barenakedladies

Yes, im getting crazy this week with roman numerals... CUUURRR-AAAZY.


last week was somewhat of a bust, maybe the wrong time of the year, maybe too specialized but stuck on a carnival ride, although having some GREAT stories, just didnt pan out.

So we move in a different direction this week...

Tell me about the time.... You had an AMAZING find at a garage sale/flea market/ estate sale

Now an AMAZING find could mean different things to different people, but i want ALL the stories, whether an amazing find means something valuable, something you just absolutely love, or a childhood toy you were reunited with.

Did you find a copy of the constitution behind a velvet elvis?
Was someone selling castle grayskull for 25 cents?
Did you find an amazing piece of art thats hanging in your house for 10 cents?

So.... tell me about the time.....

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redsfan11

Got a barely used set of Ping golf clubs (full set w/ bag) for 20 bucks.

Willravel

Brand new nickel Yamaha bass trombone in perfect condition...$10 at a garage sale. I had to insist on $10, as they were asking $5. I've since played it at local events, and gotten compliments on it's sound and quality. Go figure. I'm still looking for a valve trombone, preferably an Olds, of brass.

barenakedladies

i picked up a lot of old comic books for 1.00 (probably a box of 50-75)

in there was fantastic four #48 which in fact was the first appearance by the silver surfer.

Quite a find.

Not mint by far, but still it pretty good condition

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Slippery Slope

A couple of months back, my brother bought a box of bits and pieces
at a car boot sale. Just a few photo frames and trashy little ornaments
mainly. I think he paid about £3 for it. On closer inspection in the box,
he found a ring that looked quite valuable so he took it to a jewellers
and was told it should fetch about £400 at auction.

Rodney

Hard to match that last one. Here are a few of mine:

* Picked up a 60s-era Singer Featherweight sewing machine in mint condition at a rummage sale for $75. You say, what bargain? Yeah, I know, except that one in that condition goes for $300 from the dealers, and my wife had been looking for one for years. A dealer offered us $150 for it, but no way. It even had the original receipt and warranty material with it. My wife loves it.

*For a dollare once, at the flea market, I got a menu from a team dinner for the Cleveland Indians in 1935, signed by the entire team. Gave it to a sports collector friend, but it was still a cool find.

* For 25 cents, got the 1939 Time Magazine proclaiming Adolph Hitler the Man of the year. I may still have that around somewhere.

* Picked up a bunch of old horror movie/1960s Beach Party movie posters once. The horror movie posters aren't ultra valuable, but they're fun -- old Hammer films, things like that. The Beach Party posters I flogged to some retro-crazy acquaintances with too much money for a big profit.

* When I was just starting out on my own, I needed to buy _everything_ for my kitchen. I went to the flea market and there was a guy sittin behind an _enormous pile_ of name brand cooking utensils, high quality knives, etc. etc. All new in the wrapper, all for 25-50 cents each. He was a cookware salesman, and he was liquidating his samples. I think I equipped my entire kitchen (bachelor kitchen, it must be admitted) with new stuff for five or six bucks. That was many years ago, and I still use some of those knives daily. Really high quality stuf.

My funniest story is this. I used to hunt down collectible books and magazines and sell them through my own catalog. One book I got at a flea market was in decent condition, a 40-year-old scifi-hardback, except for a big signature across the first two pages, "Property of Fergus O'Breen." So in the catalog writeup for condition, I said, "VG except for autograph by the incomparable Fergus O'Breen." I was being a little silly because I thought the name was strange. So I finish the catalog and send it out to my mailing list, and a few weeks later, I get a phone call from somebody who says, "I hear you've got my book." "Who is this?" "Fergus O'Breen." It was really was him. He had originally owned and sold the book up in Oregon, 20 years before. But at this point, he was only living about five miles from me. I finally asked him why he called, and he answers, "Well, you said 'incomparable.'"

Pip

Some nice finds so far, I'm envious of the sewing machine, Rodney! I prefer the older sturdy models myself, I'd love to get my hands on one of those.

Found a beautiful pair of black leather lace-up boots for about $25 at a flea market once. I had been looking for a pair just like that for a while, and they fit perfectly. Finding shoes that fit is a rare enough experience in a regular ol' shoestore for me, so finding those boots at a flea market was like winning the lottery for me.

absorbentishe

I'm pretty unlucky when it comes to stuff like this. Except... the first set of golf clubs I bought. They were macgregor tourneys, I didn't think any thing of them until a guy I caddied with wanted to "borrow" the woods. I later found out the woods were worth a lot, and the irons were too, but I loved the irons. The guy pretty much stole the woods from me (if I ever see him again)... Oh, I paid $20.00 in 1984, and got $140.00 for the irons in 1989.

FatFreeGoodness

YEARS ago I saw a notice for a divorce sale; a lady dumping the stuff her husband left behind when he elected to not return from a trip to Europe.
In the mix was a Hasselblad camera, plus seven Hasselblad lenses. New retail at the time would have been about $10,000-15,000 (probably $50k in todays dollars.) She was asking $35 or best offer, which she thought quite reasonable for such an "old-fashioned, boxy-style camera" that required roll film from a camera store instead of the new cartridges from the pharmacy, like a modern Kodak pocket instamatic.
I got there about 45 minutes after a guy walked away with it. He "gave me $50 because he thought I had it priced too low. What a nice man!"

viejo gringo

as a tole painter, my wife once painted a very nice wooden bowl with a lid on it---when we moved from Illinois to Texas she gave it to our daughter----she eventually sold it at a garage sale---last month my wife picked it up off of a table at a Texas flea market---it still had her initials on the bottom.

Dael

Not really valuable, and didn't mean anything at the time, but when I was 6 years old my family's next door neighbour had a garage sale and I bought novelty radio that was in the form of an old Ford Model T car. I bought it for 25 cents for my Dad, and it's one of his most prized possessions today.

ngdawg

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!!

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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

snowy

I found a sterling silver Tiffany money clip worth $140...I paid $1. It was my best friend's and she just wanted to get rid of it--she had no idea how much it was worth and originally just thought it was the Tiffany box. We opened it up and saw the money clip, and I bought it off of her with the intention of finding out how much it was worth. I hung on to it for a couple months before finally deciding to ebay it...I used part of the proceeds to give her a really nice going-away party and she was just glad someone had recognized that it was an item of value

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau