Back Garage

Out of Season

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:43:00 +0000

I was talking to my friend Rhonda inside my car before going into the grocery store on a Friday night a few weeks ago, and she asked me off-the-cuff if I was planning on going to garage sales the next morning. As she asked this I was pulling my sleeve as far as possible over my exposed hand to keep it warm, noting how my breath was steaming up the inside of my car as the temperature clock outside the bank flashed 2 degrees. Fahrenheit.

"Garage sales?" I asked her. "It's.... not really the season."

Rhonda was fortunate enough to spend most of her adult life in the Pacific Northwest, where garage sales are a year-round event. But in the dead of Chicago winter, no one's even shoveling their sidewalk, let alone setting up a card table on top of it to sell their possessions. In fact, when it's this cold outside, no one much likes to leave their house. You'd think that this would be good in the way of diminished competition, but really, the lack of available outlets for bargain shopping tends to cramp the hundreds of bargain shoppers (like me) into the very few outlets open at this time of year: thrift stores and estate sales.

So like any good year-round Midwestern thrifter, I prepare my short list on Thursday evenings for a Friday morning cruise of the estate sale scene.

This Friday, I had just two sales on my list, neither of them that promising. But hey, in times of famine, tenacity pays off. Even if you have to drive around in this thing:

Is there a car under there?

The first sale was in Evanston. To my surprise there was no line, no wait at the starting time of 10 a.m.

As soon as I got in, I could see why. Slim pickin's. Nothing much in the way of collectibles or decent books. But these sales are always good for stocking up on staples, like office supplies.

I refuse to buy a legal pad at full price when I know I can get them at estate sales for 25 cents. Same goes for envelopes, felt-tipped pens, staple removers and cleaning products.

Awesome purse I didn't buy:

I was able to dig up 3 valuable reference books on pipe-fitting, each selling on Amazon for more than $12. (I paid $1.50 for all three.) So in the hopes that my day could only get better, I took a chance on the next sale in Park Ridge.

I was just starting to curse the dreary, salt-encrusted look of things on Touhy Avenue when what out of the corner of my eye should appear?

A thrift store I've NEVER seen or heard of! I've spent the last four years driving around the 234-square-mile area that is Chicago (not to mention the suburbs), and I thought I had seen it all. But here was a previously untouched thrift mecca just 10 miles from my apartment. I felt like Lord Carnarvon opening Tut's tomb!

Unfortunately the "treasures" inside my discovery weren't exactly priced to go.

Fifteen bucks for a jelly jar, thirty-five for a Fenton? (not) sherbet dish, twenty-five dollars for a Walter Peyton highlights VHS video, etc.

Dismayed, I was about to leave when I noticed a second entrance two doors down. THIS part of the store looked a bit more promising:

These are cool:

Five dollars!

Awesome wagon-themed ice cream dishes for 50 cents each:

And this card, which I couldn't quite figure out. Is it intended for a better-than-decent male sibling, or a very attractive black man?

Either way, Happy Easter to them, at just 25 cents.

I bought a Thomas Pynchon novel, an academic book on the South Asian diaspora and a hardcover cuckoo-clock making manual, all for 55 cents. The resale value of these items is considerably higher.

Satisfied, I continued on to the Diane Hudec (formerly Auction Bay -- do I smell a 'cease & desist'?) estate sale.

I usually save the Hudec sales for last, as they are significantly, ambiguously overpriced (you'll see what I mean in a second), so most of my competitors seem to stay away.

As expected, Hudec never fails to ambiguously overprice:

"So... is this basket 5 dollars, 50 cents, or 10 dollars?" (You won't find out until you reach the check-out counter, where the lines are always ridiculously long for this very reason.)

More ambiguous pricing from Hudec:

However, I must say Diane is always willing to bargain as a result of this ambiguousness, and there are always a few good deals to be found:

I found my childhood spice rack at this sale (although ours was in goldenrod):

Ten dollars.

Alas, there were no good bargains at AuctionBay for me this Friday morning, so I lifted a plant and a can of beans and ski-dooed.

I hear it's supposed to be 15 tomorrow. Yeay!

Les Puces -- The Second-Hand Scene in PARIS

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:59:00 +0000

My recent trip to the Czech Republic by way of Paris explains my gap in blog entries. But fear not -- I have returned armed with information for those savvy travelers interested in the antique scene in Paris.

Paris, as some of you may know, is the birthplace of the flea market. The name "flea market" comes from the flea-ridden cast-off rags and clothing once worn by royals and merchants, sold in the makeshift pop-up storefronts along the Marches de Pouces in Paris' northern suburbs. So it was to Les Pouces de Saint Ouen that we ventured, to see where all this madness began.

(Here is their website in case you are interested.)

Our marche began in the city center. The easiest way to access Les Puces is to take the Paris Metro line 4 (maroon in color maps) to Porte de Clignancourt and exit at Porte de Clignancourt, the last stop on the northbound line. Follow the Sortie, Marches aux Puces signs. Once you exit, turn around and look for the highway overpass (white bridge). Walk underneath it, then turn left onto rue des Rosiers. From here it is difficult to give exact directions to the "best" part of the market, but for those veterans it should be easy to follow your nose past the knock-off Pepe Jeans, purses and Looney Tunes stuffed animals to where the real flea market (read: not wholesale and knock-offs) begins.

When we visited I was starting to think we might never find a real antique amidst the bad leather and keychains, but slowly, Def Leppard and Britney Spears t-shirts gave way to architectural remnants and antique light fixtures.

Here we are making our way past the wholesale and knock-off section:

To something a bit more authentic:

Look! Vintage Doc Martens! (And there were TONNES.)

There were a lot of army surplus vendors with remnants from many years and many armies:

Check out this happy soldier:

We bought a Saint Christophe medallion from this vendor (€1 or about $1.49), to keep us safe on our travels:

There was a large vintage vinyl record store, specializing in jazz and blues.

I loved this little guy, however pricey at €25 (approx. US$36.75).

The year-round flea market allows for some pretty well-established storefronts, like this dealer in architectural remnants:

Many of the other dealers had small tables of trinkets outside their shops.

We were totally surprised to find this antique cabinet at the Paris flea market:

Jem's mom owns the exact same one back in the States! We were told it had just sold for €3,500 (about US$5,145).

Look: signs in French!

Not everything was antique. There were plenty of mid-century/modern furniture and fixings to go around.

If the exchange rate were better and my suitcase bigger, I would have bought this red wire two-tiered serving platter for my friend Andrea:

The flea market seemed to go on forever...

Squirrel or Satan for your garden?

More stuff for your lawn that definitely won't fit in a suitcase:

Happy shoppers, Jem (left) and Katherine (right -- yup, that's me).

I was starting to wish I had a bigger suitcase...

Books galore.

Ooo la la!

