In the End, It Turned Out Great

Saturday I decided to go early to an estate sale and try to get a good spot on the sign-up list. I usually don’t do that anymore (just not worth my time), but I was motivated by a log cabin quilt I’d seen in a photo. So at 8:30 a.m. (for a sale opening at 10:00) I pulled up in front of the house and by golly, it worked. I signed in as #3.

But of course being so early meant I had 90 minutes to kill. I could have driven back to the Starbucks I’d passed just two miles down the hill, gotten a coffee and hung out, but instead I parked in front of the house and decided to read a book I’d brought along. Good plan.

Once they started letting us in, oh jeez, what a zoo. The quilt I had seen in the ad that had drawn me to this sale, wasn’t handmade. It was $125 for a slightly worn velvet quilt that reminded me of one I’d see in Pottery Barn. In fact, it didn’t look like the same quilt that was in the ad. And in a blink of an eye a couple of guys had honed in on all the best paintings and had moved them to the Hold table. Poop! Those were the two things I was most interested in. 😦

Okay, I thought, get a grip. Open your eyes. There’s lots of good stuff here.

I ended up in a bedroom filled with all of the owner’s designer clothes and what not. I made a cursory glance at the purses and stuff (I’m not buying clothing anymore) and was going to leave the room when a piece hanging on a rack drew my attention. It was an antique Scottish paisley throw!! I have both collected and sold these in the past.

These are worth some serious money. There was no room to totally unfurl this piece (Turns out it’s 60″ wide by 130″ long!), but overall it looked to be in good condition. The estate sale worker for this room quoted me a price for it and I didn’t even try to negotiate because I knew this was a fabulous piece and worth a lot more.

Now that I had found one thing, I felt that at least all my time driving here and waiting wasn’t in vain and I started to have fun.

Here are some of my other finds…

This vintage round (68″) lace tablecloth was a stunner though I normally don’t look for tablecloths.

It appears to be made of Schiffili chemical machine lace with filet lace inserts.

These large, heavy, onyx carved horse head bookends were kinda fun and had no damage.

At home I did some quick searching to see what was currently for sale. On Chairish the first few results looked like this. Prices were all over the place for similar pieces of similar quality carving!!

I looked on Worthpoint at recent sales prices (all from eBay) and they were all well under $100. Hmmm. Mine are a different design and chunkier (and seem to be scarcer). I’ll likely price these around $100 on Etsy.

Nobody at the sale seemed to want these vintage red leather toddler booties, but I sure did. They are fabulous…though back at home both my husband and my daughter’s boyfriend thought they were creepy. Are they creepy? Gosh, they aren’t to me.

I recently sold a pair of Edwardian leather Mary Jane toddler shoes for $60 and will likely list these for the same.

I went to the kitchen at the house last (I typically don’t buy much kitchenalia) and I couldn’t believe this Art Nouveau copper jug hadn’t been grabbed yet! This was hecka cool. It has a maker’s mark stamp on the bottom that I need to research. So tempted to keep this!

And my last find was this sweet Belleek creamer of a little girl with blonde hair. I’ve tipped her on her side to get a better shot of her face. The third green mark on the bottom signifies that this was made from 1965-1980. This may be destined for a friend of mine.

Did I get these things for cheap, cheap? Well, no. I spent $105, plus tax. But I got them for prices that I think were fair to the estate sale company, the home owner and to me. The paisley throw will be the real heavy hitter in the group, but the copper jug and tablecloth could be dark horses.

All in all, I was gone for three hours, but I’m happy with the result. These items represent the age and quality of things I want for my Etsy and Chairish stores.

As always, happy hunting,

Karen