Continuing the Set Out Junk

This will pretty much wrap up the big stuff this time around.  There is one thing at the booth that I need to remember to photograph.  I can't wait to show you the smalls!  There's some awesomeness there you have to see.  I'm still tickled about it, because it's NERDY!

That will have to wait a few days, however.

There were four themes this time around.  One was windows.

The smallest one has no glass.  Every member of this cute trio has awesome hardware on it.  The one in front has this amazing rusty knob at the bottom.

I forgot to get this pic until the window was already in Mazda. Those are eight individual panes of glass.  This was the heaviest of all of them, so of course, it was (say it with me) at the bottom of the hill.

I actually did not find any windows until the very last day of the hunt.  I was getting kind of anxious about it, because I really wanted to find some.  I've been out for a while, and most local purchase options are way too pricey.

Another theme was outdoor side tables.

The thing on top is one of those fold up stools, but it's a similar concept.  There's one more, but it needs a really deep cleaning.  These needed some cleaning, but not as much.

Another theme was frames.  There's a rustic-looking one in this shot, plus the one in the last pic, plus a few more to come.

The brown thing is a counter top that would make a nice sign or project.  The wood is really super.  There were several of them in one spot, and, of course, I only took one, then thought it over, went back for more, and they were all gone.

The vintage light fixture has these modern shades etched with western scenes.  They are cute, but totally wrong for the fixture.  I'm removing them to sell separately.  The cute little doll cradle has some issues, but in the right hands is totally saveable.

Another frame.  I took that nasty backing out of it.  You can also see a photo-bombing vintage typewriter that was supposed to be in yesterday's pics, but somehow got missed. Oh well.

The fourth theme was chairs.  One was in the first batch of pics, plus the blue stool from yesterday.  There are three more, but I had to throw them on the Hillock due to lack of room at the house.  There's one more at the house, but it'll show up in the next batch.

Now that I think about it, there was a fifth theme: Little Tikes, which is almost always a theme at set out time.  I'll spare you the pics this time, but I found a table, two chairs, and my first-ever ride-in car!  I'm kind of dreading taking that to the booth.

Look for the smalls on Thursday and Friday.  I think they'll have to be two parts.  There's too much awesome for just one post.  Trust me on that one.

Monday Rambles

Behold the wisdom of the fortune cookie!

Behold the wisdom of the trash can in the alley!

Saw that one while on a trash crawl constitutional during junk set out.

I have a feeling if everyone would take both bits of advice to heart, this world would be a better place.

Who says flea markets aren't classy?

C'mon!  We got caviar in the salvage groceries!  Top that!

I found my birthday present the other day in a showcase across from my booth.

That's the way cool 70's Batmobile, by the way.  And it has both figures with it!  Now, I just need to find someone who loves me enough to drop 50 bucks (!) on it.  Well, we do have six months to save up.

Shara did a ramble last week, so I'm doing a phone dump this week. More to come in a second.

I have never been more glad to see a month end than this one.  Barring a HUGE rush today and tomorrow, I'm going to have my lowest total for 2016, and the lowest one in a while.  Sales have just been off.  And it's not just me.  Nearly everyone I know here is seriously crying the blues, no matter what mall they're in.  Sigh.

I know that May means Derby, Mother's Day, the start of warm weather, yard work, yard sales, graduations and proms.  I know that this is just a cyclical downturn and things will pick back up when it finally gets too warm for the wimpy somewhat less than hardcore yard sale shoppers.  But, dammit, I'm overly dramatic!  I wail because it's what I do.  And right now, I'm having a good one.  Wail, that is.  Not month.

If you listen close you can probably hear me.

How slow has it been?  Well, the last two times I've gone in to straighten up, there was nothing to do!  Typically, when things are the slowest, that's when booths get the messiest.  At least mine do.  Counter-intuitive, I know, but that's been the pattern borne out by seven years of experience.  This time around, they're almost spotless.  Even the comic booth, which is always a wreck.  Sigh.

I was loading the van yesterday, when I started hearing some murmurings from the stuff I was putting in.  It seems I had promised them their moment in the blog, but had never gotten around to getting pictures.    In the interest of peace and harmony, here are a few shots of some recent purchases.

Heavy, rusted antique snow shovel.  I can see this baby in someone's porch decor this winter.

Painted bench and vintage metal kid-size folding chair.  I got three of the chairs.  If there had been more, I would have gotten more.  This came from a church sale I like a lot.  Every year, they bring out a few items from their defunct school.  Usually, it's school desks.  This year, it was these chairs.

 

 Folding wooden chair from the same sale.

Two drawers from the same sale.  I've been kicking myself for not getting more, as they had a bunch.  I love those heavy metal candle holders.  The big GI Joe ship came from a fund-raiser sale that a friend of mine puts on every year.  I was looking through all the small toys on a table when she said "Don't forget the big toys too."  And there it sat.  My friends know me so well.  I also got a huge box full of those big cardboard bricks that they use in nursery schools.  I forgot to get a pic of it.

