As I moved down the line of yard sales in the middle class neighborhood I saw very little I was interested in until I came to the last house on the block, which apparently was the oldest and best kept up house on the block. Well after getting a closer look as I approached the large front yard I could see there was a possibility of finding in the mess of clothes and old tools scattered about something to made the day worth while. If nothing else I would at least enjoy digging through all the boxes and piles of old clothes.

    I always start at the very end of a yard sale if possible and make a quick trip through it before spending time focusing on one certain 28 item or area. I find this will allow me to cover more yard sales in one day. This sale I did not even attempt to make a fast scan as everything there was something I wanted to look at. I did take a quick look around for the owner of the yard sale and introduced myself, just to find out whom I would be dealing with. At times you will find people who you can not deal with and who in most cases will have their items priced to high. Even if I find good items to resale I will not waste my time working this yard sale.

    The older gentleman was friendly and liked to talk so it took a few minutes to move back to the beginning of the yard sale items. At times you will also meet people whom you feel like you have known for years and have just dropped in for a visit. This was one of those times. It made me feel a little bit guilt wanting to be in a hurry to look at his yard sale and not talk to the gentleman but I knew the items he had would not last long so I ended the conversation and started searching.

    The first box was loaded with pieces of McCoy brown ware from the thirties. The box beside of it had of all things over thirty new spark plugs for the early ford cars, I am talking 29 about the tin Lizzies and cars of that era. Around that box were several more boxes full of all gas caps, fuel pumps and other automotive related items that were all in new condition in original boxes. The next group of boxes had a few old picture albums, plus older books relating to religion which I was not particularly interested in, but I decided to give them a look see anyway, you never know when you will run across a special manuscript or early religious items that could have a value to them, again everything old is not valuable. So you have to be careful how you spend your money.

    I made a fast run through the box of books and saw there was nothing earth shaking in the contents and moved on. The next box had over a dozen original reel to reel tapes with most being blanks or copies of albums and had no real value other than using them to make more copies which I will do sometimes if I have a valuable piece of music I want to keep the original of. I have an original copy of the first, second, third and fifth Hootenanny TV shows from the 60s which I will sometimes make a copy of and sell on the net. Therefore I am always in the market for blank or used tapes. The old clothes there once belonged to his wife, now deceased and as with most people in this situation they will eventually sell off or give away most of the belongings of these people.

    There were a few items I looked at which were of some interest to me specifically the three hat boxes and some costume jewelry. I always check out hat boxes or old hats, male or female as there are many outlets to move these items. The costume jewelry is something I have not focused a lot of attention on but there are some valuable pieces out there. Mostly bracelets and earrings. I decided to take a chance on the jewelry if the price was right, this would give me a change to educate myself on old jewelry on ebay and find out what would sale. This sale was not ordinary as there were so many pieces of good items to resale.

    People were beginning to start looking so I knew there was only one thing to do I had looked over everything the man had and decided to ask what it would take for him to price everything together. I have at times bought entire estates and decided this was equal to any estate I had bought. The gentleman was not to interested in 31 selling this way but I tried to be persistent without being pushy and finally got him to name a price. I was shocked after hearing the price as it was very low. I was lucky that day as I had my wife with me.

    What I did not have was the five hundred dollars he quoted to me. I did have a credit card and immediately sent the wife to a ATM machine for the money while I drove off the potential buyers looking at my items. I persuaded the gentleman to help me gather up everything and place it back on his front porch while my wife was gone. Another piece of luck that day was driving my wife’s car, which was a large four door with a large trunk. It was a stretch getting everything into the car, we actually had to Leave some of the items and make a return trip the following day. This was one of the better days of yard selling and was an exception not the rule in searching yard sales.