The other weekend just about every neighborhood held a garage sale. I love looking around at garage and estate sales! This time around DH and I were under the weather. The hacking cough, sneezing, just wanting to sleep ick. So out of all the weekends to have a collective garage sale, both of us were out of commission.
DH is not into sales at all. I need a sale buddy! I'm really only interested in teapots (I collect) and silver (for use during holidays and when we have company over). If there happens to be a picture/painting that grabs my eye or maybe some cheap historic glass or crystal, I might be tempted.
A friend of my Mom's years ago used to plan estate sales. That might be how I got into it. I had some friends from the spouses' club at a previous duty station who love going to garage sales. Crazy early, too-don't even think of sleeping in.
Then again, you get so much more done when you are up that early...
I really just like seeing what people have. The anthropologist in me comes out and I wonder, who, why, and where? Does it have a story to tell? Where did it come from? Original or knock off? And then, do I actually want this and how can I use it?
I managed a box of Desert Rose, California Franciscan ware, and some British-made from a facebook garage sale group. I added those into the straggly remnants of some hand-me-downs from my mom and from her mom, of Cali Franciscan. And yeah, I totally turned the pieces over to make sure it was a good mix of the original quality.
The cup was made in "England" and the bowl is Californian. Can you see the difference in painting technique. And you can see examples of different maker's marks.
It wouldn't matter to me other than I grew up with one pattern/date range and the history, so that is what I gravitate to and automatically look for. I think they were the first dishes DH and I ever used together. They were mine and he was living in the dorms on base, so he really had none.
I did actually just buy a copper dragon teapot, made in India, from the base spouses' club's Thrift Shop. Which adds to my collection.
Oh, I lied. Some silver has also made it into my teapot collection.
At this point the collection is only for whimsical. It has to be eye-catching. To be honest, now that I look, almost all the teapots on the wall were gifts after I had said I wanted to collect teapots. All are individual and different within the collective. (I totally did just drop that reference!) I'm pretty picky, which is a good trait to have when you end up looking at a million sales all by noon.
I really have to thank my "Aunt" Mary for many of them. Thank you so much for your amazing taste and looking out for me and DH... all the time. :-) Mom goes shopping with me, but I always cheap out- sometimes they are so expensive!
But, I have to say.... being sick does end up saving us money by not garage sale'n.
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