Family Daze: Garage sale season – one man’s junk is another man’s treasure

I love spring. It’s not only because of the pleasant weather, cuter clothes, and sale-priced Easter candy (although all that’s nice, too), but because it’s also the unofficial kick-off of Garage Sale Season, which starts in mid-April and goes to the end of October.

Let me just stop right here and say that I can’t resist a good garage sale. I mean, the basic philosophy of the whole Garage Sale concept is simple: people pay to take away someone else’s junk. It’s a brilliant system really.

And, you’ve got to admit, garage sales are fascinating. They make you do the sort of crazy stuff that you’d never, ever thought you’d do like, say, spending twenty dollars in gas driving around with the air conditioner on, just to stand in the sun and argue about getting a dollar-priced lava lamp for fifty cents.

And it’s not just that. Suddenly, items that you’d consider someone’s ridiculous and hideous junk anywhere else, once flung out on a driveway on a Saturday morning, become something amazing. Something. You. Must. Have. It’s true. I’ve seen one particularly intense garage sale reduce a sane, upstanding citizen of the community (okay, ME) to haggling with a ten-year-old over the price of a plastic OJ Simpson bobblehead.

Why does this happen? No one knows why exactly. Maybe it’s the all of the fresh air. Or maybe it’s the heat. But I think it’s the thrill of the hunt. I mean, garage sales are the modern day equivalent of a treasure hunt for – ahem – quality stuff cheap. An oxymoron? Sure. But sometimes you can get, as they say in certain circles, "lucky."

I admit it. I’ve always wanted to be one of those people on the Antique Road Show who bring in something they found in bottom of a nickel box underneath a pair of rusty pliers and find out it’s worth $300,000. I’ve often imagined how a conversation with the series host might go.

Mark L. Walberg: What do you have there, Ms. Farmer?

Me: Uh, a rooster butter boat I bought at a garage sale for ten cents.

M.W.: Hmmm. I see. The details on the porcelain claw feet and the beak spout are exquisite.

Me: Why, yes, I thought so, too.

M.W.: This particular barnyard decor dates back to the mid-eighties somewhere between the Smiling Cow Creamer and the Goose-Wearing-a-Sun-Bonnet Cookie Jar phase.

Me: Whew! That’s what I had hoped.

M.W.: Well, I must say that’s quite a valuable collector’s item you have here. I’d appraise it around, oh let’s see, five bazillion dollars.

Me: Yippee!

But of course things like this never happen to me. Somehow I always get stuck with garage sale junk. How to avoid such garage sale mistakes? Over the years I’ve learned some key tenets, which are:

If it looks awful at the garage sale, it will look awful in your home.

There is a good reason someone is selling a Cuisenaire Citrus Juicer out of their garage.

If you can’t find a use for it before you buy it, you won’t find one after. Ever.

Nothing under five cents is worth having.

Never buy random objects grouped together in a zip lock bag.

If it has hair in it, it’s not new no matter what anyone says.

Gold lamè pants will never come back in style, so don’t bother.

Clutter is clutter is clutter.

The funny thing is, even if you follow these tips, you’ll inevitably end up buying some garage sale junk, some of which looks strangely familiar.

Like the ceramic elephant pitcher I sold last year that showed up on the Martinez’s dollar table last weekend. And I saw it at the Peterson’s garage sale a few weeks ago. And at the McHugh’s the week before that. Coincidence? I think not. Clearly, it’s entered what I call the Garage Sale Circuit, which means it’ll be sold and resold throughout the whole season until someone finally either breaks it, loses it, or takes it to Goodwill.

Garage Sales are funny things. You never know what you’ll find. As the saying goes, "sometimes one man’s junk is another man’s treasure."

Or, as they say during Garage Sale season, "Sometimes one man’s junk is just another man’s… junk."