The Estate Sale Doppelganger and Pyrex From Heaven

Several weeks ago my mother and I went to a few estate sales that were practically next door to our house, not expecting to necessarily come back with much, and we were pleasantly surprised. 

Here are some of the things we found.

 

The first sale really was nearly within spitting distance of our house and yielded the most things we just couldn't leave behind and the most things interesting enough to photograph.  This sale was run by family, and they were so happy to get the house cleared out, they priced everything really low.

We bought an assortment of small things from around the house.  A few zippers, a pair of pinking shears, assorted pins and a pair of collapsible embroidery scissors came from the sewing room, while some games, glue sticks and the silver bird plate were in the living room.  

Also in the living room was this beautiful Hi-Fi set-up. 

It was marked only $15 and looked practically brand new, even though it probably dates it to the late 60's or early 70's.  I didn't buy it, but I almost wished I needed another turntable just so I could have an excuse to own something so nice. 

Recently I explained to my boyfriend what macrame is and it has become a running joke that he LOOOVES macrame so when my mother and I saw this - a HUGE macrame hanging table set - we couldn't stop snickering and I needed to share.  That thing was gigantic! It went from the ceiling almost to the floor. 

 

Next was the kitchen.  When Mom in ahead of me, she couldn't believe her eyes.  There, on the shelf above her head, with the heavenly light shining on it and the choir of angels singing its' praises, sat a pristine 471 Pyrex Bake-Serve-Store in aqua Butterprint FOR 25 CENTS.  Of course we took it home, what do you think we are, fools?

 

A friend's little boy turned 2 recently and was given a toy kitchen so we picked up the tiny Tupperware cream pitcher and canape cutter for him but the citrus peelers are for us.  The tea tin has a flat back for a semi-circular shape.  I just love the butterflies and flowers.

On our way out of the sale, Mom noticed a pile of resin planters, and decided to call my father to come look at them. This is how the conversation went: 

Mom:  Hey! You know those planter boxes you're going to build to put along the side of the house? 

You know, where you keep your collection of crapola?

Dad:  I was going to build something?

Mom:  Yeah, remember last month, when I said... um, I mean YOU said you would? 

Dad:  Ummm sure, I'll get right on that. 

Mom:  Well, maybe you don't have to.  They have a ton of resin planters at the estate sale that you didn't want to go to and you can probably get them for pennies, but they have to ride home in your car because some of them still have dirt in them.  

Dad:  I'm kind of doing something.

Mom:  Did you get the part about if you buy them I'll stop asking when you're going to build those planters?

Dad:  I'll be right there.

 No sooner had we put our purchases in the car, than I saw my father walking up to the house.  Or so I thought.  Five-foot-nine, 160 lbs, hiking boots, blue jeans, brown T-shirt covered by an unbuttoned flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, ball cap, glasses, beard, about 60 years old... wrong face.  It was eerie, and he was heading for the gardening supplies.  Mom called Dad again and said, "You better get over here, your doppelganger just showed up and he's buying all your stuff!"

When Dad arrived, he and Mom went into the garage, and Dad zeroed in on a pile of metal plant stakes.  As he picked one up, Mr. Doppelganger said, "Those are mine, but there are more over there."  Mom and Dad burst out laughing and then had to explain, and everybody laughed at the whole situation. Then Dad bought a whole stack of planters.

At the next sale, Mom was thrilled to find an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup/mixing bowl for $3.00.  It's huge, and SO useful.

This lovely Pyrex citrus pattern juice carafe was $1.00. I already own one of these. Mom bought this one for holding her Crystal Light in a much classier container than vintage Tupperware.  Because Crystal Light should be in crystal, right?  Well, crystal is too expensive, so glass has to be good enough.  

 

This was not found as a record bowl but as a RED record - A tribute to Artie Shaw to be exact.  I snapped it up and made the bowl for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day and he loves it. 

I think it's the prettiest record bowl I've ever seen.  It's too bad colored vinyl is so hard to come by. 

I really wanted to take this home with me, as alligators are just about my favorite animal, but I couldn't justify the $5.00.

The third sale was run by a woman who buys storage unit contents at auction and sells the crud she can't get much for very inexpensively.  We bought a whole bag of stuff for $4.00 - many small things, including a wool/angora sweater for unraveling, a bunch of jewelry bits that will probably show up in another post, some more toy kitchen stuff and the most interesting thing we found. . .

an Aladdin Pump-A-Drink.  It's hardly been used.  Mom remembers when these were all the rage in the 70's.  Everybody had to have one.

They came in a number of styles.  No need to pour the coffee; just push the button on the top.

So, with a trunk full of purchases, Mom and I headed for home.  Later, as I'm unloading my stuff from the car, I hear:

Mom:  Let's go to the store to look at paint for those planters.

Dad:  I'm going to paint something?

I'm linking up with the following parties:
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The Big And The Small Of It

Today I thought I'd show the largest thing I've ever thrifted, and the smallest.

The largest was found a few weeks ago at The Salvation Army during a 50% off sale. It was just under $30 - children not included. It's powder-coated tubular steel; very strong. A new one sells for over $200, so we were very happy to have it.

