Meghan was out of town last weekend and as a result, she wasn’t there for what turned out to be a very bizarre day of sales for me and Karl. Our first stop was listed as “Kind of a digger sale so not for the faint of heart…” Scary yet intriguing, right? They also mentioned “100’s of records” so naturally Karl was all over it. This sale was in a small neighborhood I never knew was there, tucked away behind near a huge park. It seemed that we were getting further and further away from civilization as we headed toward the address.

We weren’t actually sure if we were on the right road, but then we saw a tiny sign leading us to this.

Diggers were already digging, so we headed in. Oh. My. God.

Sorry that picture’s blurry, though perhaps that’s actually a good thing to ease you into how nuts this sale was? Karl started flipping through the records. I looked at a few boxes — they were reeeeeeally crusty.

I started poking around through some of the other piles, feeling thankful there was hand sanitizer waiting in the car.

Maybe there was something good somewhere, but I sure couldn’t find it. Most of the boxes I opened were filled with Playboys (even a box that had originally held Girl Scout Cookies — that just seems wrong), and the clothes spilling out didn’t look promising enough to risk sticking a hand deeper into the piles.

I found a plastic file box with an assortment of old photos, mostly from the ’80s or early ’90s — it seemed like there was potential for something amazing to be there, but after a while I just couldn’t deal. Karl bought a stack of records and we retreated back out of the woods and on to potentially better pickin’s.

While heading to our next stop we spotted an unlisted sale with this eye-catching sign display out front.

Unfortunately this was the best thing about their sale.

Next was something listed as a multi-family sale, but with lots of vintage/antiques — it seemed like they knew they had good stuff, but I didn’t get the dealer vibe. It turned out to be some “estate items” from a relative, plus some newer stuff. What was great about this sale is that it was in an enclosed garage, so they had gotten everything set up in advance and it was all laid out neatly. It was pleasant just looking around! The people were really friendly but also followed us around from room to room talking about their items, so it was hard to take pictures. I did have to take a shot of this crazy ’70s dress, which looked brighter and more sparkly in real life.

I paid fifty cents for a huge bag of old plastic swizzle sticks (mostly from defunct Seattle locations, with a smattering of Reno and Hawaii mixed in). They have now been added to my existing huge collection of vintage swizzle sticks. Let me state that there is really no reason for anyone to own this many swizzle sticks. I also bought a gold-tone necklace with chunky red, white and blue rock-like beads — very “old lady” style but for some reason I liked it, so I put it on and wore it around the sale. By the time we left I had already lost interest, but I felt like I was committed since I was wearing it. Karl bought a few things here, including some great dresses for a pal — they weren’t super cheap but the people ended up giving him a deal on all his items. As they were chatting they asked his name and he said “Karl, with a K” — the man said, “So it’s C-A-R-K?” He seemed to think that was a real knee-slapper.

That sale was definitely a little odd, but in a pleasant, non-freaky way, so we pressed ahead to the next stop. The address seemed to be almost in the middle of some railroad tracks, but it had been listed as “Huge estate sale with many rare hard-to-find treasures and beautiful antiques” — sounds normal, right? Right?

Yes, that is what we found. We were tempted to jam it in reverse and get out of there, but we figured we had to check it out. In we went …

Adding to how strange this was? NO ONE WAS THERE. We poked around and I kept thinking someone would pop out and say hi, but no. Most of the stuff was a little … distressed-looking, shall we say? But some things had their own kind of peculiar charm.

I started thinking maybe this sale wasn’t so weird … then Karl pointed out the HUGE PILE OF KNIVES.

And then? A banjo.

Are you thinking what I was thinking?

Karl still wanted to look around, but I decided to go wait in the car. After a minute or two a guy walked out from god knows where, stood in front of the car and waved at me. I waved back, then he went and talked to Karl. He ended up being super nice and charged Karl five bucks for a pretty big pile of stuff. So I guess it all worked out.

