There's a big old house on our corner, very victorian, and was owned by this little old lady. Next door was an innocuous small building that was rented out, first to a doctor, later a dog groomer.
The old lady died and her two sons, both senior citizens as well, put up most all the contents of the house for sale. I went into the enclosed porch one summer afternoon (about 6 years ago I guess this was), and it was full of toys and sundry junk. Had the kids with me, they chose a couple of things from boxes and I wanted this child's chair. With the things we had, I offered $30, he said not with the chair-that's extra. I explained all I had was $31, he hesitated but took it. As I took the chair, I mentioned some of my dolls would be sitting on it and he asked if I collected dolls. I said yes and he said they had 'quite a few' if I was interested. I was so I said I'd be back without the kids.
When I went back a couple of days later, he led me to a room upstairs and I just about fell over. The entire room was FILLED with dolls. Bags of dolls. Dolls piled on the floor, the dresser, head-high on the bed. It was doll heaven! Or hell.....
I tried sifting through them and found a Chatty Cathy that still talked, a "Little Lost Baby" from 1968 that had plastic over it's perfect head and the coup de gras that made me start to cry.
Reaching into one of the bags, I pulled out the EXACT same doll I had gotten in 3rd grade-same pajamas, great condition. I offered him $100 for the 3-again he hesitated, thinking the Little Lost Baby was a good doll(what a dolt-the Chatty Cathy was), but he took the money after I bullshitted a bit.
I got a call a couple of months later-house was sold, do I want more dolls....
HEH!
In the livingroom was seven lawnbags and 3 boxes...I offered $50 for it all, took it home and for 3 days, sorted through them on the front lawn. For my $50, I got a Madame Alexander 1964 cloth baby doll, a Susie doll from the 1940's in her original gown(my sister now has that one), several fashion dolls from the 50's and 60's, a few Mattel baby dolls and a few Horsman baby dolls(same company that made my special baby doll). Got a lot of crap too, but the Madame Alexander doll alone would pay back what I put out. My livingroom is loaded and I still have a couple of bags filled in the basement.
Come to find out, the woman who died had run a general store and sold a few toys(I had also gotten some Coke toys for a friend)-that was the building next door. She never threw a thing out once she closed her store. There were several Cabbage Patch dolls still in their boxes when I first went, but someone scooped all those up.Lucky for me they didn't take those bags!!