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You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Tag Sale Madness

Tag Sale Madness

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I had so many adventures today!

There were just tag sales everywhere in Connecticut today, so I spent about fives hour just driving around exploring and stopping when I saw something interesting. Plus, it was seventy degrees, blue skies, and a breeze, so it was just awesome. I bet I stopped at at least eight tag sales.

I only budgeted 200 bucks for gas to drive here and back, plus food, plus whatever else for the 4-5 days I am here, so I had to shop wisely. It’s funny how I feel so broke because of home ownership but at the same time $200 bucks seems like a ton of money when you don’t have a $75-100 booze tab everywhere you go. At any rate, I got some STEALS. First off, I picked up some end tables that were originally marked at $30.00 a piece, but the lady liked me and loved the pictures of my house and wanted them to go there, so she sold them to me for $20.00 each:

Those are going to go in my bedroom and I am going to take the ones that are there now and put them in the third floor spare bedroom. Such a deal, and really solid construction. At the next place, I met a nice woman in her 60’s who was selling everything to move somewhere there was no snow. She had never traveled and didn’t know where she and her husband were going to end up moving to, but she was ready to start selling stuff. She had a bunch of stuff from her father, whose antique store closed 20 years ago, odds and ends, and I have no idea whether this is valuable or not, but I thought it was super pretty and would look good in my corner cupboard:

Here’s the bottom:

Again, I don’t know what it is actually worth, but it was worth 20 bucks to me. At the same place, I saw this vase that I thought was pretty:

I paid ten for that. Again, I just thought it was pretty.

I also picked up a little silver piggy bank like the one my brother had when he was a kid, and that was only a dollar. I bought it because it was at a tag sale off Litchfield Ave., and his middle name is Litchfield, so it sort of just seemed like I should buy it.

I seriously think someone with a big truck who just bought a new house could furnish their entire place at a weekend’s worth of tag sales up here, and with high quality furniture. So many of the places were people in their 60’s whose kids just didn’t want their stuff. At any rate, there was a bunch of furniture I really liked but just do not need and was well outside my budget, but I like my scores.

Also, I took the pictures and not ABC so that is why they suck.

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    Those summer days where the temperature and humidity drop are really nice. I liked going to the estate sales, where you could go inside these large, old houses and look around.

  3. 3.

    Libby Spencer

    Tag sales in New England are the best. They suck in Texas. At least on my side of town.

  6. 6.

    Fair Economist

    I haven’t the foggiest notion about whether any of those are “valuable” but they’re all really nice and worth far more than you paid for them. You’d pay at least 10 times that, and probably more, for anything new comparable at a store.

  8. 8.

    satby

    Love tag (here we call them yard) sales. The top piece is transferware aka Staffordshire ware. A guide to marks is here and a comparison is here. The name of the company is New Warf Pottery, Lucerne is probably the pattern name.
    Edited to add: my other, now on hiatus, Etsy store was antiques and vintage finds. Very nice pieces John!

  9. 9.

    Hungry Joe

    They’re called “tag sales” only in certain areas of the northeast. In SoCal we have yard sales. If you advertised a “tag sale” here, people would assume you’ve got some tags to sell.

  10. 10.

    Catherine D.

    Buy what you like, especially if it’s only a few bucks.

    ETA: I have been craving Italian sausage & peppers for days and just made some. Yum!

  11. 11.

    Eljai

    Nice! Everything is in such good condition. My mom has some end tables like that. I think my parents bought them back in the 70s or 80s.

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    That serving dish with the lid looks very much like a set of dishes my mom had. Have no idea where she got them, or for what event, like they may have been wedding dishes. I don’t remember seeing it in her house more than 10 yrs before she passed. She might have given them away or sold them long before that. I’m one of those kids who really had no need for the stuff mom collected so I have none of it.

  16. 16.

    jeffreyw

    Yay! My Amazon order made it today! I emailed a complaint and they refunded the extra shipping and gave me a free month of Prime so we’re good. I had been worried about setting the thing up because the Google served me lots of forum complaints that said they couldn’t get theirs to work but it was so simple a caveman could do it.

  17. 17.

    efgoldman

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Those summer days where the temperature and humidity drop are really nice.

    Daughter went outside yesterday morning and said to herself “marching band weather!”

  18. 18.

    efgoldman

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Just drive around or you look for them on CL?

    Where we (you) live, they tend to come in bunches on certain weekends. Yes, drive around. They are often listed as well in whatever your free local weekly shopper is.

  19. 19.

    Robert Sneddon

    @jeffreyw:

    Yay! My Amazon order made it today! I emailed a complaint and they refunded the extra shipping and gave me a free month of Prime so we’re good.