After that we drove over to another semi-estate sale — their ad said “Years of going to estate sales and garage sailing have come to this. We are letting go of some of the treasures we’ve found along the way, along with several items from grandparents’ estate.”

They had a nice spread of stuff and the prices weren’t too bad.

It seemed like they were moving out of the house — one room was empty except for these dolls.

We bought a few things, but it didn’t turn out to be any big whoop. But it was a good sale to end on — clean, bright, and no reason to fear for one’s life. And sometimes? That’s really good enough.

My parents were in town last weekend and my mom came to sales with me and Meghan as our special guest star. I’ve been to yard sales with my mom many a time, but I think this is the first time she’s tagged along for the full Yard Sale Bloodbath experience. It’s October, so I wasn’t sure what we’d find, but I put together a small list of sales with potential.

Our first sale was in a fancy neighborhood and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by their spread of books — it’s always nice to buy stuff from someone with taste. Each of us got a book or two here and I also got some dress-up costumes for my daughter and a kids guitar. They were still putting boxes out and we got to be the first to dig into a couple. I opened up one jewelry case and it was a vintage amber bracelet and earring set — Meghan muttered, “one of us has to get that!” I knew I would never wear it so I handed it to her. As she left she told me that Annoying Jewelry Guy had walked up right behind us at that moment. Ha! (My mom said, “That was Jewelry Guy? Where?” It was like a celebrity-spotting! Sadly he’d already moved on at that point so she didn’t get the face-to-face experience … maybe that’s actually a good thing.)

Everyone buying things at the first stop is always a nice way to start, and after chasing down some nonexistent sale we went to a moving sale which sounded promising, or at least interesting. The guy had mentioned art by local artists and other things that gave his ad the vibe of possibly being good. We walked in and saw a bunch of old rock buttons on a black bandana, ranging from early ’80s punk to more recent random crap. I asked how much and he rambled on about how he had bought them all at various places back in the day, then said $12 for all of them — that sounded good to me. Meghan started looking through his books and amassed a small pile, while I grabbed a pair of $3 Ray-Ban sunglasses (or so I thought, until later at home I discovered that they appear to actually be a pair of generic sunglasses in a Ray-Ban case. They’re still kinda cool though.)

Then I heard Meghan say “WOW. What IS that?” I turned around and saw this monstrosity!

I apologize in advance for the nightmares some of you are going to have. It’s creepy, right? Some woman was excitedly paying $5 for it, presumably for halloween party decor. The guy said it had been used in some kind of low-budget horror movie. As for the art, a few things were hanging on the wall and Meghan asked about the rest but he seemed like he didn’t want to show it to people unless they were really serious about buying stuff.

There were two sales on the same block not too far away — a rarity this time of year, but they both turned out to be awful. And then there was an odd-sounding estate sale. There wasn’t a ton of stuff there, but their stuff was unusual … how often do you see a saddle at an estate sale?

Upstairs they had some very fancy furniture.

This bedroom set had a sign on it saying it had come from the Washington Governor’s Mansion? Or something along those lines …

The other bedroom had this amazing wallpaper.

Meghan bought a few things including a vintage pair of Frye cowboy boots (!). I bought something truly odd, a large ceramic mug depicting the WPPSS power plant, for $1. Then we drooled over this desk on the way out. (If I had that desk, I would totally use it to display a Bob Seger LP, too.)

We went to a few bad sales — one of them had these cans that might have tempted me for no good reason, if they hadn’t been priced at $5 each.

Then we pulled up at this sale, which seemed to be all about the Halloween decorations.

Seriously, it went on and on. And on. And on. This is just a small sampling.

I did buy some glow-in-the-dark sidewalk chalk here, and as I left the seller said “Tell all your friends to come shop here!” I was at a loss how to respond. As we drove away, Meghan made a comment about this guy’s “anal bead hairdo” – it was a long ponytail with multiple rubber bands, creating a look that did bring up some unfortunate imagery. At first she’d thought it was part of a costume until she realized it was just his look. Then she laughed and said she couldn’t believe she just said “anal bead hairdo” in front of my mother. (Let me state for the record that it takes a lot more than that to offend my mom.)

