Jenny bailed on sales and so did Karl, leaving me alone on Saturday morning. I was up insanely early and decided to hit a 7:30 AM sale across town and then head back to hit a sale a little closer to Ballard. The one across town was a bust and I could barely get away from the seller that wouldn’t stop talking to me about the crap in his sale, including a homemade coffin (that I didn’t feel comfortable taking a photo of) – EEEK!

The next sale had tons of great stuff, but I did see a younger guy digging into the records, I sort of peeked over his shoulder to see what he was looking at and I felt like looking at the rest of the sale was a better bet. He purchased 5 records out of 2 boxes, so I didn’t feel like I had missed out. I did pick up a ton of stuff at this sale including a really cool vintage fan, an old beer box, some books and a nice old bottle with a marble stopper.

All of a sudden Jewelry Guy is at the sale and for some reason he thinks we are friendly now and he starts talking to me. I feel like I am bordering on rude in my responses, but he doesn’t seem to even notice. To make matters worse this super record squirrel guy that we see all the time shows up and starts tossing records around like he owns the joint. I have already gone off about how much I hate how he treats records at sales, but then Jewelry Guy starts saying “Yeah, another record collector was here before you and he picked up all the good records,” rubbing it in and making up that they had some super valuable LP that I have never heard of just to mess with him. Hmm … I am sort of liking Jewelry Guy a little more now. Even if it did feel a little like a “what did one record squirrel say to the other record squirrel?” joke.

After that I was on my way to hit a sale on my list, but wound up at a crazy old lady digger sale. There were no prices and they just kept bringing out more and more boxes.

Box of fun fur? Check!

Elvis collectables? Check!

Four boxes of Avon perfume? Sure! Sadly, someone broke one of the bottles, making the entire sale reek. You know something is smelling really bad if it makes the outdoors smell bad.

This woman seemed to have everything, and I sort of had the feeling that they hadn’t even scratched the surface of what was in this house.

They had everything you could think of, but no clothing. I asked about it and a woman said she would bring me a box down. Nice! I kept looking around, but I felt like once I started to dig into a box I would sort of get a bad hoarding vibe, so I would put things back. Then the nice woman brought me a box of vintage clothing and before I could even set it on the ground a woman almost pounces on me and starts pulling clothing out. When I looked at her, she said “I have been waiting for them to bring out clothing!” Oh, OK.

I am not going to fight over clothing or anything else for that matter, but one of the gals comes over and quietly says in my ear, “I did bring those out for you, not her. I don’t like her.” It’s then I notice that she has collected about 5 boxes of stuff and whenever anyone gets near them she starts freaking out on them.

At this point I just decided to make my few purchases and get the hell out of there.

I hit a few more sales, but none of them were all that blogworthy. Sorry Jenny wasn’t here to style my trunk shot, making it look pretty boring …

After a couple of non-blogworthy sales (Meghan alone w/ no interesting sales one week, neither of us going out the next) we made the rounds again last weekend. Our first stop was a block sale that we’ve been to a few times before. Meghan immediately got wistful remembering her huge Aveda score way back in the blog’s early days. We did go to the same woman’s sale, but she didn’t have anything nearly that exciting. In fact, most of the stuff on the block was perhaps a bit odd, but not really score-worthy.

Meghan did buy a bunch of clothes at one house, including some crazy Versace jeans which may or may not be fake, but all in all it wasn’t amazing. So we headed over to our next stop. I’d gotten excited when I spotted the listing for the “Green 55 Memorial Yard Sale” — we know those people! They’re friends of our pal and occasional guest star Leslie (who contributed one of my favorite-ever posts about her demented Swiss Colony Christmas catalog purchase). Thanks to the historical record that our blog provides I can tell you that the last time we hit their sale was four years ago (almost to the day). It was wacky then! And it was wacky now.

One of the first things we spotted was this sign promising “Hellish Deals.” Awesome!

Meghan beelined over to a pile of sewing patterns, but this huge spread of books grabbed my attention first.

As expected, the mix was … interesting.

Some of them were a bit steamy!

I picked up a couple of titles and then moved on to the tables, where I admired these smiling clam plaques.

There was a lot of oddball stuff …

That creepy-looking doll in the corner looked so familiar and I had to rack my brain and dig through our photos to figure out where I’d seen it before — I thought it might be a leftover from four years ago, but turns out it just has the same face as one we saw long ago at what we now refer to as “the freak sale.”

