No, I’m not talking bras. I mean underPANTS. Panties. Thongs. You name it.
And they do sell them. My sister says the only people who bought them are either a., really old; or b., really creepy. look!ninjas-do you have a Half Price Books around you? They still sell records there. I have a Doctor Zhivago record that I bought, just for the pictures and liner notes (for a buck. I already have the soundtrack itself on CD, so it doesn’t even matter if the record is scratched and that I don’t have a turntable).
Oh, and I’ve bought shoes at thrift stores. Of course, they probably inspect them. What I don’t get is people buying hats and even WIGS at garage sales. Hello-head lice anyone?
Just the other day I bought a few forks and spoons for 25 cents each.
One thing that I see a lot of are used doorknobs. The old-fashioned kind with the glass knobs. Everybody who once had them wants to get rid of them, but nobody wants to buy them, so they sit in cardboard boxes in people’s basements and garages, to be hauled out every summer in the hope that they can be fobbed off one someone else.
Hey, glass doorknobs are cool! If I had my own place, I’d get me a few.
I was just talking to my Dad. He and his friend went to a church rummage sale today where his friend picked up a gen-u-wine AM-only transister radio! For cheap! You children of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, when have you last seen one of those? And children of the '70’s and '80’s, do you even know what one is?
It’s a big 'un too, my Dad says, about the size of a paperback book. The smallest ones in our day were about the size of an old fashioned Walkman. You were cool (at least in your own mind) if you had one of those. Cassette tape function? What the heck is that?
Or you could do like we did and get a bagful of them at a thrift store for practically nothing. We kids would each get a radio and if it got lost or broken, it didn’t matter. We just went to the thrift store and got more. We also used to get Brownie Hawkeye cameras there too.
You really see these looking lonely and forlorn? Because around here, they get snapped up in no time. If I ever saw any at the flea market here, I’d certainly buy them. The glass doorknobs in my house are one of it’s (many) great features.
I second Jadis’ surprise. If you see that many, you may want to consider prospects of selling online if you can get cheaply enough at the garage sales! Here’s one quick example from eBay where the auction start price was $9.99 for one set of knobs.
Actually, all the donation-accepting places get a lot of clothing, like used underwear, or stuff that is ripped, torn, stained, etc., that is unwearable and unsellable. So they sell the used fabric in bulk, that gets recycled into all kinds of stuff, like paper, I believe. So go ahead and donate your used underwear if you want, knowing that the charity will get something for it one way or another.
Just don’t try to sell it to me at a garage sale.
My best garage sale story: When I was in high school, I was at a garage sale and a woman was selling a box of half-used candles in nasty colors – black, dark red, etc. My mother had a fit when I bought it, but for some reason I just felt like it (and I think it cost something like a quarter). And then when we moved a few months later, she ordered me to throw it out, so being a contrary teenager, of course I didn’t.
So two days after we’re in our new house, the power goes out, and the transformer is in ten feet of raging flood water, so power was out for nearly 24 hours. And what were the only candles in the house? Hee! I still rub my mother’s nose in that one, all these many years later! Sometimes what looks like trash really can turn out to be an unexpected treasure.
I actually buy the nasty colored, half used candles and melt them into nice candles. A gross 1970s avacado-green candle mixed with sime white wax ends up being a more pleasant sage-green color, etc.
Speaking of candles, there’s one style of “juice glasses” from I think the 70s that make excellent tealight holders. The base is just tealight sized and the body of the glass is a smallish globe shape. You can usually find a whole set for under a dollar because as glasses they look horribly dated. The trick is to see them as something else!
You’re perusing a yard sale when you come upon something familiar…
“I used to have one just like this. I think I sold it in a yard sale myself.”
Then you realize that the item in question is the one you used to own.
Or, you actually buy the item before you realize it used to be yours. Even if it wasn’t the one you used to have, you buy it due to nostalgia. Then, when you get home, you realize why you got rid of it in the first place. So, it ends up going back into storage until your next yard sale… once again.
Around here, if you go to one of the local pawn shops, you’ll sometimes see things you sold in yard sales. One of the biggest challenges for yard sale enthusiasts is actually getting to the yard sales before the pawn shop people (who sometimes go to yard sales before they’re scheduled to begin and strip them of anything of interest or value before anyone else can get there :mad: ).