I did a quick check on my phone to see if there was anything else nearby, and I found there was an estate sale listed right near where we’d started — how did I miss that? We circled back around to check it out. It was a gorgeous house right on the water, and the view was amazing.

It actually took a few minutes before I stopped gaping out the window and really started to look at their stuff. They had a good selection, but I wasn’t finding anything I really needed to own.

My mom and Meghan each grabbed a few things and then Meghan found a penguin ice bucket in nice shape for $3! It was another “one of us has to buy this” moment — I decided to go for it. My mom reminisced about the one she used to have, which I remember from growing up — we mostly used it as a biscuit-warmer.

I was pleasantly surprised at how decent the day turned out to be! We all bought stuff and had fun — can’t really beat that.

It’s starting to get a little more rainy, overall more spotty weatherwise –- in just a couple of weeks it’s started feeling like Autumn. Jenny said she wanted to take her daughter to the fair this weekend on whichever day seemed least likely to rain. When that turned out to be Saturday, she sort of bent that rule so that she could do two and a half hours of sales first, then hit the fair. I have been sort of spaced out and have had so much to do lately that two hours give or take sounded fine.

Karl came across town to join us. The first sale looked like it could be really good and he had pretty cool stuff, but wacko prices.

KCMU flyers from the mid/late ’80s – you are never going to see that. Yes, they had been free and all he did was yank them down, but not everyone is going to keep them for 25 years.

The price? $30 each. Ouch! Books? $5 each for stuff that I don’t know if I would call special. Plus, the whole time I was looking around this woman is in my ear:

“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes.”
“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes. It’s very much a guy sale.”
“Well, do you think he has any woman’s jewelry?”

I had to go sit in the car. Karl hung around and managed to talk him down a bit on a few items.

The next sale, Jenny mentions that the ad said they are selling vintage stuff from her former resale business -– what vintage? It’s kids toys and other odds and ends.

If this is what we are dealing with, I need a baked good.

The next sale had listed records -– they did have those, but mostly picked over and squirreled out. One guy was tossing 45s and inside jacket sleeves all over the place. Just being an ass. I really hate this behavior at sales.

They also had this — for $7. What?

We hit a church rummage sale and once again something was just “off” about it.

After paying for my one item I was told I would have to leave from a different exit. I get why they do this, but it was busy and I couldn’t find Jenny. I yelled to Karl about how I would meet them. Then I was like fuck it — I don’t want to deal. I told the woman that my friends had already gone out the other door and I would be following them. I pretty much told her to go ahead and stop me. Maybe I was just easily agitated that day. This stuff doesn’t usually bother me or I just make fun about it.

As we drove around we kept seeing signs for the Hugh sale.

OK, do you mean HUGE sale? Or what? I get if you misspelled it once, but over and over … Jenny remembered we had seen a similar sign about six months back, not far from here (but not the same house). Anyway, we didn’t go to this one. Friday sales on a Saturday that are Hugh are not for me.

We hit a little sidewalk sale where I guess the woman’s best friend was a rep for gourmet spices, sugars, and other items — she was selling sealed packages for $1 or less and we all scored some good stuff.

At this point it was pretty much time for Jenny to head off to the fair. We all ended up with a few things, and I guess it wasn’t bad for such a short run, but definitely not one for the record books.

Meghan and I attempted to make an early start on Saturday, but there wasn’t much to hit early. Perhaps that was because it looked like it could rain at any time. We made a couple of stops and hit the bank, then drove up to this sale, where the sellers had just finished hanging this enormous banner.

Meghan remembered shopping here years ago and told the sellers that they had helped her get a record cabinet home — which she loved for years until her basement flooded and it got ruined. I think she actually got a little re-traumatized while telling the story. They offered to help again if we made any large purchases. We each bought a small item or two — nothing we needed assistance with. We also laughed at these intriguingly wacky nail clippers.

