The photo to the left is what I saw out my windshield as I was waiting for one of today’s garage sales to open.

I woke this morning to eleven new garage sales in the paper and to between 1.5″ and 2″ of new snow on the ground. To make it more enjoyable, the snow had a lot of moisture in it, making the residential streets in town slipperier than they had been all winter.

One of the sales was postponed until next Saturday, but everyone else just toughed it out, put on their winter coats, shoveled their driveways, and opened up on schedule.

The pickings were kind of slim. My purchased amounted to:
Continue Reading

Popularity: 19% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

There ended up being a total of five garage sales that opened in Grand Forks today.

My first stop was a church sponsored sale where I paid $2 for the opportunity to get in at 8:00 am, an hour before the general public was admitted. My purchases there amounted to a 3 DVD set titled Legendary Lighthouses for $1 and the A & E mini-series Pride & Prejudice on VHS for $2.50. Legendary Lighthouses was listed on Amazon for $26.99 and Pride & Prejudice will go on eBay.

My second stop was a sale that had advertised ‘lots of books’. They weren’t lying, but they were nearly all old romance paperbacks with water damage. My guess is they were in someone’s basement eleven years ago when Grand Forks was almost entirely underwater. I did buy about a half dozen Great Northern Railway Historical Society fact sheets and calendars at this sale for a dollar. These will go on eBay starting Sunday evening.
Continue Reading

Popularity: 31% [?]

It was 23 degrees, overcast, and a light snow was falling at 9:15 last Monday morning when I set out for a trip to all seven local thrift stores.

The first stop was the Holiday gas station a few blocks from home for coffee. Being way too cheap to pay $4 or $5 a cup at Starbucks’ or Caribou, Holiday stations are where I get my coffee fix in the morning when I’m on the road or just out-and-about. They offer four varieties but I’ve found that their ‘Dark Roast’ seems to attract more inventory then the other three, so that’s my blend of choice if I’m shopping.

Armed a steaming cup of coffee, I was on my way to…..

The Salvation Army Smart Shop. Unlike a lot of Salvation Army thrift stores around the country, this one is strictly up-scale. In fact, built nine years ago, it serves as a model for newer Salvation Army stores in upper class neighborhoods around the country.

Sadly, that means that probably 80% to 90% of what comes in the back door never gets into the store itself. It’s thrown right onto a semi-trailer and, when the trailer is full, it’s hauled to Minot, ND where it’s bundled and sent either overseas or to other stores in poorer neighborhoods of large cities. I’ve been trying to get into their back room on a regular basis for years without any luck.

This is one of two thrifts in town where I’m often able to buy college textbooks for a dollar or two each. Mondays visit there produced five non-fiction books dealing with various religions for an investment of $3.50. All five books were listed on Amazon prices ranging from $12.99 to $27.29.
Continue Reading

Popularity: 29% [?]

In this area of the country, as garage sale season is rapidly coming to an end, the book sale season is heating up. Friend Of The Library (FOL) and Association Of American University Women (AAUW) book sales will come fast and furious between now and Thanksgiving.

I left Grand Forks Wednesday morning with the goal of attending two FOL sales in two days - one in Minot and the other in Bismarck. At the same time, I intended to visit several antique shops/malls along the way.

The Minot FOL holds two sales a year - in April and October. It’s always a Thursday/Friday sale with a preview Wednesday evening for FOL members. I have no idea what it is like on Thursday and Friday, but there are never more than one or two dozen people members in attendance on Wednesday evening. They serve coffee, cookies, and brownies. I’ve been going for several years and I’ve never seen another dealer there. The other few people there have, like me, been going for several years and it’s more like a semi-annual family reunion than it’s like a book sale.

At $.50 for soft covers, $1.00 for hardcovers, and $1.50 for videos and CDs, I spent $87.50, buying a lot of scholarly Christian non-fiction for Amazon and science fiction paperbacks that are part of series that will eventually be listed on eBay. The coffee was good, and the brownies better.

I left Minot about 7:45 and drove the 110 miles to Bismarck where I got a motel room, ordered a pizza, and started listing books on Amazon.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 11% [?]

Historically, garage sales have been few and far between in Grand Forks over three day Holiday weekends. Last week, between Thursday and Friday, I went to about a dozen garage sales. Knowing Saturday would provide even fewer sales, I decided make a trip to Shady Hollow Flea Market in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Shady Hollow is a weekly flea market held every Sunday between Memorial Day weekend and the weekend after Labor Day. Over the three long weekends during the summer - Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day, they expand to a three-day sale - Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The Shady Hollow Flea Market began sometime in 1969. When I first started selling antiques and collectibles, this was one of the first two flea markets I set up at on a regular basis. It was never a large market, but always attracted quality dealers and, as a result, a large number of serious buyers who readily spent money. During the years I was setting up there it wasn’t uncommon to make $1000 to $2000 in sales by 8 o’clock in the morning.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 11% [?]