The market is open Saturday 9:00 a.m. -- 6p.m., Sunday 10:00 a.m. -- 6 p.m., Monday 11:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m., and closed Tuesday through Friday. YEAR ROUND. (We were there in January.)

Bear Hunting

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:47:00 +0000

I decided to attempt Round Two of my search for appropriate attire for the Bears game, this time in Bear Country.

My goal: to find some warm Bears gear that doesn't make me look like a soccer mom and that will stand out enough to get picked up by the TV cameras from the 5th row in the end zone. (I want my .15 seconds of fame, dammit.) I'm also hoping the challenge, and subsequent appropriate costume, will restore my excitement in seeing the Monsters of the Midway after a horribly disappointing performance in last night's game against the Redskins, in which my favorite QB, Sexy Rexy Grossman, sustained a season-ending injury. What's a poor fan to do but seek solace in the comfort of familiar thrift stores, hunting for, well, Bears?

I started out at the Salvation Army.

I rarely visit this store, and once I got inside I remembered why: it's totally disorganized and smells like someone forgot to throw their McDonalds from two weeks ago away. I didn't find any Bears gear but I did score five resalable books for a decent price, including this little gem, for just $2.26.

I'll re-sell this for $18.95.

Are there no Bears fans in this city? Or is everyone just holding on to their gear in the hopes that the Bears go to the Superbowl again this year (now a mathematical impossibility, though no one can explain exactly why)?

After getting out of rotten McDonald's pit, I took a trip to one of my favorite thrift stores, the Uptown Unique.

The Uniques in Chicago are one of those awesome brands of thrift stores where everything is organized by style and color. So I headed over to the men's navy sweatshirt section, where sure enough:

Nothing too flattering or stand-out, though. There were some more promising items in the kids section, but alas, they were all too small.

On to the scene of my next conquest, Village Discount Outlet on Clark.

Chicago thrift stores have decidedly more orange and blue items, even though not all of them are Bears-related.

After looking for a long time at that last scarf, I decided to buy it. Not officially-licensed Bears merchandise, but not soccer-mom-ish, either.

The Village also had a fantastic selection of Bears jerseys, although I didn't think they'd be warm enough.

And once again, the best warm-weather gear was in the kid's section.

I bought the clownish scarf and decided to make one last stop at another Unique, this one in West Rogers Park.

And there, as soon as I walked in the door, is where I saw it:

Orange faux-fur, of course! Like a real bear, but orange, like The Bears! I had a mini heart attack when I found the coat didn't have a price tag on it, because Unique has a strict no-sale policy for anything without a tag, but the woman working the counter saw me come in, run to it, and obviously noticed my dismay, so she said she'd sell it to me for $18. A little steep, but I paid it, since the coat was perfect.

Then I took a trip over to the men's navy sweatshirt rack again to find this awesome hooded sweatshirt priced at just $3.50 -- and in my size!

Pair them all up (with white knit "animal ear" winter hat), and I had my outfit, and my excitement about the Bears, restored.

Just check out that faux animal and those glam-rock buttons!

Can you say Jumbo Tron?

Thrifting in Packers Country

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:38:00 +0000

My boyfriend Jem recently moved to Milwaukee to go to graduate school, so I've been commuting back and forth from Chicago once a week for several months now. I figured it was high time I explore the local thrift scene.

Unless you're fortunate enough to have a navigation system in your vehicle, when checking out thrift stores in a foreign city, I recommend buying a map. This is what I did.

Then I Googled "Milwaukee Thrift Stores" and came up with a few decent articles on the second-hand situation. I plotted each thrift store on a map...

...then did my best to verify that they still existed and what their hours were. I wrote the names and addresses down in a small corner of the map for my reference.

To begin my excursion, I chose three sure-fire stores: The Value Village on North, The Value Village on Layton, and the American Council of the Blind Thrift Store on Greenfield.

I'm going to look for books. But finding decent resalable books at thrift stores can be hit-or-miss. So whenever I explore new wonderlands of used goods I try to keep in mind one or two other things to look for, just so I don't get devastated and bored. On this particular day I decide to look for scary vintage Christmas decorations (you know, the elves that "just don't look right"), and, because Jem and I just bought tickets to see the Chicago Bears on December 30th, some warm Bears gear (sweatshirt, scarves, hats, coats).

I also recommend hitting up the ATM before you start, since most thrift stores are cash only.

My map skills are a little rusty starting out and I have to ask for directions at a local hotel, but I eventually worm my way out of the downtown area and make it to the Value Village on Layton.

This is a larger store in a strip mall with lots on offer, from Christmas decorations and furniture to clothing, books, jewelry and records, everything you'd expect to find in a decent thrift store and nicely organized.

Check out this awesome vintage skyline painting in the furniture section (price unknown):

Although it is here that I begin to realize I may have trouble finding Bears gear.

Then I see a blue and orange scarf out of the corner of my eye. Joy!

But it turns out to say, "Feathers" and not Bears. Is this some kind of joke?

The same thing happens when I spy a blue and orange sweatshirt:

With no Bears gear, only "happy" looking Christmas ornaments and not a resalable book to speak of in the entire store, I climb back into my vehicle, feeling slightly defeated, but not ready to give up.

On to the American Council of the Blind.

This is another large thrift store in strip mall with lots of things for the picking. They had an excellent selection of Christmas decorations, but once again, everything was happy and 1980's-looking.

About the "scariest" decoration I found was this:

Of course, there *was* the original Jesus nightlight:

What a find! And there *was* a scary decoration, albeit a St. Patrick's Day decoration.

This thrift store did have one thing that Chicago thrift stores are surprisingly lacking in: the greeting card rack.

This is a great place to find funny, vintage greeting cards, and yet I never see them here at home. I spent a while here searching for funny greeting cards, but none really caught my eye.

I didn't have much luck in the Bears department, either.

I'm beginning to think I'm definitely in Packers Territory. Not only was there no Bears gear, I couldn't find any gear from ANY other NFL Team, or NBA team, or baseball team, or anything. Except Badgers. Sheesh.

I did have some luck this books at this store. I found three or four titles that were worth $15-30 each and buy-one-get-one-free at 90-cents. What a steal!

And in case anyone wants some new grotesque Barbie photos, I snapped a few here:

Driving back north to the Value Village on North Ave., I became absolutely convinced I wouldn't find any Chicago Bears stuff. Even the signs here are in Packers colors.

The Value Village on North is a little smaller up-top, but it has a basement FILLED with furniture, sleds and bikes.

Everything was negotiable and cheap. Check out this awesome lampshade:

And a nice vintage dining set for $60 included six chairs and a retro Formica table.

Awesome retro wooden table lamp:

Upstairs I once again found my favorite die-hard alarm clock, the Sony Dream Machine:

Too expensive at 6 dollars!

There was another item in electronics that caught my eye, as it was nearly illuminating the entire store...

But what's this? A Bears shirt?