There was a church rummage sale around the corner but it wasn’t supposed to open until 10. “Too bad, or we could just walk,” Meghan said. Then when we drove past it, it seemed to be open already!

We parked the car again and went to check it out. It was nice getting in there a half-hour before it was advertised to start, with only a few other shoppers.

There was a lot of stuff. Some of it required closer inspection — I’m not sure you can tell how large these are, but they were kind of amazing.

Meghan carried around two vintage men’s shirts in fantastic patterns — like stripes made out of a belt motif, each in different color schemes — but ultimately deemed them too musty and stinky to deal with.

I was eager to check out the book section, as I remembered it being really strange and interesting at past sales here. This time around it was similarly entertaining.

Outside there was a free pile sort of spread around the trunk of a tree — an interesting choice, but I guess practical, since it was about to start drizzling at any moment.

Meghan grabbed some magazines and an envelope of promotional photos from some Arnold Schwarzenegger movie … ? The details are vague in my memory. We passed on this item.

One of our next stops had this fantastic sign out front.

The sale was actually pretty good, but very strange — lots of original screenprinted art, a megaphone (new and sadly too expensive to buy just for kicks), a few books and CDs, and a bag of old photos — I looked through and almost all of them were boring. Meghan did purchase a few that had groups of ’40s girls in bathing suits.

Next was an estate sale that Meghan had spotted a sign for earlier. It hadn’t been advertised and hardly anyone was there. We walked in through the garage, equally intrigued and repelled by this amazing painting that we could see through the doorway to the basement.

That was not the only portrait they had.

As we walked in, Meghan muttered, “smells like tinkle!” It was a bit much, but it didn’t stop us from checking out their stuff.

Meghan considered buying a set of vintage suitcases — there were something like five of them and they were in good shape but felt a bit … sticky. We did each grab some jewelry and I got a great vintage kid’s dress. Meghan found a cool lampshade and few other items, then spotted an old Singer sewing machine. She asked the seller how much it was and got the whole story of how it had belonged to her mother … “Do you want to keep it?” Meghan asked, but the seller said no, and charged Meghan $30 for all of her items, sewing machine included. Meanwhile, I was browsing through the records — mostly unremarkable schlock, but I had to go ahead and purchase this gem.

Next was another estate sale. We walked in and I started to browse, then I heard Meghan ask the seller, “”What in god’s green earth is that?” There was a pause, and then she added, “Is it a rat?” The seller said, “No, I think it’s a mummified mouse.” I was aghast — how is that ever going to be something you want to hear? Not only that, it was a mummmified mouse painted gold and stuck onto a piece of glass.

This should have been our cue to run away screaming, but apparently neither urine odor nor petrified rodents are enough to keep us from digging through an estate sale. Although our determination wasn’t exactly looking like it would pay off.

We saw people coming up from the basement and went to check it out. Someone was really into glass art. This was one of their sculptures. I think it is a jellyfish.

There were boxes of all kinds of stuff down there — none of which I needed anything to do with.

The next sale was outside. Annoying Jewelry guy was there. After muttering about what a turd he was and taking a quick look around, we got back into the car. Meghan started to pull out and realized he was standing in the street. “I could take him out right now,” she said. “Should I?” We ultimately decided against vehicular manslaughter, but it was nice to dream for a moment.

One thing I have realized after over four years of doing this blog is that for as many sales as we have been to, there is still always something new to encounter. Like at this next sale, where they had a pair of “greeters” perched on a chair, waving politely at every car that passed by.

We had actually been to a sale here before, but I think it was before last Christmas. Or maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to attempting to sell their holiday gingerbread display that time.

We were winding down at this point, but made a few more stops. One sale had gone for the “imperative command” style label on their free box. Not sure it was working.

And another had this box of fascinating faces.

They were newspaper printing blocks (I’m sure there’s a technical name for them that I don’t know), all pictures of Masonic dudes! Pretty cool — I’m actually still surprised that neither one of us ended up buying them. I hope they found a good home.

