Not for the Faint of Heart

This Saturday's crop of garage sales featured some pretty gothic, creepy and downright disgusting finds. And all on a lovely July weekend.




Check out this pair of real antlers in an otherwise sanitary indoor condo sale. Just five dollars!




Moving on, I had to watch as these four Asian men did nothing as a dog devoured this lovely lady figurine. Those assholes! Price? Negotiable, I'm sure.




In case all that horror was overwhelming you, perhaps you need a chair?



This lovely couple remained unfased.




The perfect remedy.




This little guy has seen better days...




An awesome find at just 20 dollars, The Strange Christmas of Mr. Jack.




And if that weren't gothic enough, check out what we spotted in the gangway on our way out (NOT for the faint of heart):




That left me wondering for quite some time just exactly how that bird died...




Well! Onward and upward. At a hipster garage sale in Logan Square, I found these one-of-a-kind decorative collages going for just a dollar a piece.





What a horrorshow!

Stuff For Your Walls, Pt. 2

I only went to a few sales on Saturday, but I did manage to attend the yard sale of the world's biggest Nell fan (aside from my own mother). In addition to the Nell soundtrack and VHS tape, the yard sale woman also had this poster for sale:



My mom is a big fan of Nell, but I figured she could do without this particular wall hanging, especially since it might prompt her to chatter away in Nellspeak every time she glanced up at it.

Nell Poster in Frame at Rogers Park Yard Sale = $25

Not Having to Hear Your Mom Say, "A t'ee inna win, chickadee!" ever again: PRICELESS.

Stuff For Your Walls, Pt. 1

I went to an estate sale on Friday in a two-flat building in Uptown. The upstairs was fairly cluttered, but I managed to pull a $45 VHS tape and a $175 book from this pile.



That tiger picture was pretty cool, but I liked this one better:



But nothing compared to the awesome wallpaper in the bathroom. I wish they still made patterns like these!

How to Sell a First Edition

I was in a thrift store about a year and a half ago scouring the back shelves for saleable books when this hipster girl started looking over my shoulder at the hardcovers. She wasn't a dealer so I let her in over my head to snag what I thought was a Joyce Carol Oats novel. Only when I was at the counter making my final purchase did I realize what book she'd filched: a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel, by Nick Cave, which retails online for a cool $50, if not more. Snaked by an amateur! I was horrified.



So imagine my surprise at this yard sale in Pilsen today when I find a hardcover, first edition copy of And the Ass Saw the Angel. I am redeemed! What a score -- for just two dollars.

Then I get home and look it up on Amazon, only to see copies of it are now selling for less than 10 dollars. In my angst, I quickly put the book up for eBay auction starting at $9.99 with no reserve. That's how to sell a first edition: put it on eBay. Since the eBay audience in a little different from the discerning rare book customer base, you can still get slightly more than what the book is worth. I predict a bidding frenzy! Until I go back and double check those prices on Amazon, only to realize those 10-dollar copies aren't first editions, and most first editions start at 35 dollars. Ah! So now I've got this expensive book up for bids starting at ten dollars. Let's hope some Nick Cave fans sniff it out and start a bidding war over it.

You can watch that bidding war here.

It was a scorcher today, too. A friendly gay couple with lots of trance CDs for sale put this sign up in front to entice would-be shoppers:



We ran into Adrienne at a Wicker Park sale around the corner from her apartment. She put her granny cart in my trunk and got a ride home after buying a large CD rack for 5 dollars. Score!



The sales were full of odd dolls today for some reason. Let me just say, I've seen some pretty graphic Barbie orgies at garage sales. Why is it that when people want to sell the Mattel princess, they have to pile her naked, altogether, in the most compromising positions? I will take more of these photos to illustrate my point, but here is the first of what I predict to be many:



Then there was this little guy, who seemed to be having a breathing problem, but was making the best of it:



Anyone need a Country Crock Dinner display freezer? I mean, this is one I've definitely never seen:





After Ed went through this entire stack of records in 95-degree heat, only to find they were in horrible condition, he pretty much wanted to crawl in the Country Crock freezer. Better luck next week!




Click here to see my biggest score of the day, purchased for just 50 cents!