Guess again!

No Bears gear at this outlet for sure.

But there was some pretty cool vintage fabric.

And, although they weren't scary, I found some awesome Christmas decorations.

They were pretty quality: probably why these reindeer were priced at $30!

I did find two resalable books here, and finally, I found the one piece of NFL gear that wasn't related to the packers. A baby bib, hanging in a dingy, dimly-lit corner at the back of the store...

Better luck next time!

priceless

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:03:00 +0000

My boyfriend's grandmother prides herself on thrift. She's a bit of a hoarder, but if you ask her where she got that Cherub Novelty Candle set mint-in-box (even though she doesn't really need it), she'll happily tell you she scored it from her "favorite department store... the Salvation Army."

We all laugh, but looking around my apartment I realize that Salvation Army is my favorite department store, too. I've pretty much furnished a lifestyle with wares from various thrift stores, tag sales and, of course, the handy dumpster.

I know I haven't posted in two months, but it's slim pickin's out there, folks. Recycled garage sales (I mean, the third time I've been to the same garage this year), sparse estate sales and fierce competition at the thrift stores. We're all a bunch of dogs fighting over the same bone once the Autumnal Equinox arrives and the yard sales cease. I've taken an uninspired tour of the Milwaukee thrift scene and have left quite a few estate sales without so much as a 25-cent greeting card. And I've been spotting the same competitor of mine at the Brown Elephant every time I shop there. How does he always get the good books just before I arrive?

In short, thrifting hasn't been fun these past few months, but I hope to change that. To inspire myself and my readers to keep hunting for the bargains we just can't pass up, I'm providing a virtual tour of the priceless thrifting moments that now furnish my apartment, and my life:

----------------------------------------------------

Paris Paint-By-Number(ish) Street Painting & Two Royal Haeger Clover-Form Ceramic Vases
Grand Total: $12.00
Source: Estate Sale, Yard Sale, Estate Sale

"Carefree" by Syracuse Set of 12 Plates, 9 Bowls and 1 Serving Dish, plus 4 Scalloped-Edge "Rancho" Salad Plates by French Saxon
Grand Total: $21.00
Source: Estate Sale

Set of 6 Stemless Wine Glasses (or Rounded Rocks Glasses)
Grand Total: $1.50
Source: Junior Leage Thrift Store

Wood & Steel Chicken Wire Hanging Shelf
Grand Total: $5.00
Source: Garage Sale (by professional junk dealer)

33" Solid Wood Stacking File Shelf and Green Molded Glass Bowl
Grand Total: $6.50
Source: Yard Sale, Thrift Store

Mid-Century Solid Wood Lamp Base & Lime Green Orb-Form Hull Planter
Grand Total: $7.00
Source: Junior League Thrift Store, Estate Sale

Green Haeger 9" Ceramic Vase and Unmarked Teak Wooden Fox Figural
Grand Total: $4.50
Source: Estate Sales

Green Silk-Screened Stretched Fabric Dandelion Wall Hanging and Shell Art Mobile
Grand Total: $21.00
Source: Yard Sale, Junk Shop

Green Hexagonal California Pottery Ceramic Planter
Grand Total: $2.00
Source: Thrift Store

"A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking" Signed, Framed Photograph
Grand Total: $20.00
Source: Estate Sale

Sand-Colored Shag Floor Rug
Grand Total: $4.00
Source: Brown Elephant Thrift Store

Size 7 1/2 Pair All-Purpose Black Dress Boots
Grand Total: $4.00
Source: Yard Sale

Skirt
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Yard Sale

Really Warm Brown Button-Up Sweater with Pockets
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Yard Sale

Awesome Snakeskin Bangle Bracelet
Grand Total: $0.50
Source: Garage Sale

Vintage Wooden Bangle Bracelets
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Yard Sale

Shell-Art Clutch Zip Purse
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Yard Sale

"Breuer Chairs" (2)
Grand Total: $60.00
Source: Estate Sale

Black Plastic Molded Chairs (2)
Grand Total: $0.00
Source: Dumpster

Vintage Halloween Black Cat Decoration
Grand Total: $2.00
Source: Garage Sale (by professional junk dealer)

Collapsible Three-Tiered Book Shelf and White Ceramic Planter
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Dumpster, Garage Sale

Mother-in-Law's Tongue
Grand Total: $0.25
Source: Church Rummage Sale (Actually, it was in a Convent)

"Jumbo: The Children's Giant Pet" Hanging Wooden Circus Poster Placard
Grand Total: $2.00
Source: Estate Sale

Large Wooden Cutting Board
Grand Total: $3.00
Source: Garage Sale

Stainless Steel Dish Drying Rack
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Block Sale

8" Wooden Salt and Pepper Shakers
Grand Total: $1.00
Source: Moving Sale

Danish Testing Tables
Grand Total: $40.00
Source: Garage Sale (by professional junk dealer)

Large Faux Black Snakeskin Purse
Grand Total: $2.00
Source: Yard Sale

Cast Iron Monkey Bank / Doorstop
Grand Total: $10.00
Source: Garage Sale (by professional junk dealer)

Leather FOSSIL Black Women's Clutch Wallet
Grand Total: $1.35
Source: Unique Thrift Store

Glass Fruit Bowl
Grand Total: $1.00
Yard Sale

Philips Stereo Headphone
Grand Total: $5.00
Source: Yard Sale

Entire Inventory For Online Bookstore That Keeps Me From Needing a "Real" Job
Priceless

Hipster Garage Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:12:00 +0000

The great thing about going to garage sales in Chicago is that it's not all your typical suburban-driveway-and-folding-card-table, ruffled-bedskirts-and-Tom-Clancy-novel tag sale crap. And sure, that's partly because, with 3+ million people crammed into a 25-mile radius you're bound to find something more than a table lamp that reeks of cat urine and a Precious Moments figurine. Most of the vintage stuff I posted on Saturday still belonged to the original owner, and had not yet been purchased for decorative or, dare I say, ironic purposes.

But there are a certain breed of garage sale proprietors that, God bless them, get their tight-jeaned asses out of bed before 11 a.m. to schlep their hulking mass of possessions out on the sidewalk, offering up their unique mix of vintage, cheeky, and visually stunning artifacts for the picking, and those folks, ladies and gentlemen, are the hipsters.

Shopping at a hipster garage sale is like shopping at a consignment shop for clothing versus a thrift store: someone has already done the best picking for you. I make a point of circling hipster garage sale ads each week and getting to them at the crack of noon (seriously, they open at noon) so I have first dibs over all the stuff they don't want to move to Portland, or take with them to Spain for a year. As much as they create a nuisance to the general population with their dark aviator glasses and tall bikes, they do provide a service by liquidating their possessions with such alarming frequency to pay rent, bail someone out of jail, or just plain get beer money.

