The Quest for More Incredible Finds

A crazy good deal

Lace and open toed baby shoes

After living in Alaska for so many years I have gotten pretty good at avoiding the crappy garage sales. You can pretty much tell just by doing a drive by whether it will yield treasures. We don't have that many good ones. People tend to hold on to the good stuff and there are mostly the type of garage sales that go into the category of moving sales.

"Kid's toys and baby clothes and new stuff... keep driving" I'll yell out as we pass by. Every once in awhile you may come across the "estate sale" type of garage sale that's advertised with a detailed list of collectibles and then all of the treasure seekers are out in full force to get first shot at it. These garage sales are few and far between. The thrift stores usually aren't much better for the good old stuff either. It's a young state. The good antiques are in museums already.

The best one lately was when our local historian, Candy Waugaman hosted an auction for a fundraiser with a huge garage full of Alaskan Statehood and Fairbanks historical ephemera. I couldn't make that one but gave my husband a hundred dollar bill and carte blanche to "find me some stuff!" He didn't disappoint.

But now that I'm in Arizona half the year I'm amazed at the amount of really good treasures to be found at antique shops, thrift stores and garage sales and even stuff that's just laying on the ground sometimes.

My friend Sue was telling me about an enormous thrift shop in Green Valley where I might be able to rummage. Green Valley is a retirement community where estate sales abound and there is a steady supply of vintage goods getting cycled through.

It seemed like a good enough reason for a day trip and combine it with lounging at the community center pool and jacuzzi where her parents live.

We first stopped at the kitschy cowboy town of Tombstone for number one garage sale on a side street. The score there was artfully arranged hat pins in a salt shaker, a brass nameplate for a dime and a carving of a fish in Burmese jade. I can never understand why anyone even bothers to sell something for a dime at a garage sale but hey, I'm not complaining! It 's that kind of old school sale where some old gal looks over the item and announces 25 cents. Now that's a deal!

We found ourselves at St. David on down the highway again cruising the garage sales there. There's a trailer park of snowbirds that are trying to downsize by having a neighborhood wide sale on the weekends. It seems like I always find great deals in St. David. Last time it was the thrift store with a $3 a shopping bag sale. I netted buffing rouge, sea green melamine cafeteria, trays, craft supplies and a couple of vintage books. I think we left with three bags full. Not to mention fresh pecans, pistachios and frozen roasted poblano peppers from Thomas Nut House.

Maybe I need to keep my mouth shut right about now rather than announcing this to the world here!

I immediately found and crazy quilt of corduroy and wool for an unbelievable price of $20.

Right next door was a table piled high with lace and tatting for 25 & 50 cents a piece, vintage leather open toed baby shoes, a vintage Grumbacher Oil Color painting set, a pair of unusual scissors which purpose is yet to be determined and a scrumptiously crumpled vintage dress.

Further on down the lot I found an antique bottle for California Fig Syrup and two crazy quilt pillows of velvet and satin that the woman's grandmother had made. A buck a piece!

As pulled up to Green Valley at 12:10 I notice the sign for the White Elephant Thrift Shop and its hours are posted. Closes at 12:00. What kind of store closes at 12:00? I had to realize that my haul for the day was actually sufficient and that I needed to abandon fantasies about what was hidden behind the doors of the mega-thrift shop of my dreams.

To allay my disappointment that night we found one of the few establishments that's open past 9:00 PM in this geriatric community and found a karaoke bar full of some of the younger folks in their sixties belting out Frank Sinatra and other croon-worthy songs.