garage sale fun

[starmac]

Went to a garage sale today at a shop that was mosty tools and shop equipment. I picked up a midway action wrench #1 that was among a bunch of plumbing tools, and ask how much. The guy said you probably have no use for it and ask if I knew what it was. I told him I had an idea, but could be wrong. He explained it was for swaging fittings on some kind of special pvc pipe. lol. I told him he was right, I had no use for it, but if it was cheap enough that I would take it anyway, just in case I ever needed one. lol

[freebullet]

So you get it?

[lylejb]

so, how much????

[starmac]

10 bucks, yea I got it. lol

[MaryB]

Now if I could find an AR multi tool that cheap...

[farmallcrew]

nice grab starmac. Every now and then i hit a garage sale that the person doesn't know a thing about what they are selling. I feel kind of bad getting something worth 500 for 2 bucks. but thats what keeps the world moving, buying and selling. Commerce

[Cactus Farmer]

I found several bricks of babbit at a sale run by some teenagers, two bits a bar........I helped them out and took it all. Pinched myself all the way home. Thankfully it wasn't very far.

[GoodOlBoy]

I love good garage sale finds. Last time my wife, my grandmother, and I went garage sale hoping I found four lodge cast iron cornbread "corn stick" pans for .50 cents a piece at one sale, and a pile of old files (think file knives) for $1 for the whole stack (about 15 various sized files in it) at another sale. When the guy asked what I wanted his rusty old files for I told him and he asked me if I did alot of knife making. I told him every great once in awhile in the winter when it cools off enough for me to beat on an anvil. He then offered me a two gallon bucket of OLD railroad spikes for another $1. Before I could get it all loaded in the truck his wife came by and asked if I wanted a hunk of railroad rail to go with it. I honestly thought she was talking about a cross-tie not a rail, but danged if they didn't have a 28" piece of heavy railroad rail sitting in the flower bed. Turns out her grandfather was a railroad man who worked with my great grandfather on the railroads in the '40s and '50s. It's a small world sometimes.

GoodOlBoy

[mold maker]

All I find at yard sales are kids clothes, and table do dads. Good stuff is found at estate sales, but usually the price reflects collector/vintage thinking. There are too many consignment shops that encourage high value pricing, to just plane old junk.

[crowbuster]

Same here mold maker, I gave up yrs ago, just not in the cards for me I guess.

[texassako]

All I find at yard sales are kids clothes, and table do dads. Good stuff is found at estate sales, but usually the price reflects collector/vintage thinking. There are too many consignment shops that encourage high value pricing, to just plane old junk.

It is the same here at garage sales with the addition of worn out couches and falling apart particle board furniture. Estate sales always seem priced using the highest price they can find listed, not actually sold. I only find things at estate auctions because most bidders know rust doesn't automatically make something antique and not every firearm is a pristine collectors item.

[Shuz]

I found several bricks of babbit at a sale run by some teenagers, two bits a bar........I helped them out and took it all. Pinched myself all the way home. Thankfully it wasn't very far.
At 2 bits a bar, you did ok, but do a search on babbit and see all the different kinds of babbit it may be! Hopefully it was marked with the composition?

[MT Gianni]

I remember swedging on the old grey PEX type pipe. IIRC, the tool has quite a bit of grip.

[starmac]

I wish I had got to this place before he started selling the stuff off. It was a cumulation of his, his dads and his grandfathers stuff in a big warehouse. He had already had two auctions. There was an old drill press there marked sold. The thing was massive and stood probably 10 feet tall that had belonged to his grandfather. After I paid out I ask him what he had got for the drill press. He said nobody wanted that thing because it was so tall and was 3 phase and it didn't sell in both auctions, so he sold it for 50 bucks. I just about broke down and cried, as I have been looking for one at a decent price for years.

[RogerDat]

Seems like most of the garage sales I have managed to hit have been mostly a bust. Only way I'm going to any more is I'm driving past it and decide to stop or I map them out from the newspaper ads. Too many "Big Garage Sale ->" signs forget to mention it's 5 miles that way then 7 miles at the next sign down another road, followed by a sign pointing down 2 miles of bad dirt road. All so I can see old small household appliances, some used clothes, and your kids old plastic toys.

