its that time of year again...

[jerseyben]

The time of year that I dread... I would say it is officially too cold for garage sales (at least here in NJ).

How will you all be filling in the time until Spring?

Myself, I just dont know this year. Not a lot of estate sales in my area and I havent located any auctions either. I will probably just do some more metal detecting but even then I am still looking for spots in my new area.

 

[Tallone]

This is actually the best time of year in my part of the world (North Florida). Instead of being hot and humid, it is now cool and dry so I expect to be hitting a lot of yard sales this winter.

Have you checked out auctionzip.com, jerseyben?

 

[vpnavy]

Until the weather warms up - will spend some quality time at the old indoor pistol range - naturally!

 

[inspectorgadget]

Have you checked out auctionzip.com, jerseyben?

What he said...

& auctionzip really does rock! I have several local auctions I attend weekly & some I only attend when they have stuff I really want to try to get & all these places use auctionzip, they upload pix of the items they will be auctioning off so you know what to expect almost or even up to a week before the auction. If I search auctionzip within 50 miles of my home I find an average of 8-15 auctions per day. The good larger auction houses that move a lot of stuff can be as good as garage sales (this 1 that I go to is better than going to garage sales). They have 5 auctions running in 4 different buildings at the same time & 1 of those are pallets of stuff, basically a little bit of everything. It can be a gold mine as you can get a whole pallet of 5-6 or more boxes of stuff for as little as $4-$5 & as much as $80-$90 with between $10-$20 being the average or normal typical price.

So ya look into larger auction houses!

 

[Tallone]

they upload pix of the items they will be auctioning off so you know what to expect

In my corner of the world, almost every little town has an auction house and most of them run an auction every month or two. Unfortunately, many of them never post pictures. I don't go to those any more because I don't want to drive 50 miles to look at a bunch of run-of-the-mill housewares. Every now and then something nice turns up and can usually be had cheap but that is the rare exception. So, these days, I only go to auctions that provide pictures and they need to show at least a few items that might be worth bidding on.

Auctionzip is a great resource. For all you guys and gals in cold weather locales who want to keep treasure hunting after garage sales go into hibernation, auctions are the way to go and auctionzip is the place to find them.

 

[mjlalt]

This is the time of year when I
SELL! SELL! SELL!

Need to make room for next years finds!

I also use the time to repair or refurbish some of my finds.

 

[Iron Patch]

Just doing my usual lazy thing as the weather does not affect me. In fact, I'll be doing more because there's only maybe a month left to detect here, and that's if I make it out more than once. My real answer to this is getting back in the gym, and think I might start next week.

 

[Baltimore]

I've been stockpiling over the summer, now I need to list it all! Plus I go to a lot of thrift stores, and those aren't season based.

 

[billjustbill]

We've found gold and silver jewelry even at "professional" run estate sales. The hunt is always enjoyable when you leave with things worth more than you spent on them. The Dealers are out and about every weekend here in Texas. Garage sales and estate sales grow thinner, but in the last two years it seems most people either need the room for Winter or the family members need the money and even though fewer, the sales seem to continue on all but the worst of weather days. I've found that if I really force myself out on those cold or wet days, the traffic of buyers is always half of what it would be on a good and dry day...

It's also time to go looking at vendors' old stock before they gear up for Christmas sales. Then go back in Jan. and Feb. to find old or unsold items they have forgotten to re-price or want to move out for their Spring hunts...

I have a few people I've kept their addresses for when they said they had jewelry but hadn't had time to go through it. Several weeks ago I bought two Kennedy Machinist Tool Boxes at a community wide sale. One had drawers filled with precision tools in it and the other had a few things. We told the little old lady we'd be back if she had some vintage Rhinestone jewelry. When we came back, here granddaughters said she had tripped, fallen, and hit her head and was on her way back from the hospital....but she had laid out some jewelry on the kitchen table. They didn't know how much to charge for it.... So, my wife and I will knock on her door in the next few weeks to see if she is better and still wants to sell some of the jewelry....

Let us know what worked for you, will ya?