    That’s standard — you paid for next-day, if Amazon don’t succeed in getting what you ordered to you in that timescale they refund you the express charge and throw in the thirty days Prime extension on top. It’s always worth emailing them if something like this happens. If nothing else they want to know when deliveries go wrong so they can, ahem, “talk” to their couriers.

  22. 22.

    Shana

    There’s an Etsy page with a similar covered Wharf Pottery tureen to yours selling for $45.

  28. 28.

    CaseyL

    Yard sales or garage sales are the ones someone has at their house. Or their block: many neighborhoods hold “block yard sales.”

    Rummage sales are usually held at a church or school, where a lot of people bring items to sell.

    When my now-many-years-ago ex and I first moved in together, we damn near furnished the house AND equipped his metal shop from yard sales.

    I adore yard sales. I adore them so much that the car almost turns itself following the posted signs; so much that I avoid going to them unless I am looking for a specific item. Because otherwise I would buy whatever caught my eye, and wonder, when I got home, whereinhell I would put it all.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @jeffreyw: Amazon’s shipping and delivery is usually very good here. One recent order they shipped 2 of something when I wanted 2 of a different line item in the order. I sent them an e-mail and they said they’d send the right item out overnight.

    Instead of the right item, I got 2 more of the thing I only wanted one of in the first place.

    :-/

    Oh, and don’t ever order screw extractors from them. About 2 years ago I got some from there and ever since then on my “daily deals” page there’s been at least one entry for screw extractors…

    Their software still needs some work… ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    frosty fred

    @Another Scott: I’ve never ordered screw extractors but they show up nearly every day for me too. (That’s not as scary as my eBay recent searches page which used to feature very explicit photos of nekkid wimmen–I finally tracked that back to a newspaper article I’d bought, and “persons who searched for this item also bought,” sure enough, nekkid wimmen pinups.)

  34. 34.

    HILFY

    John Cole, you posted the pic of that beautiful vase upside down. It’s still beautiful , but more so right side up.
    You have a good eye, whichever side you standing.

  35. 35.

    Julia

    Nice finds, John! I just wanted to give a shoutout to @satby, who has wonderful products on her Etsy site. Her goat’s milk hand and body cream has spoiled me for anything else, and it’s very reasonably priced!

  39. 39.

    SG

    Here in NY/Long Island, yard sale parlance goes like this:
    Yard sale or garage sale: all the stuff, oops, valuable wares are arrayed outside on your lawn, driveway, porch and/or garage. Low prices and good-natured haggling are expected.
    Tag sale: a step up in retail snootiness and prices, tag sales are often arranged, advertised and run by semi-professionals who take a percentage of the gross and advertise the sales under their own brand. Tag sales are akin to estate sales, inside the house and often include the entire contents of the house.
    Rummage sale: usually sponsored by an institution, church or charity for fund raising. The stuff, er, exclusive merchandise is often donated and the sale run by volunteers.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Art historian nerd alert! John, you paid about what is appropriate for the Lucerne blue and white dish. It was made in the 1890’s and isn’t porcelain; it is an earthenware which “appears to be porcelain,” made those who couldn’t afford actual porcelain (which was very expensive as the only source for porcelain china, Kaolin, was, surprise, in China, until the advent of “bone” china — which is just what it sounds like.) The decoration appears to be a transfer print — which means that the design was printed onto paper, then the paper pressed onto the “biscuit” phase of the vessel (vessel made in clay, set to harden before firing). Sometimes the design blurred during transfer printing as the entire vessel was then coated with a glazing. So, basically, good on you, lovely piece, hand wash it gently as earthenware is less hardy than actual porcelain (especially the modern stuff). Nerd attack over.

  42. 42.

    Danielx

    Been reading a lot lately about how antiques are going to be cheaper because baby boomers’ kids don not want their stuff

  43. 43.

    NoraLenderbee

    It’s 90+ degrees today. I begged off the bike ride, and stayed inside cleaning a couple of rooms. I feel so much more rested than yesterday.

  44. 44.

    RobNYNY

    @Another Scott:

    For years, I got ads for replacement parts for Norwegian machine tools, and for ladies plus-size rental clothing. I can’t imagine what I did to get into those algorithms.

  46. 46.

    Sentient AI from the Future

    I did some yard/garage/estate/junk sale browsing today too

    I found an old saw set (for setting the teeth on hand saws, the only new sets being made are from japan) for $2

    I also found a complete-enough hand cranked can sealer for $10

    Like Cole’s finds, not “worth” much, but I’m pretty happy

  51. 51.

