The Mice Ate My Chocolate Bar!

At least they are of discerning taste. That vintage Ken Griffey Jr bar has got to be from 1989 or 1990. Note, the Jose Canseco 40/40 bar with peanuts has No Artificial Flavors, Colors, or Flavors — a far cry from the baseball player himself! I've saved them all these years, and I didn't even get a bite. You can find these on eBay where they are frequently labeled "RARE!," but if your preference is for emulsified chocolate, you can pick them up for just a few bucks apiece (including shipping).

Eau de Basement - C'est Manifique!

Vintage Red Sox jacket. Box of old restaurant menus. Photo albums, paperback books, and records... Q: What do they all have in common?
A: They've been sitting in that damp basement, stuck in that musty corner, next to the concrete wall, stuffed behind the 70s loveseat, 'cause you thought you might need them again someday. Two decades later, the house is being sold and it's time to clean the basement out. All that old stuff just reeks of that musty basement odor — part mold, part swampy dampness, part mouse pee and, oh yeah, that cheeseburger you dropped behind the couch in 1982. You pick up the corrugated boxes and they just feel soggy. If you're lucky, there's no mold, but that smell...
For better or worse, I've actually lost the ability to detect that smell. I used to hate it, got used to appreciating it (knowing it meant old stuff), now it doesn't even register. Not great when I bring home boxes of basement stuff and load them into my own clean basement. I hear about that for a while!
Now, attic smells — that dry, warm scent of wood and heat-cooked paper — that's a nice smell.

Crockett Renalde Cowboy Spur

I wish these things could talk! How in the world does a western cowboy spur end up at a yard sale in New England? Oh, the stories it could tell. Unfortunately, it's just a solo spur -- where's its partner? While not in great condition, this one is signed with a "CR" inside a horseshoe. It is a 1950s spur made by Crockett Renalde, a company with its roots going back to the late 1800s. In this condition and with its relative newness, I don't think it will go for more than $15-$20 on eBay. Update: Sold for $21.50.

Scrapping Weighted Holloware Sterling

I was going to scrap these sterling sugar & creamer by Fisher Silversmiths, since the eBay fees, polishing time, listing time, and hassle was not otherwise worth it to me.

Although these are marked "Sterling," they are also marked "Weighted."
You might be wondering, "What does weighted mean? Are these solid silver?" "How much silver is actually in these?" "How do you take them apart?" Great questions! With just a pair of pliers, you can peel off the bottom first, then peel up the sides to remove the weight. Be careful - the silver foil can be sharp!

What's inside? These two weights are from another scrapping project. They are plaster and resin. You can see the metal post in the resin weight, which helped support the upper part of the candlestick it came from. Sometimes they'll be marked "Reinforced" too.

The sugar and creamer measures 3" tall and 2" across the base. They came apart pretty easily. With their weights removed, they weighed 2.9-ozt (troy ounces) together, which today is about $45 in scrap silver.

Uranium glass

I'm not sure it's possible to detect uranium glass (sometimes called vaseline glass) with just the naked eye -- I have seen shows about people who bring Geiger counters into antique shops looking for the stuff! Last week I spotted some Depression-type glass goblets that felt a little too green. For a few bucks, I bought 4 of them. I was quite pleased to see them glow quite nicely under my UV light. I have a party light from Home Depot, but you can get a portable UV light like this. Utilitarian pieces like this goblet are fairly common and not terribly collectible, but really nice pieces can go for big bucks. I think the internet made this stuff a lot more available than it used to be, and along with all the modern reproductions, has really pushed prices down. What makes it glow? The glass has uranium oxide in it, but it's a stable form of the compound and totally safe.

SS Andrea Doria artifact

One thing I enjoy about the research process is learning about some forgotten moments in history. From a local estate, I bought a small piece of wood simply marked, "Wood from the sunken ship Andrea Doria." While intriguing, this didn't mean anything to me. Turns out, the Italian Line's SS Andrea Doria sunk off the coast of Nantucket on 25 July 1956, after colliding with another ship. 52 people died, a terrible maritime tragedy. The item, a simple piece of wood, perhaps collected by artifact hunters shortly after the accident, sold for $57 on eBay. Who buys these items? Are they people who lost loved ones in the incident? Maybe they see it as a small reminder of another time. Without the hand-written note, it's just a piece of wood, but to someone else it's quite significant.

16mm films - Cutting edge technology

What do you do with a pile of vintage 16mm films when the one on top is titled Communicable Diseases? As you load them into your car, you think, "What the heck am I doing??!?! I'll never get my money back on these!!!"
I bought a pile of films from a local school that was clearing out its inventory from a (quaint) class in actual film filmmaking. The price was right at about a buck a film, I was playing the odds that something in the lot has NOT been converted to DVD and was reasonably interesting.
Two boxes sat in my basement for 6 months before I got around to researching them. I was rewarded with a collection of assorted 1960s experimental films, like 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett, which had a profound influence on director George Lucas and inspired his notion of The Force in the Star Wars movies. This one went for $365 on eBay. Also in the lot were 1970s reprints of the earliest films by people like Edwin S. Porter, Ferdinand Zecca, and Emile Cohl. I've earned about $1500 on this fantastic lot so far!

1920s Pottery Lamp Base

OK, this is a pretty boring item to start out with. I found this at 1pm at a very random rummage sale near the 4th of July parade route. The sale had been running since 9 or 10, so I think this is a pretty good scoop for a lazy afternoon.
It's hard to guess some specifics about this piece. But that's part of the fun. Research can turn up some interesting facts, but sometimes we have to go with generalities. This lamp is probably circa 1920s to 40s. Nice art pottery base. Something keeps telling me the pottery might be French, but who knows? It's possible the lamp originally had a felt base with a sticker on it, but it's lost to time. Paid $15, hoping to get $100 on eBay!

Hi.

I'm a New England area yard sale guy. Don't interrupt me Saturday mornings, I'm busy.
Can you make money doing this? YES, but don't quit your day job. You have to love doing it. It more or less is a terrible way to make some extra money. It's really all about the hunt. The part where you have to sell the stuff is usually a gigantic, time-sucking, waste of energy. You've got to stick to it and push through the lack of motivation.
Anyway, in this blog, I'm sure it will seem very easy and fun; a treasure around every corner. Let's face, you want to see the great stuff I find, not the junk. I'll try to share a little of both. It's all a learning process, even when you've been doing this a while like me.
Enjoy!