Hey you collectors, thrifters & dumpster divers!

janfromflorida

janfromflorida

Member
Location
Forida
Another thread mentioned thrift stores & American Pickers and got me to thinking. Who else loves them and Antiques Roadshow, Pawn Stars, etc? Ever pick anything good up along the curb (and I don't mean hookers, smart asses!)? Who's traded on Ebay? Anybody switched to Etsy, Bonanza or such? Back when Ebay was good I used to collect costume jewelry and a few other small collectibles, and sell on there.

When we lost our house and had to move, I totally furnished the new place from yard sales and thrift stores. Couldn't be nicer. They are a God-send for us poor folk!

What's your story?
 

When I am in FL, on Saturday mornings I get on my bike and check out the yard sales. We have about 500 homes in our community and usually a few sales each weekend. Once a year we have a community sale and quite a few sales are going and as well as the clubhouse is open for hot dogs and baked goods.

I have bought and sold on Ebay since 2002. I had a large collection of old cereal premiums. Am slowly selling them off now. You know, the rings you sent in a dime and a box top. Some now sell for extremely high prices. Also, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger items.

Quite often we have estate sales. When a person passes, lots of times their familys do not want the home or furniture. You can find some real bargains at these sales. The saying around here is: I'm buying stuff to put in my next yard sale.
 
I got a book a while back that Jan and Pappy and others around here could have written. It's called Depression-Era Wisdom.

It covers so many simple ways to stretch your money, many of which have already been mentioned in the threads around here. The Depression-era philosophy was "reduce, reuse, recycle"... they called it "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without".
Besides bartering, consignment shops, thrift shops, factory outlet/clearance stores, flea markets; they also mention online auctions at Amazon and eBay and even vendors like Overstock.com for bargain shopping. (I've bought a few things at Overstock but don't think of them as that thrifty a website... their shipping is cheap, but it's no doubt put into the price)

They talk about identity theft. Did you know that if you have old checks or any old bank records laying around from a closed out account with no funds in it, thieves can still somehow cause you trouble and get money from them and make you responsible? Can't wrap my head around that! Shred everything before throwing in the trash.
I believe these thieves are wasting their talent! They should be working for the government.
 

Pappy said:
You know, the rings you sent in a dime and a box top. Some now sell for extremely high prices. Also, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger items.
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I remember back in the late 40's- early 50's (?) when boxes of Rice Krispies would actually have the Snap, Crackle and Pop puppets in the boxes! One per box, but can only imagine what those go for today. I had all three, and no doubt they went into the garbage.
 
Wow, my most exciting memory from 2nd grade was sending in for and awaiting the arrival of my Captain Midnight decoder ring! If I wasn't good I didn't get to LISTEN to my stories on the radio! Ye-gads, how old am I anyway?!
 
Back in the day when I was still a materialistic Capitalist pig I was a huge fan of flea markets and garage sales. Unfortunately my wife was as well, and we would spend Saturdays cruising the town and enriching the local underground economy. I was also a frequent buyer on eBay.

Now that I have evolved into a Spiritual Being of Light and Energy :rolleyes: my biggest purchase is usually a $2 shirt at Sally's Army or, if I feel particularly daring, a large canister of coffee at the dollar store that I can snag for only $7.
 
We used to send away for the promos such as "100 dolls for a dollar" and "sea monkeys" We'd wait for the mail and when they came, the dolls were about an inch tall and all the same. We'd put the sea monkeys in a bowl of water and one time actually saw something swimming around in there - have no idea what they might have been but we did have bragging rights on owning sea monkeys. :lol:
 
Hey, does anyone else watch Flea Market Flip? I've been watching what they do with their finds and am totally amazed at the creations they sell for the younger, hip generation to actually use in their homes! Some of the stuff is really weird.
 
Sea monkeys!

I used to run a rather large sea monkey ranch out West - 245 hands living in 20 bunkhouses, acres of sea monkey paddocks, we had international clients ordering by the ton, feed bills in the thousands every month ...