The smallest thing was found at the Goodwill Outlet, commonly referred to as "the Bins." The Bins is a giant store where they send all the "clearance" items. When the store shelves get too full, they send a bunch of stuff to The Bins, and it gets sold by the pound. It's all dumped into these giant bins, kind of like tables with short sides, on wheels. Customers dig through the bins, looking for bargains. Things get tossed about, and if there are board games, parts get dumped, so I like to look in the bottom of the bins for tiny items.

Here are some of the tiny things I've found. There's a purple wooden mouse, a wooden Professor Plum token, a Barbie telephone, a tiny die, a figure of "Jacque" from Cinderella, a bingo number, a Monopoly top hat, a Clue revolver, some magnetic checkers, a chess piece, a metal figure of the Virgin Mary and a teeny dog. Some of them will be used for altered art, some for dollhouses, some as replacement parts for board games; who knows. Everything in the picture cost about 10c. I also found an entire set of vintage scrabble tiles (with very smooth edges) to make into charms.

Lately I've been ignoring a particular Goodwill in our area, so yesterday I decided to go in and have a look around. And what did I find but lovely Pyrex?! I saw this Desert Dawn oblong baking dish and was immediately interested, so I called my mother to ask if we wanted it. I love oblong bakers, even if we already own two. They have so many possible uses: holding cards, carrying things, making peppermint bark, etc.

This baking dish is a size 232, 2qt. It's smaller than the 3 qt oblong pans that I own in the Daisy and Butterfly Gold patterns. Desert Dawn oblong bakers came in size 231 (1.5 qt) and size 232 (2 qt). I don't know how they compare to one another lookswise but I'd guess that the 231 is probably about the size of a space saver but just as shallow as the 232.

While on the phone with Mom, I spotted this:

An aqua snowflake patterned space saver just like one we saw at an antique store recently for $18.00. My mother loves space savers and aqua Pyrex and was drooling over the one at the antique store. As I picked it up, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I found something but I can't tell you what it is.
Mom: Okay but I'm not sure we need it.
Me: How can you say that? It's Pyrex.
Mom: Unless it's aqua we don't need it.
Me: Only aqua you say? Interesting. What about pink?
Mom: Okay. Aqua or pink.
Me: What about patterns like Daisy?
Mom: I'm really only looking for a space saver.
Me: Okay, Mom. I won't bring anything home unless it's aqua or pink or matches any of our patterns or I really, really like it.
Mom: Wait a minute...
Me: I have to go. Bye!

Needless to say, when I brought it home, she was thrilled, though she'd kind of already guessed it was aqua.

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Typewriters, Barstools, and Pyrex oh my!

Last Friday afternoon, after deciding we didn't have money to spend garage sailing anymore, my mother sent me out with a list of sales and eight dollars. A good friend of mine whom we'll call Kitty went with me.

As it would happen, the church rummage sale that we went to first had one thing I have been waiting most of my life to own: a working manual typewriter. The machine is a Remington Quick-Riter and light grey with dark green keys. It has its case and none of the keys stick. I paid $5.00 for it and am quite satisfied.

Also at that sale I got a large cranberry colored Samsonite suitcase with a pink lining and a couple of old metal picture frames.

The next stop on our list was another church rummage sale where I found a few small things such as a postal scale, a wall-mounted hat rack, and a velvet painting souvenir of San Francisco.



After that sale I had only a couple of dollars left and was trying to find another sale when I drove past the most beautiful garage sale find of my life! It was a Yellow Crackle Ice Dinette Set. A fairly small table and four chairs, no lea,f and the vinyl on the chairs needs work but otherwise it's beautiful (sorry but I won't be able to get pictures of it until it's been cleaned up). I had to give them some money to hold it and go back home to get the ($15.00) cash but it was worth it. By the time I had loaded the set into our Kia Optima (which left almost no space for anything else) my mother called and asked me to swing by the American Cancer Society's thrift store for her.
I had just parked in front of a house in our city's downtown and was walking to the store when I saw three red and two black barstools sitting outside of a bar with a FREE sign taped to them.
(the dinette chairs are there in the background)


I had Kitty go check them out for condition and got on the phone with my mother because there was no way they would fit into the car with the dinette set already inside. After a few more phone calls to my father and mother both, I called a friend and he agreed to come pick them up for me.
About twenty minutes later I got home and unloaded it all and with only $20.00 I had gotten three things we've been looking for: a dinette set, a velvet painting (sort of), and a typewriter.

And since then we've just been finding better and better things and of course, it happens as soon as we don't have money to really be buying.

Today, in fact, we found these:


Those are Pyrex divided dishes with their lids; one is Snowflake pattern in Aqua blue and the other is an atomic-looking promotional pattern in black on white. Of all the pyrex we own, these are actually our first divided dishes! If you know anything about the promotional dish pattern, please let me know.

That's all I have for you today, have a great weekend and happy "sailing".


EDIT: I found out which pattern the black and white pyrex is. It's called barbed wire and it was a promotional pattern for fall, 1958.

I'm linking this to:

http://creatingahouseofgrace.blogspot.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/
http://diane1876.blogspot.com/