Archive for May, 2009

I was told about the Englewood Ohio community sale the day before it started. I didn’t even know about it. I almost missed out on some good stuff. There were sales everywhere. From Church sales to boosters and even the local High School band had a sale to raise money.

Huge rummage sale all donated by people for the local Boy Scouts

I found a couple goodies here. A sega CD system and a Milton Bradley Fireball Island board game in excellent condition and 100% complete. My Dad picked up a huge box of Legos for 5 bucks. It was a good stop for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was ticked off here. If you remember in a previous post at my Dad’s garage sale. I put a 15″ computer monitor in the free pile with a sign that said “Take me and I will give you $1.00″ No one took me up on it. This guy put $60 on a monitor similar to the one I had and many others try to sel. ERRRR, I hate that. Do these people really think they will sell it at that price or are they just joking. People must really think there are some total idiots running around. It’s crazy, I feel dissrespected when I see this. ha ha ha

Big waste of time heading east.  It was like going from antique mall to antique mall, not that I don’t like to browse around antique malls, but I hunt for deals and there were no deals.  I know when you head toward Springfield Ohio, there are a bunch of antique malls along the way and I should have known better.  I didn’t even take any pictures it was so depressing.  Oh well life goes on and I will probably do it again next year. 

Well this is the third year in a row that I have gone on the US 40 garage sale.  I usually only go about 40 to 50 miles one way and then back the other side.  Today I went West on 40, through Lewisburg, Richmond Indiana and turned around in Centerville Indiana and headed back.  I found some goodies, pictures after tomorrow.  I am going to go East on 40 tomorrow morning.  Probably end up around Springfield or a little further, depends on how it goes.  These long garage sales are pretty commercialized.  There are a lot of dealers, flea marketers that might only come down a dollar on something.  I want the real deals, that’s why I usually leave the main road if someone has a sign pointing down a side road.  I have done better at those.  Richmond Indiana downtown is a neat place with a lot of little shops and stores along the way.

Richmond Indiana “Downtown” heading west

Headed through Richmond on US 40

These people were setup here last year and it doesn’t look like they sold any of it, the same old over priced stuff.  I would think people would get tired of hauling around the same stuff from sale to sale.

This was the first stop of the day

Now this is the kind of sales I like, people like this are just emptying out everything trying to either get rid of it quick or make a dollar.  When they have stuff just thrown everywhere, I seem to do a lot better, but not this exact sale, I didn’t buy anything.  My Dad picked up two nice big boxes of Lincoln Logs for 5 bucks.  This lady said she just cleaned out her storage space and this stuff “needs to go”.

I love sites like this, they are ready to sell anything

This house here, I thought ohhh yeah here we go, nope….All they had done was bring some of their antiques from their booth they run in an antique mall.  They were even telling people that.  It drove me nuts, neadless to say I didn’t spend much time here.

Errr...Antique Dealers faking me out

Saw this lamp at a sale and these two older ladies were talking about who in the world would want this in their house.

Don’t know about this lamp, Reminds me of a Muppet Head, I don’t know why…Its the first thing that came to my mind

These sites are 10×20 feet and rent for $10 a day.

This is what a typical space along the 40 sale looks like

On our way back into Lewisburg you always have to stop at Sylvia’s Grey Barn.  She is an older lady that helps run an antique shop in Lewisburg and keeps all her goodies here.  She is one of the nicest ladies.  If you ever get a chance to stop in Lewisburg, check out her store, she loves to meet people.

Sylvia’s Grey Barn

Here are some views of all the stuff she has accumulated over the many years she has been collecting and dealing in antiques.

I am headed off early in the morning for my East bound trip….More to follow, hopefully

This has got to be the best vehicle to go garage sailing or thrift hopping.  I went out to eat after my Dads garage sale to a local Mexican restaurant.  When we exited the building this jewel was sitting there staring right at me saying “I am for you, Garage Sale Junky”…..I LOVE THIS THING.  Here is a link to their website TriFun.  They are called TriFun EXT travel over 70 mph and get 42+ mpg, how could anyone go wrong with this.  It had motorcycle plates on it here in Ohio, because being a 3-wheeler it’s considered a motorcycle.  Just too cool

Goodness….I am worn out from helping my junk collecting father have his own garage sale.  He has one once a year and we actually have people tell us that they look forward to his sales.  It’s more of a “Mans” sale, not that women don’t like tools, tool boxes, boat motors, power washers, ramps, guns and knives and that kind of stuff.  This year though he actually priced things to get rid of them.  I am always on him about over pricing.  I was proud of him.  He sold almost everything in these pictures, I couldn’t believe it.  It was the most successful sale he has put on.

He might have had two tables left with just some odds and ends, but some of it was the neighbor ladies also.  I advertised on 4 or 5 online classifieds plus my father put an ad in the little local paper.  We had people non stop from 7:45 AM to about 4PM it was crazy.  The work that goes into these sales is ridiculous.  If you anyone has put on a garage sale they know what I am talking about, from cleaning the items up, pricing, organizing, displaying and that’s before the sale even starts.  Once the sailers start running in, it turns from bad to worse, asking 5001 questions, being rude and pushy, on top of watching for the children that are running loose like wild wolves, because their parents are too busy looking for deals.  Then you have the thieves to watch out for, the teams of people that come in just to distract you and try and steal something.  Its total chaos.

