Featured Finds Thread

I LOVE Lea Stein. I managed to snarf a cat brooch at a car boot sale last year for under ten dollars. Seller knew what it was, but wanted it gone. I did not haggle.

Car boot sales: muddy car park, January, damp. Dressed like a bag lady. People bring cars. Open boots (trunks). Sell stuff. Idiots like me buy it.

Thus, the Christofle ice bucket, which, it seems, is an original 1930s Art Deco one. HAH!

 

I like the pearls....but then......I'm a swine !!!

 

Uh-oh, sounds like for many (too many) years I have misunderstood the meaning behind "cast(ing) pearls before swine."

 

Would bread boxes been made like this box? It looks like the right size/shape for one.

 

Think car trunk sale and you will get the idea. Fill the boot or back with junk, drive to a field and set up a table or groundsheet or just turf it out.

Not just junk, either. You get dumb people selling really good things for diddly-squat,(vert rarely) and folk like me clearing interesting stuff that I just can't be bothered with selling piecemeal. And every manner of seller inbetween,

A fair field full of folk.

From William Langland, Ode to a Car Boot Sale

A fair field full of folk · found I in between,
Of all manner of men · the rich and the poor,
Working and wandering · as the world asketh.

 

Thank you, Bakersgma. Quirky girl, Lea Stein can be addicting.... I bought three of her cat pins, one of the Sascha model and two Gominas, to resell, I kept them forever before I did. I really like her fox and cat pins.

 

Maybe similar to our swap meets. Less organized than a flea market.

 

Hmmmm..... we kinda call them flea markets or community yard sales. You always have to pay somebody to set up. I tend to stumble upon them on the way to somewhere else....I tend to leave my county in the summer and drive to Cape May County for fun. I try to find out what is going on in regards to stuff being sold, but there are so many places they are listed it is very hard. I have had fabulous luck this past summer at estate sales (because everybody and their brother is calling themselves estate sellers) and estate sales held by the family (house-wide indoor yard sales.)

 

Many community yard sales are held at camgrounds, fire halls, VFWs, etc., not in yards in the community.

 

My sister lived in Long Beach, CA, used to go to swap meets all the time.

 

Komokwa, anybody can cast pearls before me anytime! I love them.

 

Swap meets are not all that different than flea markets, though tend to attract smaller less organized dealers selling worse junk. There is a fee for entering but they tend to be less expensive than setting up at a flea. There is a big one in a South Chicago suburb just off a major highway, which is how I know about them.

 

They're fun to mess with, or swipe if you're a cat. I went to a so-called estate sale Saturday morning. As the saying goes, "move along, nothing to see here folks". Spent five bucks on a old shoe brush, a big Tupperware container, and some sewing supplies. Then dropped a hair under $9 in the Good (Ill) Will on some stuff you might actually like to see. Scored coral beads for two bucks, and a sterling ring for another two, along with a pair of modern earrings whose maker I don't recognize and a plastic pin.

 

Not so much, I'd imagine - just different stuff. They don't have swap meets around here much, unless you count community yard sales. Those do turn up, mostly loaded with dollar store and kid stuff. My prime hunting grounds are jumble/rummage sales. The ones in synagogues tend to be Ground Zero for good junk. The prices aren't the lowest, but I've found serious sleepers that way. Church sales are great too; the people selling the items have zero sentimental attachment to any of it and every once in a while, you really score. People use "estate sale" here for indoor tag and moving sales too.

 

Most of the flea markets around here closed years ago. The markets that still exist, mostly sell new stuff and knock-offs with some overpriced antique and vintage items.

 

Skeeziks, I tend to go south to exit zero. I do look around my county a lot more because of the economic downturn and people leaving for other areas. I can't go to that many sales, good for you! I read the newspaper ads and go on estatesales.net. Craigslist drives me nuts. It seems the areas are all jumbled up.

Evelyb, show me the coral beads!!!