Vintage Rescue Squad

Big News! There's a New Sheriff in (Old) Town

Lately, I've been feeling a tad burnt out. It's been harder and harder to motivate to go to the shop on weekends. I started skipping weekends, or doing perfunctory foofs (good name for a band, huh?), and my sales suffered. Probably not a great idea to do that during the always-slow summer months....

I feared I'd lost my mojo. The junking urge is still going strong, so what was going on? I just couldn't pinpoint my malaise.

Then, out of the blue, 2 weeks ago I got a phone call! A fellow junker is opening a new shop and invited me to join in the fun! As we discussed the possibility and I later tossed, turned, and tormented myself, I realized what the real problem was: I was merely tired of the commute.

For 6+ years, each of the locations I've been in has been an hour away. In our ebook, and in numerous consultations with aspiring junkers, I've long urged people to think beyond their immediate location. Sometimes, you'll need to be in a different town. Sometimes, it'll involve a commute. Sometimes, it's an agonizing 3 HOURS away (you know who you are!). But, after 6+ years, I realized it was bringing VRS and, more importantly, ME down.

I made the agonizing yet thrilling decision to leave my current location after 4.5 years, trading the hour-long commute for a 15-minute one. Other factors are coming to the forefront, but you don't need to be privy to those.

 

although it looks like she's hurling, she's merely curious!

So, beginning September 1st, I'll be one of 3-4 vendors at Bucket List, a new shop in Old Town Alexandria, VA! Bucket List is in a 1758 rowhouse in a hip and lively neighborhood with a lot of foot traffic. As I told my sister, it's next door to a "cupcakery" and a wine bar!

It's exciting to move to a new venue with a new clientele, and I'm psyched for invigoration. Not to mention a 10.4-mile commute.

7 Pro Junker Tips for Shopping a Flea Market/Antique Show

I am so sick of these predictable lists. You know the litany of pap we're fed:

Wear comfortable shoes.

Bring water.

Wear layers.

Play nice.

All good and decent advice, but we're not some namby-pamby toddlers boarding the short bus for a pre-school field trip. We're heading out for some hard-core JUNKING. Accordingly, we need proven tactics for defensive and effective shopping.

Behold MY advice:

 

1. Strip down your car. You heard me. Take out everything you don't really need. You can always buy another kids' car seat, but when will you ever find another dressform for $25? Ditch that styrofoam cooler. All you need are some CDs, towels, and possibly a map and your registration. Clean out that trunk (and even the glove box) and get those back seats DOWN. Mine haven't been in their full upright position for nearly a year. Any self-respecting junker would gladly trade a passenger seat for a chippy green cubby, right?

 

2. As early as possible, buy something that can be used as a weapon, or will at least make people give you a wide berth. At last month's PA junk jaunt, I bought a set of curtain stretchers like those seen above. The sticks are about 5 feet long and have teeny tiny nails every inch. We're talking about 600 pointy objects. I felt like a junk superhero. When it eventually becomes unwieldy, shove it in the car, and buy a heavy typewriter or something. And if you don't think I'd throw a typewriter at someone, I'd like to see you try bogarting some vintage horse trophies away from me.

3. Ditch your friends and siblings. Hey, we all love our junker friends and siblings, but all's fair in love and junk, right? Most likely, you shop at different paces, you shop for different junk, and you're on a mission. Plus, if your sister/BFF is anything like mine, she'll buy it for you, or at least alert you as to where to find it. I buy her creepy doll heads, and she buys me newspaper items. It's all good. Plus, you can always meet up later and gloat over your finds together. Schedule a show-and-tell so you can crow!

 

4. Buy them all. 180 metal tags? Yup. When you find a boatload of something good (or even just multiples, like my Hy Tique Hosiery/Eva Gabor lampshades), buy them all. There are a number of reasons to do so, some bordering on hoarding, others having to do with piggishness (guilty), but as a recent seller told me, "You don't want another dealer selling the same thing you have at a lower price."

5. Know what to jettison. There comes a time in each junker's life (and if you're like me, on nearly every roadtrip) that you have to make THE CALL. Not everything will fit in your car; what must you ditch? Recently, for me, it was a black toychest with some sweet decals. Ultimately, it lost out because it was too bulky and I'd only paid $20—not much room for huge profit (who wants a BLACK toychest?). Sadly, it may well still be sitting in that lonely parking lot. In retrospect, I wish I'd tried to trade it for a smaller item. Hindsight = 20/20, huh?

Ultimately, you still need to 6. Bring small bills and 7. Play nice. But who cares if you're parched and sunburnt and your feet hurt? Pfffft. Personally, if I'm not, I reckon I didn't try hard enough. We've got to EARN those battle scars.

Ticked Off at Picked Off

Have you seen this new tv show "Picked Off" on Wednesdays on the History Channel? Oh, lord. Every time a new show like this debuts, I get my hopes up, and every time they get it wrong. Why do I bother?

The premise of the show is that four teams of amateur pickers (or as the website calls them, "weekend pickers") are vying for a chance at $10,000. Doesn't sound bad yet, does it?

Well, the contestants IMHO don't seem all that savvy, but I'm gonna blame that on the premise/set up of the show (see below). What I AM gonna blame them for is dressing up in matchy-matchy outfits. WTH! There's always the hippie/boho team (as evidenced by the tie-dye dudes above), the unusual hat team, etc. Seriously, I'm waiting for the first all-female duo dressed in bridesmaid dresses.