One thing I like is when I go to a sale and someone has those old CRT big 500 pound computer monitors for sale anywhere from $5.00 all the way up to the absurd $30-35 dollar range.  I did a test and put my monitor in the free pile, “becasue every successful garage sale needs a free pile”, I put on it the following.  Take me and I will pay “YOU” $1.00 just to see if anyone would take it.  No bites, no one even thought about it.  One of the last buyers of the second day decided he would take it, and I know it’s because my Dad pulled the sticker saying I would pay them to take it.  The psychology of people just amazes me.

Holy Cow, this place is insane.  Jungle Jims in Fairfield Ohio is absolutely crazy.  I have never been to a place remotely like this.  It’s a grocery store on steroids and then some.  It has all different types of nationalities and their foods from all over the world.  They have complete ducks, goat heads, aligator tail meat, all kinds of stuff.  If you are ever in the neighborhood or need a place to hang out for a few hours this is your place.  CRAZY, doesn’t explain it.

Today was just great, this is what it looked like at 7AM.  I was all excited it was Trenton Ohio’s community sale, where the last 3 years I have gone too. There have been thousands of people all over the place, setup in parking lots, fields, front yards, barns everywhere. This year, RAIN.  I ended up scratching the Trenton sales and headed off to Vandalia’s community sales and Arcanum’s.  What a waste.  I did pick up a Jefferson Golden Hour clock, that still works *pics later*.  I got some needed cords for some video game systems, but that was about it.   I spent more at McDonalds for lunch than I did buying anything.

If I were in the market for diaper trash cans today would have been my lucky day.  I saw tons of these things.

I like how these cities advertise the date of the community sale, but everyone opens 2 days before.  They advertise Saturday, but everyone said “yeah I had a bunch of customers Thursday”, I thought oh neat, no wonder the only thing left is a diaper pail.  The weather forecasters missed this one big time again.  In my opinion they should be paid on accuracy…..They said the rain came early and will be nice the rest of the day, NOT.  Oh well, the way the day ended dry, was me not finding anything, it was one of the worst garage sale days I have ever had, because of baby poop…
My two wonderful finds this rainy day.  A Jefferson Golden Hour clock which is pretty neat, the glass rotates inside the frame giving the illusion of no moving parts, I don’t know it’s weird.  This Scripto table lighter, ohhh baby, I love it.  I paid a buck for both  of these.  Not to bad.

Here is an updated picture I took with the bean

I just feel I need to tell other bloggers and picture junkies about this little gadget.  I was skeptical about buying one in fear that the pictures would come out horrible.   Usually when you buy a cheap digital camera the pictures are so blurry you can’t tell what was taken.   Boy was I wrong, since I am new to this blog thing I have been wanting a cheap camera that I could throw in my pocket and not worry about what might happen to it.  I had been carrying my Nikon DSLR around and it’s just to much to worry about running around garage sales, plus it got heavy.

I started researching compact, lightweight, cheap, digital cameras.  This is what I found.  I love it, it’s like my wallet now, it goes everywhere I do.  For starters it is very very lightweight, it measures about 4 inches wide 2 1/2 inches tall and 1 1/4 inches deep.  It doesn’t feel cheap like I thought it would.  It has a built in lithium Ion battery that you can charge by plugging into your computer through USB or it comes with an AC wall plug.  It has some built in memory, with the built in memory on it’s highest resolution of 2592×1944 on fine quality setting it can take 22 pictures switch the fine setting to super and it drops to 17.  On it’s lowest resolution 640×480 with a super quality setting it can store 135 pictures, that isn’t to bad for running around garage sales all day.  It gets better, I found an old 512MB SD card laying around that I wasn’t using and plugged it in.  With the top quality, resolution settings it can now store 301 pictures and a couple thousand on the low setting.

The only problem I have found with it so far is, you have to be nice and steady with it, pretty still, I was used to my Nikon and just walking up a sidewalk and shooting away, not that big of a deal that I need to quit walking to take a shot.  It has a zoom, but it’s not that great, but it even does 640×480 video that actually looks pretty nice.  If I get a chance I will upload a picture or two on high resolution and low to show the difference.  The best part of all of this is, the price tag.  My local BestBuy had them for $59.99 I couldn’t wait to get it off the net cheaper I had to have my instant gratification.  They are cheaper if you look around the net.  Here are some specs on it:

Product Features

• 5.0-megapixel 1/2.5″ CMOS sensor
  Captures high-resolution images up to 2592 x 1944 pixels.
• 4x digital zoom
  Lets you get up close to all your subjects.
• 1.5″ status LCD
  Viewfinder lets you shoot it, view it and share it with your friends.
• Digital image stabilization
  Prevents blur in your photos for crisp and clear images.
• Autofocus
  Ensures a clear and focused image.
• 3-image burst mode
  Allows you to capture high-speed shots.
• White balance controls
  Include auto, tungsten, cloudy, daylight and fluorescent for sharp images in any lighting condition.
• Auto, flash-on and flash-off modes
  For just the right lighting no matter what the conditions.
• Special photo effects
  Include sepia and black-and-white for in-camera creativity.
• Movie mode
  Lets you record videos wherever you go.
• 32MB internal memory
  With Secure Digital memory slot (media not included)
  >> Store more photos! Find compatible memory cards in our Memory Center!
• USB interface
  For quick and easy data transfer.
• Innovative carabiner clip design
  Attaches to a belt loop or backpack so you can take it anywhere. Rubberized grip for easy handling and rugged construction.

Saw this on Crigslist this morning.  Couldn’t believe someone would actually lable their sale as the “Worlds Biggest”, if I would have driven 30 miles and saw a “NEW” electric blanket for sale I might have lost my mind.  It’s pouring the rain out, so I doubt they will open.  Oh well, I guess it’s my loss if it turns out to be the “Worlds Biggest” sale.