my estate sale-ing Saturday, in photos

I spent most of my Saturday combing through boxes of stuff and racks of clothes at an estate sale in NW Phoenix, AZ. The house was built in the early 1930s, and would have been a beautiful estate, back in its day. It was a 2-story Spanish-style house with a tile roof, with mature trees, huge pink and yellow lantanas (that were so old they had 'tree trunks' for stems), and two guest houses in the back. The estate sale company posted 150 photos in the listing, which whetted my appetite: all sorts of vintage stuff, a 1930s house- of course I was going to go!! 

The listing did have a couple cautions: apparently the owner had a number of cats (12, I heard someone say) so we should be prepared for a 'cat smell' and if you were allergic, beware... also, the posting said if you were squeamish about bugs or dirt, this probably wasn't the sale for you. Still, I was intrigued! I got there about 8:15, and had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before I could even go inside. It was still pretty crowded with stuff, even on the second sale day!

I couldn't get very good photos of the house, but here is a pic of the large living room... this was definitely a gorgeous house, in its day! The ceiling was arched, with large windows on both sides, along with a fireplace. Unfortunately, it hadn't been kept up, so the plaster and paint was peeling off the ceiling, and the wall along the (boarded-up) fireplace had some holes in. (Plus, the smell of the cats was almost overwhelming, when you first walked in...) 

This room was full of clothes, handbags, scarves, and makeup / creams, etc., most of them never worn. I believe the home-owner's 'hobby' was shopping from the HSN home shopping channel,  so a good portion of the clothes had never even been taken out of the package. There was a round rack (like from a store) that was full of purses and bags, and at least 5 rolling garment racks full of clothes. (kind of sad, in a way.) One of those racks was only leather and suede: blazers, jackets, pants, skirts... and this was on Saturday- I can't even imagine what the place looked like on Friday morning!

The staircase going up to the second floor... the wall is curved, and I love that rounded window!

The second floor had been turned into the caretaker's apartment, with a small kitchen and living area... the light pouring in here was gorgeous! (those closets along the left-hand wall had also been full of clothes, I think.)

This is a photo of the kitchen wallpaper (this is another thing that intrigued me about the estate sale listing; I could see it in some of the photos). The kitchen hadn't been updated since 1950, if not earlier-- it was pretty dark in there, so I couldn't get any other pics of the room. 

One of the cut-glass doorknobs. (the other shoppers were probably wondering what the heck I was doing, taking pictures of stuff like this, but I didn't care!)

another vintage wallpaper- this was in a small room right off the 'family room' I showed above... this room was probably only about 8 ft x6 ft, with two small windows, and some built-in storage cupboards... I have no idea what it would have been used for. The background of the paper is black, with a funky design- each of the figures has phrases next to it, like "when may I see you?" "why do you misunderstand me?" "you have won my love" or "forgive me, I pray you." Odd, right?? I do love that red ribbon design, though.

Right when I got there, I spent a good amount of time at the jewelry table. (the listing said there were over 300 individual bags of jewelry, with quite a bit of it coming, again, from HSN shopping.) I got the two rings in this photo- the small bird is Zuni sterling silver inlaid with turquoise, onyx, and mother-of-pearl (I think). I love it! I found one similar to this at an earlier estate sale, and actually, seeing this ring in the listing is why I wanted to go- thank goodness it was still there on Saturday! Better yet, Saturday was half-price day, so I got this ring for the sum total of $6. The larger ring is modern, and from the maker's marks on the back, I figured out  that it's Tibetan turquoise and sterling silver, and came from a limited-edition HSN jewelry collection about 5 years ago. They sold it for $70; I got it for $11- score!

 The other jewelry pieces I bought: an inlaid Zuni stickpin (my price $1.75); a tiger-eye, sterling silver, and turquoise necklace (my price $4)... I can't figure out anything much from the marks, so this one will take some more research. The earrings are sterling silver 'pillows' about an inch in diameter, with a SW-looking design (my price $7.50). A good day's sale-ing, I think!

I did get a few pieces of clothing, too- the best purchase (I think) was this 70s-style suede jacket (unworn, still with the tags on). It has one small mark on the back (about an inch long) that I have to work at removing, but the price was definitely right- $7.50! It will be nice to wear during the winter; enough to stop the chill and wind, but not too heavy.

I spent most of my time (4+ hours) in the main house, but there were also items for sale in the garage, as well as in one of the guest houses... The sale listing showed photos of quite a few pieces of mid-century modern furniture, lamps, clocks, etc. that were mostly gone by Saturday (not that I'd have a place to put it, anyway). I'm glad for the family that this sale seemed to be very well-attended, and it looked (to me, anyway) like a ton of stuff was sold. Plus, I'm glad of the new additions to my wardrobe and jewelry collection!

After I left the sale, I headed to a new (it opened in March) antique mall: the Brass Armadillo in Goodyear, AZ. After a few hours of looking there (no purchases), I was definitely in antiques and collectibles overload, so I headed home for dinner, a (badly-needed) shower, and some rest.  Now, I need to get back to doing research on my purchases!

