Estate Sale finds...

It's been awhile.  I use to go to estate sales often.  I don't go out of my way to one now.  I just go to a one near me after I look online.  www.estatesale-finder.com Today, I spotted this beautiful ceramic pottery.

Bordallo Pinheiro was founded in Caldas da Raina, Portugal in 1884 by Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro, an artist who was renowned throughout his native Portugal.  I love that it's Portuguese.  There were plates, bowls, cups etc.  but it was too much.  I love these small bowls paired with my vintage white plates (Ellen by BC Bavaria scalloped series) I picked up from another estate sale years ago.  Bordallo Pinheiro still makes these in Portugal and you can still purchase these in boutique pottery shops in Lisbon.  

Estate Sale...3/12/17

I don't go to estate sales as often as I do.  When I see something I like on the website.... I wait until 1/2 off Sunday to make the purchase.  Sometimes, they are gone... sometimes they are there.  The china set that I wanted was this Noritake set.  When I got there, I realized that it was not a complete set... meaning that there were some pieces missing.... so I negotiated the price down even more.  I ended up getting place setting for 8 without some cup and saucers.  The golden chargers were a dollar each and the china set was $30!   Place setting for six is okay... but I do like the place setting for eight.  

The mansion was  impressive architecturally because it was very Asian/modern in Lake Oswego.  What I loved the most was the zen backyard with this unique shaped pool.  

This purse was also picked up for $4.  I love the vintage linen look...  

One more picture...

Marbro lamp circa 1960's...

I went to an estate sale today after my golf lesson.  Two things I'm enjoying each Sunday afternoon... alone.  

I noticed this beautiful vintage white porcelain lamp... Marked $27.00.  Still in great working condition, turned on as it displayed it's elegant mid century modern design.   I paid just half since it was "Half Price Sunday"  $13.50!  What a great deal.  

I looked up the original tag that read OLD WORLD CRAFTMANSHIP.  Marbro Lamp, Los Angeles. Here is what I found about my lamp from Swank Lighting on the Marbro Lamp Company regarding their quality and their history: Hollywood stars ordered these lamps....  I asked an online antique collector to see what would be the value?  $300-$500!  

 

a nice return from a G sale.....

I found this old flute from a neighborhood garagae sale last week. I made an offer and bought it for $50. I was thinking of Lindsey taking flute lessons this summer.... but she cringed and wasn't interested in playing flute.  I wanted her to be in band....and told her all about the fun band tours and band concerts.  "Mom, band is for nerds!" she shot me down.  Oh, this child was making me mad. I took the garage sale Gemeinhardt M2 flute to the local music store that day.   They said that I could consign it.  They offered to sell it for only $250.  I was quite shocked at the profit that I could make.  I remained quiet.  It didn't feel right to sell it fofr $250 when I bought it for $50.  I dediced to consign it.  Who knows, it may not get sold at that price anyways.  They said that they would take 25% off the sale price IF it gets sold.  One week later, I received this check:

Estate sale Friday...

This sale was very interesting because the house was built in 1908 in the heart of SE Portland neighborhood of Mt. Tabor.  I was really impressed with this massive mansion with more than 1/2 acre land and 8500 sq. feet of living space!  It was a beautiful mansion that was fully restored inside and beautifully maintained outside.  I did call Sonia and left her a message...I was on my way to the Korean market on her side of town...

I guessed the owner was a big sports memorabilia collector.  There were signed basketballs, baseballs, team posters with player's signatures and so on...

One room was just filled with these jersey's on all sides of the wall.  They were all nicely framed....But the price of these equally same jerseys were priced quite unequally. 

Joey Harrington:  Big local hero but did not do so well in the NFL:  $100. 

Jerry Rice and Steve Young of SF 49ers: $250 each. 

The big ticket item was Brett Favre's jersey: $475. I was tempted to call our friends Robin and Rinah....but I passed.

If you want it bad enough, you buy it at the listed price.  But there is a bid box where you can submit your bid at whatever price you want...  If you're the highest bidder on the last day of sale, you are called.

What did I get?  Couple of Leap Pad books. But the house was gorgeous!

