Beware of the Yard Sale Creeps! Part 2

 Now I have a confession to make, me and my wife have had two yard sales in Maine, and yes our neighbors did know and we did not care that they did. Perhaps some of you might want to take notes as some of the information might save your lives, or at least make them somewhat easier.

Once a year our town (like many others) has a town wide yard sale. Some townships only allow a certain amount of yardsales per resident per year. This is to stop people from turning their yard sales into ongoing businesses. This summer was a hot one, and the weekend that we chose to do the yard sale on was one of the hottest ones of the summer; but we decided to have it anyway and would simply close if it go too bad out.

We decided to have the sale on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday we started to get everything together and priced. All of a sudden a vehicle pulls into our driveway and two men get out (now if you had read part one you would know where this is going). They started looking around at the stuff we are getting ready to sell, handle some of it, and leave, wasting my time. We had a second visitor pull up ask for the property owner, it was about repaving my driveway, but that is another story.

The day of the sale we set up and got ready to sell. The first guy up was a younger man and his girlfriend. He sees a stack of comic books I was selling and asks what is the cheapest I would sell them for. I had them marked for twenty but told him I would sell them for fifteen. He asked if I would take ten. Okay, if that is the case why did he ask me what my lowest price would be? I knew he wanted to show off for his girlfriend, but if at the end of the day you have an empty truck you must realize that your bargaining tactics are not the best. Think about that Emma-Gene, will he be able to provide for you and your baby? Ju

Another guy saw we had an original Miami Vice board game that was in pretty good shape. He opens the game, looks through all the pieces, puts them back in. Then he looks up something on his phone. Now I know the game in the condition it was is in can go for about fifty on eBay. I tell him it is twenty dollars. He says he wants it for ten dollars. My wife tells him how much it goes for on eBay. He gets nasty and says, "Then why don't you sell it there!" as he walks off. 

Okay, a little economics. If you can buy something for ten dollars and sell it for fifty you made forty dollars. If you buy something for twenty and sell if for fifty you make thirty dollars. If you walk off like a dick without buying it you make...nothing.  I don't think Emma-Gene should hook up with this guy either. Maybe she needs to go to trade school

At the end of the day we made some money and donated it to a local animal shelter. A few months later we had a second sale and made less, as it was not a town wide sale and again donated the money to a local animal shelter. Of course on the way to the coffee shop we saw another yard sale and of course bought some stuff including a set of drill bits and a bar of soap with Mr. Rogers on it. But I looked at it this way, we got rid of more junk than we took in.

I almost forgot. When we were setting up for our second sale an older gentleman got out of his car, and normally I don't mind anyone stopping by early, but we had nothing out and asked him to wait a few minutes. He asked us if we had an ax we could buy, I quickly said no while visions of being murdered by something I had just sold danced in my head. He also asked did I have any antiques. Now lets run the word "antiquest" through the Maine word translator. What comes up is: "Do you have something valuable  that you don't know the value of that you can sell me so I can make zillions." 

Now concerning town wide yard sales. You may think they are fun and you will get some great deals; however, my advice is: Don't do it! "Why?" you might wonder. Well first off you might think there will be tons of bargains, well there ain't. They are overcrowded with hundreds of people snapping up everything. Next off when you do a sale on your own you have to get a permit, then you usually pay for an ad in the local paper, so you are pretty much committed. A town wide sale it is a free for all. Some people just put out a few items, some people just decide not to open even though their sales are on the maps most towns give out for town wide sales.

What my wife and I do is we go to sales in other towns that are not having the town wide yard sales.

Additionally we find the best stuff at sales that are not advertised in the paper. We see them on the way to other sales and will always stop by. Usually "Bill" will place the ad in the paper and his neighbors will just piggyback off of his ad and set up their own sales. To tell the truth a good deal of the fun is just talking to different people along the way while going through their stuff and passing judgement on them later.

I have had such wonderful chats. One woman was moving overseas to help take care of a sick grandchild, another was moving to Korea.  One man filled us in on the history of the town while yet another man spoke about politics to us. In this pandemic we are starving for this sort of interaction.

One thing is that I have never been disappointed at any sales that are benefit sales. Usually they are for a good cause and have donations from multiple parties. The money goes to a good cause and they always have someone selling fantastic homemade cookies. I was once suffering from leg cramps and a lemon cookie from the local cat charity cured them. True story.

On the flip side of this are those who make our repeat offenders list. These are people who are dealers and not people selling off unwanted items to declutter and make me happy at the same time. There is a family that has set up tarps  in their yard under which they have created their own department store including showcase displays. Another pretends to be an estate sale when it is just a guy who runs a trucking company and is selling off unclaimed goods. 

This last sale was a bit strange as I saw on a peg board a hacksaw for two dollars. It was heavy and older and would last far longer than the new ones they sell at Walmart today. When I brought it up to the woman running the sale she said it was not for sale, I asked why it was priced, before she could answer another woman who was also working the sale contradicted the first woman and said it was for sale. Apparently there was some small feud going on there, but in the end I got my hacksaw and found an original TAB soda glass for a dollar. I love TAB but have heard they are finally going to pull the plug on the brand, thanks again 2020.

Some people who are on the repeat offender list are people who just keep having their sale until they sell everything, they are not dishonest but they are just a waste of my time. So keeping a list of repeat offenders is a good thing to do.

One of the odder sales we went to featured a rainbow vacuum. I know, I thought it was something magic ponies used to clean their clouds, but that was not so.  It was kind of ironic in that if there is a vacuum that could remove a rainbow it really should be at home with the people who ran the sale. Apparently the family was moving back to Germany. We tried to say hello once or twice but they stood their silent acknowledging us with the barest of nods. Worse yet that was not really anything there for us. However, we did see the rainbow" vacuum.

As we drove to the next sale we wondered about exactly what a rainbow vacuum was about. Is it from Europe? Is it a niche brand we don't know about? Could it be what was needed to bring joy to the world. It turns out it is a vacuum sold by a department store chain in America, and they price they offered for their used vacuum was only about ten or so dollars away from the cost of buying it new. I have just as much desire of owning a rainbow vacuum as I do for eating a rainbow bagel; none.

So now the yard sale season is over,  even as the signs for it linger on trees and posts around Bangor and Veazie. Many an unwary sailor has been lured to their doom by one of the these outdated signs. I will miss yard and garage sales but now I can concentrate on putting on my viking helmet and raiding the local thrift stores. That is if I can find their hours  and days of operation, and the people running them bother to show up. But hey! This is Maine.