yard sales, oct 31.

There were a lot of strikes against us yesterday.  It was drizzling, it was a holiday weekend, and the season is starting to die down.  I wasn't sure whether there would even be any sales happening at all.  While Halloween is not a huge sale breaker, it is the sort of distraction that would prevent people from having a sale.  And of course, the trouble with rain is that many yard sales are...in the yard.  We ended up following signs to several invisible yard sales.  I guess people put out their signs optomistically and then forgot to take them down once they decided not to have the sale after all.

But we did go out and we did get a few things.  I grabbed a couple pairs of earrings at an estate sale.  One is just a pair of silver old lady hoops, and the other is amber, I think.  I'm not wild about the settings, but I do like amber stuff quite a bit.  I’d just love to show you a great, in-focus shot of those earrings, but my career as a jewelry photographer is in dire trouble.  I also picked up  this set of C.S. Lewis books at the same sale.  The case is in sad shape, but the books are pristine.  One book is missing, Mere Christianity.  Luckily, I happen to already have it.  I haven't read any of these, including the one I already have, though I have read A Grief Observed, which he wrote after the death of his wife.  And hopefully I will someday get to reading all of these books that I have but haven't ever read.  I give Josh a hard time about collecting books, but truth be told, I've got a little bit of a habit myself.

We only hit one church sale today, where I got an old timey dress (which ended up not fitting, so I didn’t take a picture of it) and a pack of note cards.  The cards are pretty nice and include lined envelopes.  The label on the box said “Notelets $2.”  I only paid $1, and the learning of the word “notelet” was absolutely free.  The notelets feature pictures of flowers and some French words.  After a bit of Googling, I discovered that they’re vintage labels from some old French soaps made by a fella named Victor Vaissier.  They’re sort of generically girly and European, but I know some people who appreciate that sort of thing, and a couple who might even know something about old French soap. 

Josh bought an old trunk, because he likes things you can put other things inside.  I think he picked it up in the first place with the hope that there would be a musical instrument inside, but no dice. 

But enough of all that crap, let's get down to the real find we had yesterday.  We stopped at a sort of sad and sagging little house in a neighborhood full of such places.  Have of the stuff was covered up with clear plastic bags, and the rest of it was just wet.  There was a lot of baby stuff, some Confederate memorabilia, a couple of old DirecTV boxes, some watches, and then this.

I'll just tell you what that is.  It's a dummy cartridge used to teach newbies how to load the big guns.  We found several on the internet.  They don't appear to be particularly valuable - looks like you can pick on up for less than $50 - but they are pretty neat.  The top cone comes off and there is a compartment inside, I guess for explosives.  Or you could hide the key to your safe deposit box in there, I suppose.

We were marveling at it, and the woman said her husband had found it.  He's an electrician, and it was just hanging around in the crawlspace of a house where he was working.  Seems like there were a few details missing, like whose house it was and whether they knew he was taking military relics from them.  But he brought it home to sit in their living room.  Now they were finally coming to terms that they had no real use for it, and so they intended to sell it to someone else who had a living room that needed a giant bullet to complete its decor.  You know, someone like us.

A neighbor lady was there to help cover the rest of the stuff with more plastic bags, and she said, "Have y'all ever seen Pawn?"  She then started explaining the show, which apparently sounds a bit like Antiques Roadshow or something, where people bring crap lying around in their crawlspaces in the hopes that they can sell it for enough dough to quit their jobs.  The only reason this conversation was in any way remarkable is because of the lady's accent.  With the way she talked, it sounded like she was asking, "Have y'all ever seen porn?" which seemed like a non-sequitur at best.  The show is actually called Pawn Stars, which indicates that the producers know that members of its audience have thick country accents.

Anyway, we ended up with the cartridge in exchange for a mere $4.  I was concerned it would be more, because the lady's other stuff was overpriced, and what with the conversation about porn Pawn, she might think it was actually worth a whole bunch.  Luckily, some older man came out and told her to price it at four or five dollars.  We picked four.

And that was it.  Short day, not much of a haul, but a fun morning anyway.