It's story time, children.
Once upon a time, I was working at my now defunct small business, "Midgard Collectibles," at the now closed Turkey Creek Public Market, when I was approached by a customer. He asked me whether I'd been to the big estate sale that morning.
Now, at the time, my grandmother was very very sick, and a few months later I would lose her. I don't remember if she was still in the hospital at that point or if she'd been moved to the nursing home. Regardless, I hadn't been to any estate sales, garage sales, or frankly shopping at all in a little while. I had three concerns: keeping my business open, my grandmother's health, and school. I was in my final semester of college at the time. Outside of those three concerns, I was useless to everyone, most of all myself.
In this context, I'd like to say that although estate sales are great for shoppers, the changes they symbolize can be very sad. Although estate sales can happen for many reasons, some common ones are death or permanent nursing home care. It's important when you're going to estate sales to treat the previous owner and that person's family with respect.
My customer described rooms and rooms of brightly colored plastic at affordable prices. Kitchen: full of toys. Living room: full of toys. Bedrooms: full of toys. There was even a tent outside, once again, full of toys. He spoke of tables full of Ghostbusters, Masters of the Universe, Star Wars, you name it, if it was a toy marketed to boys in the 80's or 90's, he had it in multiples. He told me where I could look at pictures, and I could not believe my eyes! The sale had everything. They had the Ghostbusters firehouse playset, they had my little ponies, they had Thundercats, they had Masters of the Universe vehicles. Everything.
But I couldn't go, because I needed to keep my business open and my grandmother was very ill. Her situation was grave, we could not leave her.
My customer informed me that the toys would be half off on Sunday, but still, I couldn't go. It was very disappointing.
I had friends who'd bought Mego figures, which are one of my grail purchases, My Little Ponies, Masters of the Universe figures and playsets, and many other things.
In every telling, it was regarded as a must see if not a certain destination for purchases.
When it was all over, I found out that there would be a second sale. Unbelievably, in spite of how incredibly well stocked the house was in the first sale, I discovered there was an entire basement level that was sealed off because they couldn't possibly go through all the boxes of toys in time for the sale.
Long story short, I had the opportunity to attend the second sale, and it was the most amazing toy collecting experience of my life. Outside the house, there was a tent with leftovers from the first sale. In it, there were McDonald's toys from the 80's, which were being sold at a deep reduction by the box. There were 80's and 90's toys in there of various kinds. I got some cool Fraggle Rock merchandise in this area, and bought an entire box of just Darkwing Duck pvc figures from 90's cereal boxes. We made many purchases from this area.
In the kitchen, I remember lunchboxes both with and without thermoses stacked in cabinets. There were also thermoses by themselves. There was a big box of mixed parts from Masters of the Universe playsets and vehicles. I bought a Slime Pit here which I later sold to a friend.
One memorable room had been converted from a living room to a star wars showroom for the purposes of the sale. This was a huge room. There were boxes and bins of NIP 90's Star Wars action figures. Make no mistake, this was a diverse array of merchandise. Not only did they have the standard size figures, there were also 1/6 scale figures, multiple figure packs and sets, micro machines sets, bendies, etc. There were standies, collectible merchandise, and other promotional materials. I filled two or three cardboard boxes with these figures when the end of weekend reduced price sale took place. There were also 12 inch Star Wars figures and vintage 3.75 inch figures out of the package for sale.
The rest of the upstairs had a diverse selection of toys. There were toys from Batman, the Terminator movies, and other properties I have forgotten. There were so many toys there it was hard to look at it all.
Downstairs, there were dolls, trolls, comic books, model cars, Food Fighters, Lone Ranger figures, ET merchandise, and many other items. It was amazing. There were rarities and oddities and everything was very organized. And there was a reduced price day on Sunday.
Do you have any cool estate sale stories? Let me know in the comments!
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