Citywide Yard Sale Day…Yes, Please!!

There are some events that get me jumping for joy and a citywide yard sale day is one of them! My eldest joins me and we spend time beforehand in tactical planning to decide which houses to visit and what route to take. We set out just before 8:00 a.m. when everyone was supposed to start and the first two sales nearest our house showed no signs of activity. Nothing. No tables set up. No signs. No people. What was going on? As we were making our way to the third sale on our list we stumbled on a sale that an elderly couple was setting up and quickly pulled over. They were so sweet. In fact everyone we met that day was so nice and rather chatty.

Well at their sale I bought two books and two pretty rings. This was more like it. The large ring is green labradorite set in sterling silver (tested, not marked). I’m going to add a video to the listing to show all the flash to the stone. The sweet five-stong ring is vermeil (gold plate over sterling silver) from Thailand. Not sure what the light pink stones are (likely morganite) and there are some clear stones that could be tiny diamonds.

The next sale was also yielded some jewelry. Finally we were on a roll! And we began making our way down the list.

I really wanted to hunt more at this interesting sale (turns out she has regularly sold at the Alameda Flea Market) but the driveway was so crowded with items (some just dumped in heaps on the ground), that we couldn’t access everything and I tripped trying to get around.

In the end I did find three pieces of jewelry there though. I really liked this unique tribal necklace. Not sure what the symbolism of the long brass bit is.

At another house I found my only art purchase–this cool framed lithograph by Graciela Rodo Boulanger (b. 1935 in Bolivia) titled “Bird Suite.” I was impressed that it had three mats.

And I even found a vintage Steiff teddy bear. This one is not wildly valuable, but it is in excellent condition.

I couldn’t resist picking up two free pieces of vintage medical equipment and I ask you, who doesn’t love an old Rieger Bowles stethoscope? Stuff like this sells for me.

This is not everything I bought, but gives you a sense of the variety I found. (Total for the items shown here: $43.33.) I was happy to find some cool vintage things amidst the worn clothes, toys, and new decor items. One home did have some vintage handmade pottery (which I love), but it was mostly chunky, brown ’70s stuff marked at $20 each. (Yikes! Good luck with that.) Oddly we did notice that there weren’t as many buyers as there have been in previous years. That surprised us.

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Well we barely touched a fraction of the homes participating in the sale, but I started feeling dehydrated (rookie mistake not to bring along water and snacks) and we headed back home. We could have gone back out, but I was done. But we had a wonderful time. My eldest is a delightful picking partner and I feel blessed to be able to spend time with her. I also ran into my friend Lisa and her husband. Hadn’t seen her for months and it was grand catching up.

All in all, a good day’s hunting.

Karen