Well. I’ve been idly checking this thread for a few days now, pondering which of the numerous bargains I should post about. My father is an antique dealer and I’ve been hitting flea markets, estate sales, auctions, etc. since I was in grade school, so you know I’ve got some serious stories. I decided to spotlight my kitchen table/chair set. You can see a picture of it here. It’s from the Depression Eara, and the top of the table is enameled steel with an Art Deco design in black (the enamel is in perfect condition). It also expands with the two side pull-out sections that you can see tucked under the main table top. The base of the table and the 4 matching chairs are all solid maple.
Price? $80 for the whole set at auction.
When my Mom and I first spied the table during the auction’s inspection period, the white table top was all grey and looked like it had been scratched to hell. When I looked at it closer, I suspected that it was just dirty, and I spit-shined an unobtrusive corner (I didn’t want anyone else to know that it was just dirt and not damage…I didn’t want any bidding competition!). I was amazed to find that it would clean up perfectly.
I wish I could find a link online, but just for comparison…I saw a retro-styled table in the Pottery Barn catalog a few months ago that looked very similar to mine. It had no design detail on the enamel top, the base & chairs were pine and there were no expansion pieces. IIRC, the table alone was about $600 and the chairs were about $100 apiece. Heh.
On another note, while I’m at it…here’s a link to all of the pictures of my house, both pre- and post-furnished. I bought this house a year ago, it was built in the 1920’s and has amazing construction details. My purchase price was (please don’t faint) $58,000.
I just wanted to say, thanks everyone, these stories are all awesome and I think this is the best thread I ever started!
I’m always on the prowl for Depression glass for my mom, especially Carnival glass. You have to be careful about chips in the rim or base, but sometimes you get real lucky. My mom loves a bargain, and oftentimes I’ve given her a new piece for her birthday or christmas, and I’ll be like, “You’ll never guess what I paid: a quarter!” And to her, it’s like twice the present than if I paid $50 for it.
Way back around the early eighties I thought I would be generous and buy my parents something for Christmas. Quisinart food processors were all the rage that year and I went to Best products (the store where you would submit a ticket for the merchandise and it would come down a conveyor belt) and saw the Quisinart model DLC10-P, a smallish model that listed for $115. I filled out my ticket and waited at the counter. A box came, I paid for it, wrapped it and gave it to my folks.
About a couple of weeks later, I was looking at the after-Christmas sale ads and saw the food processor that I gave my folks on sale for $299. It was the DLC-7 Super Pro.
Best Products had given me the wrong unit. I would have rectified the error if I had known about it but by the time I found out it was too late.
I believe that was the first and last time I had ever gotten something TRULY 60% off!
I love stuff like this! My prized posession is a martini glass I thrifted with the official seal of the Contra Costa County Sherriff and Coroner’s office on it. Tres bizarre!
I was at a garage sale one day, and there was a dusty old electric piano with a broken key that I bought for $10, thinking it would be good for practicing.
Got it home and cleaned it up, and it came out looking brand-new. It had hardly ever been used. So I go on the internet to find a part for the broken key, and discover that the piano (a Wurlitzer 200) is a real find. They have a distinctive sound (think of the piano opening to “Bloody Well Right” by Supertramp - that’s a Wurlitzer). The broken key turned out to be a $5 repair - a little metal reed had snapped, and I just ordered a new one, installed it, and filed it to tune the piano. Total labor - half an hour.
The upshot is that I put the piano on eBay and sold it for $800 US.
Another time, I was looking for a projector for the home theater I’m building, and a message board I’m on said that Dell was clearing out the model I wanted. I went to their web site, and sure enough, they had the projector for $1680. So I ordered one, and got it. Later, I found out it was a pricing error on Dell’s part, and the projector was actually close to $3000. Even now, a year and a half later, that projector is still $2600.
Those have to be my two best ‘coups’ - at least for me personally. The best one overall was the time when I was working as an IT manager for a company, and went to an auction to look for some parts - and found a complete 16 phone Nortel PBX for $250. The company was just about to buy a new one for more than $10,000. I even ordered the manuals and installed and programmed it all myself, and it worked flawlessly. It’s still working flawlessly for them, five years later. Needless to say, they were quite happy with me.
A soft, beautiful, many-shades-of-grey J. Crew wool scarf at a sample sale, reduced from $40 to $7. Didn’t know who I’d give it to, then my sister said my b.i.l. needed one. He loved it.
Great condition side-board, in teak: $150 from a thrift shop in the East village.
A little braggy, but: my apartment, even with house prices starting to go down a bit here in NYC. My seller was desperate back in '97…
I buy all of my Homecoming/ Prom dresses from Dillards, nice dressses too. The majority of them still have their original price tags, upwards of $200 a piece. The trick is to wait a month or two after any big formal dance to buy them, they go from 75-90% off. The stores are just desperate to sell them, so I’ve never bought a formal dress for more then $40 in my life. Considering how many formals I go to it’s a good thing too.
My mom does her thrift store shopping whenever she gets the chance, and comes home with Elizabeth Taylor sweaters, Tommy Hilfiger jeans, Gap sweatshirts, Limited shirts, Old Navy shirts all the time. Brand new for the most part, still with original tags and creases, and probably pays $1.25 a piece.
With all the new hotels here in Las Vegas, and the remodling of older hotels, there are quite a few places here where you can find hotel item for pennies - everything from bedroom sets to silverware.
We bought two, aqua colored, real-leather arm chairs that had never really been used - designed for a high roller suite, but the decorator changed his mind later. Each chair was $25.
We also got framed artwork (two huge pictures) with matching bedspreads, curtains and lamps from a remodel at the Rio Suites hotel - our guest bedroom now looks like a designer did it. Total price: $35
If anybody ever comes to Las Vegas with a car or truck, look into the hotel liquidation warehouses (all over the city) and stock up. You will easily be able to sell what you find here for a profit back home, and pay for your trip to Vegas!
