Estatesales.net

Cat pillow + 70's couch + yellow linoleum floor + huge Stein Mart bag as storage = probably a pretty good sale.

Good morning! While going through some sales I'm interested in attending tomorrow (possibly with the famous Eartha Kitsch!), I thought I would alert those retrophiles not-in-the-know of a very useful source to tracking down the tchotckes and knickknacks for which your heart pines. Do you go to Estatesales.net? After years of waking up early Friday or Saturday morning, buying a paper, circling the good garage sales in the classifieds sections in yellow highlighter, and looking each up in a street map of Nashville while careening, half-awake, around the Metro Davidson area, I have to tell you, the internet's way is MUCH easier than my way. Bored at school a few years ago, I discovered Estatesales.net and became aware of the fact that most professional sales are listed, with preview photos (!), in one easy-to-read scorecard. I still check the Tennessean online and craigslist to make sure there aren't any amateur/family run sales going on, but for well-organized, actually fully estate sale'd sales, this is one of your best bets.

In going through the preview photos this week, I recognized some tell-tale "it's gonna be a good one" signs. Do you know your estate sales? The photos above and below have some markers that indicate "actual to-settle-an-estate sale, not a bunch of children's clothes and ugly furniture that's-really-a-yard-sale". Regardez.

This scene has a lot of things going on. If you can see beyond the household cleaning goods and Lil Bratz valentines, we have a neat 60's stuffed bear, a yellow pitcher that may or may not be a 50's/60's gem but it certainly the right color to be one, a cake platter, and a bunch of pens. Why the bunch of pens? There could be swizzle sticks in there! Or old hat pins! Or any kind of thing. Possibly a good sale, possibly one of those horribly awkward hodge podges where the salespeople go "Oh, just pick out what you want and we'll give you a good price when you get to the checkout." Which is when I inevitably accidentally pick up the "Steiff bear that they couldn't possibly let go of for less than $50", when I was thinking more like $5. Le sigh. Refer back to horrible spider + pillbox hat episode of my last Weekend Finds post. It's hard out here for a magpie of a girl! I can't help the things that attract my eye!

 

This scene didn't have much going for it (ugh, 90's comforter; ugh, Godey's-esque prints in overkill frames, someone else's style but not mine....) until I spotted the little ceramic hound dog sitting next to the cordless phone! Hello, cute! It probably won't be there more than five minutes after the sale opens, but it still gives you hope that if they saved that little piece of 50's kitsch, maybe there's more gold in them thar hills!

If you follow My Pretty Baby Cried She Was a Bird on Facebook, you saw the above photo earlier this week. I am no less excited about it now that I was then! In reposting, I've noticed for the first time that the monkey I'd earlier identified, at stage left, as simply a "collegiate monkey" is actually a "roller-skaing collegiate monkey". Go, you! As for his friend, he's still playing guitar in a plaid, green, and sombrero outfit, but I now think he may be battery operated, judging from his base and the presence of many batteries in front of him. Do you see the sword tidbit picks? The fanciest you can get at Kroger's are freakin' multicolored wood ones in "original toothpick shape". Wouldn't these look Errol Flynn appropriate at my next cocktail get together? Last but not least...anti-nudist signage is something I didn't know I needed...but then....

No need to point out what's neat in this picture. Who are you? What kind of stamps do you give?

Want to live in haunted metal dollhouse Tara? Here's your chance. Don't tell anyone how crazy I am about this dollhouse; maybe it'll be heavily discounted on the last day because other buyers' were warded off by the spirits.

What is not to love about this picture?! There's a lot of cool stuff going on, but the African woman in the black and jade green panel painting, the whipstitch lampshade at left, and the planter with the donkey base are my favorites. I have enough sock monkeys or the gent at the back would be a candidate.

Any kind of framed needlework is exciting, but I really like the precious little children at the bottom of the picture on the right.

This whole couch! It looks a little dog-eaten/cat-scratched at the bottom of the frame, but it also looks like it might be a pull-out sleeper. Also, the mens' shirts still in the package? Also, the shocking salmon color of the couch. I'll take the whole thing, thanks!

If I can't have a secretary, I can at least have "Miss Friday the Typist" sitting at my desk. Even if she can't really take dictation, that doesn't mean I can't dictate letters to her and feel important in my own right! I also love the little girl in black tights plié-ing on the dance-shoes box.

The kids on the Lincoln Log box, the Indian scene and the magician on the sides of those party favor toys, the Halloween bowl, and a Dick Tracy esque toy car. CHILDREN'S TOYS FROM THE FIFTIES' ARE THE BEST. Why don't we do package design and marketing like this anymore, as opposed to the earlier mentioned Bratz?

Last but not least, Miss Swagger herself, a 60's bubble cut Barbie photographed amongst all her trappings. Is that leopard trimmed coat killing you or is it K-I-L-L-I-N-G you? One really neat thing about 50's/60's doll clothes or paper doll clothes is imagining your own grown up self, even now, in the same outfits, and I'm a little heartsick over the green dress on the left. Even the Lincoln Log kid approves!

I have to go do a tour of the whole library for incoming freshmen, pray for me! In the meantime, why don't you take a look at Estatesales.net and see what kind of things you can't live without in your own hometown and state? Any good sales lined up for this weekend? Which one of the items above did YOU spy with your little eye and get really excited about? Let a girl know!

See you tomorrow for Photo Friday!