What is the strangest thing you've found at a yard sale?

Speaking of dolls :D
I once stumbled across a couple, they came as a pair.
Father & son, their names were the same as mine & my son’s, little things like that freak me out.
We spoke of little else for weeks :D

@ucme – XD Did they look like you guys?
The doll I have came fully dressed. Now it’s shirtless.
I have put him in the backseat of my husband’s car, seatbelt and all.
It was “Take Mini- Me to Work Day”

Some sort of an oriental sword – probably from WW2 because the guy was a WW2 vet (before he died and his wife sold a lot of stuff). With what looked liked dried blood on the tip.

I didn’t buy it.

@lucillelucillelucille Did they look like us?
Nah, not much! XD

@elbanditoroso – I can’t blame you.

@ucme – Oh go on! XD

You can find so much weird sh*t at yard sales, flea markets and thrift stores. I can’t think of the oddest thing I have seen. I remember this plastic rat that someone had taken the head off a Ken doll and stuck it on the rat’s head. My sister found it and her kids call it ken-rat.

We stopped at a sale on a Saturday morning, about 25 years ago. Wife was looking for baskets small and medium sized, she found 5 or 6 she liked. I saw a “pie plate” shaped pan, it was copper and about 14 inches across. We went to pay for all our stuff, I asked if they would take 4 dollars for all of it. They said yes !
The copper pan was a Hudson Bay Gold Pan. My brother in law, who is an antique dealer offered me $60 that afternoon. Currently worth over $120.

@ARE_you_kidding_me – LOL!
I saw a Ken doll head hood ornament and why not? Weatherproof and always happy.

Probably the most valuable thing I picked up at a yard sale was a pair of brumby rocking chairs. I paid $50 or so for the pair only later to find out they’re about $1200 a piece.

@Tropical_Willie -That is a good buy!
A few years ago, we went to a book sale at a VFW hall.
My husband picked up a copy of “Dune” by Frank Herbert.
He later found out that it’s worth a few hundred dollars.Had it been a first edition, it’s value would’ve been considerably more.
I haven’t found anything like that but I did get a heavy duty tripod for $5.happy dance

I also bought a couple of boxes of rocks, petrified wood and agate in Connecticut. Paid $10 for 40 pounds, some of the chunks of petrified wood are worth a hundred dollars each, I found out later.

The lady that was selling them had driven back from San Diego at the end of WWII with her new husband. They stopped in what is now The Petrified Forest where it is now illegal to take anything !

Her husband had died the year before and she was moving to smaller apartment from the four bedroom house. I polish cabochons for hobby lots of nice pieces.

@ARE_you_kidding_me -Nice!

@Tropical_Willie -You had a good find!
I thought that I was the only one who bought rocks at a garage sale! lol
I also collect them on beaches, etc and have buckets in my studio. Petoskey stones are one of my favorites.
I get teased about that habit which is crazy on their part as I am the one with a rock in my hand. They just have their open mouth XD
I finally bought a rock tumbler and have had decent results.
I bought a few polished stones as well as a geode at the garage sale that I could crack open-which I immediately did!
Do you cut your own stones?

Yes cut and polish. We have two drum tumblers and a six drum cabochon machine, with diamond dust. A six inch rotatory cutting saw and a band saw with a drip bottle.

Years ago I tried selling vacuum cleaners. This $350 machine (a Compact Electra) was so good that I said if I ever ran across one at a yard sale I would buy it. Not that these machines are easy to come by…
About 10 years ago, Mom asked me to come to a Lion’s yard sale they were having. Here was this machine, sitting in a clump under a table, obviously being ignored by shoppers. I recognized it right off and asked what the price was. “Make an offer.” So I kiddingly said $10 assuming they wanted more. SOLD!
What a machine! I love it. It’s one heck of a sucking SOB!

Used undergarments. Seriously.