Happy Easter!! (late...)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! Ours was pretty low-key, and involved a nap on the couch during the afternoon, which is why I didn't get the scanner up and running till this evening. But, I really wanted to post this wonderful vintage easter postcard that I just found: from 1907... I love the snowdrops and the pussy willow branches! There was a pussy willow tree at the south end of our property, next to the garden, when I was growing up (Mom, is it still there??) Anyway, the pussy willows budding was one of the best sure signs of spring's arrival. I picked up this postcard yesterday at an antique mall in Mesa; I spent the day poking around it with my friend Shery- it was a lot of fun! She and I like the same type of paper ephemera and vintage photos, which is fun, but that can make shopping difficult, too, since we sometimes want to both purchase the same item! (thank goodness for scanners!) I had to get this Holy card, too... I just love the blue background, and the blue in Mary's robes. It was printed in Canada, and is written in French, but I forgot to get a scan of the back.

I don't purchase a lot of vintage photos, but I do buy a few when they "speak" to me. I tend to notice the ones with animals, or an outdoor/garden scene. These children with their calf is so cute, I couldn't leave it there! I love how she's holding onto the calf, instead of just standing next to it!

This one caught my eye, too-- I thought there were only two children with the horses, but zooming in on it showed me there were three. Below is a zoomed-in crop of the same pic:

Looks like the girls in back are next to the horses already hitched to the wagon, and the boy is next to a younger horse?? There was writing on the back, but I think it was in Swedish, which was no help to me...

This one, I've had for a while, but never got around to scanning before-- such a sweet photo!! I scanned a bunch more postcards, but need to edit them (crop and color-correct) before posting them... unfortunately, that will have to wait, though, because the alarm clock is ticking away the hours till 5 am! (ick!)

I should be asleep right now, but I just had to show you...

my estate sale haul from this weekend! I'll be taking pics and scanning more things individually, but I couldn't wait to share the overview pics. And this was totally by accident, too! A friend and I had gone to a craft show in Scottsdale which was a disappointment (too much stuff that was too similar, and it had quite a large number of items that were not handmade and/or commercial). On the way back across Shea Blvd, we saw an "estate sale" sign, I made a U-turn, and we spent the next couple hours happily immersed in boxes and piles of stuff, a la the "American Pickers" guys!! this pic is Saturday's haul-- I didn't want to get too many things, so I tried to limit myself by thinking, "what would I do with this?" before I picked something up. Sherry, on the other hand, picks things up and sorts thru that question after she gets them home. Thus, I did miss out on some things, because we do like some of the same sorts of things. But, I still got some cute stuff!! vintage greeting cards (from their trash pile; more to come about that later), little chotchke items, a couple vintage glass canning jars, and a tiered chrome serving tray from the 50s-60s. After we got back to Sherry's house, I said, "gee, I wish I had gotten that small muffin tin... maybe I'll go back tomorrow" (meaning today.) Sherry was game, so we did.

The small muffin tin is in here, I swear!! along with lots of other yummy stuff... LOL!! We did some more rummaging thru their garbage/castoff pile, and even got to go thru desk drawers of paper items that were still inside the house. (I think they appreciated the fact that we came back again!) We told the woman running the sale that we liked paper items, so she let us look thru them even before she sorted thru them. Which is good, because some of the things she probably would have thrown away, but since both of us are artists with a high regard for paper ephemera, we rescued most of them.

The contents of this packing box is mostly photographs, with some other paper items and vintage greeting cards added in for good measure. I've started sorting through them with the help of a magnifying glass, and I can't wait to get some of them on the scanner. The sale was the estate of a 90-year old woman who recently passed away by the name of Aurelia Booker (isn't that a great name--- Aurelia!). It's kind of tragic, in a way, and now I'm wishing we had taken all the photos and paper ephemera, since there aren't any family members close who would want them. We have managed to piece together some of her life already-- her son Charles died during WWII, and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. We even found some of their correspondence to each other when he was in the military.

This is a close-up of the tiny chotchke pile from yesterday. I'll show more closeups of the individual items, but I wanted to whet your appetite! (and mine-- it's like Christmas, almost, sorting through these things!)

This is the tiered serving tray-- no marks on it, so I don't have any idea of the maker, but I do think I scored, since I only paid $2.50 for it! I'm thinking late 50s, early 60s, by the looks of it?? I'm going to use it as a display piece for the craft shows I have coming up... (oh, I didn't tell you about those, did I?? I will in a couple days.)

(This is the canning jar I told you about on the phone, Mom.) Presto is the company, and it has a two-part glass and aluminum lid. This was another of the things that we dug out of the junk pile behind the house... I think the lid was on a different jar originally, so I am sure happy I managed to grab both of them! I didn't even realize that until I got them home-- talk about lucky! If this is the half-pint size (I'm no good with those measurements- whaddya think, Mom??) then it could be worth about $15, from the quick internet searches I did.

This is one of the greeting cards I found in today's searching. She is just darling!! It was never used, the colors are not faded at ALL, and it's even die-cut on the upper edge. Early or mid-1950s, I'm guessing, by the style??

Here's the inside, where you can see that the cuteness continues!! This gives you a better look at the die-cut edge around the little girl's head, and isn't that little winking dog just great?!? He would certainly cheer me up when I wasn't feeling well, that's for sure! I think I'll sell most of these things in my Etsy shop, or use them as art supplies, but I'm not sure I can part with all of them... maybe after I live with them for a while. But I will show you more pics (after the camera batteries charge up), that's for sure!!