Or the estate sales that turn out to be an "antique" store being run out of a home garage. Or someone that goes to estate sales and buys the leftovers no one wants for a semi-permanent garage store. Seems these folks always have the best signs. As opposed to those that write the address in pencil or pen so I would have to park and go read the sign to find out the address.

Too much frustration, too little good loot. Have been thinking of hitting some auctions in the area, see how those work out.

[DHurtig]

This morning I bought 2 pewter candle stick holders for 50 cents each. I pried the bottoms off and knocked out the weight and ended up with .6 pounds of pewter.

Last weekend I paid a guy his asking price on a bunch of brass bric a brac and got him to throw in 2 pewter goblets. I paid market price for the brass and got 1.7 pounds of pewter free.

Two weeks ago I bought a set of RCBS 30-30 dies for $5 and a factory Ruger pistol case for a dollar. RCBS sent me the parts for the sizing/decapping die for free and I got $23 for the set on fleabay. Had to relist the case, but have a bid of $7 on it now.

I really love yard sales.

Farmallcrew, your comment about people not knowing what they re selling reminded me of a favorite old quote. " If you don't know what you are talking about, how do you know when you are done?" Tommy Smothers

[wv109323]

I was in a Goodwill store in FL shopping around. I was actually looking for a large metal spoon to remove the dross when I smelted lead mostly wheel weights. To my amazement there was an artist's picture framing tool in with the kitchen utensils. They had no clue what it was.

[GoodOlBoy]

I agree I hate the antique stores pretending to be resale shops. They just hack me off with their prices most of the time. The sole exception was a shop where the woman was buying up anything glass and reselling it at very high markup. In the back corner of the store was an old bucket of banged up silverware. I found 20+ church keys of various sizes with logos and endorsements from different beer labels (many now defunct). Since I am a sucker for old church keys, and p38s/p51s I asked her what she wanted for them and she sold me the bucket of everything for $4. Most of the silverware was just junk (old but junk) so I donated it to the local goodwill store. I have had mixed results with goodwill. Sometimes I find a deal, but most of the time I just get to look through racks of old clothes that have that goodwill smell to them. Tell you what. They would sell alot more of those clothes to me if they smelled like an old military surplus store instead. That's an odor I have never gotten tired of since I was a kid.

GoodOlBoy

[Sagebrush7]

A friend of mine with his wife and kids in tow made every yard or garage sell in town. He was a 100% Cajun and proud of his dickerering skills. He was complaining to me that a silver dollar belt he found was priced at .50 cts and he couldn't get the lady down anymore. Come to find out the buckle was silver and the silver dollar was real! Tried to chew that lady down some more!

[Harter66]

I passed a lead 100# dead soft ingot for $50 but 5 weeks ago I got 100+- pounds of WW dive weights 2 belts 3 dozen tangle free rigged duck deks and a MEC grabber,25# of virgin #6 shot $80.

Like everybody else those scores are few & far.

[Gator 45/70]

A friend of mine with his wife and kids in tow made every yard or garage sell in town. He was a 100% Cajun and proud of his dickerering skills. He was complaining to me that a silver dollar belt he found was priced at .50 cts and he couldn't get the lady down anymore. Come to find out the buckle was silver and the silver dollar was real! Tried to chew that lady down some more!

Lol, A Cajun who talks 'flat' in true form, Likes to argue but does not realize he won if he would just shut up !
What many have never seen is 2 Cajun's arguing about price just using their hands.

Hence the saying, If you tied a Cajuns hands behind his back, He could not speak.

[fatelk]

I remember a story someone told about their garage sale. A little old lady was going through some unmarked clothes on a table, held up a garment and asked "Would you take fifty cents for this?"

The seller replied "Actually, anything on that table is 25c"

"Oh", the haggler hesitated, "In that case, would you consider ten cents?"

[starmac]

The best (worst) case of haggling I have ever seen was just a few months ago. One trucker had blown the motor, and needed to come up with 20 grand quick, so was in a selling mood. He was trying to sell another trucker (a friend of mine his pipe dolly. He told him he would buy it and give 8,ooo bucks for it, the other trucker immediately countered with he would take 6 thousand for it, so my friend said consider it done. I had to walk away before I fell down from laughing, I had never seen anybody throw away 2 grand so quick, even in vegas before. lol