Yard sales rock. It’s been quite some time since I drove around to any, but my son and wife were eager to give it a shot. There was a community sale near us so off we went.
My son was specifically looking for old games, game systems and any cast off electronics. I was looking for books or anything else of interest. My wife was looking for chatchkas, cute stuff she could place around the house.
My guileless son would find a bargain and say to the seller something like” Wow, $2, Game Stop is selling this for $20.” I had to pull him aside and tell him that part of going to yard sales is either negotiating the seller down or at least keeping any inside knowledge that you feel is beneficial to yourself to yourself. You don’t want to drive the price up or make anyone feel like an idiot for not getting some value for something they didn’t need anyway.
My wife and I had to dissuade him several times from picking up old computer components and being too carried away with getting certain (to him) bargains. He did end up purchasing a Polaroid land camera (good luck finding film), a computer monitor and a bunch of old Nintendo games.
My wife got her chatchkas and a straw bed for the cats. I picked up a few books for 10 cents apiece (including David McCullough’s John Adams biography!). But the biggest find was coming across box of Magic the Gathering cards for a dollar (for those of you who don’t know what Magic is, it’s a collectable card game). I briefly looked into the box and saw some old cards, including a few rare cards. I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest. A dollar!!
Needless to say I could not wait to get home and peruse the box. However, we had other errands to run and important stuff to do at home and it was difficult to contain my feelings of “instant gratification”. I couldn’t imagine what treasures awaited in the box and was chomping at the bit to find out. Finally, late at night, I looked at what was in the box. A bunch of mana cards, tons of old core set cards, a significant amount of stuff from the “Ice Age” set and an autographed card. Nothing earth shaking or extremely valuable, but a lot of fun stuff to add to my collection. For a dollar, woo hoo!
My family and I are going to try and make the yard sale excursions a weekly event. Lord knows I like bargains (read: I’m cheap) and it’s time well spent with the family outdoors in the fresh air.
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