Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Tipp City Community Yard Sales

I live in Dayton, Ohio (or at least I do for the next few months – long story!), which is around 30 minutes south of the town of Tipp City, which hosts a BIG community yard sale every year. The first year I went was back in my eBay days, and I bought $10 worth of New Kids on the Block memorabilia from a woman selling her daughter's collection. I kept a few things and sold the rest for over $100. Sadly, I've never come across any other deals like that, but I think I did pretty good this year!

 
Since the boyfriend and best friend had to work, I hit the sales with my dad. This little baby was just waiting for me at the first one. As a Notre Dame fan, I'm definitely not passing up a car magnet still sealed in the packaging for $1. As a side note, we later went to the flea market where my dad has a booth and someone had the exact same magnet for $9.99.

I have another blog (one of several) where I recap young adult books from when I was a kid. I've picked up a few Nancy Drew books here and there, but I found THREE for $1.25 at one of the sales: 50 cents each for the hardback books and a quarter for the paperback.

I have a hard time passing up Corelle bowls. They are the perfect size for cereal, soups, etc. I snagged eight of these bowls at a church sale for $2. Half are this pattern and half are Woodland, both of which I have in other pieces.


At one of those random "let's throw everything together and see what sells" sales, I picked up these two candles. I absolutely cannot get enough of anything cranberry scented.


The prices at this sale were kind of crazy though. I spotted a collection of table lighters from across the garage and made a beeline over before almost going into sticker shock. The cheapest one they had was $10 and the first one I picked up was $25. They also had some of those reproduction cast iron banks that they had priced at $25 to $50+. Ridiculous.


Josie and the Pussycats is one of my guilty pleasure movies, and I was happy to grab the soundtrack for a buck. The seller and I spent a few minutes talking about how much we loved the movie. I'm pretty sure my dad hates it though, especially after having to listen to it on repeat all day! LOL


These movies came from the same crazy priced sale. They had a ton of movies for $2 each. The Disney one is one I don't have in my collection, the classic horror set will one day serve as reviews for one of my other blogs, and the Garfield DVD was for the boyfriend. Apparently some of the Garfield DVDs are now out of print, and we were just at a used movie and game place that had one priced at $40.


I'm really curious (or maybe shouldn't be curious!) about where the movies came from. Some were still sealed with the store tags on the front. The dad got The Outer Limits Season 1 for $5 still sealed with a $45 price tag from Meijer on the front.


I have a piece of Glasbake in this same pattern, but I walked away from this dish a few times. My dad was still standing on the porch of the sale and buying a digital camera (for $5!) when I yelled up and had him grab it for me. None of my Pyrex works well for brownies, but this little $1 pan should do the job.


We went back to the church sale at noon when they dropped everything to half price. Despite wandering around the kitchen area multiple times, I didn't see these until hours later. Both are Taylor, Smith, Taylor mugs that match the dishes I collect. Each one was priced at 5 cents and were half price, but I just gave them a quarter.


These were also half price at the church sale, so $1 for eight mugs in the Woodland pattern. My dad made out much better at the sale than I did. He got multiple dish sets, snack sets, some tools, and who knows what else for around $10. This sale made me so sad though. They had this amazing little mid-century modern green industrial desk chair for $15 that was still there at the end of the sale. I wanted it so bad, but there was no way it was fitting in the car.


 
There is this charity sale every year that doesn't price anything. Last year, I picked up a few small things, gave the lady $5, and she got a bad attitude about how it wasn't "enough" of a donation. It turns out that my dad hit the same sale last year, got the same woman, and got the same attitude. This year, I gave the woman working $2 for this piece of Opal Pyrex, and she was so excited! Her exact comment was, "you're giving me $2 for that?" Yes siree bob.


My dad got the find of the day though. He paid $10 for a vintage 1966 telescope in the original box with its original wood stand. The only ones I found online go for $100 or more. Trust me when I say that sucker was extremely heavy, given that I was the one stuck carrying it three blocks back to the car.


I need to get a few of my cats spayed and only have one carrier. The places around here charge $10 for a little cardboard carrier, but I got this one for $3, which will come in handy when we move. I passed up on one earlier in the day for $8 before finding this one. The funny thing is that the man running the sale gave me a higher price for it before I pointed out the sticker on the top. He wasn't too happy that his wife priced it so low.


The Winnie the Pooh cookbook was $1, but I loved the graphics inside. This one is from the early 70s and is a reprint from the 60s book. The cover says it's a companion to a Pooh party planning book, so now I must be on the lookout for that one!


 
This set came from the church sale too. I can't remember if it was $1 or $1.50, and I'm not sure if the lid on the sugar dish is the right one. It fits right, but it's made of plastic...

 
This is what I am most excited about. I love the movie ET so much. It was the first movie I saw in theaters, I went back and saw it when it was rereleased, my dad got me the fancy DVD box set for the anniversary edition, and I have a ton of merchandise and memorabilia around my house. The church sale had this priced at 10 cents, but I didn't see it until the half price sale. I showed it to my dad and he promptly bought it for me. It's a poster advertising the ET ride at Universal Studios and is dated 1991. That is right around the time we went to the park and I went on this exact ride with my dad.


I managed to pick up some stuff, but the sale seemed a little lackluster this year. They divided the city into different zones and gave out maps, but some of the zones had no sales at all. In previous years, we could park and hit 10 or more sales in a few blocks. We did a lot more walking this year and didn't come home with nearly as much. Hopefully this isn't a sign of what the rest of the summer holds...