Yard/Boot/Garage Sales and Buying Other People's Crap

Lindsay Lohan

So the summer has come to New England and with it comes the weekend yard sales and flea markets. It's already taken over my household for the year with the four of us getting up first thing Saturday mornings and scouring the town for awesome stuff. So far this year we've dragged home records, board games, toys, video games and books.

Are we the only addicts to pouring through other people's shit? Anybody else running around weekends hoping to find that SNES console with all the Square RPGs or the collection of Kiss vinyl in pristine condition?

Here are two of my favorite finds. First an oldie - judging by my son in the picture, I'm guess about 4 years ago. We bought a giant stuffed wiener. Turns out it was a store promotional item used for store openings from Oscar Mayer. It lives in our basement gameroom and gets used as a footstool or seating.



Second was this weekend, where I got a Millennium Falcon to go with my Star Wars collection. I had never been able to justify the cost for one before, but for $10 even with some missing guns I couldn't resist (it did come with roof panels and guns not in the picture, but it's definitely incomplete). Pardon the mess in the background as we're packing up the whole apartment to move in a month.



Let's share great finds or tales of getting into fist fights with a senior citizen over a used pair of shoes!

spono

15-20 years ago I bought a colecovision and a milk crate full of games for ten dollars. It was awesome. My mother gave it to goodwill some years later.

Jasconius

whoa. i had that millennium falcon playset and I have no idea where it is. there's a chance it's still in my closet somehow

chromdom

Yeah, the Millennium Falcon my brother and I shared as kids may still be at my parents' house. I won't visit till the holidays, but I will check for miscellaneous accessories if you remind me come late December.

I traded a (small) cap gun for a bike at a yard sale once.

Straightzi

I'm a flea market man, myself, and I've bought a lot of shit at 'em

I shopped my fair share of tag sales as well, I suppose, but the flea market was always such a delight, a beautiful way to spend a hot summer morning

I really miss 'em now, they're not really a thing in cities so much (and neither, really, are tag sales)

There was a neighborhood garage sale thing last weekend that got pretty close to being like, a weird back alley flea market

But nothing will beat the one of my chidhood

Lindsay Lohan

First, thanks for the offer to help complete my Falcon - it's no biggie since most of what's missing is landing gear and it won't need that hanging from my ceiling once my basement is finished As a bonus I found Jango Fett in a hidden compartment and a chrome Stormtrooper helmet in the cockpit.

Second, I'll share another of my tales from yard sales. Two years ago we hit a yard sale that was fairly obviously a doctor or nurse (or someone that dropped out of school in that field). They had all sorts of books and models and displays of parts of the body in formaldehyde or acrylic. No matter how much begging I tried, my wife would not let me buy the testicles.

Straightzi

Lindsay Lohan wrote: »

First, thanks for the offer to help complete my Falcon - it's no biggie since most of what's missing is landing gear and it won't need that hanging from my ceiling once my basement is finished As a bonus I found Jango Fett in a hidden compartment and a chrome Stormtrooper helmet in the cockpit.

Second, I'll share another of my tales from yard sales. Two years ago we hit a yard sale that was fairly obviously a doctor or nurse (or someone that dropped out of school in that field). They had all sorts of books and models and displays of parts of the body in formaldehyde or acrylic. No matter how much begging I tried, my wife would not let me buy the testicles.

I'm so jealous, I would have bought the hell out of those

Also, that reminds me

@Kochikens I was at my friendly neighborhood taxidermy store the other day, and I took some pictures to make you jealous

Spoilered for gross dead stuff

Wide-ish shot (that's a human skeleton, I believe from a Freemasons ritual or something of its ilk, as well as the shelf full of animal skulls, which has a couple of coyote skulls I am enamored with):


Human bits:



Their brand new, apparently authentic, two headed calf:

Raijin Quickfoot

I love yard sales but I never find shit around here so I've lost interest.

spono

The regular flea markets around here are mostly garbage. One is just a bunch of vendors selling housewares and clothes that they bought wholesale in downtown. The other is a little better, but it's about 90% used hand tools.

Madican

It's hard to find those super good finds nowadays when people can Google values.

Still fun though.

Brainleech

spono wrote: »

The regular flea markets around here are mostly garbage. One is just a bunch of vendors selling housewares and clothes that they bought wholesale in downtown. The other is a little better, but it's about 90% used hand tools.

The Flea market here is the place to fence goods it seems as it's really that sense of wrong and sketchy people

I use ebay a lot to get items I cannot usually buy around here

Xaquin

I buy almost exclusively flea market vinyl

I am addicted