Speaking of forgotten pics, that photobombing blue thing in the back is a handmade child's stool from the junk set out.  This apparently is the only shot I took of it.  It flips over, so it can still be used as the child grows.  It was completely filthy, but totally solid.

Speaking of the curb finds, they'll be back tomorrow.  I'll be wrapping up the bigger stuff then and moving on the the smalls by the end of the week.  The smalls are where the real awesomeness lies.

I hope everyone has nice plans for the holiday.  I was intending to go to the Big Flea today in honor of my mother.  The sixth anniversary of her death was Saturday.  Memorial weekend has a slightly different meaning for me, I guess.

However, when I was dropping stuff off at the booth, a soon-to-be-departing vendor offered me her two booths full of stuff for fifty bucks.  She's been running a sale all month to clear things out, but still had a whole lot left.  There's easily fifty bucks worth of movies alone.

On Wednesday, I'll ask the mall to add her number to my account, so I don't have to re-tag everything.  Having a separate number for the buy helps me track the sales easily as well.  They can't do it until she gets removed from the system at the end of the month, or all of her sales for May will be added to mine.  (Well, she did say I could have everything.)

So instead of the flea market, I'll be heading to the Peddlers Mall today to sort out that stuff. If anyone does want anything, I can re-tag it.  Otherwise, I'll pull it off the floor and stash it until the first.  The largest items (and there is a little bit of furniture) will go right into my spaces with new tags.  She kept her stuff fairly organized, so it won't be a hard job, but it will take most of the day.

I think Mom would understand.  I'll hit the Big Flea again in July, in honor of her birthday.  She would be 74.

The only thing I was going to be hunting at the flea market was comics, since I am running short.  However, there's already a sale for Saturday on Craigslist that advertises "thousands" of comics for 50 cents each.  And there's a con coming up at the end of June.  I think I'll be all right.

Yes, I do realize that I paid for the privilege of cleaning out someone else's spaces.  It's good karma.  The last two vendors to leave ended up just giving me tons of stuff they didn't want to haul out.

I can't play on the scale of some of the larger vendors, but I do okay for myself.  The best stuff kind of falls into your lap, it seems.

Yes, I know this is why Sorrow Mountain is a thing.  It is slowly coming down.  I need to get some pics of that progress for you all.  

Retro Y'all!

Thoughts to ponder this Memorial Weekend. 



Emmylou Harris has an incredible cover of this one.  I'd love to here to two of them do it as a duet.  That would be awesome.

One of the very first things Keith and I bonded over was a mutual love of Tracy Chapman.  One day, I cut a pic of her out of Rolling Stone and taped it to his door with a little note that said something like "Hey Keith!  Stopped by to see you.  Sorry I missed you.  Love, Tracy."

In 1989, we were bus captains to the Housing Now! March in Washington, DC.  That was my first ever major national protest march.  It was kind of a heady weekend.  We rode the buss all night, got out, marched, got back on the bus and drove all night back to Louisville.

The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display at the same time, so we snuck off to see it for a little while.  It was our first time seeing a large scale display of the quilt, and I remember how overwhelming it all was.

I ran into some friends from college there, which was cool.  One of the last things that happened at the main platform before our group had to leave to re-board the buses was Tracy Chapman performing.  It kind of made the whole weekend for us.

Stay safe this weekend folks!  I'm planning to chill and watch anime all weekend.

Junk Set Out Sneak Peek!

I am totally exhausted right now!  As I've mentioned before, this is the week of our official junk set out.  Curbs in our neighborhood have been laden with wonderful goodies since last Thursday and Friday.  I think I might say this every time, but this one has been the best set out ever!

I've got a lot of cleaning and pricing to do, since I found a lot of smalls.  I also found quite a bit of furniture and larger items, a few of which had to go right to the booth, since I have run out of room in the house and back yard.

I'll whet your appetite a little bit by showing you that stuff, while I get the other stuff ready to go and photographed.  I'll be sharing it, plus a few recent purchases, next week.  In the meantime, enjoy this batch.

This painted table has to be one of the best finds of the set out.  I can think of only one that tops it.  We found it at a house that had a yard sale we had attended a couple of weeks ago. I had been watching that one, since the woman said she was moving and might be leaving a lot of stuff on the curb.  This table was the only thing she left, but I got it.

I love the heavy-duty hardware underneath holding the two parts together.

Rusty metal rectangular box.  Cue Donna sigh in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....  It's a really good size too.  The scrappers missed it because it was sitting behind a huge pile of branches, so they didn't see it as they drove by.  It's usually hard to find cool metal stuff like this.

Large painted shutter doors.  Somewhere along the way, one of the slats on one of the fell out, and I cannot find it after much searching.  I'm going to try and sell it anyway.

Painted chair.  It's got a slight split in the back on one side, but I see this as more a plant stand than a seat.  It would look nice with a large fern.

Decorative concrete slab with a pressed in Fleur-de-lis motif.  This would look cool in someone's garden.  The Fleur-de-lis is one of the symbols for Louisville.  It's a heavy piece.