And what possessions they have! Awesome vinyl and CD collections (I've purchased every last Tortoise album from various hipster yard sales), trendy clothing and furniture, awesome vintage textiles and various other oddities (a stuffed bat, perhaps?). All for a low, low price and a unique sense of irony.

In fact, check out a recent find from a hipster garage sale on Rice, just east of Western (note the Post-It note, affixed by the hipsters themselves):

Where to find these hipster garage sales? As a general rule, hipsters only advertise on craigslist. Don't expect them to pay for a garage sale ad or take the time to call the newspaper to post it. To find a hipster garage sale in Chicago, just scroll down the craigslist Garage Sale category in search of addresses, and neighborhoods, that occur in this geographical area:

View Larger Map

Then look for keywords such as: vinyl records, tiki, vintage, bike, leather, drum, moving to Portland, etc.

To get you started, I'll provide an example:

Everything must go! 2042 W McLean Ave. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kitchen appliances, household goods, tools + bicycle parts and junk, knickknacks, records, furniture and furnishings, candles, candlesticks, potpourri, rock posters, vintage women's clothing, Charvel bass guitar, rack toms, drum stand, guitar stand, drum sticks & brushes, and more.

Note that it starts at 11 a.m. - an obvious sign of a hipster sale. And it contains bike parts, records, guitars, drum sticks and rock posters. Hipster, hipster, hipster! Now, go hunt down some of your own... and I'll see you at the crack of noon next Saturday.

How to Bargain at a Garage Sale (It Helps to Be Heartless)

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:14:00 +0000

Yesterday Jessie wanted to know how we go about getting lower prices at garage sales. Do we just ask? What exact phrasing is used? How do you know when you're paying too much, or asking too little?

After doing this for so long, I forgot that people who don't spend their entire weekends on other people's lawns and parking spaces don't naturally affect a cold stare and a smirk when paying for their junk and, in fact, get intimidated at the very thought of asking for a price other than the (usually high) prices marked on most items.

I was thinking about this today as I was crouched in someone's alley underneath the El tracks at Granville over a row of DVDs priced $3 each or 2 for $5. And then I heard it. It started with a scream, the kind of scream a mother lets out when her baby ends up in the mouth of a dingo. Then a loud electrical pop, like when a lightbulb blows out, but loud, like a firecracker. Then the El brakes, metal grinding, and yelling. Lots of yelling. And more screaming.

"What the...?" The half-dozen garage sale customers and I turned our attention to the train stop above our heads.

"What the hell just happened?" I asked.

"Somebody jumped," the woman selling the DVDs said. I guess she knew; she lives right by the El.

Slowly everyone got to their feet, dropped what they were doing and stared up at the train. We couldn't see anything. But we could hear that something was very, very wrong. More screaming, more yelling, and then sirens in the distance.

"Good, they called somebody already," the girl's boyfriend said as he headed to closer to the scene to get a better look.

"Jesus," people mumbled.

Casual, neighborly discussion of recent suicides-by-train, overdoses and traffic accidents ensued, until the boyfriend returned and did the universal sign for "decapitation" for his the rapt spectators. He then informed us that, according to the standers-by he'd just questioned, it was a male (now headless), certainly a suicide.

More shrugs from the garage sale audience. Several people put down the clothes and bulb vases they were looking at and sauntered out into the street where the firetrucks now were. And then one guy goes:

"Hey, will you take a dollar for this?"

Ruthless bargaining knows no limits.

Katherine's Rules for Ruthless Garage Sale Bargaining

Know your price. The best way to get the best price for something is to know, as I once heard a Guatemalan street vendor put so eloquently, "how much less price you pay." How much less price you pay? A better way of saying this might be, "What is it worth to you?" You might pay 30 dollars for a coffee table without blinking, but to me, because I go to so many garage sales, coffee tables are a dime a dozen. I swear, if garage sales were a country, coffee tables would be the standard currency. So I have no trouble saying, "Would you take five for this?"

Lowball, lowball, lowball. I know this is what scares everyone the most, but on big ticket items, you have to start low. Take the chairs I bought yesterday for instance. There were 6 awesome dining room chairs with no price. I wanted them so bad, I was nervous. But I coolly asked, "How much do you want for these?"

The guy wouldn't give me a straight price (a pretty good tactic for the sale host, I must say), forcing me to spit out my own price first. So I lowballed. "Oh, how about ten each?" (The secret here is: I would pay twenty.) He countered with, "It's early, I really don't want to get rid of them for that price yet," and ended it there. (What a tactic, again, I must say!) I hung out for a few minutes, then told him, "Okay, I think I'm going to buy these chairs," and got out my purse, like I was going to pay him. He goes, "What price did we agree on?" and I say, "I said ten?" and he goes, "Oh, I don't think I can let them go for less than 20 yet," so I said, "I thought you said fifteen," and he goes, "Did I?" and I go, "Would you do fifteen?" and he goes, "Sure." Behold, the power of the lowball! And behold, the chairs:

Harness the power of 75 cents Look, if someone makes the mistake of putting 75 cent price tags on everything, just gather a bunch of them and make up a number. What's 17 times 75 cents? See? You don't know. Would you take five dollars? Sure? Do the math. I just beat you out of 8 bucks.

Pay garage sale value, not retail value. As I've mentioned previously on this blog, it doesn't matter what someone originally paid for it, now that it's in their front yard on a Saturday at 10:30 a.m., it's only worth what someone will pay for it at a garage sale. And maybe you don't go to sales 4/7 days a week like some of us do, so allow me to give you a few basic price points, starting with the "I'd be surprised to see it for that cheap!" to "I'd never pay more than this for it."

Clothes - $0.25---3.00
Shoes - $0.50---5.00
Coats - $2.00---10.00
Coffee Table - $3.00---25.00
CDs - $0.50--3.00
Books - $.25---3.00
Lamps - $3.00---15.00
DVDs - $1.00---5.00
Desk or Kitchen Table - $10.00--50.00
Television - $5.00---20.00
Dishes - $.50--2.00 each
Pet carrying kennel - $1.00--3.00
Area rug - $3.00---25.00
Box fan - $1.00---3.00
Window unit A/C - $10.00---50.00

Well, you get the idea.

Ask yourself, "Will I see it again?" Everyone has Ikea furniture, David Sedaris books and Counting Crows CDs. But not everyone has a Dansk teak salad bowl with matching utensils or a real human skeleton. The more garage sales you go to, the better idea you'll have of what you're bound to see again, and therefore, can walk away from if the price isn't right.

Buy in bulk. The more you buy, the more likely you are to get a deal. So combine items with your friends or fill a whole box if you can.

Keep your highest price in the back of your mind. Don't get intimidated when someone won't accept your lowball. Keep the highest price you're willing to pay in mind and walk away if their prices exceeds it, even after bargaining.