Yeah, those were the good ol' days *sniff* ...

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I cannot go to thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales, et cetera because I end up buying "cool" stuff I really don't need. One man's junk is another man's junk . . .
 
I would love to collect antiques, but don't know the values of things, and don't need the extra stuff either.
 
I enjoy going to thrift stores and yard sales, but I do not have any real collectibles. Like everyone else, I remember having them when I was a kid, but they vanished eventually, to be replaced with other things, I thought I needed more.
I remember having the Sea Monkeys, too, and have no idea what they really were, but they surely were way too small to actually tell what they looked like, so I guess a sea monkey was as good a name as any. I am pretty sure that I had tiny little sea horses, too.

What I wanted, ever since I can remember, was a REAL monkey, and back then, they were advertised on the back pages of all the comic books, for only $19.95, plus shipping and handling ( however much that was ?) . But my mother assured me that they were not as cute and friendly as Cheetah on Tarzan, and that I really wouldn't like it if I had one, and she wasn't buying me one, and that was the end of that ! (So maybe that should have been in the bucket list thread..... I want a real squirrel monkey) ?

One of the little cereal toys that I really loved, was the little Frogmen. You put baking soda in a little cup at the bottom, and put them in the goldfish bowl (without the goldfish !), and they went to the bottom, then a bubble would bring them to the top, burst, and down they went again. I had several of them, and loved watching them.
 
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I remember the frogman too. They also had a toy submarine that did the same thing. I think my favorite toys, besides my bikes, were my cap guns. I had a beautiful Roy Rogers two gun set that I was so proud of. It had colored stones on the holsters and wooden bullets on the belt. Today, collectors pay a small fortune for these items.

one that I also remember was a metal chicken that when you pushed down on it, it laid eggs ( white marbles)

And of course my Army collection. Real metal vehicles with real rubber tires. Metal planes, tanks men ,etc.
 
Yeah, those spider monkeys ... I think every kid in the world wanted one of those.

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The stories I've heard about them was that you'd receive a package with a starving, frightened, screaming demon on four legs that would bite you as a means of introducing himself, crap all over your house, attempt to mate with Mittens the Cat, break all your crystal chotchkies and rip all your curtains down.

Only then would it be Quality Time. If Dad didn't step on it first. :(
 
Pappy said:
I remember the frogman too. They also had a toy submarine that did the same thing.
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Being a Navy kid (was actually taught to swim by frogmen), I loved those things. I remember getting mine from my favorite cereal Sugar Jets. But have no desire to scrounge through some grimy and disgusting dumpster in search of them. Will just enjoy the memories . . .
 
That Guy said:
Being a Navy kid (was actually taught to swim by frogmen), I loved those things. I remember getting mine from my favorite cereal Sugar Jets. But have no desire to scrounge through some grimy and disgusting dumpster in search of them. Will just enjoy the memories . . .
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You can get them for around $5-$10 on eBay ...

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That Guy said:
Can I still sit by the pool each morning in my jammies eating Sugar Jets at our home in Coronado??? Oh, yeah . . . that's right . . . you can never go home again...
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Talk about non sequiturs ...

Why couldn't you sit in your jammies?

The reason I think that we can't go home again is because no matter where we are, we're already there.

We just never realize it. We look outside of ourselves - the LAST place we'd ever find home.

Now that I've said that, here's a gratuitous picture of some apple raisin muffins.

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Good point, Phil....home is where we make it, I guess. I do long for the simpler times, but our parents might not agree. What we see as a better and easier time was difficult for them, I'm sure. Not to get philosophical or anything.......:p

I remember the ads for seahorses and the monkeys....I would NOT want a monkey in the house; icky little creatures, imo. We had a dog and cats; none of which were allowed in the house for a long period of time. Things sure have changed.

We had the little metal toy cars and trucks, too...had as much fun with them as the dolls. For whatever reason I don't remember the frogmen. :confused:
 
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