I laughed at these coasters with the “Watergate Bug.”

And admired this amazing Faberge box (but did not dare to smell it).

I picked up a little box marked “Things of science” and a woman next to me gasped, remembering how her family had once had a subscription to it — I guess they sent you a different thing of science each month. This particular thing? Latex.

We each made a few purchases, then moved on. Our next few stops were pretty boring, except for spotting an asparagus umbrella holder, something that I can honestly say I never would have imagined existed.

One sale had an impressive selection of pug-themed decorative plates.

They also had pug ornaments. (And a lot of Barbies.)

We worked our way through my list, turning down one block before realizing that it was blocked off by a bunch of construction happening right in front of the sale.

The sellers seemed amazingly unfazed by this — I would be freaking out if that was going on in front of my sale. I didn’t buy anything here, but I did snag a cassette tape out of their free pile.

And right after I grabbed that one, I found this. Our theme song!

Well, at least our theme song when we go to a sale that seems creepily isolated. If Meghan actually had a cassette player in her car I would have cued it up and left it ready to go.

It was around this time that Meghan mentioned that the signs for a “3 GALS SALE” that we had hit three or four weeks back were still hanging up. As we have mentioned many times, it is just plain rude when people leave their signs up long after the sale is over. Especially when they are on a busy intersection that you know those people must be driving by all the time, seeing their signs, and not caring. This one had been up long enough that it was spattered with dried-out mud. What to do? Well, Meghan pulled over, I grabbed the sign, and we added a friendly reminder.

And then? The sign was repatriated.

Yes, we drove to their house and stuck it into their yard. I cannot tell you how hard we were laughing about this.

Our next stop? A church rummage sale that we’ve hit a few times with mixed results. Walking in, it didn’t seem too promising.

I picked up a couple of books and Meghan got a jacket, then went back to dig through the stuff outside. It was there that Meghan found one of the day’s best scores, an old wooden box marked with warnings about the explosives inside. A woman there said her father had been a scientist and it still had the paper mailing label from when it had been sent to him. Meghan purchased it for a whopping five dollars.

We then stumbled upon another church sale nearby — we’ve been to this one a few times and it is never very good, but we went in anyway. This time it seemed like there might be potential there, so we started looking around. A guy at a table full of scented candles started talking to us and giving us a sales pitch about why we should buy some. Just then Meghan looked up and pointed at a couch in the corner. “Is that guy sleeping?” Sure enough, a guy was lying there sleeping, and snoring — I hadn’t noticed until she pointed him out, but I’m not sure how I missed it. It was loud! “Oh yeah,” the guy at the candle table said. “He worked last night.” I was trying to figure out how that really explained anything, and whether I could possibly take a picture (or get some video!) without it seeming super weird, when he grabbed one of the candles and shoved it into Meghan’s face, urging her to smell it. At that point we decided to flee the premises.

I had a sale on the list nearby, but it had started on Friday and their sign looked kind of perma, so I wasn’t expecting much. But when we pulled up Meghan got excited, saying she’d been there before and it was an estate sale where they were slowly digging through the house, bringing out new items all the time.

While she chatted with the lady to see if they had gotten into the clothes yet, I went into the little shed, where they had housewares and other items set up.

I noticed this little sign about the same Falopy-Occupants (?!) being there since 1947 and reserving the right to refuse entries to unwanted persons — I can only imagine what kind of encounters prompted them to put that up.

I almost succumbed to the temptation of purchasing a large box of christmas wrapping and cards for $2 until realizing that I needed more of that kind of crap like a hole in the head. Meghan bought something here but I have honestly forgotten what it was.

We hit another antiquey sale where everything had ridiculous prices …

… and one where things seemed very pink.

Another sale had a really demented selection of rock t-shirts.

We also spotted this self-announcing dry erase board.

And finally we hit a sale that stretched out over a whole block — this was only half of it. It looked promising, but was not.

Our trunk actually had some cool stuff in it, but it was so bright and sunny out that the photo came out terrible! I had to tweak the contrast like crazy just so you could see anything, and you still can’t see much.

So to make up for that, let me share with you a dream that Meghan had last week. She told me that she dreamed that she and I had lived through some sort of disaster situation — everyone else seemed to be dead and we were trying to figure out what we needed to go out and gather to survive. As we were roaming around through the deserted streets, we saw another person in the distance! We approached cautiously. Any guesses who that other person turned out to be?

