I love spring. It’s not only not only because of the pleasant
weather, cuter clothes, and sale-priced Easter candy, but also
because it’s also the unofficial kick-off of Garage Sale Season,
which starts in mid-April and goes to the end of October.
I love spring. It’s not only not only because of the pleasant weather, cuter clothes, and sale-priced Easter candy, but also because it’s also the unofficial kick-off of Garage Sale Season, which starts in mid-April and goes to the end of October.
Let me just stop right here and say that I can’t resist a good garage sale. I mean, the basic philosophy is simple: people pay to take away someone else’s junk. It’s a brilliant system really.
And, you’ve got to admit, garage sales are fascinating. They make you do the sort of crazy stuff that you’d never, ever thought you’d do like, say, spending $20 in gas driving around with the air conditioner on, just to stand in the sun and argue about getting a dollar-priced lava lamp for 50 cents.
And it’s not just that. Suddenly, items that you’d consider someone’s ridiculous and hideous junk anywhere else, once flung out on a driveway on a Saturday morning, become something amazing. Something you must have. It’s true. I’ve seen one particularly intense garage sale reduce a sane, upstanding citizen of the community (OK, ME) to haggling with a 10-year-old over the price of a plastic O.J. Simpson bobblehead.
Why does this happen? Maybe it’s the all of the fresh air. Or maybe it’s the heat. But I think it’s the thrill of the hunt. A garage sales is the modern day equivalent of a treasure hunt for – ahem – quality stuff cheap. An oxymoron? Sure. But sometimes you can get, as they say in certain circles, “lucky.”
I’ve always wanted to be one of those people on the Antique Road Show who brings in something found in bottom of a nickel box underneath a pair of rusty pliers and finds out it’s worth $300,000. I’ve imagined how a conversation with the host might go.
Mark L. Walberg: What do you have there, Ms. Farmer?
Me: Uh, a rooster butter boat I bought for ten cents.
M.W.: Hmmm. I see. The details on the porcelain claw feet and the beak spout are exquisite.
Me: Why, yes, I thought so, too.
M.W.: This particular barnyard decor dates back to the mid–’80s somewhere between the smiling cow creamer and the goose-wearing-a-sun-bonnet cookie jar phase.
Me: Whew! That’s what I had hoped.
M.W.: Well, I must say that’s quit a valuable collector’s item you have here. I’d appraise it around, oh let’s see, five bazillion dollars.
Me: Yippee!
But of course things like this never happen to me. Somehow I get stuck with garage sale junk. How to avoid such garage sale mistakes? I’ve learned some key tenets, which are:
– What looks awful at the sale will look awful in your home.
– There is a good reason someone is selling a Cuisenaire Citrus Juicer out of their garage.
– If you can’t find a use for it before you buy it, you won’t find one after. Ever.
– Nothing less than 5 cents is worth having.
– Never buy objects grouped together in a zip lock bag.
– If it has hair in it, it’s not new no matter what anyone says.
– Gold lame pants will never come back in style.
– Clutter is clutter is clutter.
The funny thing is, even if you follow these tips, you’ll inevitably end up buying some garage sale junk, some of which looks strangely familiar, such as the ceramic elephant pitcher I sold last year that showed up on the Martinez’s $1 table last weekend. And I saw it at the Petersons’ garage sale a few weeks ago. And at the McHughs’ the week before that. It’s entered what I call the Garage Sale Circuit, which means it’ll be sold and resold throughout the whole season until someone finally either breaks it, loses it or takes it to Goodwill.
Garage sales are funny things. As the saying goes, “sometimes one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”
Or, as they say during Garage Sale Season, “Sometimes one man’s junk is just another man’s … junk.”
