Garage Sales Galore

Or according to the sheet I picked up, 16.  Yes, my little town of roughly 800 had their town wide sales this weekend.  If the timestamp of 9:15 AM is any indication on the Saturday morning, I think its safe to say I went bust of finding deals.  However I went out both days and found a few items.  A neighbor is having one and despite going back once already, I might go once more since there is a chair I was eyeing.

Before I show my haul, I want to mention that COMC is having a Spring Cleaning sale up until Sunday night.  A lot of cards are on sale and if you get 20 cards or more, shipping is free.  I'm not plugging them as an endorsement, I just wanted to mention it since its one of the few times free shipping comes into play.  I already have about 30 cards to get shipped so when I finish here, I'll do one last look and ship them.

Okay onto the loot.  Let me begin with an item not photographed as I just bought it today and didn't want to lug it around town (I forgot to mention, I walked to all these sales).  I found a VCR and promptly bought it without any assurance that it worked.  I still don't know if it works since I dropped it off at my storage unit so I can pick up later.  While it may have been a risky bet, I think a quarter was fair, and even if it doesn't work, I get to tear a machine up, so that alone is worth a quarter.

So what DID I get?  Let's see.

Who couldn't use a baseball bat ink pen?  Well besides finding out once I got home it didn't work but still?  I got it because obviously it was related to baseball, but also because of what it was advertising.

The Columbia Daily Tribune is a local newspaper and being a fan of newspapers, it was a double cool item.  I had no real intention of using it as I have plenty of pens, so I need to figure out where to display it.  Maybe it will fit in the hands of bobblehead Jose Reyes I showed a few days ago.  Hmm...  I'll try that later.

This is a T-shirt the I remember from the late 90's I think.  I never owned one, but I always liked it.  I was a fan of maps growing up (yes, I was a dork, but I was a dork who knew directions).  The shirt won't fit me but I had an idea of making a pillow or something of it.  I almost passed it up, but decided if it had the town shown on this shirt, I would get it.  Sure enough, my town is listed.  In fact it is in this very picture.  A lot of small towns are on this too so it wasn't real surprising.  I think Fortuna has like 5 people in the town, so it made it.  The town of Olean is having their big festival today as we speak.  Its been going on for 20 years, though I've never gone.  It's the Olean Testical Festival.  I'm serious Google it.  Then maybe delete your browser history so people don't think you're some sort of freak.

"NOW WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME?"  Seriously, how was I going to pass up a Ross Perot campaign button?  I don't dive into politics much on here, but only because I liked this button will I mention it here.  If I was old enough to vote in 1992, who knows, maybe I would have voted for Perot, but he was the last serious 3rd Party candidate and I think that's something lacking in today's politics.  Not going into this years election, but finding campaign buttons of almost anybody if the price was right, I'd likely bite.

I'm not much of a fan of Cable News (though CNN has done great lately with the 80's documentary and the White House ones from previous elections), but this button I liked.  I already stopped at this sale earlier and found another button I liked, but it was sold the second time I stopped, so these are still nice.  They are also in great shape to, I doubt they have been worn but maybe once, so they are almost pristine.

This next item may have people scratching their heads, and that's fine, but its another reason I might go back to the sale.

The neighbor is having a moving sale (according to the flyer with the sales listed), and her husband ran the local grocery store for it seemed like forever.  Honestly now that I think about it, this order book could be one of the first ones he had.  I think he bought the store in the 60s and ran it into the early 2000's.  After he sold it, the successors couldn't keep up and it closed a short time later.  A second attempt at a store fizzled a year or two ago as well.  That leaves the town with no store, which sucks.

So what was prices in the 60s?  Here is a brief look.  It shows the items in a case, the case price, the suggested retail price, and the profit per case (by percentage).  It is fun to look at how the prices changed from then to now and also how much markup store did.  There were a few more in the same condition as this and maybe the same year, so I don't know if I need more, but it is fun to look through.  I only wish the stores name was on the front as well, but oh well.

