What’s your best Garage Sale finds?

[TANSTAAFL]

Best things I found were at a garage sale in my neighborhood. There was a jar filled with wristwatches each for $10. After spending 10 minutes pulling out the ones I wanted I spent $50 and walked off with 4 Casio G-Shocks and a Luminox Navy Seal with a yellow dial. The luminox went for $80 on ebay after I wore it for 3 months and the g-shocks $25 to $50 each. Another Garage sale I found a gold plated 50's era Art Deco Bulova that still wound and ran for $5, it took several postings but it sold for $60.

 

[carready]

Worst one I know of was a friend was out of town and wife (now ex-wife) had a garage sale. Man asked if she had any firearms for sale. Knowing husband had an old 410 sxs he did not ever shoot, she got it out of the safe and sold it to the man for $400. So proud to tell husband when he got home about the "Deal" she made. However was not a 410, was a Purdey and Sons double safari rifle worth a little north of $120K. I almost threw up just hearing the story.

 

[Profreedomokie]

I bought a Grizzly drill press in EC that list on their webpage for $1100 for $400 last weekend.

 

[HiredHand]

Worst one I know of was a friend was out of town and wife (now ex-wife) had a garage sale. Man asked if she had any firearms for sale. Knowing husband had an old 410 sxs he did not ever shoot, she got it out of the safe and sold it to the man for $400. So proud to tell husband when he got home about the "Deal" she made. However was not a 410, was a Purdey and Sons double safari rifle worth a little north of $120K. I almost threw up just hearing the story.

The wife should have never had the combo to the safe.

 

[Perplexed]

Not the “best of” but a very nice find in an unexpected place. My gf and I were running errands this past weekend, and she asked me to pull over into a boutique store on south Memorial in Tulsa. Being the dutiful bf, I complied, and walked around the store while she shopped. I spotted a vintage desktop fan spinning away on top of a cabinet, and recognized it as a six-bladed big-motor Emerson, my favorite. Long story short, the proprietor sold it to me, and I went home with a circa 1918 fan in very good running condition.

 

[OkcPuckFan]

Mine is the epitome of serendipity. When my wife and I were first married in the summer of 1989, I was working nights and we lived in a somewhat less than ideal neighborhood. My wife did not grow up around guns but has embraced the culture and is an excellent shot.

I was headed to the gun show on a Saturday morning to find a revolver for her to keep in the bedside table. Glanced at the classifieds in the paper, there was a garage sale two blocks from the house that had a couple of "pistols" listed. On my way to the fairgrounds, I went by the garage sale and the guy pulls out an early '70's Colt Python with stag grips wrapped in an oily shop rag. The other one was an RG .38 that looked like it lived in a tackle box on an ocean going fishing boat. The Python was immaculate. I nervously asked him how much and he said he wanted to sell them together and he wouldn't take a dime less that $275.00. I said each? and he said nope, for the pair. I still have the Python, the RG lives in my tackle box! And the wife still calls this 'her pistol'!

 

[Raido Free America]

I'm a wannabe musician, and know a little about acoustic instruments. Fiddles can literally be worth millions, or be worthless, and everything in between, which make them hard to know the value. I went to a sale years ago, and this guy had a Gibson fiddle that was, in mint condition, with a lot of inlay, matching bow, with Gibsion inlaid on the frog, original case, just a beautiful instrument. It was dated 1939! Well I had never heard of a Gibson Fiddle, and I know evey everything! There are counterfit instruiment around so I was suspicias this was one of them. I have a 1986 F-5L Gibson Mandolin worth quite bit. He wanted $600.00 for this fiddle! I went home and looked this up, It seems Gibson Co. contracted there fiddles, to a fiddle maker in Germany back in the 1930 and before! When Nazi Germany invaded Polland in 1938, the US placed a trade imbargo on them, and Gibson could no longer get fiddles from their maker in Germany. Gibson started manufacturing their own Gibson brand Fiddles in Kalamazoo Michigan, and made them from 1939 through 1945! They made four models from, plain to ornate, with pearl inlaid, this Fiddle was the fancier model. These fiddles are not concidered the best sounding fiddles, but are somewhat rare, at that time it was worth about $1,200.00! I beat a path back over to the sale and this guy had looked it up, and had gone up to $1,200.00! I don't play the fiddle but this would have been a good collector item. I tryed to learn to play the fiddle years ago, but couldn't afford the divorce that was going to cause!

 

[Raido Free America]

My brother and sister in law, had an antique store, and did estate sales. These estate sales are hard work, I have helped with a few, and you usually end up hauling truck loads of junk to the dump. This one sale there was a pile of trash in the garage floor, to be hauled to the dump. My sister in-law, noticed what looked like a Navajo rug in this trash pile. This thing was dirty, and very old, she was afrade to wash it, so she just cleaned it lightly, and put it on E -Bay, with the description ' looks like old Navajo rug"! This has been a while, and I don't remember the numbers, but the bidding went wild, and it brought 3/4 thousand dollars! A while later she was watching Antique Road Show, and who ever bought it off E-Bay, had this same rug on the show. As it turned out this rug was super rare, and worth 10/20 thousand dollars according to them.

 

[OKCShooter]

I don't think I've really ever gone to a garage sale, but years ago (20ish) my Grandmother's neighbor was going to have a garage sale and as I was leaving my Grandmother's house the neighbor (also an older woman) asked me how to sale a vehicle at a garage sale. I walked into her garage and it was a red (oxidized) 190E Mercedes. I asked her if it ran and she said it had been in garage for 5 years or so and wasn't sure and it didn't have a title and it was sitting on flat tires. Long story short, she said first person with $100 takes it and I said no less than $500 but if she got it running she could look at a market value and Title 42. She said "Nope, I'll just put $100 on it" to which I replied "SOLD"

I went back the next week with a battery and basic tools. Got it running in about 2 minutes. All tires aired up and held air and I drove it around the block...it drove great. I tried to give her another $400 and tell her that it was better than expected and worth the $500 minimum but she wouldn't take it. Polished it up over a few hours and before I could apply for Title 42; my Grandmother tells me she got the title from neighbor as she found it.

Total investment was under $200. Time spent was maybe 5 hours. Sold it for $7.5K

 

[boocat71]

I bought a camel saddle from a garage sale for $20. I put it on my gun show table that weekend and all my buddies told me it wouldn't sell. About 3 shows later sold it for $75. During the ban I ran across a box with some trash on top looked in set the trash back down. I asked the lady how much for the box she said $5 paid and left. I got to the truck and pulled the 15 30 rnd AR magazines out.