Yardsale Bargains

Well, it’s been a long hot summer, and there were many times when I just knew what the hog felt like when he was about to render lard. For the most, part I’ve had to work every day of it, but on a few Saturdays, when I was off, I made it a point to go to the local yard sales. This is my favorite way of stimulating the local economy.
At first, I just expected to find a few movies on DVD or some rusty hand tools that I could put back to work, but by summers end I had acquired a wide selection of treasures.
I am a woodworker, so finding a barely used Deluxe Workmate for $10 had special appeal. From the dollar menu, I found a backsaw, a hayfork bent into a potato hook, a variety of new hinges and a few clock inserts for making table top clocks.
I saved a broken vanity seat from almost certain demise for one dollar. I reassembled it, refinished it and replaced the seat covering. It is now waiting to be “adopted” at one of the Main Street antique shops.
I found book bargains like the LIFE book Century of Change, America in Pictures 1900-2000, a $60 hardback, for which I paid one dollar.
One of my favorite finds was an issue of Scribner’s Magazine, dated April 1897, which features a detailed account on ocean crossings, 15 years before Titanic, with ads for typewriters, the latest tonics and the newest rage, the bicycle. I paid all of $.25 for this, as was the original subscription price.
Of course, there are always those little things that, as one lady put it, “You just can’t live without”, like small glass bottles with cork stoppers, a carousel Christmas music box, a 1920’s forgotten photo of a group of men standing on a raft, and a few small dishes that I used to find in oatmeal when I was a kid. My wife paid a one dollar ransom for a nice set of 4 Christmas mugs that will serve up steaming hot cocoa this winter.
I expect someday to find one of my oil painting from the 1980’s and buy it back for a fraction of my original commission. I’m not so sure that would be a good thing.
Sometimes the best part of a yard sale is the people you meet, old friends you might have lost tract of, or new friends with common interests. We exchange pleasantries, ideas on backyard décor and maybe a few bits of pocket change for things they thought was worth selling and that I thought was worth buying.
“How much you got on that box of hammers?”