And that's it for the Preview.  Tune on next week for the rest!  There's some way cool, interesting stuff to come. 

Well, what do you know?

Someone wrote a book 

about one of my favorite cookies!

Love that cover design!

I'll bet it's really delicious!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know!

This

is what you'd "really like to be"?

REALLY??!!??

I guess so.




Society has spoken.

Retro Y'all!

I know she's best known for just a couple of songs, but Suzanne Vega's catalog is full of many gems like this little tune, which is one of my favorites.

Helpful Household Hint

How do you know when 

it's time to trim the hedges?

When you find a dragon hiding in them!!

Tell Me About It!

I see dead people (or at least ther stuff)

I'm sure most of you are aware that, if you buy secondhand long enough, eventually you are going to handle, peruse, browse through, or actually purchase items that belonged to someone who is now deceased.  Often, you're completely unaware of it.  Sometimes, you're acutely aware of it.

Nothing can prepare you, however, for finding stuff from a deceased person that you knew, especially in an unlikely place.

Last week, I was goofing off browsing around the Peddlers Mall when I started going through a stack of books.  We have a dealer there who is fairly big time.  He has close to a hundred booths and thousands of items in the mall.  Frequently, he buys out whole estate when the family is looking to liquidate in one fell swoop.

I found a missal in the stack and started to thumb through it.  I always buy vintage missals when I find them priced well.  I have learned over the years to give them a quick skim to see if there are any holy cards tucked between the pages.  I didn't find anything, until I got to the front of the book.  There was an inscription indicating that this missal had been given as a gift from some grandparents to other family members. 

The names were familiar to me.  The last name of the family was the same name as a former co-worker and friend who passed away suddenly in April.  She had been a supervisor of Keith's for several years, and they had remained close afterwards.  It seems like no one outside the family knew that she had even been sick, until the obituary appeared in the paper, and it was pretty bare bones.  There wasn't a service or a visitation, just a private family gathering.  When I realized that the last name of the grandparents was her maiden name, I started to get a little freaked out.

Then I found a framed certificate given to our friend in appreciation for her work and got goosebumps.  I immediately took a picture and texted it to Keith, who was as shocked as I was by the discovery.  After that, I walked around all day shaking my head.  You just never know what (or who) you're going to find.

Fast forward to last Friday night, when I am looking through the sale listings for the next day.  Lo and behold, there's a sale happening on our own street, right down the block from us.  I don't recognize the house number, so I decide to check it out in the morning, while I'm hitting up a new trash pile I saw the night before.

It seems to me that the house is awfully familiar.  Suddenly, it dawns on me that this is the house of an elderly gentleman who is known and loved by just about everybody around.  He's had several strokes over the years, but has taken daily walks around our block as long as we have known him.

We befriended him right after we moved into the house, when he realized that we both worked for local government.  He was having some trouble getting his disabled bus pass renewed, so Keith helped him and then got him connected with the local office for elderly/disabled services.  We had been wondering about him this year, as we had not seen him out and about in a while, not even after the weather got nice.

I get it in my head at that point that this must be his estate sale, which bums me (and Keith) out considerably.

Thankfully, I turned out to be completely wrong.  Keith says I have the wrong house, and he would know better than me, since he's been there more times than I have.  I also rechecked the listing and it was advertised as a moving (not estate) sale.  None of the items pictured for sale were the kind of things that someone this gentleman's age would have. 

We ended up missing the sale.  They closed early due to low turn out well before we got there.  I'm really glad that we didn't end up going through another friend's things.  I'm still bothered by the fact that we haven't seen him lately.

Up until this last week, the closest I had come to encountering a deceased friend's stuff was the time we went to a yard sale in front of a house that a friend had rented for years before she died.  We ended up telling the people having the sale all about her.   Now I've had a close call and a close encounter, right in the middle of the Peddlers Mall.

I really hope it doesn't happen again for a long while.

Monday Rambles

This little fellow is a bit nonplussed right now.

Please ignore the mess.  We're in the junk room.  It's junky.

We're in the middle of our annual house invasion by the ants, but we finally seem to be winning the battle, thanks to generous applications of what I call "Demetrious Earth."  However, before the tide turned, they made it into the bin where we keep the cat food for the first time ever.

Thankfully, it was almost empty, so we didn't have to toss much.  The problem is that we haven't had time to replenish the regular cat food.  I grabbed a bag of another kind at the grocery so we could make it through the weekend.  He's eating it, but is also taking great pains to tell me that it's not his "real" food.  Poor guy.

It doesn't help that I've been keeping it in the fridge, just to make sure that any surviving ants don't get into it.  We don't have any air tight containers large enough for all of it.  He's definitely nonplussed by it all.

(If you're nonplussed at times, does that mean that you can be plussed at other times?  Wouldn't being nonplussed mean that you were being subtracted?  But from what?  Oh, the quandaries!)

We'll pick up some more of the regular food when Keith gets me at the mall tonight.

I saw these lovely flowers when I was on a walk last week.

The fortune cookie recently gave me some sage advice.

