UPDATE: Jordy P., fan of Jersey Shore yard sales, is the winner of the Texaco map – congrats, Jordy!
To enter casaCARA’s vintage map giveaway (I’m giving away a 1930s Texaco map of New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey, pictured below), all you have to do is leave a COMMENT on this post! How easy is that? (Just click on “[Number of] Comments” in small type, above.) Drawing to be held via random.org this Friday, 7/23, at 6PM.
Framed seed packet collection, 33″x41″, $30
YARD SALE SEASON IS IN FULL SWING here in the Humptons. There are so many each weekend, it’s impossible to get to all of them — or at least, it’s impossible to be first to all of them. A fair number are in older houses, and the pickin’s are emphatically not slim. They are robust.
Most people here have had some semblance of money, so one finds genuine antiques and name-brand merch of quality, like LeCreuset cookware and mega-thread count bed linens, rather than the detritus of households that never had much to begin with. Also, there’s a lot of seasonal moving in and out, which tends to lead to yard sales.
This past weekend, I was looking for a farmhouse dining table. I didn’t find one, but here’s what I did find. OK, nothing earth-shattering here. But enough to make my couple of hours driving around worthwhile.
The unusual item at the top of this post was my first and best find, around 8AM on Saturday. What is it? I’m not sure. Looks like a color-coded collection of vintage seed packets, mounted on a purple board and professionally framed in a contemporary wood frame. Whether they’re actual seed packets or perhaps prototype designs for seed packets, I wouldn’t know, unless I took the thing apart. Anyway, it’s big and graphic and I needed something for my kitchen wall.
Pair of wrought iron candle sconces, 1940s or ’50s, $10
Marble cheese board with glass cloche, $5
The 1987 burgundy, above, was my friend Nancy’s score. Could be transcendental, could be undrinkable — to be determined. $10
9″ ceramic planter with green mottled glaze marked “Made in Italy,” $5
More vintage maps! They’re 1930s New York-area maps, plus one the homeowner told me dates from his grandparents’ trip to Hawaii in 1956. I should have bought them all the first time around but contented myself with three. This past weekend, I had a second chance (people often have repeat sales until they finally get rid of everything). I got four more maps for $10. Big spender!
Now to the giveaway: I’m giving away the Texaco map pictured at right in the picture above; you can see details of it in the two pictures below.
So please let me hear from you in the comments. What are the yard (tag, stoop, garage, barn, estate) sales like where you are? Get anything good recently?