There were twenty-six garage sales in Grand Forks today, starting at anywhere from 8 AM to 5 PM.
One of the 8 o’clock sales was advertised as:
“Estate sale. Antiques, advertising items, porcelain signs, pottery, old books, …….”
We were the first people there at 7 AM and I ended up buying a Chilton’s Corvair repair & tune-up manual and a 1939 textbook from Shell Oil for service station owners for $1 each. The rest was mostly junk. The one antique was a nice oak armoire, but I’m not interested in furniture so I called a friend who refinishes furniture and he came right over and bought it.
The advertising items amounted to a half dozen oil cans from the last ten years. The porcelain signs were all currently available reproductions, and the pottery was a few pieces that one of the sellers had made in a ceramics class. The old books were mostly romance paperbacks.
It was worth the early stop though, because an elderly couple who lived next door to them decided to have a sale at the last minute too and I was able to buy the following books from them for $.50 each:
- Beauty Spots Of Niagara & Vicinity - an early photo souvenir booklet
- Cultivation Of The Chest - a nice quasi-quack medicine book from 1901
- Legendary Islands Of The Atlantic
- Minnesota Arrowhead Country - A 1st edition WPA book from 1941
- North Dakota - The Heritage Of A People
- Norwegian-American Wood Carving Of The Upper Midwest
- No Flag For My Coffin - a recent biography of a gentleman from Northwestern Minnesota
The rest of the sales didn’t produce anything except several Stampin’ Up dealer magazines and catalogs and three scrapbooking booklets that I paid a total of $15 for.
What will probably turn out to be the most profitable find of the day came out of a thrift shop we stopped at after the morning sales. I purchased a two volume set of a book titled “Bar Breaker” which is a study guide for the California bar exam (how it ended up in North Dakota I have no idea). I paid $2 for both volumes, listed them on Amazon when we got home, and by the time we got home from the 5 PM sales, they had sold for $89.99.
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June 2nd, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Gary,
How do you decide which book(s) to sell in which sales venue (Amazon, Ebay Auction or Ebay Store)??
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:17 am
There are very few sales here on Thursdays, most are held Friday thru Sunday, but the guy who has the barn sales was open on Thursday because our small town and the neighboring one are holding their annual “Town-wide” garage/yard sales so I stopped by, and even though I was there last weekend I thought there might be something new…I was right!!
BTW–His barn sale 2 weeks ago was the one where I found the Kentucky Whiskey Jug for $3.50 and sold it for $300+!!
Heres what I found in farmer John’s barn…
– (2) 1930’s ink bottles with their multi colored litho paper labels intact…..$4
– Reddy Kilowatt baby’s bib with nursery rhymes in MINT UNUSED condition…..$10
– (18) 1960’s Playboy VIP Club bar glasses lot…..$20 (there are two sizes, (10) High ball & (8) Scotch, I’ll sell them in two lots, they should bring $35-$50 each)
— (3) WWII era paper items lot; (2) are maps, a 1943 ESSO road map of France; a 1942 city map of Memphis, TN with early African-American interest; 1943 25 pg. AAA auto club “To Victory and Beyond” booklet……$5
– 1950 5-Ring Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook…..$1
– (5) Fire King stacking Mugs; (2) from the very popular “fruit” series (apple & lemon); (3) others that I’ll keep until I build a lot of 8 or more…..FREE
– (2 Sets) Antique Bennington Swirl porcelain door knobs with hardware……FREE
That’s what I found in the barn, however my best finds were at a local antique store I’ve finally was able to get into on Wednesday…
– 1950 5-Ring Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook with it’s ORIGINAL DUST JACKET……$10 (these dust jackets are so scarce, I’ve never seen one before and almost looked right past the cookbook because I didn’t recognize it!)
– (13 pcs.) Square Pyrex Cherry Red dishes lot…$30
* (4 pcs.) 7 oz. custard cups
* (5 pcs.) Salad Set
* (4 pcs.) Refrigerator dishes w/ glass tops
Note–I’ll hold onto the cookbook with the dust jacket until this up coming holiday season, it will make a great gift for somebody!!
Well, that’s what I found, nothing that’ll bring big $$$ but I didn’t have to spend any money on GAS (Hip, Hip, Hooray!!) so it was a good day overall!!
Good luck finding treasures everybody!!