A Tale of Two Estate Sales

This weekend Randy and I hit two estate sales and each one was an example of what we're not crazy about and what we love.

Estate sale #1 -- Gorgeous house right on Ball Pond in New Fairfield, CT.  This house was amazing, each wall was covered with oil paintings in every room of the house.  There were antiques galore and a whole ROOM full of costume jewelry.  There were two tables alone just for brooches.

Incredible, this looked like it belonged in Malibu, not Northwestern CT!

We like to speculate about the owners, and we believed these owners were either in the art business or were avid collectors.

One of the offerings was a Takamine acoustic guitar signed by both Darryl Hall and John Oates.  They were asking $95 which made me think that the folks running the estate sale knew about autographs but not much about guitars because finding a Takamine guitar for $95 is a great deal. 

I don't love estate sales run by "estate sale organizers".  I know they get a percentage so of course, the items are priced to make money and not so much priced to MOVE. 

There was this AMAZING mid-modern chair that I regret not photographing because it was awesome and  also because they were asking $400 and I was hoping one of the savvier folks out there could tell me who the designer was.  I recognize Herman Miller and Eames most of the time and it wasn't either of them. 

Everything I wanted in that house was $60 or more, and I just don't want to lay out that kind of cash at an estate sale.  Still, it was a great house and it was pretty cool wandering around it and bugging out over some of the crazy stuff in there.


We saw this "Ansaphone" with handwritten instructions.

This is so Don Draper :)

They also had several old boom boxes and stereo systems, all of which seemed to work.

So yes, while everything was awesome, I really am not thrilled when estate sale organizers are running the show.  You might get a decent price compared to full-on-antique-store retail, but when I get such outrageous deals at other family-run estate sales, it's very very hard for me to part with the cash.

I DO regret not picking up this insane lamp for $65.  Definitely more than my budget, but it was really funky.  The base was stone, carved to look like one of those Hong Kong junk boats and the SHADE was deep red Venetian blinds held together by matte black ball chain in a rhomboid shape, totally fabulous, just too expensive.

It was worth it to go to this sale for the views, though, can you imagine having your coffee out on the back porch of this house every morning? I could:

A little overcast, but still lovely

They wanted $50 for the set, which I thought was relatively reasonable,
but this isn't large enough for my kitchen.  I dig the groovy chairs though.

Randy saw a reel-to-reel tape recorder/player that piqued his interest but we found out that it was already sold.  I ended up buying two necklaces for $10 -- one a factory-made glass pendant that looks like lampwork but isn't and a long necklace made of ropes of bronze seed beads that I am probably going to use to string an art guitar.

When her this oven stopped working, they couldn't find
a replacement because nothing out there was small enough,
one of the nieces told me. Note the flaming orange laminate
counter and "colonial" cabinets.

Estate Sale #2.  The entire contents were on sale and it was run by the family of a lady who had passed back in May.  Her nieces were running the sale and they were very fun.  We got there towards the end of the day and they were eventually just piling things up in boxes and giving them to me.  This house was a total time capsule. Check out the groovy built in stove over there.
















We picked up a coffee table, a solid wood record cabinet, a few Broadway original cast recordings on vinyl (SQUEALING! JAZZ HANDS!! my inner-theater-nerd went nuts) and the following:

Corningware percolator, Pyrex "Homestead" Cindarella  Round Bake (missing
the largest of the set and lids), and a divided oval casserole in what seems to
be chartreuse, not really yellow, not really green. 

AVOCADO-RAMA Bundt cake pan, 4 sided grater, very heavy
rolling pin, and cheese plate (love the painted flowers on the ceramic)

Pyrex "Spring Blossom" Cinderella bowl and a NEVER USED
Springform pan.  Cheesecake, anyone?

Splatter-ware enamel stock pot with lid - great size, too, I think about
2 quarts? I have a huge one, but it's too big for soup.  This will do!

Painted teapot from England - we suspect it's a Brown Betty.  The photo
doesn't do it justice, the deep blue of it just GLOWS.

Very heavy carved wood salad bowl...right now holding some fruit.

Whee! Cake stand! I *LOVE* cake stands! this one is lovely cut glass with
a silver plated base, I need to polish it up a little bit.

Love the little flower detail that covers the bolt on the base

Pyrex and Fire King Measuring cups, love the graphics on the Fire King one.

Overall, it was a kitchen-queen's dream come true. I also picked up a new-in-box never used set of hot rollers, they're not vintage but my hair is so thick the set I already have isn't enough to curl my whole head, so this will be a big help in achieving my Flamboyant Flip a la Tracy Turnblad when the mood strikes me to do that (and it does).

I am linking to Apron Thrift Girl for Thrift Share Monday.