I never got to talk about Derby week sales, thanks to our internet outage.  I ran a 20% off sale at the booths, which kept my sales totals up to regular levels, and even surpassed that on a coupe of days, but killed me to do so.  I can handle doing a one day sale, but a week or more is just too much for me.  I hate to see that much money not being made.  Things have been dismally slow ever since.  We're in the doldrums here and will be until people decide that it's too hot to be doing things outside and that the flea market is a much better deal. It helps that they have finally got all the air units in the building working.

The internet outage led to an impromptu oddball film festival for several days, as I was desperate for something to watch.  Since it was also during my treatment time, I had some rest and down time with not a lot going on.  I got so deep into my stash of strange DVD's that I had to hit a couple of dealers in the mall looking for some more.  The secondhand store down the street helped too.

Remember back when DVD's were just getting widespread exposure and all kinds of stuff would show up in bins for a dollar or two at stores like Target and Walgreens?  This was one of those DVD's.  Because they were so cheap and plentiful, they can still be found at yard sales and thrifts all over the place.  If the topic interests me (and the price is right), I'll usually pick them up.  Often, they're quite good.

This is one of the good ones.  Produced in Australia in the 80's, the character designs have a retro Hanna-Barbera vibe to them that hearkens back to their early 60's heyday.  The animation is far better than HB ever was, making for an enjoyable watching experience.

The company that distributed this one also released a ton of others.  I've seen a couple.  The Odyssey was quite good.  Hercules, not so much.  While I was searching for the cover image to use, I discovered that this exists.  I must find it!

Bob and Penny Lord were EWTN mainstays for years and years.  They produced 30 minute videos about various saints, miracles, and Catholic shrines.  I've seen many of their productions and love them to pieces.  From time to time, I can find one of their DVD's at a thrift and I always snatch it up.

Their productions have a lack of polish that is endearing.  They're not totally amateurish, but it's pretty obvious they're not a professional production crew by any means.  It's also pretty obvious that Penny loves to be in front of the camera, perhaps a bit too much.  During some of their films, they'll be interviewing a priest or a nun, and Penny will do all the talking to the point where the interviewee never gets to say anything!  It's kind of a hoot to watch.

Still, you can tell that this is a couple that sincerely believes everything that they cover.  They genuinely love their faith and want to share it.  In the end, whether or not you share their belief, you cannot help but love their shows a little bit, just because of who they are.  Sadly, they have both passed on, but the media ministry they started continues.

I also read a few more graphic novels than usual.  This one was the best of the lot.

Set in the early days of the Batman/Robin partnership, this collection shows how that partnership impacted each of the heroes and how a shocking incident of violence changes it forever, planting the seeds that will eventually lead to its demise.  The art is sharp and stylish.  The writing is insightful and clever--playful at times, disturbing at others.  It's an engaging read that manages to remember for a far too brief moment that Batman comics used to be fun.  Even though that more light-hearted atmosphere is totally destroyed by the end of the story, the way everything unfolds left me feeling both nostalgic and a little disturbed.  Unfortunately, it seems that Batman must always be marred by violence these days.

All product images were taken from Amazon and are copyright by their respective holders.

Today will be my only booth day this week.  I have a lot to do around the house to get ready for this weekend's junk set out in our area.  (I know you all are sick of hearing about this, but it's a big deal for me.)  By Wednesday, there should already be a dozen or so good stashes of stuff popping up on the curbs.  I've already discovered that the folks that have alleys behind their houses have begun building their piles.  I got me some hunting to do!

Not to mention some crap to haul out here.  My aim is to get a good clean out at the house in prep for my yard sale in early June and as part of the work on razing Sorrow Mountain.  To get that stuff done, I'm going to have to put the booth on autopilot for a little while.  (Unless, of course everything sells in one day.  I'll come in and restock then.  That would also take care of a big hunk of my backlog.)

I'll check back in this week with pics of recent finds.  In the meantime, here's some Music for Monday.



If that doesn't put you in a mood to have a good week, I don't know what will.

Booth Update

I had to do a quick Mazda unload yesterday, so there was no time for a shot.  I'll make up for it around Tuesday or Wednesday with a finds post, if the weather cooperates.  I'm building up a huge backlog of stuff to show you, but these cloudy, rainy days aren't helping.

Anyway, it seems like I show booth shots when I can't do Mazda shots, so here you go.

 
This is the newest space.  It's not nearly done, by any means.  For one thing, people can walk into it easily.  That's not typical for my spaces.  It is, however, presentable.

I'm stocking it slowly right now by pulling things from the other booths that need more attention.  I'll be replacing those things with new stuff, mainly from Sorrow Mountain.  The idea is that the older stuff will attract buyers from being in a different spot, while the new stuff will make the other spaces look fresher, or something like that.

Eventually, I'll be replacing all the tables with shelves from the Mount of Sorrows.  That will create more room for stuff.

You don't quite get the full effect of the booth in these shots, because I'm cropping around the inconvenient pole in the middle of the entrance.  There's not a lot I can do about the pole, since it has a fire extinguisher on it, so altering it is out of the question.  Sigh. 