Round down, way down. I do this a lot when I buy books, CDs, jewelry or silverware... anything you can buy in bulk. If the prices are marked by piece, round up $7.50 worth of stuff and then offer five. Give yourself lots of wiggle room.

Drop the "old world" crap and just ask. Lots of these old matryoshkas want to ask the price, then just shake their head and go, "No.... no," confusing the fuck out of these yuppies who are scared they priced everything wrong anyway. The best way to bargain is just to ask, outright, how much you want to pay for the item (lowball, that is). Chances are, the person will just go, "Sure!" So, repeat after me: "Will you take a dollar for this?"

Oh, and if you don't believe me about the train accident thing:

Click here.

Super-Cute Vintage in Dogville

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 03:59:00 +0000

Everyone had a dog at the yard sales this Saturday. And for the first time, one of my hard-partying friends actually went to bed early enough on Friday night to join Ed and I on a Saturday morning. Here's Jessie:

Ed, not to be outdone, stopped to pet the dogs too.

Jessie is furnishing a new apartment, which got me looking at all kinds of cute decorations, household items and furniture. Jessie found this awesome owl, and bought it!

Check out this awesome decanter:

This $10 set of glasses would have been awesome if it was a.) complete and b.) cost 2 dollars.

Oh, and remember these two blasts from the past? I was just having a conversation with my friend Rich about "tuning in" the channel you had to tape on a VCR in 1985. Well, sure enough, here's a VCR with dials!

And Jessie totally freaked out over this Black Cauldron game.

Super-cute cheese serving tray:

And who couldn't use a nice wall-mounted plant holder? I could.... but I didn't buy it.

I didn't buy this purse, either, but I thought someone sure would like it:

Yet another thing I thought was super-cute and didn't buy:

(Not really sure what it's for, but I'd make a nice center serving piece out of it.)

This lovely vinyl snap case contained a thread/sewing kit, but it might make a nice tampon holder, too:

And how about this awesome Schlitz flashlight that Ed found:

Hot fashions:

Jessie ended up buying this mirror, so cute! I think it was a dollar.

And after much deliberation (and a phone call do Rhonda, who has the Danny's Dogwalkers minivan), I decided to purchase all six of these lovely modern bent wood and chrome dining room chairs at a negotiated price of $15 each (that's $90 for all of them, if you did the math). A lot of money to drop at a garage sale, but I'd never see chairs like this again for that price, and they go great in my dining room. I'll never have to buy dining room chairs again.

Thanks for the ride, Rhonda!

Now for two awesome desks, which we did not buy.

The mirror:

And the map:

I really liked this almost paint-by-number piece, but it didn't really have a frame, so I left it in the front yard.

And last, another item for the "what the...?" list:

Need a ___________ keychain?

Greetings!

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:25:00 +0000

There wasn't much in the way of amazing items last week, so I thought I'd share you with you a few of my favorite greeting cards I've picked up recently. I once thought I'd amass a large fortune selling these cultural gems, but there just isn't a good platform for selling unused, vintage greeting cards. Eventually I had to realize that my obsession with them wasn't so I could sell them... but instead to collect them. Eventually I send most of them out, as greeting cards are intended to be used. So, forgive me if you ever get one of these in the mail and the punchline is ruined.

We now live in an era of the Garfield greeting card, the Shoebox Greeting. But there was a time when those little cardboard containers of goodwill were slightly more raunchy, more booze-infused... and generally, more bizarre. Or just too damn cute. Like these:

Shhh... Basement Horrors

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:15:00 +0000

Sometimes when I'm entering an indoor sale, I feel like I just might be walking into a Silence of the Lambs type situation. Who's to say someone won't club me in the head and starve me in a well the minute I walk into their "basement sale"?

So I didn't find a skin-suit-making serial killer at this particular sale, but there was a lovely basket of doll parts and Barbie orgy to add to my blog photo collection:

At an estate sale on the South Side, Ed and I found some interesting books on skin and skin conditions:

But at the end of every tunnel of horrors is a lovely, cheerful wall hanging:

And check out this clock:

Do you think this wine is still any good?

Deal of the day -- this jukebox, for just $400 --

Garage Sale Dos and Don'ts

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:30:00 +0000

GARAGE SALE DOs and DON'Ts

DO select a start time and stick to it. If you're still dragging boxes onto the lawn at 9:08 a.m., I'm not hanging around to watch you unpack, even if you do swear you've got what I'm looking for in there.

DO sell bottled water. What an amazing upsell! I'll totally buy it, cuz I'm thirsty out here.

DO let your kids have a lemonade stand for the same reason.

DO list the time and date of your sale in all your advertising. No one wants to drive even a few miles out of their way for a sale that isn't happening until next week.

DO sort out what is for sale from what is not for sale, and make it clear. I can't tell you how many indoor sales I've been to where someone points to a bookshelf and says, "Some of them are mine, some are my roommate's... just let me know which ones you want and I'll tell you which ones are for sale." NO. You tell me which ones are for sale and I'LL tell YOU which ones I want. Jesus!

DO sell it to the first person who makes an offer. Remember, after 2 pm, Goodwill takes it for free.

DO price lots of stuff under a dollar. Even an Oxo brand spatula is only fifty cents. Seriously.

DO remember that yes, there are still suckers out there who, I swear to God, will pay 20 dollars for an electric tie rack. I've seen it happen. So keep an eye out for those garage sale supa shoppers.

DO price CDs, books, utensils and other multiple items in bulk, rather than individually. For instance, "CDs $2.00 or 3 for $5.00," not, "CDs -- prices as marked." At your garage sale, Rod Stewart and Death Cab for Cutie are interchangeable. Just... deal with it.

DO assume that most people are either buying stuff at your sale because they're too cheap to pay retail, or they're going to resell your stuff. We're not here to chit-chat about your collection or recoup you for what you paid for it at Sears.

DON'T pull stuff out unless you really want to sell it. I don't want to see all your treasured belongings on display, like your lawn has suddenly become a Saturday museum of your impeccable taste, with nothing priced under fifty dollars.

DON'T ever, EVER, EVER tell me that something is vintage and that's why you've priced it at 20 dollars. I swear, I'm going to start carrying around a can of oven cleaner and a lighter for the next person who justifies a ridiculous price by an item's age or, worse, "kitch" value.

DON'T confuse your garage sale with a retail store. Repeat this to yourself: it's a quarter, it's a quarter, it's a quarter.

DON'T price your computer monitor at 20 dollars. That shit is free to whomever will haul it.

DON'T price things based on what you originally paid for them. I can't stress it enough: I don't care what you paid for it, you can only sell it for as much as someone is willing to pay for it at a garage sale. This means a stainless steel trash can is 5 dollars. Baby clothes are 50 cents per garment. Your Samsung 20" television is ten dollars (five dollars after noon). And your George Foreman grill is FREE to the first taker.

DON'T expect your customers to have exact change. Have plenty of ones, fives and quarters, and have them ready. Don't disappear into the house like, "My husband has some change." Within 30 seconds, I'll just take your stuff.

