Thursday Sale Bonanza -- Lots of Lefton and Christmas Kitsch

I think it's a basic principle of business that you're supposed to spend less than you bring in.  That gets really hard when the weather warms up!  Just when the flea markets and yard sales are starting up again and there are lots of bargains to be found, people are busy outside and not spending as much time in antique malls and shopping online (and they're going to flea markets and yard sales)!

As I try to not-buy-as-much (as-if I could...), I avoid the looking at the temptation of the weekly emails from estatesales.net and gsalr.com.   I owe a big THANK YOU to my friend Bargain Hunter for giving me a heads-up on a really good sale last Thurday, loaded with Lefton figurines!  

It turned out to be the left-over accumulation of a former antiques dealer who'd passed away last year.  Most of it was her 'barn stuff' -- you know, the boxes of collected odds and ends that don't make it into the booth or to a sale (bits of china, linens, broken down pictures and frames).  There was an entire table of Lefton and made-in-Japan figurines, though, and I was the first one to it!

Look at all this SWEET Lefton!

Not Lefton, but sweet nonetheless

The caption on the cookie jar lid says it all...

It all needed a good cleaning (but who doesn't love playing with their thrifty finds?)

Besides the great kitsch, I also got a couple of quilt tops -- one had piping around the edge to finish it off, but no back fabric.  Rather strange!

Love this butterfly quilt top -- I'm thinking of bringing my quilting skills out of retirement to finish it

This is the bound block quilt

This plastic half apron appealed to my love of strange souvenirs.  It's from the Hiawatha rail line that goes from Chicago to Seattle.  I think it's from the 1960s

These were an odd (and luckily, inexpensive) impulse buy -- 2 legal document packets from 1927, dealing with a property dispute in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.  They'll probably be good for a scrapbooker to use.

Once I'd taken the bait and gone shopping, I looked for more sales close to home and found one just a couple of miles away (a rare occurrence)!   Since they opened the first sale 1/2 hour early, I was able to check out and race over to the second one and get there just as everyone was going in.  I made a beeline for the basement, hoping to get a green ceramic Christmas tree I'd seen in the picture.  I got it and that was just the tip of the iceberg!  I ended up with 2 box-flats of great vintage Christmas, plus some other odds and ends.

TWO ceramic Christmas trees + a Holt Howard Santa + a Royal light-up snowman!

The tall angels need to be rewired, but are really hard to find.  Napco and Enesco NOEL candle holder sets are always popular.  The little angel shelf sitters with lambs are so sweet -- even though one has a repaired wing, I couldn't pass them up

I think Santa's creepy -- much creepier at home than he had been at the sale.  He looks like the drunken love-child of  Joe Piscopo and Kris Kringle

Black transferware tray, Texasware-type bowl, West Bend penguin ice bucket and an Oven Serve bowl.

Dogs playing poker -- who could resist?

So, in the space of about an hour and a half, I had spent all my shopping money for 2 weeks!  Well worth it, though, don't you think?

This Friday and Saturday are theM-15 Heritage Yard Sale and also Davisburg Antiques.  I'm really looking forward to both of them, since they were great shopping ops last fall.  I'd better get some more shopping money out of the bank!

Etsy Every Day Project - Week 2 Recap

Week two of the Etsy Every Day Project was all about ceramics!  As I tried to get Christmas decorations taken down (I know I'm late with that but, oh well...) and get back into the post-holiday routine, I listed several things that had been on my 'next up on Etsy' table forever...

Except for the first one!  I had just picked this little sweetie up and was so excited to list it...

# 8 - Tea Time Teapot

#9 - Cronin China Salt and Pepper

#10 - 1930s Strombecker Doll House Furniture

#11 - Lefton Piggy Bank

#12 - Double Flamingo Vase

#13 - Shabby Chalkware Cat Bank

#14 - Estes Park Souvenir Postcard Folder

Worth a Second Look

Sometimes a sale doesn't look like much the first time through, but is worth a second look.  I went to three sales on Friday and found one just like that.

There were two in the same little community and the first one was a family-run estate sale.  Like lots of family sales, the sellers had watched TOO MANY episodes of Antiques Roadshow and American Pickers!   They had some nice green depression glass, but it was so expensive.  One glass jar with a lithograph on the lid was $50!  There was a cake platter, a couple of bowls and a cream and sugar.  I asked the lady if the $50 was for the set and she explained that each piece was priced alone.  The cheapest one was $20!  She told me she was asking what she'd paid for each one at an antique mall about 10 years ago.    No point in arguing economic downturn, tastes that have changed from depression glass to mid-century or yard sale vs. antique mall.  I just said thank you and walked away.

I got to the next sale really early because of that and was #6.  My friend Bargain Hunter and a few more people I knew from the antique mall were there, too.  Inside, almost everything was marked and they had lots of people in the rooms to help with pricing and running items -- always a good thing.  Their prices were on the high end, though.  Bargain Hunter left almost as soon as she got there -- empty-handed.  I was getting ready to go and decided to do one more walk through...I'm glad that I did!

There were some deals (though not steals) to be had.

I found this Replogle globe bank (9" high with a 6" dia. globe) from 1960.  How do I know that?  I always check this website -- one of my favorites -- to date globes and maps!  I love to see when countries merged, separated and changed names.   Globes are really popular right now, too (probably because they're being replaced by online maps & GPSes).

This postcard folder was in a box of postcards.  It looks, at first glance, like a regular Mackinac collection.  Check out the bridge, though!  It was printed when the Mighty Mac was being built -- the pictures are great!

This Hermes typewriter in in mint condition!  It has all the books, brushes and original stuff.  It also types really well -- the ribbon isn't dried out very much at all (they often are).

BEST BUY OF THE DAY:  This Lefton 'Christmas Kids' -- it was on a table on a porch (not in a place of honor), is in perfect condition and was priced dirt cheap!  First I did a double-take, then I did a happy dance!   This little sweetie is just going to stay out until Christmas (and maybe all year around)...

The next sale I went to was run by two really nice guys -- I'd been to their sales before and they're always so nice to deal with (and their prices are fair.

I got this ceramic Christmas tree.  These are the hot collectible this year!  I think this one is nice because it has a music box in the base that plays White Christmas.

Little Golden Books are always nice to find

These 1950s kids' books are very interesting. I like the illustrations and projects in the  'Let's Play'

Maybe I should keep a few of the children's books for a grandchild-yet-to-be!

I got this box of 24 pieces of W.S. George Sierra dinnerware.  Sadly, one of the dinner plates broke when I hit a bump.  Michigan's dirt roads are a real pain!

The Sierra pattern is from 1955.  I found an 

The Sierra pattern is from 1955.  The backstamp reads 'W.S. George Half-Century of Dinnerware'.  There isn't much to be found online, so it must be fairly rare.  I found a old ad for it, though -- a 16 piece set sold for $7.50!  I think the atomic pattern is lovely.

 This is a box of wooden poker chips.  I wish the box weren't so beat up -- it's interesting all by itself.

 BEST BUY FROM THAT SALE:  A 1930s Hendryx birdcage and stand.  I don't know if you can see it very well in the picture, but it's very cool.  That's the third birdcage I've found in the last 2 months.  I don't know if other people like them as much as I do or not...I guess I'll find out!

So, the moral of this post is:  The next time you go to a sale and think there's nothing there to buy, take another look -- there just might be a treasure hidden away somewhere!