The rest of the story

(About the weekend finds, that is.  For the big stuff, see yesterday's post.)

One of my stops on Saturday was back to the comic shop.  Again?  Well, they were having a 25 and 50 cent move sale, so, yes, again!  I got a bunch of movie stills for a quarter each.  Very few were labeled, and the ones that were came from films I was unfamiliar with, so I basically just picked a bunch that looked interesting to me.  I've always been a big fan of period pieces and costume dramas.

I did find a little bit of Trekkie goodness, too.  I'm not sure anyone at the shop was aware that they were selling a Leonard Nimoy pic for a quarter.  Oh well.

Of course, I got some movies.

Two of my personal favorites.  I love it when I can sell stuff that I really, really like at the booth.

A few for me.  I adore Almodovar!

And a few that would not necessarily otherwise be on my radar, but that I know will sell.  Nothing cynical or sarcastic about that statement.  More like practical and pragmatic.  If I have a booth that is only full of things someone like me would like to buy, then I am greatly limiting the amount of success I can have.

A few of the movies had never had the shrink wrap removed.

The original Dukes were cuties, huh?

Does anyone else remember this classic?

I also bought a few Deep Space Nine VHS tapes that were still in the shrink wrap.  In a flea market, you can always bet that there will be people shopping there who are still using older media technology.  I would never fill a whole booth with VHS, cassettes, 8-tracks or LP's, but I will certainly selectively source a few here and there.

More antique mall purchases.  The comics are for me.  I'm completely nuts about vintage romance comics.  The plaque in the middle came from the 75% off booth.  More on the rest in a minute.

Close up of the box.  The box is vintage.  The sewing embellishments are vintage.  I just don't know if the act of adding the embellishments was vintage or not.

Cute, huh?

The flag pieces may be the find of the day.  They were all in one bag, which cost less than five bucks!  A couple of them have some stains on them, which I am terrified of cleaning for fear of ruining them.  I'm thinking that the Austro-Hungarian flag means that this set dates this set to pre-World War I, since that empire ceased to exist afterwards.  Arizona became the 48th state in 1912, so that's the about earliest they could date to. Germany was recognized as the German Empire during this period as well, which explains the use of all the flags on that piece.  Quite a find, I think.

Dig that 48 star US flag!

You can see the remnants of some kind of label on this one.

Next we have an awfully big stack of books for someone who just had a massive book sale, huh?  Religious books are one of those steady sellers for me.  My favorite thrifts locally are the St Vincent de Paul stores, which naturally have a lot of religious articles and books.  This stack (along with all the manga and comics) come from the same store, which is right across the street from my Peddlers Mall.

I'd been waiting on those comics to go half-price and therefore become affordable.  Mission accomplished.  They have a new kid working the register there, and Saturday he was wearing a Totoro t-shirt.  (Nerds notice these things.)  He turned about three shades of green when I plopped the Shonen Jump stack on the counter.

Him: I didn't know we had any Shonen Jump.

Me:  Well, you don't anymore.

Then he tells me about the anime party he's getting ready to have.  We (nerds) are everywhere!

Look at all this wee, sweet pottery!  I must have been channeling my inner Shara!

Finally, an odd pair.  A vintage Raggedy Ann book and a plaster reproduction of Veronica's veil.

Fun stuff.  Good times.  Certainly a sign of more good sales to come.  Thanks for checking it all out!

Monday Rambles

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow I managed to pull out another record-setting month in the four digits!  July was even higher than June in total sales, and that was with about four days of really low sales.  I'm starting to gain a lot of confidence that maybe I've finally set on a course that works for my booth.  It's still way too early to come to think of this as a set pattern, but I am really freaking happy right now.

August will tell the tale, I'm afraid.  This is, after April, the hardest month there is to sell in this town.  What is it with the "A" months that makes them feel they have to rain on a junker's parade like that?  April has spring break and the beginning of the dreaded Derby festivities.  August has back to school (which is next week) and the Kentucky State Fair (which is also next week).  We'll just see what happens, I guess.

In the meantime, I'll keep things stocked and ready as best I can.