I never leave a garage sale without asking about something that I haven’t seen at that particular sale. The question may be about old magazines, books, pottery, record albums, old 45 records, old toys, etc. Whatever I ask about, I always tack on “or any old papers or pamphlets” at the end of the question.

Last Saturday, in response to my question “Do you have any old dolls or any old papers or pamphlets you are thinking of getting rid of?”, a woman responded that she had thrown some old catalogs and magazines that had belonged to her mother in the garbage the night before.

I got a rather strange look when I asked if she minded if I went back in the alley and dug through her garbage, but she told me to go right ahead.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 14% [?]

On June 9th I will be leaving for a week long fishing trip in Canada with my oldest son. While there, I will not have access to the Internet.

During the week that I’m gone, Stephen Banks will be stopping by and sharing some of his ideas and thoughts on doing business on eBay. Stephen is a long-time reader, going back several years to before the Cold Item days. I”ve never met Stephen but, through our interactions on the Net, I’ve come to respect his thoughts and ideas. I don’t know for certain how often he will be posting here, or what he’ll be writing about. However, I’m confident whatever information he provides will be worth your while reading.

More than likely, you will find one or two posts by Stephen within the next day or two as we make sure things are set up properly so he can post and he makes himself familiar with the WordPress back-end.

There will be no eBay items listed on eBay this week because I won’t be around to answer questions potential buyers may have. The items I purchased during the last week will be on eBay starting the 17th.

Finally, a question. Is anyone else noticing that it is taking PayPal considerably longer to clear e-checks than it used to? Most of the e-checks I used to receive cleared withing 3-4 days. During the last few weeks that time seems to have increased to a week or longer.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Not long after I began dealing in antiques and collectibles I developed a passion for antique advertising that continues to this day. The detailed graphics and multi-colors of many pieces speak to me and my personal collecting interests have always centered around this segment of the antique arena.

Sometime in the mid 1980s someone showed me a copy of a newsletter devoted to antique advertising called The Tin Type News. The Tin Type News was published by a gentleman from Colorado affectionately called Nosmo King and each issue was filled with photos and information about fantastic old tins, tin signs, and other advertising memorabilia. After seeing that one issue, I quickly subscribed and ordered a complete set of back issues.

Fast forward to 1995 ……… We had just moved to a new home and my better half decided to have a garage sale to get rid of things we didn’t want to clutter up the new house. Some how, the boxes all my issues of The Tin Type News were packed in got shuffled into the wrong place and my mother-in-law who was “helping” at the sale, ended up selling them to someone for five dollars.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 22% [?]

There were thirty-four garage sales that started today in Grand Forks which is a large number for a Thursday. If normal ratios are the same as in past years that means there may well be fifty to sixty new sales on both Friday and Saturday.

This is unusual for this early in the season. It is normally the first or second week of June before this many are seen Thursday, Friday, and Saturday around here. We have had exceptionally nice weather the last two weeks so maybe people are getting the “bug” earlier than normal.

I started started shopping at 6:50 this morning with a sweatshirt to ward off the early morning chill, a large Midnight Roast coffee from the nearby Holiday station, and some John Fogerty CDs to keep me motivated.

With all those sales, I only purchased three things for eBay. A one-stroke painting video set, a pair of Michael Jordan sneakers, and a Fred Bear re-curve bow. All the rest of my purchases were books that are destined for Amazon.

In a comment to yesterday’s post Stephen asked if it was possible to list the titles of the books I purchased to put on Amazon. I make no promises that this will be a regular thing, but since nearly all of today’s buys are destined for Amazon, here’s a list of the titles that I purchased and their authors:

Continue Reading

Popularity: 19% [?]

The garage sale season in Grand Forks began with a whimper last weekend with three sales opening on Friday and seven more on Saturday. It must have caught most of the area’s serious buyers by surprise. I didn’t see any of them Friday morning. Saturday, there was one person who would be considered serious competition.

Unfortunately none of the sales offered anything to get excited about. I picked up a few books that went on Amazon and that was the extent of my purchases. The temperatures were in the mid 40s both mornings and the sun was shining so even though there wasn’t much to buy, after the cold, rainy, spell we’d been in it felt nice to be outside.

Popularity: 13% [?]