We've spent the weekend going to the many garage sales in the immediate area, to stock up on the particular things that we need (colored glassware, teacups, and animal figurines - go figure!). Around here and during this time of year, the newspapers publish a garage sale map every weekend of the county, with the Saturday, Sunday, and both days' sales clearly marked on the map.
Armed with our TomTom - perhaps Bob's most favorite Christmas present of recent years - getting from house to house without a hassle is all but guaranteed. You do need to type in your next destination before you leave your last, or at least I do, risking getting car sick and getting confusing commands from the calm voice of the unit, as it tells you to "turn around as soon as possible." And there are times when the thing just seems as lost as WE are. But overall, it's removed the stress from figuring out which way the one-way streets are going, and how to most efficiently get from one place to the next.
All I can say is - thank goodness for that gadget, because the garage sales themselves are really hard work to go to. In many ways I have to equate it to dumpster diving, because people will put broken and filthy items out for sale that aren't even suitable for donation to a charity. I don't know how people get the nerve to do it (I even saw, at one garage sale, a package of feminine yeast infection OTC remedy - what on earth?) - is it desperation, stupidity, or what I've come to think of that Jerry Springer mentality, where people don't seem to mind that they are literally airing their dirty laundry for the sake of a couple of dollars? Got me, but I felt slightly sickened at what I saw at some of these sales.
We did pick up one bad find this morning, at what had been signed as an "estate sale" outside of a double-wide trailer. It looked like tables of stuff that had been left outside for weeks, if not months - covered with dirt and grime. We found a lovely teacup and saucer, and negotiated down to what we thought was a fair price. It wasn't until we got it home and gave it a good wash that we saw that the underside of the saucer had a chip out of it. Darn! Condition is king in this business, so although it's still a very pretty piece, it's not worth very much at all because of that chip. So we've got to be more careful, and feel the edges of what we're proposing to buy.
Also picked up this weekend: several pieces of jewelry, a German beer stein, an owl ceramic bank (looking very 1970's), a brass owl trivet, and some amber glass tumblers and dessert glasses. We were pretty careful to stick to our shopping list, as we could have easily come home with plates, books, and other things - but I'm guessing that it makes sense to be firm in sticking to what we know we need, rather than buying what catches our eye.
This definitely is almost as hard work as doing the shows - it's a lot of driving around, and for every garage sale where we find one item, we'll have stopped at four or more that will have absolutely nothing for us. But these are the right places for us to look for our stock. We also struck out early this morning to check out the 49er Flea Market in Clearwater, Florida, which some dealers had recommended to us as a source for inventory. It opened at (yawn!) 7AM, but, as the season really is over for this area, most of the outdoor stalls were empty; many local dealers have probably started doing the shows farther north by now, where the weather is cooler. Many people travel north during the spring and summer, coming back down to Florida for the winter months.
We didn't buy a single thing there. It's not that there weren't items to buy - but the prices certainly weren't as low as I thought they would have been, even given the bargaining that you're expected to do at flea markets. And actually, nobody was selling what I had on my shopping list - no colored glassware, no (suitable) animal figurines, but ones that I would not have wanted in our booth. Not a single teacup to be seen. The jewelry was not as contemporary as the pieces that I like to sell - more of the Old Lady stuff that just doesn't interest me. So again I'm glad that we stuck to our guns and passed on the impulse shopping.
We'll probably be doing the same next weekend - we'll see how the sale-ing goes then!
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