Yes. The two of us were alone in the world with … Annoying Jewelry Guy. Cue scream of apocalyptic horror NOW!

Meghan hit some sales last Friday. I don’t think she bought much, but she did see this amazing sign.

Sadly, their sale didn’t, um, perform as advertised, at least for Meghan and her friend. But they get high marks for hilarity!

I didn’t actually start looking at Saturday’s yard sale ads until shortly before we headed out. To be honest, I wasn’t in that much of a junking mood. Not until I saw a listing that I realized must be the same person/house as one of the most legendary sales we’ve ever hit: the woman who had over 1,000 pieces of vintage clothing priced at $3 each. We more than filled the trunk at her sale alone. Say no more, I am there!

We knew she wouldn’t have nearly as huge of a spread this time, but even so, we were all over it. We got there a bit early and she already had shoppers looking around. Meghan and I each started accumulating a pile of clothes — it was easy to go a little nuts since most items were a whopping $2.

Whereas the last one was a “getting out of the vintage reselling business” sale, this one was an actual moving sale. She had lots of books, housewares, and other fun stuff.

In addition to the clothes, Meghan got a fantastic vintage mobile and I purchased a vintage kitchen shelf — I have no idea what I’m going to do with this, but it is cool. I really have no business buying any furniture right now, but sometimes I just have a moment. I guess I’ll find a place for it, or else it will end up in our next yard sale.

The sale ja vu theme continued when we headed to our next sale. As we turned up the street I said “hey, is this that wacky multi-family sale we’ve hit here a few times?” The address seemed right, but that sale always had crazy elaborate signs (like the top one on this post), and we hadn’t seen any. But right when I had decided it must be a different sale after all, we spotted these women walking down the street.

If you can’t tell, that particular sign features Sloth from the Goonies … one of several amazing designs they busted out this year. Like this one!

“All proceeds from this yard sale go to ALF House” — hmmmm. And what’s this?

Definitely one for the yard sale sign hall of fame. That writing at the bottom? “IS the Goblin King. We just sell stuff.” Who can argue with that?

These people definitely know how to have a good time at a yard sale. And their stuff? Not bad at all.

I admired this amazing mirror with its exhortation to “Go To Church Every Sunday” — the inset revealed it had been provided by “Russell Towner, Graduate Masseur.”

At first Meghan was disappointed, since last time she’d been here she’d bought all kinds of great newer high-end clothes. We wondered if that person hadn’t joined in this time — then realized she was there and just getting her things unpacked! Meghan swooped on that (very politely), ending up with a bag full of shoes, clothes, and purses, and officially out of cash after just two sales. We hit the bank and made a snack stop, then moved on through the other sales in the neighborhood. At one of them, I noticed this older guy haggling over some items — he was wearing shorts and had tattoos on both calves which seemed to be names of antique/resale businesses. One was something like “Auction Wizards,” the other “Antiquing with Dave and Bill” (probably two completely different names, but I have already forgotten). I went and whispered for Meghan to check it out, but couldn’t get the nerve up to ask him about them. He seemed to have a bit of a competitive “I’m a pro” vibe (though I could have been projecting, based on the tats) and was also at our next stop, arriving in a truck with New York license plates. We started joking that he was on a big pickin’ trip and wondering where his film crew was. Then we decided to head into a different area. I promptly found (but did not purchase) this mysterious thing.

Next, a sale that looked good … at least from a distance. While Meghan stammered over an amazingly hideous green satin party dress, I drifted over to the troll n’ viking table. Uff da!

Our time at this sale was cut short, due to a woman carrying a wind chime all around the sale, making sure to shake it rhythmically for maximum annoyance value. She seemed not to even realize she was doing it, but it quickly became maddening and we had to flee.

Next, a sale which didn’t have much except for a $2 Judas Priest t-shirt. Meghan bought it and the guy told her, “Be careful about banging your head too much in that shirt.” She gave him a blank look, and he went on to clarify that it was a headbanging shirt. Um, thanks, man. I’m sure she’ll keep that in mind.

Sadly, after such an amazing start, things seemed to be fizzling out. After a few utterly boring stops we drove to an estate sale that sounded promising — first off, we almost didn’t even see it and then it ended up just being two small rooms, not the whole house like I’d thought. We then hit a sale in a basement that was in the process of being converted to a separate apartment. There were a bunch of cool books here — Meghan picked up a bunch, but I somehow restrained myself. Neither of us were tempted by this very large wall hanging.