At this point, all these items came from one sale.  There is one more item I bought, and the total for all these items were $3.  The last item said 50 cents, so these items above cost $2.50.  I guess thats a fair deal, but once I got home and looked up this last item, I knew I hit a home run... no wonder I'm Home Run Phil on twitter.

Star Wars?  Eh, not the biggest fan, but I did finally watch the original three.  My mom actually spotted this (the real reason I went a second time), and I figured why not.  At worst I could give it to a friend.  At best, maybe I could hit the mother lode on eBay. Once I got home and looked it up, I could sell this and it would cover everything I bought the last two days and then some.  Sure I'm not rich, but this was a small victory.

The box looks to be in really good shap.  Not ripping and very minimal pressure on the bottom of the box.  Only blemishes are the price tag and a couple pieces of Scotch tape on the side to prevent it from spilling out.

Not the best photo, but the board looks to be in really good shape as well.  The game looks confusing as hell, and it didn't have instructions, so I don't know how to play it.  I did notice a seller saying he found and printed instructions with one he was selling, so maybe I'll do that.

I didn't count them but it looks like all the cards and pieces are there as well and again, in really nice shape.  You can't see them but the plastic pieces I presume to hold the players up are on the right.

I think a seller said like 54 or so cards were originally included, so if I do decide to sell this, I will count them to make sure.  Not bad cards for a 1970's game, a lot of graphics and details on it.

I mean that detail is amazing.  If I knew how to play the game, these cards alone would make me want to play.

The spinner was included as well and in pretty good shape.  In fact the only thing in less than great shape was the box that holds the game pieces had one side starting to come apart.  I has no logos on it, its just a cardboard box so it could be replaced, but its still useful.

So I think 3 bucks for all that was well worth it.

Part of the problems with the sales this weekend was sporadic heavy downpours kind of soiled the mood so it prevented a lot of people showing up and I think some sellers not putting as much out.  I hope next year they are better, however in Mid-Missouri alone there were 6 other towns having city wide sales this weekend, so it did seem like a losing battle.  If I have a chance next year, I might hit some of the other towns, then check these out later.

After the few sales I hit yesterday, I had to make a trip to Walmart for a couple things and in the process went to Savvy Seconds.  At the urge of some readers, I ended up buying the Liz Phair CD.

The price was 50 cents, and I think I remembered one song on it, so why not.  Here is the track listing.

I believe I've heard Supernova before and likely others.  I haven't listened much, but might give it a try this week.

When I buy one CD I usually buy another just to make it an even buck.  This time I went for an unknown to me group just based on their name.

The Red Hot Rhythm Rustlers are not a band I knew before buying this still sealed CD.  That might have been a warning.  I looked at the back and noticed a couple of the songs, so 50 cents was a risk I decided to take.

Well.... here's the track listing.

I noticed Route 66, but another one not listed here was "Seven Spanish Angels".  I mean it would take something catastrophic to ruin that song.  Which they managed to do.  However the top part of the album wasn't too bad.  It had a Johnny Cash vibe to me, but despite being labeled Country-Western, if felt more like lounge-country type of music.  The song I liked the most was an original song called The Bronze Buckaroo.

Was it worth 50 cents? Sure, I found a couple songs, so that made it worth it.

So overall not too bad of items, but I was hoping for a bit more.  Oh well, I have a storage unit full of stuff to sort and an apartment that is pretty full as it is, its not like I needed more.

Thanks for reading, and you may have noticed I'm working on my Missouri History Blog.  I'm testing out things on there before I do a redesign on here in a couple months.  I figured since that site is a little inactive I could test it out, then start posting on there again.  So be on the look out for new posts on there soon.  As for this one, I'm not sure on the design yet, but have other ideas.  I'll hope to have it done by Labor Day and have spent the past week checking things out.  As for now, I better go, I have a wedding to get ready for and still deciding on one more garage sale trip.  Hope everyone has a great weekend.