Which hasn't actually been very good lately.  I realized on Friday that I have totally, and I do mean totally, lost control of my spaces.  "Hot mess" doesn't even begin to describe it.  Stuff is just crammed everywhere, with little to no rhyme or reason.  People can get into my booth and out of my booth easily, but that's it.  I have no idea how stuff is selling so well.  Seriously, I don't.  The only thing that is in some kind of semblance of order is the comic books.

My plan this week is to rearrange and reshuffle stuff, rather than restock.  I'll put out new stuff for the weekend, but will wait until Friday to do it.  I have a couple of ideas for themed groupings of merchandise I want to do.  (I'm no good at displays, but I can get like items all together.)  If it works, I'll take some pictures.

It hit me really hard over the weekend that it's August. That means I've got to get my "harvest" items ready to go out and have Halloween on deck for next month!  Sheesh!  It's almost time for Christmas stuff!  Ack!

A junker's work is never done, I guess.  Good thing I like love doing this stuff!

Mata ne!  (I've been watching anime again.  The new Sailor Moon Crystal series totally rocks!  It totally updates the original series, but remains faithful to the source material.  The art, based on the manga, is gorgeous and the animation is awesome.  Highly recommended.)

Getting it out of my system! Now!

Two weeks ago--seriously--I was eating lunch before work when this song came on the radio.  It's been stuck in my head ever since.  It's almost as bad as it was when the thing first came out.  Let me afflict you too, so I won't feel so alone.



Back when the song came out, I was in the throes of my brief involvement with anime fandom and the Sailor Moon reference tickled me.  (I'm still do like anime, but I have less time to follow series and such and certainly no time for organized fandom.  Plus, I have a stack of unwatched DVD's to go through.)  I still totally adore that show, even if--bit by bit--I'm selling off my memorabilia.

Back to the song, here's a parody version that kind of expresses how I've been feeling for the past two weeks.  (I still catch myself humming and singing along when I'm dong other stuff.)  There's a little bit of language to deal with in this clip.



Finally, here's an acoustic version that I like quite a bit.  That link also includes the lyrics, if you need them once you start humming along.

Meet Windy!

This is Windy!

He's my new (to me) bike!

Isn't he cool?  I love the lines.  He's so sleek and awesome looking.  Even the built-for-people-with-smaller-asses-than-mine seat is awesome.

He is taking a bit of getting used to, though.  He's taller than my old bike, but his 17 inch frame is more appropriate for my height than the 15.5 inch frame of the old bike.  It's just an adjustment to get used to sitting so high up.  Right now, I'm having a little trouble getting started back up from a dead stop because pushing off from that height is a little awkward for me.  I think I'll get the hang of it, though.

Windy rides really smooth.  He's lightweight, so it's easy to build up some speed.  And he takes hills really well.  I'm enjoying the ride a lot.

I also like that he's got space on the back for carrying stuff, plus more than enough room for a couple of baskets, which will be coming soon.  Windy's going to be an awesome thrifting and yard saling bike!  I'm not sure if I can fit a basket on the front, but I am going to try.  Another thing I really like about Windy is the kickstand.  I haven't had a bike with one since I was a kid.  It's so convenient!

Now, about the name.  Keith's bike is called "Townie" because, well, it's a Townie.  My old bike was a mountain bike, so I called it "Mountie."  Windy is a Windstream.  You get the idea.  (If I had gotten another mountain bike, I would have called it "Re-Mountie.")

I'm betting that some of you (I'm looking at you, Roger!) immediately thought of this when you saw the name:



I have to admit that it makes a catchy riding tune to have playing in your head as you cruise along.  However, I get other images, because I'm weird like that.  (Besides, Windy looks a little creepy in that video.  Sometimes she seems more menacing than carefree.)

This is my vision:



It's from CardCaptor Sakura, one of my favorite anime from days gone by.  Did you catch that the first card is called "The Windy,"  I have a deck of those Clow Cards around here somewhere. Anyway, in the anime, they say "Windy" with a heavy phonetic Japanese pronunciation, so it comes out as "oooindee" which I just love.   I could not find a clip of her using the card with the original sound intact, so you all could hear it.  Seems everyone wants to mess around with their anime clips on the YouTubes.

Anyway, that's what I think about when it comes to the name "Windy."

Yes, I know.  I'm strange.

And even though both of those Windy prototypes are female, my bike is male.  It just seems more fitting, somehow.