I have a damn extinguisher on the pole at the other booth too.  I live in terror of me (or someone else) knocking one of those suckers off the pole and ruining a ton of my stuff when it explodes all over the place.  Sigh.

 By the way, that corner shelf on the left side in the second picture was given to me by a vendor who was moving out.  It was a thank you because I used to shop from her and she said I was very nice to her.

Retro Y'all!

Hands Down, this is my favorite Eurythmics tune.



We had rain on and off all week here.  We're getting a break for the weekend, but on Monday?  Well,  HERE IT COMES AGAIN!  (Dammit!)

Thursday Update

Not quite long enough to be a ramble, but I did want to catch everyone up. 

Our internet at home went out a week ago today.  We finally got it back yesterday, while we were still waiting for the technician to visit.  That visit was scheduled for today. It just came back on by itself.  Don't know why, but I'll take it.

I hate using my phone for much more than short messages.  I have Fat Thumb Syndrome, which when combined with the Autocorrect Blues, leads to the dreaded Irritable Eddies.  I curse too much as it is, folks.  I don't need to create situations which will call for more cursing.

This outage also happened to hit when I had no time to drag my butt and the laptop to a spot with WiFi.  Sometimes, it is what it is.

Thankfully, I had several "silly season" posts already scheduled.  I've started writing those as I think of them and scheduling several of them throughout each week, about a month ahead of time.  That way, if something happens on this end, like an outage, you still get your dose of Eddie that makes you wonder why you keep coming back to this here blog.

It also gives me room to write the longer posts, which then either get slotted in the empty days or replace one of the "silly season" posts, which then goes back into rotation.  (That's why you keep seeing that close up shot of a very handsome fellow popping up from time to time.  Be glad that didn't come all in one week.)

One casualty of the outage was my pre-Free Comic Book day post, which was supposed to go last Friday.  I was still wrapping it up when we lost the internet.  Since it's too dated now to use, I'll just have to set it aside.  Sigh!

Since I also had to miss Mother's Day on Sunday, here's a late shout out to all you Mothers and Grandmothers and Other Significant Female Presences!

I'll do a proper ramble on Monday, and, if I have time (and the damn weather cooperates), I'll share some finds tomorrow.

A Literary Tragedy

Although everyone thought she was going to have a promising career, it wasn't meant to be.

Turns out, Hulda only had the one story in her.

Listen to Mama!

Mother always said, "Make yourself useful!"

I'm glad someone was listening.

After all, I'd hate to imagine what a "Non-Useful Spice Set" would look like.

Retro Y'all!

In honor of the Run for the Roses and Free Comic Book Day:



About ten or so years ago, they did a FREE concert here at the Waterfront on Derby Eve.  It was one of the most awesome shows I have ever been to.

BEWARE!

HERE

THERE

BE

DRAGONS!!!!!

Okay.  So, actually, there really isn't that much to fear.  The worst thing that could happen is they'll invite you to tea, where Hercule will try to impress you with stories of his deeds in the Great War, while Cecil and Pemberton will very rudely interrupt and claim that not only is Hercule too young to have fought in the Great War, but he's also so near-sighted that he would have undoubtedly been stuck scouring pots and pans or mucking out latrines.  Wallace will ignore everyone and spike his tea with brandy from a flask made out of an elf skull and regret once again that he didn't become an aerospace engineer like his Great Aunt Clotilda wanted.  Don't stay too late, or he'll start warbling off-key show tunes in Runic Dwarvish.

If you decide to go, do ignore the somewhat decrepit state of the manor house.  They've fallen on hard times of late, after the rutabaga market crashed in '93.  Also, under no circumstances should you agree to play charades.  That always ends up in a huge fight, usually with the drapery on fire.  Suggest musical chairs instead.  But don't let Wallace sing.

Top Five Things to Look for This Summer at Yard Sales (Revisited Yet Again!)

Let's make a different kind of list.  Okay?

I promise that this is the last post on this theme for this year.  I started to actually make this one my post for the group blog, but decided that it might be better to stay within the boundaries of the given task.

I also toyed with the idea of making this a secondary part of the post I submitted, but ended up cutting it out for length.  After I decided that it might be a good idea to include an intro for new visitors, I became concerned about how long the post was.  In the end, I was very happy with the way the initial post came out, so I think I made the right call.

But some ideas are too good to let slide away.  Truth be told, this is a concept I have been wanting to blog about for a while now.  It just took the group blog to spur me into actually doing it.

When I first got my booth, I got asked one question over and over:  "What do you sell there?"  My answers must have frustrated people because I tended to describe items, rather than naming them.  I had one goal in mind when I took my first booth--to have a booth that wasn't like any other space in the mall.  To do that, I spent more time thinking about what the stuff I was selling would be like, instead of what it actually was.

