Thrifting

Thrifting is hit or miss these days.  I hardly ever find any Pyrex at my local thrift shop because the manager there takes them all before they even get to hit the shelves! I know this because a friend of mine started working there and I asked him to keep an eye out for me. That's when I found out why I never find any Pyrex there, she hoards them all!!

When I go to the big town, I try to stop at the thrift shops there, and there are many in one small area of town, which conveniently is on my route downtown. There are 2 big national shops, 3 local shops, and a bunch of consignment shops all within 10 miles of each other. My problem is I can never get there early enough to find the good stuff, because I just am not an early bird. I don't usually get out of the house until after 10 am!

Anyway, we had a pretty good day yesterday at the thrifts. Andrew found some HO trains and a display car and I found a Pyrex lid at one shop. Even better at the next shop when sitting pretty on a shelf was a pristine yellow primary Pyrex bowl, the biggest one!  It was nice and shiny and hardly any wear to it and priced at $6.99.  I have this theory that if I grab a cart walking in the store, I never find anything. Go in without a cart and boom, boom, boom, my arms are full! Such was the case this time-- the Pyrex, a pretty turquoise pot, and some vintage pillowcases.

Don't see a yellow bowl up there, do you? I put the turquoise pot back because it was an aluminum pot and quite honestly, I'd never use it, even though it was so shiny and pretty. As for the yellow bowl, well, there's one less primary yellow bowl in this world because of me. So sad.  I set it down on some white thing so I could get a better look at the pillowcases I was looking at, and then all of a sudden I hear a crash, which was so loud and I look down and there, shattered on the concrete floor, is my bowl!! Two thoughts flashed through my mind-- "wahhhh! My bowl!!!" and "Crap! I'm going to have to pay for it!"

 Lucky for me, there was a worker standing nearby who witnessed the whole thing and walked over to me and said, "Don't worry about it."  I apologized and started picking up all the big pieces and used my foot to scoop over the tiny shards when the guy came back with a broom and dust pan.  We worked together cleaning up the mess and I said, "Guess I'm going to have to go and pay for it now," and the guy goes, "Nah, don't worry about it!" He made a little joke, I guess to make me feel better and I walked away with just the pillowcases. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for a broken bowl, but I'm so sad to have broken it.

Heading to the little town tomorrow to run a few errands and we'll stop at the local thrift shop. Fingers crossed I find a Pyrex bowl and I don't drop it this time!

First Auction of 2014

Living in West Virginia means yard sales and flea markets taper off in October.  There might be one or two odd yard sales here or there, but it's pretty much done with by then.  So I rely on auctions and thrift stores for my treasure-hunting fix. I was looking forward to an estate auction back in December, but it got snowed out and postponed all the way to April! It's been weeks since I've found anything good at the thrift stores, just little items now and then, but nothing big that fills up my car and makes me do a happy dance like a football player doing the touchdown boogie!

Finally, an auction was advertised in our local paper and it wasn't too far.  Let's go, let's go, I plead with my husband!  I don't have to beg too hard, he wants to go, too!

There were some old toy cars and a bunch of Pyrex we had our eyes on and maybe a few other things if the price didn't go too high. It was held at a fire station and the turnout was pretty good.  I think other people are wishing for yard sale season to start up again, too! After the tools and outdoor stuff was over with, a lot of people left, so I thought I had a pretty good chance getting what we wanted, but here's where I learned something new: This was a consignment auction.  So what does that mean? It means that unlike an estate sale where the auction company can't be bothered to auction off every little item and instead group things into lots and you get the whole box for one low price, a consignment auction is someone using the auction company to sell an item for them and most times, it has a reserve price. And stuff that I thought were being sold in lots because they were grouped in a box? Wrong! It was just easier for the helpers to bring them to the front and then hold up every single item to be bid on.

Holy cow!!  That auction took forever!! It was moving swiftly and yet slowly because of the amount of items to be auctioned off.  Thank goodness for iphones to play on! They finally got to the section where the small goods were located at, but it was still a long way off before they reached the cars and Pyrex.  Cars went for way more than we were willing to pay, unfortunately. I finally went up to one of the helpers and asked them to do the Pyrex stuff next, because we needed to get back home to the kids.  I figured we would have been home by 4 and it was already 5!! Thankfully, the guy was happy to do so and after 5 hours at the auction, all we came home with was the two Pyrex dishes below.

I'm happy with them.  They are in pristine condition and I paid far less than if I had gotten them online or even at my local thrift stores. I don't think we'll go to a consignment auction again, now that we know what we know now.  I'll stick to estate auctions, but hey, I got my fix and something to show for it, right?!

In other news, I've been selling things on my Instagram account, @516vintage and I am doing really well there.  So well in fact, I am making more than I make in the booth! At this rate, keeping the booth is making less and less sense so I put up 20% sale signs in the booth the last time I went in to restock and hopefully I can clear out at least half of it and then close it out at the end of February. The booth was fun, and I don't regret it. Now I know what it takes and I can say I've done it and no more wondering about it. Time to move on and pursue other avenues! Feel free to check out my Instagram shop and if there;s something you like, you can purchase it via paypal. Or just come by and say "hi!" I post pictures of other things besides sale stuff, so it's not all about selling things.

Happy 2014 to you, and here's hoping it will be a good year for us all!