    Fair Economist

    @Danielx:

    Been reading a lot lately about how antiques are going to be cheaper because baby boomers’ kids don not want their stuff

    My mom (actually a Silent) has a whole house of antiques. I can’t really use any of it. My brother does want the epergne (decorative table centerpiece). The 3 beds, secretary, numerous chests of drawers, grandfather clock – all probably going to auction. I can’t see any of our (teen) kids wanting it either.

  52. 52.

    raven

    @Fair Economist: Our house is full of wonderful furniture that my FIL had made in his construction company. Along with that he helped us when we bought it and made the upstairs into living space, built the staircase , made bookshelves, all the kitchen cabinetry and our screened porch. We’re pretty sure none of the nieces and nephews will want it which is why we were comfortable doing a reverse mortgage. We own the house next door so they can sell that and split the dough!

  53. 53.

    TomatoQueen

    @randy khan: My mother, a descendant of junk-acquirers and hardware store proprietors (her Dad bequeathed her a Leica and 72 screwdrivers) used to sigh after Brimfield but only managed it once. I’m glad she did tho’ as every acquisitor should try the crazy once. Daddy refused–he’s a rare books and fine arts appraiser and would rather work indoors.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    @RobNYNY:
    I don’t think they are trying to get repeat orders. I think they are trying to get you to buy anything else so the ads for things you don’t want go away.

  55. 55.

    MoxieM

    Ya done good. My Sister in Law always says, “it’s worth how much you like it.” (or something to that effect), and I believe she’s right.

    If you don’t like it, it’s not worth anything in your life…

    And re: Brimfield, yup, gotta go at least once! I still have a blue marble paperweight I got in High School. I went with friends & parents who were serious collectors–back in the ’70s Brimfield was still BIG, but Martha Stewart hadn’t happened to it yet. (Or, I listened to that band before they were cool, maaan.)

  58. 58.

    p.a.

    The Pomfret area of Ct has lots of dealers. Pretty highbrow locale: there’s a private, possibly middle school with an astro observatory. Think it’s either Pomfret or The Rectory

  59. 59.

    mkd

    @Cheryl from Maryland: The New Wharf Pottery was founded in Burslem, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire County, England in 1877 and absorbed into the Wood and Son pottery in 1894 so your dating is spot on. My mother was born one of 13 in Stoke, then found herself a WWII war bride who came to Pennsylvania with her new Yank husband. Back in Stoke a number of my aunts had careers as potterers working in the many factories that were centered there from the days of Josiah Wedgwood to the present, although many factories have now been relocated to eastern Euopean countries. The knot in the mark is a reference to the symbol of the Staffordshire Regiment, I proudly have my own gold knot as a talisman on a necklace from “home”. I was well trained to turn over a cup at a nicely set table to “check the ware”, it is a Potteries person thing. My husband has learned to ignore it :) All said, that is a lovely tureen and a fabulous price for (relatively) old flow blue ware

  61. 61.

    mainmata

    You might also consider going to a nearby Restore/Habitat for Humanity place near you (there are several and nearby in VA (Shenandoah area) where you can find a lot of furniture, donated building supplies, etc., at a big discount (YPMV, of course).

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    The article says he messed up a shoot some time ago – doesn’t say much about Aug 21st, 2017. I shot nearly 1000 images in western Kentucky, a place called Mexico, Ky, which is not a town, really, but a place on rural US Route 60. Hand held, with a filter until totality.

    I sent Alain a select bunch of images, maybe he’ll show everyone. Not Super shot with a Telescope, just hand held with a SuperZoom Panasonic Lumix camera. But looking pretty good to me.

    Probably your distant cousin did much better, but he doesn’t post here, do he?

    I will add, my expedition planning worked out great, the hotel in Owensboro was great, had a great restaurant where we ate dinner the 20th and the 21st, the spot where we pulled off the highway was perfect, a wide spot beside the road with some shade to park in, etc. No traffic, one other car stopped to ask if we had sunglasses, we did, they drove on further south to gain 8 or 10 more seconds of totality.

    Then another car pulled into our wide spot, 3 folks from Baltimore who flew into Kansas City, but found themselves in a cloudy rainy weather pattern, and left KC as 4 am for eastern clearer skies. We had a little bit of clouds, and immediately after totality it sprinkled some water I believe from condensation from the very humid air cooling down during totality.

    After a while, I opened a bottle of champagne, which we drank from paper cups beside the road on a hot but beautiful afternoon. The adventure was a total success!

    I did actually watch lots of the scenery with my bare eyes, or with the “sun” glasses, the number of images was because I had the camera to shoot multiple images every time I pressed the shutter button. Big fun, though tiring what with the long drive west and back home.

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