Initially, I used to say that I wanted "things that made you think of bongo drums" when you saw them.  It worked for me--bongo drums are cool and interesting--but not for other people, who just didn't get what I was trying to say.  "You're selling bongo drums?"  "What about other instruments?"  "Do that many people buy bongo drums?"

In the end, I started thinking in terms of adjectives that best described the things I was looking for.  What characteristics do they all have in common?  This is the list I created.  It was important for me to define those terms, as well, using definitions that relate back to the purpose of looking for those items--the booth.

Unique:  Things that are different from the items others are selling.  If it is an item that others have in their booths, it still needs to be distinct in some way.  For example, others also sell books, but I don't sell the Danielle Steele, Stephen King, harlequin Romance, etc books that you find in so many other booths.

Fun:  I want things that make me smile when I find them.  More importantly, I want them to make other people smile when they see them in the booth.

Eclectic:  I don't want to be one note.  I want a range of items, from soup to nuts, that are distinct and different from each other, so that the overall effect of my space is a weird and wonderful menagerie.

Interesting:  Something so fascinating that you cannot resist stepping into the booth to check it out.

Oddball:  Stuff that is unlike stuff that you've seen before.

As time has gone on, my horizons (and my booths) have expanded quite a bit.  I don't hold to this list as hard and fast as I used to.  I carry some things that don't really fit onto this list--although it all does add to the eclectic effect.  Still, this list does form a key part of my guiding re-selling philosophy.  In the end, it's more about knowing how to bend and mold the list, instead of how strictly I adhere to it.

I don't really think I'm proposing anything that new here.  Most folks are already doing this sort of thing without realizing it.  Go back and re-read Donna's Five Things post.  Her opening is a list of adjectives!  (And I didn't even have to pay her so she would do it!)

Try it yourself.  Think about the things you're looking for at yard sales this summer.  It doesn't matter whether you re-sell or buy for yourself.  Can you create a list of five adjectives that gives a good overall description of these items?  Give it a try!

Feel free to share your own list in comments.

For an added challenge, try to do it without using the words "vintage" "retro" "antique" or "primitive."  I know.  BLASPHEMY!

Top Five Things to Look for at Yard Sales This Summer (REVISITED)

I hope you all had a good time checking out the posts from last Friday's group blog.  I know I had more views than I think I have ever had, plus a whole lot of really nice comments.  Thanks to everyone who participated and visited this here blog.

When I originally started working on the post, I was going to make two lists--one as a re-seller and one from a more personal point of view.  I ended up leaving the second list off, because I felt the post was getting rather long.  I didn't want to not use that material, so I decided to do a follow up post and include it.

That's what today is all about.

Before I get into this particular list, I do need to say something important.

I REALLY DID HAVE THIS IDEA LAST WEEK WAY BEFORE I READ SHARA'S POST AND I AM NOT COPYING HER IDEA NO WAY NO HOW!  SO THERE! 

NANNY NANNY BOO BOO!

It just so happens that great minds think alike.  That's all.

Now, onto to the list.

TOP FIVE THINGS THAT I AM LOOKING FOR PERSONALLY AT YARD SALES THIS SUMMER

CLOTHES

We'll start with the most boring one first.  I need new (to me) clothes pretty badly.  Most of my old stuff is either shot or seems to have....well.....shrunk....just like that....while hanging in the closet.  I don't want to go buy new stuff or pay new prices, so I am on the hunt this year to stave off impending nakedity.  (And the world is very, very grateful.)

RELIGIOUS MEDALS

While I'll always be on the look out for all kinds of religious articles for my collection, it seems like I have had a lot of luck recently finding cool religious medals that I don't already have.  I think it's worth keeping my eyes peeled (ouch!) for more.

OLD ROMANCE AND HORROR COMICS

Comic covers from GCD

Comic books are something that I always look for (of course), but my interest in these two eras and genres just keeps growing.  These are seriously some of the most wonderful, cheesy classics you can find.  And I want to find more.

SUPPLIES

Another boring one.  Like Shara (STILL NOT COPYING), I like to get my office supplies, labels, etc. at yard sales.  It's just so much cheaper that way.  This also includes stuff like jars, lids, screws and nails, finials, handles, etc.  And cleaning stuff.  And can openers.  Keith is obsessed with can openers.  Any time we find a Swing A Way can opener, we have to buy it.

ODDBALL DVD'S

One of my favorite movies. Image from Amazon.

Obscure animation. Little known bands.  Strange foreign films.  Cult classics.  Mexican soap operas.  Cheesy old movies.  Fondly-remembered stuff from my childhood.  When Keith goes camping, I like to have my own private oddball film festivals.  I have to hunt to find the stuff I want to watch, but I can usually find a few good ones over the course of the summer.  It's also usually cheap, since there may only be six people in the city who actually want this stuff.

I resisted the urge to do runners-up on my other list, because I knew that once I got started I would find it hard to stop, but this list is different.  So here's a runner-up!

PUZZLE BOOKS/MAGAZINES

I typically go through at least one puzzle magazine a week or so.  I am always on the look out for more.  I'll take one that's just crosswords, although I prefer a mix of puzzles.  I don't like Sudoku.

