Antiques Adventuring

We stocked booths last week, and then lucked into some really nice finds: we met a man who wanted to sell some canning jars. I didn't need those but he had a few other things he also wanted to sell as he cleaned out his mother's house--crocks, old tables, things like that. Here's a look at what we bought:

Aren't those retro lamps wild? And with their fiberglass shades too. There was much more than I photographed here; the rest Larry stored in the garage before I had a chance to take pictures.

The upshot was a carload and a pickup load of great items for resale. Quilts, tables, a woven-seat chair, 6 crocks of varying sizes, graniteware, cabinets, watering cans, a chest of drawers, an oak coat rack and vintage glassware and more. The people we bought these from were as nice as could be, and offered to show us some more things they had for sale at their family farm some miles out of town. We agreed to meet up with them on Sunday.

Sunday morning I admit that I did not want to go anywhere! We got into bed around 3am Sunday morning after attending the big celebration in Charleston, and we were slow, slow starters. But we got up and out--after all, we still had to pick up the rest of our purchases. We followed our friends out to the farm; I thought our place was fairly remote, but this farm...well, here's a photosof the road in:

After a mile of this  we topped a beautiful ridge, no houses in sight except the small place that was our destination. We made an offer on the items he wanted to sell; now we wait to see if our offer is accepted since he already has another interested buyer. We'll see; I know what I can afford to pay and still make some profit after the effort of hauling the items out of this farm, cleaning them up and repairing them, then hauling to a booth and waiting for them to sell.

There is more work in what we do than seems apparent on the surface. The buying is the fun part; then comes the grunt work! Those quilts in the above photo were an incredibly good deal--BUT they need cleaning, a lot of cleaning. And because they're old, they're fragile so I will have to be very careful handling them. The furniture we bought all needs repair of some kind and a good cleaning as well--you know how things get when stored in a basement for a long time. So even if the purchase price is a steal, there is a later cost in labor that I have to consider in addition to the cost of travel and supplies.

We had a great time visiting this beautiful farm and it was an adventure just getting there. Our new friend gave us 20 or 30 blue canning jars and a set of old steel wheels that we can re-use on wheelbarrows, so even if our bid for the furniture is not accepted, we still came away with some prizes, and we had a great time in the bargain.
Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.