece and that is what would have sealed the deal for us.

We loved this Space Scientist Drafting Set and it will not be the last time you see this. It came home with us.

The garage was where most of the digging was and there really was a lot of digging. We spent an hour in the garage alone.

This great old refrigerator was in that garage, too. Just as the ad stated, there were lots of items you would expect to find in an old 5 & 10 Store and that was fun. We found a lot of things to take home which we will share a little further down.

Even if we had lots of sales targeted, it would still have been a short saling day. That afternoon we were invited to Rob's sister's house for Rob's mom's 79th birthday barbecue. As you would guess, it's an annual thing! 

Our hosts, Rob's sister, Susan, and her husband, Mark

Rob's other sister, Betsy, and Rob's nephew, Michael

The two of us

Rob, his sisters and his mom

Rob's mom...the birthday girl! 

Susan and Mark's cats (Tabasco up top and Pesto on the bottom) even enjoyed the party!

When we got home, we found we had two visitors on the fence...visiting snails.

Snail #1

Snail #2

We, too, could have moved slowly through our Sunday but we had errands and chores in store for us plus we had to take some time to look at Saturday's finds. This is what we saw:

That 1950's Space Scientist Drafting Set

Lots of vintage shower invitations

Vintage Christmas cards

Vintage Mother's Day cards

A vintage Easter care and a vintage birthday card

Matchbooks from Bali-Hai and Momi-Kai, two 1960's Long Island Polynesian restaurants that are no more

Matchbooks from King Fong and Shun Lee, two old defunct New York sit down Chinese restaurants.

Two more old matchbooks whose front covers are...

...pin-up girls!

A few more old matchbooks

A souvenir metal dustpan from the 1939 New York World's Fair

Vintage utility mats

We can put together a vintage clothesline! 

Vintage towel bars

Vintage stove mats

Vintage soap dishes and a vintage toothbrush holder

Vintage birthday cake numerals and candles

A vintage French's Mustard spoon and a vintage Carvel spoon

A vintage chef hat

The underside of the chef's hat

Some vintage pennants

Vintage jingle bells

A vintage die-cut Christmas angel

1940's /early 1950's Vacation Days paper dolls. Fully intact.

Guns Sticker Fun. Fully intact. They don't make books like this anymore.

1957 Clown Capers game

An old Chiclets bucket from the store, a 1960's/1970's plastic saber-toothed, a vintage pocketbook, an old ceramic piggy bank, an old squeak tot and an old package of Scuff Kote

The following week was an even lighter day for estate saling. We, again, only found one sale of any value and it was a stretch. It was, obviously, a family run sale and it had been going on since Tuesday. It listed antiques, vintage items and records among the items for sale. There were no pictures to support it and the only reason we chose to go on its fifth day was that it was nearby and there was nothing else out there.

It was an old house but we knew not to expect much

There were lots of rooms but not much inside for us. The wall hangings in this room were pretty cool. They were actually made using paper towel and toilet paper rolls. 

By the time we finished walking through the house, we only found the 7 inch record...

...and this new Easter Pez dispenser

We had the remainder of the weekend to ourselves and we made the most of it. We have wanted to visit this one hot dog truck and Saturday was the day to do it.

Charlie's Hot Dogs began its hot dog business in 1963 as a hot dog pushcart and expanded to a hot dog truck as his popularity grew. His red onions were the stuff of legend. After a brief hiatus after Charlie passed away, his daughter reopened the business using the original recipe and now Charlie's hot dogs are, once again, available to a new generation of hot dog fans. His red onions are now available in supermarkets, too! The hot dogs and red onions were as great as we hoped and we will be back again! 

One Sunday, it was barbecue time at Monica's sister and brother-in-law's house. Lenny, is as legendary on the grill as Charlie is with his red onions!

Although the number of sales were limited to start the month of August, they were a fun two weeks. Saling, hot dogs, barbecues and time together is a perfect way to spend our summer!