Estate sale Friday...

I went to a nice estate sale in Lake Oswego this morning.  (Beautiful multi-million dollar home with an amazing view...)  The house was packed with really nice stuff. 

Designer clothes, garage full of tools and sporting goods. Bats, gloves, lacross sticks, tennis rackets were all $2-$3! But there were some really expensive art pieces and paintings too that were thousands of dollars!

But I bought mainly books for the kids: All the books were $1 each!  Things that I picked up: What your 3rd grader needs to know, what your 4th grader needs to know, what your 5th graders need to know, Punctuation Power, Building your Vocabulary, Checking Your Grammar, Writing with Style, Dictionary of Synonyms, Antonyms and Homonyms, Book on Imponderables, English work book for 4-6th grades, Super maze book, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, 4th Grade Brain Quest,10 Calligraphy pen set with instruction book and papers for $2 and a brand new 150 Magnetixs toy for $3! 

Estate sale Friday...

Today's sale was a clean sale:  meaning, it wasn't an old house with grandma furnishings or vintage anything!  They had newer, cleaner home accessories.  But this seemed like a divorce forced estate sale.  All the household furnitures were put away, except the bedroom set in the master bedroom!  Sad but true.

Today's find: I paid $25 for a box of Legos.  I usually don't spend more than $10 at a sale but I wanted to pick this box up because I know how expensive Legos are out there.  This seemed like an older Lego set from 1992, with various Lego settings.  One collection is of a pool setting with a cabana, the other set is of a ranch with several horses, and another system was of an outdoor cafe with cars and lots of extra Lego people.  Randy and Allison loved it!  They said this was better than playing with their DS this afternoon! (see the white DS on the floor?)  I just check on Ebay and found just one set that I have:  It's called Legotown Paradisa.  It's listed for $164...and I have four of these sets!  Who would pay this much anyway? 

Estate sale Friday...

Books books everywhere!  2 Fridays ago, I picked up 10 inspirational/devotional books by renowned Christian authors, 1 DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder...not the latest edition but DSM IV-TR is around $75!), 1 Study Bible. 12 books for $12! 

The whole house was filled with books.  I only picked 12 but there were thousands of books...it was like a book store!  This was an estate sale of a "pack rat" book collector!  Her children said that their mother was a mental health professional.  One room of her small house was filled with counseling and assessments books...but I'm not in the field anymore...so I just passed.  Her children did not know what to do with them all!  They were just selling them for a buck each! 

Threw me back 25 years!

I went to an estate sale today.  It was a home of a renowned Portland area music/piano teacher.  The house was filled with music history books, theory books and other vintage stuff to rummage through.  All of the piano books as well as her entire household was for sale.... even her lovely Kawai piano. (sold for $850)   

There were so many piano books...I really didn't know what I was looking for.  I rummaged through Chopin, Mozart, Preludes, Sonatas...pieces that I use to play, I just had fun reading through dusty piano books.   I picked up brand new piano books for the kids, something they can play now and something they might enjoy later. They were all 50 cents so I picked up a Hannon exercise book (Lindsey just gave me a big stare...), a Czerny and a Bach's Inventions book...But my biggest find as I was digging through today was a book of my favorite 80's songs.. not only the songs I liked to listen to, but actual sheet musics that I had when I was a teenager!   I was never able to purchase these big thick book of sheet musics from the music store (we were poor, I never even asked my parents).   So my friend Helen Song and I would make copies and share with each other! I wish I still have my collection of songs...  I use to love Lionel Richie's songs and I would tape the copied pages all together and play them over and over again.  Sam and Josh would probably remember the songs...."Three times a lady", "Still" or "I honestly love you" by Olivia Newton-John and other crazy love songs. Oh, how I loved Jeffrey Osborne's "On the wings of love" ... Well, today I found an entire BOOK of these songs!  I was sitting and playing the piano this afternoon..."Nadia's Theme", "Up where We Belong", "Theme from Tootsie", and even singing "Faithfully" like Steve Perry...just reminiscing the days gone by...man, I am old and yes, I'm a nerd!!