DON'T price anything for 75 cents unless you are good at on-the-spot math.

Not for the Faint of Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:25:00 +0000

This Saturday's crop of garage sales featured some pretty gothic, creepy and downright disgusting finds. And all on a lovely July weekend.

Check out this pair of real antlers in an otherwise sanitary indoor condo sale. Just five dollars!

Moving on, I had to watch as these four Asian men did nothing as a dog devoured this lovely lady figurine. Those assholes! Price? Negotiable, I'm sure.

In case all that horror was overwhelming you, perhaps you need a chair?

This lovely couple remained unfased.

The perfect remedy.

This little guy has seen better days...

An awesome find at just 20 dollars, The Strange Christmas of Mr. Jack.

And if that weren't gothic enough, check out what we spotted in the gangway on our way out (NOT for the faint of heart):

That left me wondering for quite some time just exactly how that bird died...

Well! Onward and upward. At a hipster garage sale in Logan Square, I found these one-of-a-kind decorative collages going for just a dollar a piece.

What a horrorshow!

Stuff For Your Walls, Pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:03:00 +0000

I only went to a few sales on Saturday, but I did manage to attend the yard sale of the world's biggest Nell fan (aside from my own mother). In addition to the Nell soundtrack and VHS tape, the yard sale woman also had this poster for sale:

My mom is a big fan of Nell, but I figured she could do without this particular wall hanging, especially since it might prompt her to chatter away in Nellspeak every time she glanced up at it.

Nell Poster in Frame at Rogers Park Yard Sale = $25

Not Having to Hear Your Mom Say, "A t'ee inna win, chickadee!" ever again: PRICELESS.

Stuff For Your Walls, Pt. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:57:00 +0000

I went to an estate sale on Friday in a two-flat building in Uptown. The upstairs was fairly cluttered, but I managed to pull a $45 VHS tape and a $175 book from this pile.

That tiger picture was pretty cool, but I liked this one better:

But nothing compared to the awesome wallpaper in the bathroom. I wish they still made patterns like these!

How to Sell a First Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:27:00 +0000

I was in a thrift store about a year and a half ago scouring the back shelves for saleable books when this hipster girl started looking over my shoulder at the hardcovers. She wasn't a dealer so I let her in over my head to snag what I thought was a Joyce Carol Oats novel. Only when I was at the counter making my final purchase did I realize what book she'd filched: a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel, by Nick Cave, which retails online for a cool $50, if not more. Snaked by an amateur! I was horrified.

So imagine my surprise at this yard sale in Pilsen today when I find a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel. I am redeemed! What a score -- for just two dollars.

Then I get home and look it up on Amazon, only to see copies of it are now selling for less than 10 dollars. In my angst, I quickly put the book up for eBay auction starting at $9.99 with no reserve. That's how to sell a first edition: put it on eBay. Since the eBay audience in a little different from the discerning rare book customer base, you can still get slightly more than what the book is worth. I predict a bidding frenzy! Until I go back and double check those prices on Amazon, only to realize those 10-dollar copies aren't first editions, and most first editions start at 35 dollars. Ah! So now I've got this expensive book up for bids starting at ten dollars. Let's hope some Nick Cave fans sniff it out and start a bidding war over it.

You can watch that bidding war here.

It was a scorcher today, too. A friendly gay couple with lots of trance CDs for sale put this sign up in front to entice would-be shoppers:

We ran into Adrienne at a Wicker Park sale around the corner from her apartment. She put her granny cart in my trunk and got a ride home after buying a large CD rack for 5 dollars. Score!

The sales were full of odd dolls today for some reason. Let me just say, I've seen some pretty graphic Barbie orgies at garage sales. Why is it that when people want to sell the Mattel princess, they have to pile her naked, altogether, in the most compromising positions? I will take more of these photos to illustrate my point, but here is the first of what I predict to be many:

Then there was this little guy, who seemed to be having a breathing problem, but was making the best of it:

Anyone need a Country Crock Dinner display freezer? I mean, this is one I've definitely never seen:

After Ed went through this entire stack of records in 95-degree heat, only to find they were in horrible condition, he pretty much wanted to crawl in the Country Crock freezer. Better luck next week!

Click here to see my biggest score of the day, purchased for just 50 cents!

They Called It a Dirty Dig.

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:12:00 +0000

Anyone can have a garage sale. Just nail a few neon posterboard signs to some telephone polls and haul your unwanted and gently used belongings onto the sidewalk. This was evidenced by the bumper crop of used air conditioners, J. Crew sweaters, Rubbermaid containers and Foreman Grills up for sale this morning. Useful to some they may be, but they don't exactly make for riveting copy. These are the wares of your average household, with the occasional bobble-head Jesus, AC/DC poster or boyequin thrown in for good measure. (That's right, boyequin. Son of mannequin. I saw one today at a garage sale for $10 but the woman selling it seemed very protective of it, so I was scared to take a picture. Hopefully this stock boyequin photo will suffice for illustration.)

These items are here to show us that every typical American family has some skeletons in the closet, from Aunt Agnes's hideous shell art sculpture to the actual $100 anatomical human skeleton I saw in a basement in Lincoln Square. But I mean one per household, and it's sitting next to a nearly-new HP printer and a dresser from Ikea.

It takes a special kind of household to "host" an estate sale. I put "host" in quotes because many times, as people seem to fear, an estate sale only happens once the occupants have died. Some people dislike attending estate sales for this reason; they feel they're picking over the bones of someone's former life. But I consider it a rare and fascinating look into the way a certain breed of people live. Because if an estate liquidator bothers planning an executing a conducted house sale after you die (or downsize, or suffer an illness, or mysteriously disappear so your landlord suddenly owns all your property), you either have to have some really nice, expensive items... or just a lot, and I mean a LOT, of old junk.

If you go to a few estate sales in the suburbs, you'll find they're mostly clients of the former category: elderly with children who live out of town, moving into a nursing home and looking to get rid of an elegant dining set, some Lalique crystal stemware and a Samsung flat screen television. In houses like these, it should take you just a few minutes to browse the sparse, but "shabby chic" upstairs bedrooms, picking out book on Monet or a nice table lamp here and there.

But then there are those sales, most of them in deteriorating two-and-three flats within the city limits, that force gasps from even the most seasoned dealer. "Oh my God," and "How do people live like this," people whisper to their tag sale companions as they wander through labyrinthian hordes of ephemera from past decades, while whoever's running the sale drags from a Pall Mall on the side porch. So these sales aren't pretty, but anyone who's ever unearthed a 545-dollar Bakelite bracelet from the basement of one of these babies can tell you, it may be worth your time to hang out for a while.

So between all the yoga DVDs, cat carriers and and Pier 1 picture frames, Ed and I found ourselvs at one such sale this weekend, and I for one, found it worth my time to stick around a while.

