Biking to the garage sales

Elena consults the paper for garage sale locations:




We are getting better about trying to only walk or bike to the garage sales. This was a good day.

Partial scores:


Lots more kids books too. I think we have bought 6 king tut art books at garage sales over the last year, maybe 5 dollars spent total on all 6? Good stuff.

Ooops, more bikes

Somehow I think I added 4 bikes and a trailer to the horde this week. It was an accident.
From reverse order of accrual:



Found a matched set of his and hers Schwinn Travelers at a garage sale early this morning, they were asking too much, so I came back at 2pm as they were shutting down and we haggled it down to the point where I have them now. Bwa ha ha ha. SA AW hubs, 1964 &1965 date stamps, finned fenders, front and rear generator lights, all original, needs new rubber and cables and brake pads and some other love, but the chrome is in good shape, the paint is purplicious. I have not bought a fair number of derailered Schwinns of this era as they all seem to be untunable wrecks, but these have the lovely AW hubs and the nicer quality stems, and chrome bits on the chainguards and the like. Good stuff. More details:






I think there were never any Schwinn shops in Los Alamos as Chicago Schwinns are few and far between at garage sales here, and when they appear, they are often imports from other states. These were bought at the George Garner Cyclery in Northbrook IL. Anyhow, great stuff.

At a different garage sale we scored one of those plastic tricycles with a long handle that ties into the steering system. I think Aida has a few more inches before she can reach the pedals, but she is getting there... No pictures of that.

Finally, we got a double chariot trailer/jogger from a coworker for a good price. We already have a single, but the only downfall of the single is lack of cargo space in addition to the baby, so we got this so elana can go shopping by bike and bring the baby... If it does not fit in with our needs, I am pretty sure we can sell it or the other one quickly... It came bundled with the bike attachment, the jogger wheel and the "daddy rickshaw" attachment. It also came with a pretty nice 12" ralleigh kids bike which will go in the waiting for aida pile. I may pull the cranks off it to make a lik-a-bike type contraption. Here is me hauling it all home from work on the P/R:

Good omen for the Garage Sale season

Garage sale season is a fair weather sport in these parts, but despite the high winds, subfreezing temperatures and flurries, the first few garage sales of the year happened today. The first two were useless, but the third was a treasure trove. On the first visit, we got this for 10 bucks:

click the picture to go over to an annotated photo on flickr. But yes, there are two etch-a-sketches, two viewmaster viewers and a whole bunch of books that I had as a kid. It was great. When Elena and I were going through the booty after we returned we realized there were more books that we probably wanted and the price was right and it was only two blocks away. So after a couple of breakfast burritos we walked back down there and bought 15 more books and this treasure:


this may have come with a plane as well, but it was well populated with little people and there even was one piece of luggage for the luggage cart. The rotors on the helicopter work and the radar still rotates mostly:


Now we bought all this for Aida, but she is a bit young for most of it, but she already took a liking to some of the delicious new books:


After talking with the sellers we learned they had kids born about 5 years after Elena and I, hence the similarity in what they were selling and what we had/wanted as a child. It turned out they had the very much coveted Fisher Price Barn, garage and some other sets that were not for sale waiting for grandchildren's visits. Can't win them all, but we did pretty darn well today...

Some more garage sale goodies

To wrap up the fairly successful garage sale season a few thingies over the last couple of months:

Boston Lead pointer, 50 cents,
My favorite thing when I pretended to study architecture as an undergrad was lead holders. I have dreamed of owning a nice lead pointer for a while and was thrilled beyond belief when Elena picked this pucky out of an acre of chintzy crap and asked me what it was:

Vulture that I am, I asked the propritress who was selling off a deceased relatives possesions if there was a box of funny pencils to go with it. Alas, no luck. The box this came in is great. It touts ""More speed -
Gets the desired point faster". I have to admit that I never even knew that speed was an issue for a lead pointer. But I am really glad I have the fast one.

The "my buddy" tackle box. 2 bucks.



The trek that will fit elena probably, No bucks. Heh.

Saved from the dump essentially as it needs "alot of work".
I think that means I have a small miata six-ten to sell...

All of the 2008 season's scores here

The Garagesus is good.

In the back of the 5 dollar wheeless dual burley trailer:


Lay a hidden tool kit filled with goodies:



Next to it lay a newspaper basket for 2 buckeroonies


And in that was the ultimate garage sale score for $1.



Seriously, I was getting ready to slip the neighborhood paperboy a 20 spot to "lose" his paper bag in my direction. But now I got a virtually new one for a buck.

Elena also got damn near unused gogo's, adam ant, and clash records...

All for 13 bucks. The only thing that would have been better, would have been a folded up $5 dollar bill in the hidden tool kit. But gragesus was good to me today, really good. The heliomatic tool was such a funny bonus...

The same house had a pretty nice looking red lugged Ti-Raleigh team pro frame in about my size hanging from the wall, I inquired, the wife wanted to sell it as "its been hanging there for years", but the husband was taking a nap and I did not want any part of spiriting a loved bike away from a sleeping owner even with the complicity of his wife.

Now and again

I get to a really good garage sale at the right time where deals are offered not asked for and bikes and tools are a plenty. They are few and far between around here, but we got a good one last week

small fraction of the tools I got, but the best ones



Miyata sixten and Miyata terrarunner


Alas the terrarunner was in a bit of a front end collision that buckled the top and down tubes, so my plans for killing it by winter commuting are foiled. Dammit. The six ten is in decent shape though, and the terra runner will fill some holes in the spare box. All told it was something like 24.50 for 2 bikes a blackburn windtrainer a bunch of tools and a couple of uglilicious ties.

Brass Submarines

Garage Sale score of the week.


Thats 3.2 pounds of brass, possibly worth $5 in scrap alone, bought for $1. Note that one is polished and the other has its sand cast finish. They have threaded holes on the bottom so I can figure out how to mount them to the front fender or rack of the cruisers...