Estate Sales Tales

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Estate Sales Tales

You may have read about my encounter with the woman who could not comprehend why a person could possibly own “so many books!” in this thread.

Now being retired, I’ve found that frequenting estate sales is a fun way to spend half a day or so. I know I don’t need to own more crap, but I do find the occasional useful item. And I’ll admit that I take some pleasure out of wandering through strangers’ homes, getting a glimpse of what sort of people they were.

Yesterday I hit five estate sales. I purchased a pair of linesman pliers and a pair of needlenose pliers ($2 each), two large plastic storage bins ($4 each), two like-new Hemingway trade paperbacks ($1 each), and the find of the day: a Vornado air purifier that sells for $146 on Amazon. It was marked $15, I offered $7 and my offer was accepted. It was dusty, but I cleaned it up and it’s good as new.

Worth mentioning:

  • One sale had a large number of books roughly sorted by subject. There was a section of music books. Within that section I was amused to see Annie Proulx’s novel “Accordian Crimes”.

  • One house had what appeared to be a complete set of 1960s era Hardy Boys books. Looked identical to the set I have stashed in my attic.

  • At one point I was parched. I needed a diet Mountain Dew Big Gulp stat. There was no 7-11 in site. Aren’t they on every corner? I finally located one, pulled in, and found about six people milling about the entrance. The door was locked. A handwritten note said, “In bathroom”. I waited about five minutes, all the time wondering if the clerk was going to wash his hands after taking care of business. When I gave up and left, more puzzled would-be customers arrived. I don’t want to know what was going on in that bathroom for so long.

Feel free to add your own garage/yard/tag/estate sale tale.

mmm

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This is from the opposite site (seller rather than buyer).

When the last of my uncles had passed away, his daughter (my cousin) and her husband (my uncle’s son-in-law) were handling the estate sale. My uncle and his wife had retired to the country after a military and government career, and was bit of a renaissance man, especially when it came to things mechanical. He’d accumulated a lifetime of tools.

The SIL was handling the items in the barn, which included a bunch of tools and equipment. I’d gone out to visit and see if there were anythings I might find useful. At one point, the SIL says to me, “Can you handle this for a while? I’m going up to the house to get coffee.” I was a bit dubious. Nothing had prices on it, and I wasn’t at all familiar with anything other than broad strokes (this is a workbench, this is a handsaw, etc.), some stuff wasn’t actually for sale, and I told him this.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just use your judgement and get a decent price. I trust you. The stuff that’s not for sale is over there,” he said and pointed to an area of the barn.

“Ok,” I said, still dubious. And off he went up to the house

For like 45 minutes.

While he was gone, some guys came by and were looking at the 3 or 4 chainsaws that were sitting all together on the floor. “How much for this one?” one of them asked, picking up a decent looking one.

“Oh, let’s say $50,” I replied. I knew the goal was just to get rid of the stuff so the barn could be cleared out and the house and property sold.

“Deal!” the guy says, gives me the money, and heads out with the chainsaw.

Seemingly forever later, the son-in-law shows back up. “Did you sell much?”

“Oh, just some small hand tools and a chainsaw.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, and walks over to where the saws were. “Um… where’s my chainsaw?”

“What do you mean, ‘my chainsaw?’”, I asked, getting a bad feeling.

“My new Husqavarna chainsaw I got a couple months ago.”

I handed him the 50 bucks. He was not pleased.

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I bought a pair of golf(?) shoes with spikes for $2. I used them to aerate my lawn that weekend, walking back and forth. As soon as I finished, I listed them on CraigsList and sold them for $10.

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The guy has his own Zoo.
He had camels, llamas, geese, etc.
Not out in the wilds, either. Nashville suburb.

Didn’t buy a thing–all the good stuff was gone. In ten seconds after the door opened.

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Mrs. solost loves garage / yard saling, and I enjoy going with her. We hit the occasional estate sale too, but mostly the former.

We’ve gotten some great deals over the years. Once, I needed a new heater for my upstairs office, and a yard sale had 6 or 8 of these radiator-style electric heaters that were like new. They must have gone for between $100-200 new, and they were selling for $5 each. I only bought one, and it works very well-- wish I had bought the lot.

A couple times my older son came along. He’s really into not only gaming, but the history of gaming, and he noticed 4 of these old-fashioned hand-held game devices that were selling for 50 cents each, which he recognized as possible collector’s items, so he bought them all. Two of them were Mario Bros.-branded, though they weren’t even electronic- they were mechanical, like little pinball-style games. It turned out those were priced at up to $120 on eBay! He ended up selling them for $30 each at a flea market gaming booth.

I enjoy the stories I hear from talking to the people hosting the sales. Once we hit a garage sale hosted by two older women, and there was a lot of catering equipment for sale. I said “I’m guessing somebody used to be a caterer” and learned that one of the women had been a professional caterer for a company that did a lot of catering for visiting rock stars on tour. That’s someone I could have talked to for hours! I asked her who the biggest pain in the ass was to cater for, and she said without hesitation “Ozzy Osbourne”. I made the obvious joke “was he always asking for broiled bat, har har?” She said he loved baked potatoes-- would always ask for them and chow down on just baked potatoes after a show. Doesn’t seem too high-maintenance to me, but who knows what else he did to get awarded “Biggest Pain in the Ass” status.

There used to be a show on the HGTV cable network called “Cash & Cari”, ‘Cari’ being the name of a woman who ran a local business where she managed estate sales, and she also had a resale shop in Northville, Michigan. We visited one of her estate sales, and filming had just wrapped up when we got there. When we went to the checkout table to pay for a couple items, there was some sort of ornate wicker basket thingie with multiple handles that someone had set down on the floor next to the checkout table. I managed to step into it-- I didn’t damage it, but I got my leg all tangled up in the handle part and was clearly an amusing sight as I extricated myself. The woman handling the cash, who was one of the ‘cast members’, was having a great laugh at this. I said “I’m glad you’re not filming right now!” and she said “Oh man, I wish we were!”