And, finally, the top item on my Junker Want List. 

I've had want lists as long as I've been a comic collector.  It's part and partial of collecting, this keeping of records of what you've got and what you need to fill holes in your collection.  They've become less important to me in recent years, as I've been down-sizing my collection and focusing my efforts a little more.

As a junker, my list doesn't represent things I would like to own, but instead things I would like to have to sell.  One of the things I like about being a re-seller is that I get to temporarily own cool things, but then pass them on to good homes.  I'm kind of like a temporary guardian of stuff, which I quite like.  I simply don't need more stuff of my own in my life.

So, I keep this little list of things that I would like to be able to provide someone else.  Every year, a few more items get crossed off.  Last year was a really good year for that.  One day, I might do a post about my whole Junker Want List, but for today, I'm settling for my top item.

WOODEN IRONING BOARD

Image from the Graphics Fairy

I've wanted one of these in my booth as long as  I can, but I can never seem to find one at the right price.  Maybe this will be the year.  There's just something about them that is so cool. 

Okay, so that's the first addendum.  First addendum?  Yep.  There's another one coming.  Tune in tomorrow, when I set the whole idea of list-making on its head and spin it around until it burps purple jelly beans.

Monday Rambles

It was the best of months.  It was the worst of months.  It was April 2016, the month of the never-ending booth redo.

I didn't set a record in April, but I did have a really nice overall total.  It was definitely a case of the very strong first half making up for a weaker second half of the month.  We kind of hit the rocks once the weather got nice and the Derby Festival started.

Thankfully, there's only one more week of the Festival left.  We made it through the fireworks show, the marathon and the balloon race.  Now we just need to make it through the steamboat race, the parade, Oaks Day, and, finally, Derby Day.  A couple of those events really snarl up downtown traffic and the bridge access across the river, so it will probably be a slow week.

I'm running a 20% off sale this week to try and offset any sales dip.  We'll see how well it works.  I don't like having a sale so soon after getting so much new stuff out, but the re-do only took about three times as long as I thought it would.  That will teach me to bring in two dozen tubs of smalls all at once.

My sale started Saturday and will run through Mother's Day.  Saturday turned into a real good day, which I guess is due to the sale.  It wasn't my best day ever, but it was definitely Top 10 and maybe Top 5.  (I'd have to look it up to be sure.)  Sunday was good too.  Now, of course,  I am second-guessing the whole sale thing.  I really don't like doing blanket percent off sales.

I am not planning on doing any major restocking for a few weeks, since I just put so much in.  That will buy me some time to get ready for my yard sale and for junk set out.  It will also give me time to dig some shelves off Sorrow Mountain for the new booth.  I'm setting it up tomorrow using my tables to get it started.  We dropped them off yesterday.  It's going to take a while to find my last few large shelves in the mess that is my storage.  I just hope the former vendor finally got moved out.  I'll put some pics up once I get done.

I'm actually kind of dreading the set up.  It's just a single booth and I am so not used to working with single spaces any more.  I have a huge list of things in my head that I want to put in this space.  There's no way it's all going to fit.  The biggest challenge will be dealing with the column.  The one at my other space is in the aisle, but right up against the front of the booth.  It's a pain, but workable.  This one is smack dab in the booth.  Not fun.

In addition to being Derby Day, Saturday is also an important date for a couple of other reasons.  For one thing, it's the day of the street sale that I consider to be the "official" kick-off to yard sale season.  Everything up to now has been "pre-season."  This is the sale that kicks it off, and it is always grand.  Seven or eight groups of people, including a couple of antique dealers dumping their winter left overs for cheap.  From time to time, I can even grab a couple of pieces of furniture at this one.

Saturday is also Free Comic Book Day, which will mean trips to at least two comic shops, more if I can squeeze them in.  I'll write more about FCBD on Friday, including which of the titles I most want to get.

I went on my usual Sunday junk walk last night and found this. 

Is repainting your shed still a thing?

I'm not totally sure what it is, but I love the little metal casters.  "Casters" is such a cool word.

Is sweeping your sidewalks still a thing?

I've decided to stay home today, since the neighborhood next to ours is having its junk set out.  Booth set up is one thing, but free crap is another matter entirely.  There will always be tomorrow.

Before then, however, it's time for Music for Monday:



Finally, thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and visited or commented during Friday's group blog event.  I think that post is now my most viewed ever!  I hope some of you all are sticking around and finding something to enjoy here.  I know I ended up with a few more blogs to visit out of the experience.  If you're a regular here, but haven't checked out the whole blog hop, you're missing out on some good reading!

I'll be posting two addenda to my original list this week, along with a bit of the usual silliness.

See ya!

Sunday Photo Parade!

Keith already had Mazda pretty much full of camping stuff, so there is no Mazda shot today.  I did get to a church sale and a nerd herd special sale at the comic shop.  I was kind of surprised that they had a sale just a week before Free Comic Book Day, when they'll be having another big sale, but I am so desperate for new comic stock that I dove right in.  It does seem odd to potentially risk running your customer base out of extra cash right before one of the biggest events of the year, but I'm not a comic book retailer, so what do I know?