They called it a Dirty Dig in the ad, and on your first step through the cramped door frame you realized they weren't lying. The walls were decorated in that vintage reflective gold wallpaper with the faux velvet accents, which darkened all the rooms considerably. And each room of this two-flat-plus-basement was packed to the gills with collectible plates, framed photos of drag queens, dirty cartoon figurines and ashtrays from the 1970's, old greeting cards, a complete set of Pabst Blue Ribbon pilsner glasses, old wallpaper, ceiling lamps, musical instruments, 45's and movie memorabilia.

It wasn't so unusual. I mean, I've seen packed houses before. But then I stumbled into this front bedroom, which was wallpapered with VHS tapes. Each wall had a bookshelf which spanned its entire width, floor to ceiling, stacked with VHS tapes two deep. This is the kind of room that makes doing this worthwhile.

Here Ed is browsing for VHS movies, his preferred medium.

A true House of VHS.

Believe it or not, there are still many people who use a VCR exclusively to view films. And many of them, like whoever owned this large collection, are real movie buffs who'll pay top dollar to watch a film on VHS, especially when it hasn't yet been released on DVD. These tapes can fetch a pretty penny on Amazon and eBay, so I took out my phone and stared plugging in UPC numbers. The walls were packed so thickly with dense plastic and magnetic tape, however, my scouting tool was rendered useless, so I was forced to type in 10 UPC numbers at a time, then step out onto the porch for a wireless signal to look them up. Even at that slow pace, I found several tapes right away that I could turn around an sell for over $20. In all, I purchased 31 VHS tapes for two bucks each. They have a resale of more than 500 dollars.

But more than just walking away with a fistful of cash, we often leave such sales with a sense of bewilderment, not just at our own luck, but at just who could have lived there, and just what their life could have been like.

Curious?

Thrift Store Wonderland on a Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:07:00 +0000

I've been a little lazy lately, relying too much on garage sales and house calls for the bulk of my inventory. You get quality stuff from yard sales, but they only occur once a week, and since I'll be out of town this Saturday, I had to fill out the corners by visiting some thrift stores this afternoon.

Oh, I know what some of you are thinking: thrift stores! How fun! And it was, once. When I first started scouting I got the bulk of my "merchandise" from thrift stores, paying 25-40 cents per paperback and then unloading them directly to area bookstores for 1-2 dollars each. But in order to make a living or at least supplement one doing this, I had to spend four or five hours a week in the same corners of the same stores with the same staff in white lab coats filling the shelves and the same familiar pickers looking over my shoulder, taking books from under me or hoarding cartloads of mass market paperbacks while I scanned for more unique titles, often leaving empty-handed.

When you're scouting at garage sales, one or two good hits and you could be in it for hundreds, even thousands of dollars of merchandise for pennies on the dollar. At thrift stores, you'll be lucky to find ten books or CDs worth more than five bucks on Amazon. But then again, you could always walk away with some odd-looking book or CD with no barcode that every other picker has passed up and end up selling it the same night online for 80 bucks.

Which is why, no matter how highfalutin, no matter the quality of my other sources... I'll always return to that old standby: the thrift store.

Once you've been doing this for a while you get into a routine. Whether you're on foot, go by bike or by car, you make certain rounds with your favorite thrift stores. Most pickers are notoriously unforthcoming about their sources, meaning they'll never actually reveal their route, but they'll definitely admit to having one, and having favorite stores within it. There are stores we all frequent, big chain thrift stores like Unique Thrift or the Village Discount Outlet, but then there are those that are hidden in church basements, back corners of libraries and in odd six-corner storefronts with no signs and bars on the windows. I've found fifty dollar books in those quite regularly, and you'll have to ship me to a U.S. protectorate and poke me with electric prods to get me to name their hours and locations.

But today I started with the Salvation Army on Clark and Bryn Mawr. I don't feel bad giving away this source as it will be closing in three days, I learned. That's bad news. While I've never exactly walked out of the Clark/Mawr 'Army with a handful of saleable merchandise, I find at least something interesting each time I go in, like this flashback of a CD single:

And only 75 cents! You can now visit the item here.

See? I told you. I'm going to miss that little store.

Next I took a short walk down Clark Street to another favorite thrift haunt of mine, the Andersonville Brown Elephant. Some people complain that the B.E. is overpriced, but their selection is enormous and I never walk out of there with fewer than five books, unless I spot a competing book scout scanning the shelves, which I did today.

But Darryl isn't exactly competition. He used to sell books weekly to the used bookstore where I worked, so whenever I see him I'll say hello. The great thing about Darryl is that if he arrives and you're already busy scanning the shelves, he'll say hello, then scamper off to wherever his next destination is (I told you, everyone's secretive). But if I get there after he's gone though a few shelves, I'll leave him to his thing and won't jump in. He's the only other scout I mutually respect, I think.

Luckily this afternoon I didn't run into any more scouts, at least none that looked like scouts, but there was a guy at this particular thrift store which shall go unnamed:

who was taking a particular interest in my scouting tool. Oh well, let him look.

I know there are some pickers and book scouts out there who loathe those of us who use scouting devices in full view of thrift store employees and other patrons. But I don't care. I know a lot of the young folks who work at the not-for-profit thrift stores I frequent, and they don't give a rat's ass that someone is coming in looking up book prices on Amazon. Neither they nor anyone else at the store is going to raise prices because people are selling them elsewhere, because any smart thrift store knows resellers are a good percentage of their customers. So scout public and scout proud, I say. We all have to make a living. Or supplement one.

On to another standby, where I run into my first annoying customer of the day. A woman at the counter is arguing about the price of dishware to the poor employee who has no control over it. After going through each individual dish in a cart full of kitchen appliances and Tupperware, asking the cashier why the price is so high and then dramatically announcing that she will not purchase the dish and instead find a similar one at the dollar store, this woman purchases a 90 cent lapel pin in the shape of a tiger, then leaves, allowing me to finally make my own 90 cent purchase, a CD which I will now hawk on Amazon for a slightly higher price.

Then on to the most comprehensive, organized and reasonably priced thrift store of them all: Unique. Unfortunately this particular Unique (there are about 10 in the Chicago area) doesn't have the best book selection, but they have a great selection of clothes. I try not to get distracted looking at skirts, but as I make my way up to the counter with Doug Hannon's Big Bass Magic, two young girls pass me in the skirt aisle, snake my position in line, and then proceed to annoy me with their unseasoned thrifting skills. To begin with, the first girl wanted to pay with a credit card, when Unique was, is, and forever will be cash only. The second girl continued to offend by not removing the hangers from the t-shirts she was purchasing before approaching the counter.

Needless to say I wasn't having the best day, what with my bass fishing book and exploitive 4-year-old early-90's French popstar CD, so I decided to make one last stop.