There was one more sale I wanted to hit that had just opened up at 11, and whose ad had an possibly-intriguing, possibly-stoner vibe: “Hey Now – We’re selling STUFF.” All right, dudes! They had tons of CDs — all over the map, with a heavy local bent (like old fundraiser or live-at-some-long-gone-club compilations) and conveniently still in roughly-alphabetical order. At $2 each both of us had to grab a handful. After that we called it a day. And in my opinion, this is definitely the best trunk shot we’ve had in a while!

This weekend was the 6th Crown Hill Annual Garage Sale Day. This flyer sort of said it all.

Some of this is is in what Jenny and I fondly call “No Sidewalk Land” and we’ve hit it many times before. Sometimes it’s been really good, sometimes just “eh.” This year’s map seemed pretty promising.

My girlfriend Maliboozer Barbie came along as a guest star — she had to go to work at 11:00, but we said we would just drop her off at her car whenever she needed to head to work.

We hit a few sales close by. At the very first one we spotted this classy belt buckle.

We picked up a snack and then hit what was the most boring sale for Jenny and Boozer, but the most amazing sale for me. I picked up so much great stuff – 2 pairs of Vialis shoes, Acne Jeans, a large Erte vase, a Luella purse, Fiorentini+Baker shoes, tons of dresses from Anthropologie. I spent $65 and was so stoked that I sort of didn’t care if I didn’t buy anything else (or that Jenny announced she was too lazy to get out of the car and help me get all my stuff into the trunk).

Not long after that, we saw this super scary baby with multiple faces.

There was even a third one on the other side. Nightmares!

Later I found this amazing pillow for Jenny that she refused to buy –- I can’t imagine why.

At the same sale we saw this.

I guess I am not really sure how you stay a Christian in college. Maybe the best way to start would be to not read this.

They also had what might be described as “only in Seattle” — a coffee stand letting you know it’s Starbucks and they also had Chai. Yes, really …

Last year a woman yelled at me for going a racy 5 miles an hour down her street. This year on the same block I purchased this veneer tiger maple dresser with a side wardrobe for a whopping $35.

However, I didn’t buy this Lickety Split Ice Cream Maker …

… or this Space Age Crystal kit.

At the very next sale we saw this.

Yes, that really is a large pony with a sun visor. Amazing!

All in all I had a great day (even with the one sale where a woman snapped at me that her opened can of Coke wasn’t for sale — um, I wasn’t exactly trying to buy it). Jenny only picked up a couple of things. I think you can see how good my haul was.

Yeah, it seems like we haven’t been to many sales in awhile. I went out a couple of weeks ago and it was so boring I didn’t want the blog to be called “Why bother.” Then I went to a crappy Friday church sale that was a complete bust. I hit another Friday church sale before work at 8:00 and purchased a pair of vintage leather chaps. The problem is that one sale usually doesn’t make a blog post and since Jenny has been in Europe, me blogging about going out alone to sales can be a total yawn fest.

The first sale I hit last Saturday started at 8:00 AM and said designer jeans, Le Creuset, tons of books For once I wished I had a little baby or toddler. The sweetest, super high-end and cheap baby clothing for a little girl. CUTE. I did score three pairs of spendy jeans for $8 each.

The next sale was an estate sale near Greenlake and when I arrived for the 8:30 sale a ton of folks were standing around trying to work out where the sale was, finally knocking on the front door. Just as we had all decided to drive off a guy arrived from the back yard motioning us to come check stuff out.

They did have tons of stuff, but nothing that I needed to have.

I did like this old Jockey advertisement.

Next was another back yard sale. This one thought ahead about giving some indication about where to go.

The sale was a bit of a bust, but they did have good taste in movie posters.

At the next sale I picked up a copy of the Anthology of American Folk Music for $25. I have a copy already, but it’s one of those things you don’t see that often and I could hand it off to a friend.

I hit a couple more sales and it was just the pits and I was driving all over the place.

My final sale was one that I sure wish I would have hit a little earlier, since I saw folks leaving with items from their free box that I would have grabbed in a heartbeat. One woman was carting off a ton of Red Flower products.

I did end up getting a ton of new Kiehl’s and Aveda products for a dollar. She was moving and just clearing everything out. On the very top of one shelf I found a vintage ’50s Lucite and beaded purse for a whopping $10. That pretty much made my day. I headed home after that.