All in all, not too bad for a wet September day.

Those that have followed the blog for a while know that we have a “season closer” each year. This is sort of silly, since we still hit sales weeks afterwards, but they are less frequent. Since we have covered Olympic Manor (aka “Oly Manor”) at least four times now, here is a little information about the area.

Oly Manor consists of 350 homes all built in the 1950s and is one of the better architectural midcentury modern time-capsules you are bound to find in the Pacific Northwest. Many have wonderful views of the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. It’s considered to be one of the safer places to live in Seattle. Before it was parceled into lots in the early ’50s, it had been a large golf course.

Slowly most of the original residents have moved, sold, been put into nursing homes, etc. This means that quality of the items being sold at the annual sale can be spotty, if you are looking for older collectables. We have been to a few good estate sales and some bad yard sales in this neighborhood.

Most of the items are either stuff the seller carts out each year, or newer junk that the person puts a higher value on than they should. If it’s $9 at IKEA, it probably shouldn’t be $7 at your yard sale. Or if you treated a nice purse like total crap, maybe don’t ask $85. Then again, maybe you can ask it and “go down” later … or more likely, just take it back into your house.

I started out at 8:00, because there was a sale near my house that sounded good, but when I drove there they must have decided to not have the sale and that is a huge drag if none of the other sales start for 45 minutes. So, driving to get coffee and kill a little time I saw a sign for another sale starting at 8:00. This one turned out pretty good after I purchased a Marley Hodgson Ghurka bag for a dollar. SCORE!

The Ballard Cheerleaders had a sale (below) and I am not sure why cheerleader sales usually aren’t very good. Maybe because all of the clothing is size 4 and from American Eagle?!

This whole sale looked like the Ross Dress for Less “beach” section had exploded there.

Then I saw this “free stuff” sign. That makes me think you are having a sale and giving away stuff that no one will want.

I sort of wished I would have gone to this a little earlier, because they had just pulled everything into their drive way and folks were carting it off. This is just a sample of what was out front, all free.

I didn’t want any of the above items, even for free –- but I am sure someone would.

At another sale there were a couple of items I was excited to see. I once owned this van and love it.

And the Green Machine — the fancy big wheel from when I was a kid.

I went to tons of sales – nothing really amazing happened and my trunk shot isn’t that impressive, but I had a pretty good day.

Saturday sales didn’t look that great. Labor Day weekend (or any holiday weekend) can be sort of a drag, since most people leave town — including Jenny, this time. Karl was going to come meet me, but since it seemed like so few sales I told him that he shouldn’t even bother driving across town.

The first sale that I hit turned out to be really good. They had would I would call “high-end-normal-clothes” meaning stuff that I wear to my job, but I won’t pay $48 for at J. Crew. She had a bunch of nice stuff, so I filled a bag (along with getting a really nice Burberry belt for $20 –- something I would never purchase retail) I had spent $60 and it wasn’t even 8:40 in the morning.

The next sale that started at 8:30 wasn’t even happening, so I thought I would drive by one that didn’t list a time just to see if they were ready. The ad said “moving to Japan” (which usually means getting rid of everything) and tons of women’s clothing. Well, her taste was pretty bad (tons of clothing from Wet Seal, worn out H&M, etc.) but he was into horror/gore and good comic books and movies. Most of it wasn’t unpacked yet, so it was cool to be the first one there. The guy below spent the whole time on the phone asking a friend about the boxes of comics that he should or shouldn’t buy to resell.

In the very large free pile I picked up a free men’s tux. I figure even just for Halloween that was worthy.

I was also really into his bulletin board – I mean I don’t want to own stuff that someone saved like this, but to see the entire thing preserved is sort of cool.

I purchased a ton of books and movies here, but after this it was pretty much a bust.

Tons of kids stuff -– no thank you.

Great signs, but your sale doesn’t have anything good.

I finally gave up at 10:15.