My parents were in town last weekend. We had non-sale-related plans on Saturday, so we thought we’d hit a few Friday morning sales. Since there usually aren’t that many sales on Fridays I figured it was a perfect time to try out iGarageSale – an iPhone app that places sale listings from Craigslist onto a handy map so you can see what’s nearby. I found a couple in our neighborhood and a few more a little further out that seemed promising, and we headed off.

One of our first stops was a church sale, which ended up being the same church we’d been at as part of the Crown Hill Garage Sale Day. It had been awful then, but a different organization was having the sale this time, and there was a lot more stuff. I still figured it might be a bust, but then I wandered down the hall to a sort of hidden area and found a cute little box purse with a ’60s looking “YES” painted on it. I opened it up and discovered that despite its complete lack of bejeweledness, it was an Enid Collins purse, and even had a mirror inside. Score!

On the way out I noticed this box of “men’s shoes.” Um, if you say so …

After one boring sale and one that wasn’t actually happening we headed off to something billed as a “three-estate sale.” There was stuff spread around all outside the house. One of the first things I noticed was this sign up on the wall.

Don’t strain your eyes on the blurriness, I’ll tell you what it says: “If your reading this it probably means Im DEAD! Tell my family I love them. Good bye … forever (we can make love in heaven)”

Creepy, no? I asked the seller what the deal was, and she got sort of a strange look on her face. For a second I wondered if perhaps there really was a death story involved and if I shouldn’t have brought it up so casually. Then her look became one of pure bored irritation and she replied, “I’m pretty sure it’s just a joke.” Still no explanation why it was on the wall of the house, but I could tell that more questions were not encouraged.

There was definitely an odd hodge-podge of stuff. My dad made a comment about how these dogs were maybe a little too excited to see Santa.

There were a couple of stuffed dogs whose price tags included their names. I think sometimes you really can give a potential buyer too much information.

This lady was so lovely. Too bad about her arm.

There was more stuff set up inside, and it kind of felt like an antique mall space — I wondered if someone used to have one and was selling off what was left? Or maybe it really was from someone’s estate who was really into collecting glassware and such. Everything in the room was priced, and laid out very nicely.

Then there was another room down the hall that had more dishes … set up in front of a painted sign for the Amazing Alfredo, big enough to cover the entire wall.

They had some nice stuff, but nothing I fell in love with, so I left empty-handed. But on the way there we’d seen signs for another estate sale, so we headed off to that one. This sign in front cracked me up, especially knowing how the hardcore estate-salers can get kind of crazed and bloodthirsty waiting for a sale to open up.

I walked into a bedroom and encountered this rather large school project on “The History of Reggae Music And Bob Marley.” All that work, and now it was on sale for fifty cents! I hope they at least got an A.

It’s always cool to come across old family portraits like these.

And I was delighted to spot this built-in file cabinet in another bedroom. We’ve seen some weird built-in stuff at estate sales before (the pull-out toaster is an all-time fave), but I think this is a first.

Since we’d ended up further afield than I’d expected, I whipped out the ol’ phone and consulted iGarageSale again … and discovered another estate sale just a few blocks away! I wouldn’t have even known it was there, so that was pretty cool. Most of their stuff was at once fancy and boring (a deadly combo in my book), but I did get a pink Russel Wright bowl for $2. Then right when we thought we were done for the day we stumbled upon an un-craigslisted block sale — but alas, all of the sales were lame.

The haul was pretty paltry compared to a typical Yard Sale Bloodbath Saturday, but we were all happy with what we got.

Me: Enid Collins box purse and pink Russel Wright bowl.
Mom: Pyrex dish.
Dad: Rainbow-colored outdoor hanging thing (that’s actually the real name. Look it up), hose splitter, Seabiscuit documentary DVD, The Spell Of The Yukon book, and three CDs.