Wait a minute, I am a sort of comic book retailer!  I guess.  Or something.

Anyway, here are yesterday's finds.  Also, the return of the front stoop photos!  Woo hoo!

Small haul, but then again, I don't really need anything right now.  There was a lot of furniture at the church sale, but it was too expensive for my tastes.

The vintage wood box (containers!!) has a greeting card decoupaged on the front.

FEED US!

These red lamps are Ikea.  Don't they look like aliens?

The little stool still has the original price tag on it!

The comic haul was a little larger--several for me, a lot for the booth.  Like I said, I need the stock.  here are some highlights.

This 1950 Disney giveaway booklet is a keeper.

Star Wars sells, man!

There were about a dozen of these 50's-era Dell comics in my haul.  I'll be keeping about half of them, I think.  The condition is not the greatest for any of them, but they're complete.  That's really all I ask when I can find them for a dollar each.

I've been tracking down these Marvel newspaper insert giveaways for years.  Advertising comics and premiums are one type of comic I am most interested in.  This one is full of ads from a now defunct department store.

This vintage Disney comic is in really nice shape.  There are always a few surprises like this at the special comic store sales.  Makes it well worth the time to go.

Believe it or not, this is probably my find of the day.  They had all three issues.  I've been hunting this one since it came out, back in my college days.  It was only sold through comic shops, which were still kind of a new thing in those days.  I didn't have regular access to a shop until I graduated and moved to Louisville in the late 80's.

I got several fondly remembered books from my youth, like this one.

I always pick this particular book up when I find it.  It sells just about as soon as I out it out.

Also, on Friday, I finally finished the great booth re-do and got the aisle booth in order.  Sort of.  If by "in order" you mean "got everything out of tubs and on shelves" and not "made it all pretty."  There's fine-tuning a-plenty to do this week, but since I'll also be setting up the new booth (#7!), some of that will take care of itself.

Before I let you see the pics, you have to take a vision test.  Repeat after me:  "Gee, Eddie.  We don't see anything just thrown on a shelf all willy nilly.  There aren't any piles of things about to cascade off shelves.  It all looks lovely."  If you can get all that out and keep a straight face, then you pass the test and can look at the pics.

So here we go:

This is the view coming down the aisle.  This is actually three spaces put together and there is this damned inconvenient column right in middle as you come down the aisle.  I cropped that bit out.

The right side is my ode to drinking, smoking, gambling and other vices.  The left is a shelf of miscellany.  This is the catchall booth, where things that don't fit in the other booths end up.  Although, my vintage/primitive/etc booth is so overly full right now that some of that stuff has made its way down to this one.

View from the inside across the booth.  The gray shelf in the foreground is going into the new booth, which is going to become a catchall for the catchall.  My booths are getting meta on me.  On the other side of the brown shelf on the left is my table of Happy Meal toys and other small playthings.  It's pretty popular and pretty much stays a mess, even though I try to straighten it out every week.  I sell lots of those suckers.

The best thing about small toys like that is that they are so easy to find in large bags and batches for only a buck or two.  I can either re-bag them into smaller lots or price them individually for a buck or two.  It's pretty easy to pull someone in when they find out they can get a whole bunch of Smurfs for a couple bucks each.  I may not be getting rich with this stuff, but it really shores up the bottom line nicely.   

Shelves on the aisle.   You can also see my baskets of bagged toys.  I keep my nicest Disney stuff, plus a few other characters, on this shelf.  It's a little disheveled right now.

Blurry pic.  Sorry.  Inside toy shelves and the start of my religion section.  You can see how badly piled up the self on the right is.  I desperately need another shelf for toys.  It's odd, but at Dixie I was known for having lots of toys, but here, it's taken me a year to get that stock built back up.

I think I have a plan to move the religious articles on the left and let all three of the white shelves be for toys.  That should ease the crunch for the moment.  Most of those things on the floor are destined either for the new space or for a spot currently occupied by something going to the new space.  I find that I have to do a lot of thinking three moves ahead to keep things working right.

The rest of the religion section and the end of this particular set of spaces.  The two small shelves in the foreground are going to be replaced by a much larger, longer shelf that will enable me to put all the non-book religious items together and make room for more toys as described above.  I'm also relocating my bins of religious booklets to enable me to reduce the piling and stacking on the bookshelves.  This is becoming a popular section for me.

Finally, this is where the new booth is going.  I'll be having to deal with another damn column.  All those clothes are the vacating vendor's.   I was hoping she would have been out already, but she decided to wait until the last minute to move out.  This stuff had better all be gone by the time I get there tomorrow.  I got a lot more shuffling to do.

Thanks for taking this little tour with me.  I hope it didn't offend your aesthetic sensibilities too much.  If so, just grab a cocktail and lay down for a couple of hours.  I promise that the headache and the ghastly after-visions do fade away in time.

If you missed your chance to see my other spaces in their current form, you can find them here.