Yard Sale Swan Song

THE 2011 YARD SALE SEASON is gasping its last. I went to a dozen sales this morning and, unlike the fruitful pickings of spring and summer, November sales are less than the sum of their parts.

The season has been over for some time, though I refuse to believe it. The ads still appear in the East Hampton Star every Thursday — “entire contents,” “funky collectibles,” “Art Deco glassware” –luring me out of the house at an early hour in hopes of re-creating sweeps from earlier in the season. Something for everyone? Not so much for me.

It’s Saturday noon, and I’ve returned from two-and-a-half hours of yard saling with three galvanized tin light fixtures, above, that I have absolutely no use for at the moment. But I like their design, and was I going to pass up all three for $20? No, I was not. Especially since I didn’t find anything else all morning.

I must congratulate myself on all I did NOT buy today. Today’s houses — mostly from the ’80s Hamptons building boom and many now being sold, or trying to be sold — were overflowing with glassware and dishes and linens and furniture, but nothing older than the houses themselves. I much prefer the Bonac fisherman’s basement, or the artsy couple who were around in Jackson Pollock’s day. But you can’t always get what you want.

Last weekend was better, and by way of illustration, I am decorating this post with images of those finds: a fish-shaped wine bottle, above, with an ‘Orvieto 1967′ label, meaning the crackly glass is Italian, and that’s good; and a 4’ wide piece of driftwood, below — black pine, I was told, that was submerged in the bay at Lazy Point since the hurricane of 1938 until being salvaged by the guy who sold it to me for $40. It now reposes in my front yard, a sculpture in lieu of a  shrub.

So the fall harvest has not been a total loss. And as long as they keep running those yard sale ads, I’ll keep spinning my wheels.