I stopped at a yard sale one day. The guy who owned the house had rented it to a group of young people who couldn’t afford to live there and eventually were behind on the rent. When it got to the place where he was going to evict them, they moved out in the cover of darkness leaving behind a lot of their stuff. In order to recoup part of his losses, he had the yard sale to see what he could get. Some of it was nice stuff, some was junk. There was a box full of pictures. The very first pic was a very pretty landscape, so I decided to see what hidden gem might be in that box.There were some nice pics, and some strange pics. The very last one was a very personal pic that I couldn’t imagine having hung on my wall. It was a pic of the lady of the house delivering her baby. Very close up with nothing covered. Her legs were in the stirrups with the baby’s head fully visible and I’ll never forget the look of horror on the poor baby’s face. The owner said that pic was hanging by the front door. I still wonder why if that pic was so important to have and so prominently placed, why she didn’t take it ff the hook and take it with her on the way out? I also still couldn’t believe that the owner placed it in the yard sale in place of the trash!

I can’t think of anything strange but I am proud of the metal detector I got for $5. I cleaned out the corroded batteries and popped in some new ones. It works great!
I use it about once per year to find stuff lost in the lawn. I recently used it to find the water shut-off valve buried in the front lawn.

@Tropical_Willie _ That is awesome and a lot of fun, I bet!
I was talking to a rockhound that told me he was in New Mexico (I think) searching when he saw a jaguar staring at him from some brush..
He told me that he gave it a slow blink like domestic cats will sometimes do when they are happy/in a good mood.
He said it did it back and walked away!
The only thing he came home with that day was probably in his pants! LOL

@kritiper – Haha!

@KNOWITALL -Lol! With the right marketing, they could be a poopular item!

@SEKA -Oh wow. My first thought was it was on the wall for the shock value but who knows?

@LuckyGuy I find spikes that they used to build wooden ships near my home. A metal detector I’m sure would turn up interesting stuff.

@lucillelucillelucille It wasn’t on the wall when I saw it and it shocked the hell out of me. So if she was going for the shock value, she achieved her goal. It takes a lot to gross me out, but I’m still grossed out over this one

@SEKA -Yeah,I bet!

Not a garage sale. But I once found this super creepy doll at an estate sale.

I would move it around the house to scare my old roommate. One time I put it in his bathroom. And remember hearing him screaming in the middle of the night.

Bwahahaha

@raum -That is hilarious! Does he still talk to you??

He does! Was supposed to attend his wedding this year, but he had to postpone. :/

Or maybe that’s just what he’s telling me. Haha

@raum Send him the doll as a wedding gift.lol

The greatest find ever for me from a garage or yard sale was a fantastic lawn sprinkler. It was a bust approximately 2 feet wide by 1½ foot high of Mr. T. The thing was fantastic in its sheer hideousness, and I snatched it up to give to our friend whose 50th birthday was approaching. The guy collects bizarre stuff and his whole house is full of oddball schlock and a huge backyard of exotic live plants intermingled with fake plants, flowers and lots of statuary distinguished for its tastelessness. That sprinkler was the single most appropriate gift I have ever found that so suited its recipient. When unwrapped at the birthday party, the horrific thing so dazzled the birthday boy along with the hoots from the guests, that the remainder of the evening was devoted to discussions on what was to be done with the sprinkler. The birthday boy declared the thing too valuable to merely leave it in the yard exposed to both weather and theft. He bought a beautiful mahogany pedestal in Regency style, affixed T on top of it, placed it in the entryway to his house such that it is the first thing you spot with the opening of his door. T sits there to this day walled off from busy fingers by a velvet rope.

A little off subject but my son works in a retirement home in maintaince. He did some work on a resident’s AC in their apartment. Suddenly he spied a little snake that was acting oddly. He didn’t try to run away. My son loves snakes!
He looked closer and the poor guy was stuck on a sticky trap for mice. The only part of him that was free was about 2 inches of his head which he was waving about.
He slipped the snake, trap and all, inside his pocket.
The resident wanted to know if there was a mouse on the trap.
My son said “Um….yeah.”
Not every one is as fond of snakes as he is!

@stanleybmanly Was it Mr T’s water war?

@stanleybmanly LMAO!

@ARE you kidding me YES! Unbelievable! Thank you

@lucillelucillelucille I totally would if I still had it! I actually sold it to a guy when we had a garage sale a few years ago—after I told him about how I used it to scare my old roommate. I like to think that I passed on a legacy.

@stanleybmanly and @ARE_you_kidding_me That thing is awesome!

@raum I like the way you think! LOL