As suggested by On a Claire Day
As a junk sculptor, I’m always looking for the odd toaster, machine gear, or auto part.
But I can’t say they are the best finds.
My favorites are Toby mugs and their relatives, elaborate beer steins.
I bought a Bunn coffee maker for $3 about a month ago.
It’s like something you might see in a deli or 7-Eleven or something. It makes a pot of coffee in about 30 seconds. It works perfectly and I keep it in the kitchen at my office.
I bought a Royal Doulton Toby jug at a garage sale once- still have it- it’s this one, Old Charlie, to be specific and I think it was $4. At the time I didn’t know they were collectible.
My favorite yard sale item is probably Woodrow (the name I gave him), a 4 foot tall wood carving of a Filipino headhunter holding a severed head. It was at a military yard sale- those are always the best (at least around here).
A Playbill signed by several members of the London cast of “Godspell” including Jeremy Irons.
I found a George Foreman grill for $2. It replaced the one I broke.
I found a 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ first edition signed by Robert Persig for 10 cents. You can check how much it’s worth… 
I’ll never sell it.
I found a little deep fryer in my neighbor’s garage sale a few summers back.
For weeks, damn near everything I made was deep fried. Fish, chicken bites, fries, I cut up corn tortillas and made my own tortilla chips. You name it, I dunked it.
My experience as well. Especially navvy personnel, since they go from port to port and can store things on board. And those stationed in the Phillipines brought lots of things that were gold plated and sold for copper prices, candle holders and serving sets and such.
I do 6 to 12 garage sales a week for my side eBay business. The best I ever did was about a month ago, I paid $1 for a book of all the Billboard top 100 charts from the 1970’s. I brought it home and listed it on eBay. A few days later it has been bid up to $90 so I check on Amazon.com to see what they are getting for this book. They show one with a price of $499.99. Mine ended up selling for $209. A few other gems:
1970’s Snoopy mug with music box, paid 25 cents, sold for $73.
Set of Campbells Soup spice jars with rack, paid $15, sold for $227.
New in box low voltage lighting system, paid $2, sold for $96.
Set of Mode Danish steak knives, paid $1, sold for $25.
Napa Valley Monopoly game, new, free, sold for $32.
For myself, I found a box of 48 Crayola crayons from the 1950’s for 50 cents and a set of almost free studded snow tires in a free pile.
2 hand-written diaries from the 1850s detailing a man, a carpenter, moving from Connecticut to Iowa City, IA. $10. Priceless to me.
My grandparents used to have one of those…I have never seen another one. It actually had private parts which were covered by a loin cloth. It simultaneously intrigued and frightened the shit out of me when I was a child.
I haven’t found anything better than nice clothes for my daughter for super cheap, but when I was around 7 my mom bought me a bunch of vintage Barbie clothes. I still have them, but unfortunately I didn’t take the best care of them.
1978 Five boxes of comic books - OLD comic books, late 40s, early 50s. (Included one Golden Age Sub-Mariner, and a couple of White Indian issues) Local antique dealer suggested my name to the family having the estate sale because he knew I was a collector. They wanted $10 a box, then called me later to tell me they’d found some more. I offered another $10 and they refused. I told them some of the comics were valuable. They didn’t care; thought they’d almost taken advantage of me for $50. I sold the lot of them the next weekend for $250 (about half the book value) to a comic book dealer in a nearby big city.
The following weekend, we took my parents out for their 30th wedding anniversary at a swank place in that big city. Had Dover sole, abalone, strawberries injected in Gran Marnier and dipped in chocolate for dessert. The bill for four of us (in 1978, mind you) was $176. I pulled out two hundreds (my profit on the comic books) and put them on the tray.
This was at a time when we were making do with spaghetti and chicken to get by, so it was a great deal of pleasure to be able to a) eat so well, b) treat my folks and c) make a bit of a showoff gesture.
Never again hit it so well, but have found other interesting books and magazines for both reading and profit.
A good baseball bat and CDs of Rush’s “Moving Pictures” and “Exit…Stage Left” albums in good condition. I bought this stuff years ago and still have all of it. It’s not their dollar value that I like, it’s that I paid 5$ and got things I liked and still enjoy.
The catering coffee container (like 25 gallon or something) or the Victrola.
We missed going to garage sales this summer - usually we troll them every Saturday. 
Yep- though he seems to be a eunuch. I keep him covered for decency sake.