I used to frequent estate sales, but the re-appearance of bedbug infestations has scared me off. I’d still buy glassware or pottery, but I have enough nowadays.
Too bad; I used to like them and I’d still like to browse around.
I’ll go if I know there are tools or other equipment I’ll be interested in. I picked up my favorite rifle at an estate auction for half what it was actually worth.
My mom had been a regular of the estate sale circuit and the regulars are a very particular subculture with defined unofficial rules, and many with very particular areas of interest and expertise, often with greater knowledge than those running the sales. It would make a great mockumentary …
Mom had the unfortunate combination of having been trained as an artist, very interested in doing the research to know what was what, what was becoming hot in the auction market and what losing value, and, from after my dad had died, being a pathological hoarder. It made clearing out her house (filled floor to ceiling with only some “goatpaths” through), and multiple stacked to the top large storage lockers, quite the challenge after her death. Thankfully my sister-in-law stepped up to the plate with me in only a supportive role researching and inventorying mostly, but mixed in with garbage and crap were very valuable vases, pottery, and artwork. Some also that was pretty but not worth much; she just liked having it. It was hell.
But when I think of it the main thought that comes up is only: “miss you mom.”
I love me some Estate Sales.
I collect 78 RPM records. My wife loves crafting with vintage textiles. We are also foodies and you can find some really cool devices and serving ware that you just can’t get anymore.
Besides that you get to poke through decades of people’s lives.
Fun times.
Hey, it’s a small world! I don’t worry about “competition”; it’s a big world, and I’m patient to get exactly the piece I need. In my case, though, I’m buying stuff for us, not for resale, so I suppose that keeps it fun for me, despite competition.
My coolest find is a painting and furniture I got at Adam’s Castle. It’s a painting of the same furniture in the parlor of the mansion, and makes for neat conversation when visitors notice it. Usually there aren’t crowds, but wow, that one must have been in the newspaper or something.
Was at the Adams Castle sale, quite a place and oh the crowd.
Generally I buy for myself as well, but usually to upgrade something I already have and then sell off the old one. I’m getting pickyer in my advancing years I guess.
I try to stop when I see them. I collect Seiko watches and I hope to find one someday but they never show up.
I love them. But I always buy shit I can’t afford/don’t need (one or both).
My house is mostly furnished with the estate sale finds of a guy who was awesome at it. He once walked into a place and came out with a Birkin bag for $6. He thought it would turn out to be a knockoff, but still, $6! But it was real.
This guy though was so good that he made a living buying stuff at estate sales and reselling it on eBay.
I used to be dragged to a lot of them. I generally alternated between hating them and being depressed by them. Tons of crap nobody wants, that nobody needs, and that was held onto for years and years for no logical reason. Everything is often badly priced, and it’s generally thoroughly unpleasant to deal with everyone involved. It’s like everything wrong with the last 70 years of American society in microcosm. If I have my way, I’ll never go to an estate sale again.
Though there was one that stands out in memory because it had a sign advertising that the deceased owner’s very large porn collection was available and to inquire.
Earlier this year, I went to a sale where 99% of what was offered for sale belonged in the landfill, but they were offering books at $5 a box. He had quite a collection of sci-fi books from the 1960s and 1970s, and in the meantime, I found a guide to performing oral sex that looked like a magazine, and tossed that in. I listed it on Amazon for $75 - and sold it within a matter of days! :eek: 
It’s also nice to see bodies that aren’t airbrushed or surgically enhanced in any way.
I hope the same thing happens with the textbook I found last weekend at a sale that I found out was two teachers who moved away with their 3 kids and left behind all of their stuff that they didn’t want to take with them; I listed it for $150, and if nobody buys it by early fall, I’ll see if Amazon still wants to buy it. They were willing to purchase it for $88 as of last week; it’s a graduate-level statistics book that appears to have never been opened.