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Yesterday I was looking at little blind bag figurines online and thinking about how they are so popular and so ubiquitous. And cute. Those and Funkos. I thought “I bet people just have houses full of this stuff.”

Makes me wonder if the estate sales of the future will not be tools, books, dishware and porcelain tchotchkes like they are now, but just all PVC figurines, fidget toys and Lego.

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I’ve been to her sales and have talked with her several times at auctions, she over prices things because people want to have something from someone who has a popular TV show. Don’t think she does estate sales anymore.

Anyway, I go to many estate sales if only to see how other people live. It’s gotten so that I can tell what we be for sale based upon which metro Detroit neighborhood they lived in. My walls and rooms are filled with what I consider interesting, unique stuff that I have picked from numerous sales. It’s bizarre what people have in their homes and I love to check it out. Good way to waste an afternoon.

My best find is a theater chair that has a headrest adjustment. It’s like brand new and sells for about $1100 at Ashley Furniture, I picked it up for $200 and have been using it every day for the last year. I’ve also picked some very nice ivory Netsuke pieces and some great glass paperweights for good prices. Much higher quality for a better price than I could ever find in an antique store.

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We went to one in Anchorage years ago. It was in the neighborhood where I grew up. First thing I found was a box full of 45 rpm records in mint condition. I think I paid 15 dollars for about 50 records, a few of which (like an old Leadbelly) turned out to be actually worth some money on eBay. I sold the rest of them at a garage sale for 50 bucks. The wife was leafing through a magazine and found a really interesting and original 8x10 woodcut stuck between some of the pages. The price on the magazine was $.25, so she bought it. We had the woodcut, which depicts a Native woman holding a loon, framed.

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I need pictures!

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My buddies had one, combined with a moving sale. They had NO retail or bargaining experience. (Lawyer and Coder).

They has an old japanese motorcycle, a scooter and a stove in back, and said they would have to hire someone to take that away. I put them out anyway.

I sold all three, plus most of everything. They had overpriced the art and the books- of course. Half the art was sold for the frames, and the encyclopedias and set of hardcover books were sold as a lot so "someone could make their home look educated and classy. "

But still, I handed them like $600, and they were expecting less than half that plus the cost of hauling stuff away. They thought I was some sort of wheeler/dealer genius. Incidentally, the dead bike, which I said “Make me an offer”- and he said $100- he later called and said he got it to run, so he got a deal. It did take him quite a bit of labor, of course.

Okay I sold the dead full of spiders gas stove for $10- but that’s better than paying someone to haul it off.

Yeah, I did have to take the PB books to the thrift store and donate the ones I didn’t want.

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Here are some of the ones I keep in my bathroom. When I pee, I think of Japan.

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Thanks!

Back To The OP

At one ‘everything in the house is for sale’ garage sale years ago, I found some martial art books (for friends) the 2000 Year Old Man book, a replica statuette of Teonanacatl (god of pyschedelic mushrooms) and some other stuff. I approached the host holding up an item from the pile. He said “10”. I said that was too much for that item. He clarified that he meant 10 for the pile.

At a yard sale, I had picked up a copy of the From Hell trade paper back, a big book on Jewish folklore and a few other things. I was about to ask the hostess how much they were. She shouted so all could hear that everything was free now.

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I live in Everett, where Funko is headquartered, every local garage sale has multiple Funko Pops. It’s kind of funny.

My friends and I (and now my wife does it too) have an inside joke based on a garage sale we held 20 years ago…a car pulled up with its windows down and we could just hear the driver repeat over and over in a thick Eastern European accent “What do you have for me today…what do you have for me today.”
He repeated this until he got actually up to us and then said “Got any watches?” We told him no… He just shrugged and got back in his car.

So every sale we go to we repeat (quietly) “What do have for me today? What do you have for me today”

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I stopped at one a few years ago, and was wandering around looking at mostly junk, and this old guy was following me around saying, “This is an EEEEE-State Sale”. Pronounced like that. Fucking weird.

I really don’t think he knew the word Estate or what it meant.

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About 4 or 5 years ago, my husband scored a bunch of real wood book shelves and barrister book cases for something like $50 each - I think he got 4 of each, and we’re using most of them. We gave 2 of the plain shelves to our daughter and SIL. It was at the tail end of an estate sale and they were just trying to clear everything out.

Several decades back, we happened past a yard sale where a recently divorced woman was clearing out a lot of her stuff and I got a big pile of corning ware for almost nothing. I’m still using most of it today. Not really an exotic purchase, but still a heck of a deal.

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When I visited my parents, there was an estate sale on the next block. I think the residents had bought their house at the same time as parents (> 50 years ago) and hadn’t changed anything, nor had they updated any of their dishes, towels, etc. It was sort of a time capsule from the early 70s.

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$50 for barrister book cases, that’s a steal! I’ve always liked those if you can find them, but too pricey at the auntieQ market.

My parents estate sale didn’t make much, but the newspapers Dad held onto caused some xcitement. He had front page headlines of notable events, iirc re: WW2, moon landing, JFK, Nixon and the
Super Bowl win of the un defeated dolphins. Lol. It was a bidding war!

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An estate sale up the road from me that was run by a sale company actually announced in the last half-hour or so that “everything is now free”. That was fun.

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I can see that. My guess is their contract called for the house to be left empty and better for the random people to grab stuff rather than having to call in a dumpster to finish the job.

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Yeah, my neighbors did that on their two week moving sale. First weekend, prices were normal. Then they got very cheap. Then it was "free if you haul away. "