The Haul
I got an antique hobby horse, a four-volume creative writing course, a rabbit lamp, a bunch of books, some bright yellow rubber boots for planting flowers in, a bag of knitting needles, and three vintage children’s books for a grand total of about $20. I was very happy with the day’s haul.
The rabbit lamp was the day’s pièce de résistance. Before I bought it I was just another face in a sea of faces. But the instant I bought it, strangers started smiling at me and talking to me and telling me how lucky I was to find something so wonderful. Some guy stopped me to show me his Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, knowing we must be kindred spirits. Somebody even took a picture of me with the rabbit lamp, saying it personified the Great Glebe Garage Sale. I let GC carry it for awhile, and then everybody smiled at him and talked to him too.
I got these three old children’s books and a hardcover knitting book plus a bag of knitting needles and crochet hooks and two small knitting books for $2. I like people like that seller, who treat garage sales as an opportunity to get rid of stuff they no longer want, as opposed to opportunities to fill their pockets.
I purchased this antique hobby horse for a mere $5 from a woman whose children had been given it by an antique-loving family friend when they were little. Interestingly, there was another woman with a toy monkey that I liked, but she wanted $20 for it because it had so much sentimental value to her and her husband. Twenty dollars worth of sentimental value, apparently. I didn’t buy it.
GC picked up this sweet little prairie dog for fifty cents, and two vintage fitness booklets from the Canadian Navy (5BX for men and XBX for women) for free. He’d actually been looking for these specific booklets for awhile. He says we will now be able to achieve peak physical fitness in just twelve minutes per day. My friend Felonius Monk’s dad also swears by the 5BX plan. He included a chapter about it in his book of things he has learned about life from almost ninety years of living it.
(Speaking of Felonius Monk, he phoned me from a forest the other evening, where he and his girlfriend had stumbled upon a motherless baby fawn. He wanted suggestions on what to do with it. I gave him some phone numbers and asked him to keep me posted, but he never called back.)
Here are some of the things we did NOT buy yesterday:
Growler
I did buy a couple of stuffed animals, but not these ones.
I didn’t buy any mannequins or mannequin parts. But not because I wasn’t tempted. GC reminded me of my diminishing house space and my desire to declutter, and then he dragged me away from the mannequin house. (Other people were dragging their partners away from the same house, because they had a vintage Harley Davidson for sale too.)
So…did any of you go to the Great Glebe Garage Sale? What did you get?
I find the ‘Big Book of Knitting’ to be very useful. And I know it’s wrong to covet but I covet GC’s prairie dog.
I covet that lamp! Cat and I were working the Ottawa Folk Festival area on Ralph St., so I ended up with way too many CDs, and we found a great ceramic jug with a tap on the bottom for future house concerts. Yay.
SO INCREDIBLY ENVIOUS. I love the Great Glebe Garage Sale!!! I went to Frenchy’s for linens for the new house on Friday and got some great stuff (crochetted dolies and beautiful curtains with red gross grain ribbon trim, pillows and a knit blanket, but yes I totally covett your rabbit lamp – what an awesome find!
That lamp is gorgeous! I love it. I also might have tried to bargain for the bear. $1500 is too much but it is worth a pretty penny. Sir Monkeypants would have had a fit, though.
We kind of did the Glebe garage sale by accident yesterday. We were doing the National Capital Race — we took all three kids to do the Family 2K. On Saturday afternoon we had to go down to Landsdowne to pick up our kits and t-shirts and since we parked a ways away, we walked through the garage sale on the way to and from Landsdowne. There were lots of treasures but unfortunately not very much time so we had to walk away empty handed.
Our own community is having their group garage sale next weekend and I’ll be trying to move some of our baby stuff. It’s my first time as a seller instead of a buyer and I hope it goes well. Mostly I hope to get rid of a ton of stuff — everything must go! No offers refused!
Crap- I somehow missed it! I love seeing the crazy things people sell and the crazy prices they ask for them. I would have loved one of those mannequins to act as a scarecrow in my tomato garden. Or maybe on my front porch to scare proselytizers and Weed Man.
Aha! So it’s this weekend. Last weekend my partner was telling me that he remembered going to a garage sale in the Glebe with the kid last year around Victoria day, so he thought it might be on on Victoria Day weekend this year. We happened to be driving through the Glebe and he was looking out for it, but there was nothing on. My answer to him was “Ha! Like I want to buy more crap. I want to GET RID OF my crap, not acquire more!” Good thing he didn’t hear about it this weekend. Yes, there is some good and interesting stuff at garage sales but my house is full already, mainly with toys and outgrown baby stuff; I should have a sale myself.
That bear with the hole on its back is quite creepy. When I was a kid I would have been really scared of it. I always had a phobia for stuffed toys with holes where you could see the icky stuffing inside. You couldn’t pay me $1500 to take it off your hands.
The rabbit lamp is so much, much cooler even than you described it!! Also, I’m excited to see when GC starts to look like Jack Lalanne. Then, with him on your arm, you won’t need a rabbit lamp anymore for people to smile and stop to tell you how lucky you are to find something so wonderful.
Did you by any chance (or did anyone) see the weird ski machine sitting by itself for free? I can’t remember what street, but I posted a picture on my blog about it. So weird.
http://www.saturnagain.com/2010/05/day-121-football-music-ski-machines.html
Your bunny lamp is adorable. i bought a bottle cap button magnet thing? Anyone? It was my first Glebe Garage sale and I was….overwhelmed!
So great.
haha. the bin with the toys (waterloo girl) – i was one table away from that. you should have said hi 😉 i was wearing a self-promo headband and all.
http://twitpic.com/1s4aiu
I was selling at the ..sale, so i didn’t have time to go shop
The lamp is fantastic.
Great finds. I was at the table beside the ones with all of the stuffed animals (Waterloo girl). That is my Uncle’s house. I am glad to see that he made your blog.