I started with CDs since, now with my special scouting software aiding my keen eye and curiosity I can check going values for music as well as books. However, the only CD at the counter that really caught my eye was one that didn't have a barcode and was therefore un-look-upable. So I relied on my old fall back software: mommy.

So I had mom look the CD up on Amazon while I had her on the phone, and come to find out it was unlisted. But there were several others by the same artist, so I decided I would buy it and sell it on eBay. Thanks, mom!

After scouring the bookshelves in back for a few minutes I found two best sellers with Amazon sales ranks under 10,000 (which means they'll sell in a few days if priced to move -- if a sales rank is under 5,000 the book will usually sell in a matter of hours), and then as I was about to leave I spotted these totally old school New Kids on the Block poster books with this Tiffany concert ticket stub inside -- the opening act? NKOTB!!!

So I know they're not really worth that much, since anyone who's buying them is going to be buying them for ironic nostalgic reasons, but for some reason I get really excited when I find intact, near mind NKOTB memorabilia in thrift stores. One time I found two handmade NKOTB knit sweaters in a St. Vincent DePaul thrift shop in Ironwood Michigan. I finally sold them on eBay for about 5 bucks each, but personally, I thought they were worth more, even ironically.

Ah, but that's the way it goes in thrift land, I guess.

Books are Only Half the Fun: Amazing Garage Sale Finds

noreply@blogger.com (Back Garage) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:59:00 +0000

The first yard sale of the day didn't start off well, as this family was still stacking boxes on the front porch, so Ed and I started heading back in the direction of more sales when we saw a bright neon YARD SALE sign advertising an otherwise unlisted sale. As we pulled up to the yard in front of the brick three-flat, the goods looked promising: wooden furniture, vintage lamps, boxes of books and cookware... and this.

I see these huge acrylic on canvas wall hangings in the window of nearly every modern antique mall, hanging above minimalist couches and shag area rugs. I've spent many a jaunt down Broadway in Edgewater drooling over the large boldness of these modern marvels, wanting one of my own but unwilling to pay the 300 dollar price tag. Who knew what this lady, who was still unearthing things from her foyer, was going to ask for it?

Five dollars. Just five dollars! It was such a great price that, contrary to the purpose of this blog, I had to buy it. So now it's hanging above my couch and my shag area rug. I just couldn't help it.

Buying things isn't really the point of this blog, even though it is a side effect and part of the fun. So I'm sorry things started out that way. The reason I wanted to start Garage Sale Reporter is, well, one, I was supposed to be a reporter (my degree is in print journalism), and two, I find so much inspiring, laughable, tacky, horrid, useful and / or weird stuff at the garage sales I go to every Saturday that sometimes I felt compelled to buy them even though I have no purpose or space for them. Sometimes I find stuff I can sell on eBay, but who wants to cram a 2-foot-tall bust of Elvis in their one-bedroom apartment for three weeks until said item is auctioned off? (And you better believe I saw a 24" Elvis bust at a yard sale two weeks ago -- damn that I didn't have my camera!).

My boyfriend Jem's grandma, another garage sale enthusiast who refers to the Salvation Army as her "favorite department store," has entire rooms in her house filled with the good bargains she got on unopened boxes of stuff she doesn't even need. So, to keep myself from dragging home every ironic painting, every odd kitchen utensil or awesome deal on a mid-century dining set, I'm just going to document it and share it here. And who knows, if I can get these postings up by Saturday night, you may still be able to run over there Sunday morning to get it for half price.

And during the off-season, you can be sure this site will be filled with thrift store wonder.

But back to the bargain hunting. I found this lovely Jesus mirror at a sale in Lincoln Square for a dollar, but didn't buy it. But I thought some of you might like a little Godly reflection, so I snapped this:

A dollar! I just searched for "Jesus Mirror" on eBay and couldn't come up with anything quite like it. Maybe I could have turned a profit?

Next was a sale any bowler would have appreciated. Aside from this awesome retro lamp and lampshade and the adjacent bowling pin lamp (also pictured), this woman had lots of retro bowling towels, plates, ashtrays, and, of course, trophies.

I didn't ask her for a price on the lamp, since she wanted eight dollars for a fairly common Bjork book, so who knows what she'd want for that awesome retro lamp shade.

I'd never seen these stickers before until today. Unfortunately, I think they'll get used more often by people who think your "offer" should be six dollars for a Foreman Grill.

This one just happened to be on a poster of New York City with the Trade Towers still intact. Quite a collector's item! (See what I mean?)

And speaking of that great unfortunateness, check out these awesome action figures:

And another action figure from a series that, I'm guessing, just didn't quite take off.

I just checked and this particular guy is currently available on eBay for 4.99 GPB.

Perhaps my favorite find from the whole day was this antique folding bench which came from an Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge. You can see it says IOOF right there on the side. The guy selling it was also selling old glass medicine bottles for a quarter each, one of which I purchased (can't beat the price), and for this lovely folding bench he wanted just fifty dollars.

What a steal! I was almost going to give him the Item of the Week Award, but then I came across THIS:

In case it's hard to tell by the super-saturated photograph (and the well-manicured lawn), this is a picture of a small (2' x 4') tiger-themed area rug on a sunny patch of grass. This unique item would fit perfectly in a bathroom, kitchen or bedroom -- the perfect accessory for any level of irony, from "Child's Room" to "Hipster Rec Room." And the price for this fantastic weaving? Just ten dollars. Hey, if you're willing to get up at seven in the morning on a Saturday, it could have been yours.

But not just the rug. I probably should have purchased this awesome 1970's framed psychedelic poster for $15, but I didn't have the room in my car after purchasing the other retro painting, although I probably could have turned this around on eBay for a solid profit:

Did you know cat urine glows under black light?

This guy's front yard made me wish I had a warehouse in Wisconsin to house odd treasures. I've never seen bottles like these before, and perhaps I never will again:

And in case we hadn't already seen enough awesome retro lamps, Tiger Rug Man had this one for sale for five dollars:

But the most interesting thing at his sale was tucked behind the black light poster on the stairs to the front porch. Can anyone tell me exactly what this is? A gypsy head? Believe me, if anyone I knew was starting a fortune tellin business, I would have bought this for them in a heartbeat. Tiger Rug Man's price? Fifteen dollars.

This guy had such a fountain of amazing and assorted fancies that I actually found the same clock radio I've had since 1987 that still works -- The Sony Dream Machine. I've had the same alarm clock for my entire life, and I've actually feared having to ever switch to another one. So imagine my relief when I actually found the same exact 1987 Sony Dream Machine (in working order, of course) for just a dollar on his front lawn. All my fears assuaged!

Sometimes, in addition to great finds, I find great impromptu retail merchandising at yard and garage sales. This week was no exception. The first in a series of awards I'll hand out to Great Impromptu Retail Merchandising goes to the man on Damen and Greenleaf who organized this in his garage: