Mountain Top Yard Sale - Once in a Lifetime

[stefen]

Several years ago I attended a yard sale that an octarian couple was having...looked more like a junk sale.

There was rhyme or reason to the piles and piles of junk...the old gentleman said that they were moving into a smaller home across the lane.

Anyways, I started looking and found several antique wood planes, then some other items and started a pile of my own. As I found something I would ask the price. The planes were $5 each. Ok, I said and moved on. Eventually I had a large pile composed of old shovels, pitch forks, steel banded wood wheeled barrow, hanks of manila rope, assortment of antique tools, old washtubs, and so on, and so on.............

After an hour or so I figured I needed to stop and take an inventory. While doing so, the old gentleman came over, pulled at his chin and said...looks to be about like $15 bucks worth, whatcha think?

I was really temped to try and squirrel him down some more...just thinking, you know, when he volunteered 'Gimme $12 bucks, Ok!

Man, I almost friction-burned my money clip getting the money off it so fast.

Literally over-filled my longbed F-150 pickumup truk

[whitesid]

good story
got any pictures

[TreasureTales]

Geez do I ever like stories like this!!! I woulda gone back for another load if I'd been there!!! But the poor old guy probably needed the money for a room in a rest home or something so it's good you didn't go any lower with the already-unbelievably-low price.

Once I went to a yard un-sale. Yeah, really, a yard UN-sale. Everything was free! The young couple didn't want "all that junk" in their newly purchased property. So they put an ad in the paper for their un-sale. I made sure I was first in line to enter the buildings. I had a truck load+ of stuff. But I felt so guilty hauling away stuff I knew I could sell for hundreds of dollars that I gave them $20.00 and thanked them profusely. The young woman was reluctant to take my money!! I sold one item and made more than the $20.00 back. I sold the rest in one lump to an antique dealer who came to my house to pick it up...$230.00. I always wondered how much he made for himself on the stuff. Geez, the good old days when there was good stuff to be found in this area's yard sales. Now people want $10.00 for a match book from the 1960s.

If only we could look into the future and see what people will be buying 10 years from now that we take for granted today. Then we could horde stuff today and make big bucks in a decade. But that would take much of the fun out of the yard sale treasure hunts, wouldn't it??!!!

[stefen]

No pictures, but put everything to use...most at my mountain cabin.

I did clean up the wood planes and have put them to use several times.

I know that I got good value but have never attempted to place an actual dollar value on the items. If I can use the stuff, then its worth the price, regardless of what I paid.

The Old Geezer wanted to get rid of the stuff more than he wanted or needed the money.

We both walked away pleased.