Friday, September 12, 2008

the midwest's largest garage sale

It's hyped as the midwest's largest garage sale, and shoppers do flock from miles around. It's the fundraiser for the Blair Hospital, and it's staffed by volunteers and held at the Arlington NE fairgrounds. This is the fourth time I've attended that it's been raining, and the rain doesn't keep anyone at home. In fact the place is packed at 8am on Thursday, and then gradually thins out through the morning and the rest of the weekend.

Each barn holds something different, and the dish barn is the first place I head. My friend Dee always goes with me, and this year her sister Mary Alice came with us. I'm afraid we wore her out. I'll show a a few of my bargains!

Last year the sale raised $72,000!! And that's quite an accomplishment with items randing from 10 cents to five dollars. Personally, I'm all about the 10 and 25 cent stuff.


So, here's one of my kitchen insets.






This is the new item. Yes, 10 cents.




In this pic, the salt and pepper shakers have been added to my collection of vintage Pfaltzgraff.

8 comments:

  1. I attended this Giant Garage sale Yesterday Morning too. It was the second time for me. It is so fun.

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  2. Hey, Steph! Let's remember and meet each other next year!

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  3. There you are again finding a great bargain!!!!!!!!!

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  4. Such a pity we don't have this sort of thing around here. But it might not be a bad idea, at least if it was arranged during the mushroom festival. Tourists and other visitors could stop by to buy stuff on their way to the festival and mushroom picking world championship competition.

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  5. Right now I have to settle for trading forums, but things seem to be going really slowly there. Evidently people who collect stuff don't read these forums. I still have all those cards, stamps and pins and other small items I want to get rid of =P.

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  6. What a bummer, Minna. We also have Craig's List (craigslist .com) which is local in many many cities. I post and sell stuff through there all the time. You take a picture, post it with the price, someone emails you and you give them your address or phone and they come pay cash and haul it away.

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  7. If only I had a digital camera... But, I have thought about looking up some collectors forums. Maybe I have better luck with those. I have actually managed to trade some stuff on trading forums, well, on the Finnish one, anyway. So far I really haven't had any luck with the One Red Paperclip forum. Here's the webpage if you are interested in checking it out: http://www.1redpaperclip.com/tradingpost/
    Before you can start trading you need to register and you probably have to contact the admin before you can start posting. At least I had to.

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