Would You Buy This or Not? (Labor Day Weekend, 2011)

Also from the archive that is my unpublished blog queue, here's a great weekend of yard saling from over a year ago. 

[A little background for first time visitors to these posts: Janie and I have the yard sale bug bad.  We live in one of the best yard sale cities there is - Minneapolis/St. Paul, and we buy almost all our clothing, cookware, electronics, furniture, etc., at a fraction of actual value.  We resell to used book stores, retro stores, the scrap yard and people I just happen to know are looking for something in particular.  A lot of what we find goes into our own mega-garage-sale we hold every year in Ouray, Colorado on the 4th of July and subsequent weekends.  Some things we buy just because they're so fun they have to be in our sale!  The true gems we set aside for the opening inventory of our own shop.  And, we have one heck of an Ebay-someday box.]

Find of the weekend

Coleman camp stove (essentially new)

Price - $5; sold

Our own yard sale is held on Hwy. 550 in Colorado, and camping serious business these days as people seek to live fulfilling lives on fewer dollars.  Last year I was lucky to have a half dozen Coleman stoves, and they all went for $25 - $30.  Though all worth every penny, not a one of them was this clean. 

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Asparagus pickers

Price - 50 cents each; sold

There's a lot of asparagus in the Uncompahgre valley.  I gave these a little sharpening, and they were snapped right up.

Cedar box full of stamps

Price - $5; sold

I take collections like this and separate them out into different categories.  Someday people will be able to walk in our shop for Portugese stamps, and leave in 10 minutes with what they came for.

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Drill bits

Price - 6/$1; sold.

I bought 36.  Even the most grim drill bit can be sharpened, and I don't buy grim drill bits.

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Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers VCRs (unopened)

Price - 25 cents each; sold

Old folks with not a lot of money are among those who frequent our yard sale.  Who still has a functioning VCR player?  Them.  They'll gladly pay a dollar each for these.  What it Walmart.  I'm on your tail.

Desk and self unit

Price - $40; no sale

I'm not quite to the point where I can call in a truck.  Someday I won't have to pass things like this up.  It's gorgeous.

Small craftsman rechargeable screwdriver

price - $5; no sale

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2 lbs of aluminum scrap

Price - 25 cents; sold

Scrap brass (4 pounds)

Price - $2; sold

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Necklaces

Price - $2 each; sold

Jewelry is such a great thing to resell.  People like it, they sell it for virtually nothing, and it's very easy to transport.

Nature's Remedy tin, with pamphlet advertising a new product "Tums"

Price - $1; sold

Records

Price - 50 cents each; sold

I bought 11.  What a nice selection they had.

Set of small files

Price - $1; sold

Miniature tools.  Mmm. Hmmm.  What I said about jewelry above.

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Ron Hall (that's me).  I'm a major gift fundraising researcher and writer of federal grants that bring isolated populations their first access to public radio.  I write this weekly yard saling blog "Would You Buy This or Not?".  My tutorial How to Split Wood has 40,000 views and counting.  Writing dysfunctional love songs and posting them to Gather also keeps me amused.

Janie is a guide and floor staff at the Minnesota Children's Museum and Minnesota History Center.  She also has become a celebrity of sorts among Twin Cities children aged 2 to 7.

If you'd like to read more, just google "would you buy this or not".  Don't forget the quotes, and tell Google to ignore what it thinks are duplicate results.  You'll find scores of earlier episodes.