Anyway, each team is given $100 and sent to the same place; in the first episode, it was an antique store and in the second it was an estate sale. Here's the rub: they have one hour to find ONE ITEM that will appraise the highest. Owie! In my estimation, that's just setting people like us up for failure! I can buy a boatload of stuff for $100 and turn it into a lot more, but a single item?!? Methinks that's just not the way amateur dealers shop....

 

After each round, one duo is "picked off" after fussy brothers Todd and Ethan Merrill ("famous" appraisers) evaluate and appraiser the purchases. In the first episode, the team that got kicked off made the rookiest of rookie mistakes in buying a Coca-Cola tray and they got BURNED and booted off the show.

For the second round, whatever their first item appraised for is how much money the team gets to spend. This time, they are given three choices of where to go (in both episodes it was some weird collector's barn/garage/house). Incredibly, they have 6-7 hours and can go to one or all of the choices. Again, however, they can only buy one item.

Here's where it gets interesting, though: on the first episode, one team buys two items at one location and then BRINGS THEM to the second location and presents one item as a "gift" to the seller, and then trades the other item and their remaining money for a better deal. Pretty smart, huh? Well, in the second episode, one team agrees to do manual labor for a seller in exchange for a deal. Seeing that, another team does the same thing.

In the final round, the remaining teams go "freestyling" (duh, wonder where they got that term?), which in this instance means they can go BACK to any of the previous locations (but not off the grid, apparently). And, they get cell phones and digital tablets. The winning team gets $10,000. Fair enough.

In MY version of the show, even though it would be a technological nightmare, I'd say the teams can go ANYWHERE and buy AS MUCH as they want. Ditch the fussy brothers, and see by what percentage a team can increase their investment. If I bought a big ole box of skeleton keys, I'd be RICH.

All I know is that I'd much rather see footage of Barbara rooting through a dusty basement for Christmas tchotchkes and feedsacks, Pam chasing down a piled-high pickup truck full of salvage-bound rusty-crusties, Gina bogarting floral china at yardsales, Tamarah knee-deep in hard rubbish ... well, you get the picture. Let's see a REAL junker show without the games and frivolity!

Stump the Co-worker: Junk Edition

Because I've worked at my big-grrrl job at the newspaper for 29 years (first interview straight out of college), I don't have much experience with new environments/co-workers. It's decidedly compounded by the fact that my boss has been there 30 years, and her boss 41. Most of us have been there for a loooong time, and know each other really well; we can intuitively anticipate each others' moods and work styles, and nothing really surprises us any more.

 

At top, cool steampunk-y protective work goggles, and at bottom, 2 rocking work badges for the US Marine Corps Air Station, circa 1940s. But, I think they look like mug shots. That dame HATED her job, methinks.

 

Recently, however, we added a new team for a high-tech schmancy web presence. YAY! Last week, a brand-new guy and I kinda butted heads in our first series of meetings and it was not only uncomfortable but weird. I'm just not used to that. At today's meeting, he clearly wanted to make an overture, so asked me "What did you do this weekend?"

 

I went to a barnsale, dude. His response: "Whoa. Cool." DAMN RIGHT.

Catching Up With the Junk

I'm soooo behind in posting. Don't think I'm not beating myself up about it, either! I'm sure you all understand how life gets in the way of bliss, sometimes....

 

These photos are all of the PA loot from the wondrous 3-days of junking. Once again, I did as much of my signature buying ("How much for all of it?"), buying a bunch of multiples. I also went a tad clock crazy, as evidenced by the above photo. What? You didn't notice the clocks because of the awesome bingo scoreboard? Or were you blinded by the killer "Apartment for Rent" sign?

 

Games and toys found their way home with me, too. I nearly popped a vein trying to snatch that circus truck with its super-low pricetag. And greedy me bought all of the faucet markers—56 of them!

 

I've been remiss in posting. I've been slacking in going to refoof the boof. I did scoot in last weekend to get my monster bunting in, though. That bad boy needs to sell before the election!

800th Blogiversary

Woo hoo! This celebrates my 800th (!) blogpost in just under 5 years. It's hard to believe that a mere 799 posts ago I was petrified—I had no idea that I had anything worthy to add to Blogistan. I felt like a lone weirdo who loved the junking HUNT, and the requisite repurposing and selling. No one but my friend Liz "got" me, so I reached out, looking for kindred spirits.

A fortuitous post on the now-defunct American Junk Club forums—founded by Ki Nissauer (of Flea Market Style and Junk Bonanza) and Sue Whitney (of Junk Market Style)—led to me meeting up with Colleen at a PA flea market. Colleen, in her now-signature manner, ultimately bullied me into blogging and the rest is history.

Along this amazing journey, I've met the most generous, hilarious, visionary, and blindingly dedicated and flat-out lucky people. Some I've finally met in person and are now friends for life; others remain my "invisible" BFFs. What I call the Sacred Sisters of the Discarded is now my tribe. We feed off each other, and gain insight and inspiration.

Whatever dubious success I've attained is measured not in monetary terms, or stats, or even Google ranking; I measure my success in any smiles, advice, or giggles I can give to YOU, my readers and sistas.

I've had a blast with this lil ole blog. All I know is that anything else that I've willingly done 800 times in the last 5 years is widely considered a VICE.

Vintage 4th of July!

Just in time for the holiday, I nabbed this fab 8.5-foot vintage bunting up in PA this past weekend. Given how many (actually how FEW) stars it has, the dealer and I determined that this is most likely from the late 1800s! At 101", that's a whole lot of patriotism.

Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful Independence day!