Every year starting on the first Thursday in August, the World’s Longest Yard Sale begins. The “127 Corrider Sale” runs from Hudson, Michigan all the way down to Gadsen, Alabama — that’s 675 miles of stuff being sold on the side of the road. This is my Mecca. One day, I will make the great pilgrimage West and bow down to all the junk dealers and rust peddlers, but sadly this is not my year.
Anyone out there lucky enough to hit the sale and strike gold, let’s hear your tale!
This was our tenth year to attend the World’s Longest Yard Sale. It’s an event every collector should experience. No matter what you collect, it is there somewhere along the route. My greatest find this year was the AB Saddle Cookie Jar (at a great price), which had been on my must-find list for years.
The wife and I have been wanting to do this for years. But, sadly, it’s during the same time as Musikfest every year, where we volunteer as stage managers.
One of these years, though, we’ll manage to work something out. In the meantime, there’s always tailgate auctions!
Tailgate auctions? Now that’s an auction I have not been to. What’s that all about???
Tailgates are pretty fun, and I suspect you might really enjoy them. They combine a flea market with an auction.
People set up early in the morning, grab a table and put out the items they want to sell. Then, after people have had a chance to go through and inspect everything, we go through, table by table, and auction things off to the people standing around that table.
We do a lot of choice/tarp lots, so it’s fun to watch as people duke it out and employ different strategies to get the tiems they want.
It has a flea market feel, but buyers know that everything they bring is going to sell that day. So they don’t have to take anything home with them or sit out in the sun all day. Buyers know that they can’t come back later and talk a buyer down in price on an item, so all “negotiation” takes place within the span of about 30 seconds.
I kind of get stuck in that mind-set everytime I see a yard sale or a flea-market now. I was just at a craft fair last night, and the first thing I said to my wife was, “we could sell through this in about 2 1/2 – 3 hours, tops.”
There not all that common, but if I hear of any down around your area, I’ll let you know. My guess is that you would like them.
That sounds fantastic! I could definitely see the fun of that kind of an auction. We don’t even have any flea market type of events around here, so i would be hard pressed to find one of those trunk auctions. I need to move. 😉
Yeah, they’re pretty fun. I’ve been taking pictures of some of them to put up on my auctionzip page, but just haven’t gotten a chance to post them yet.
I just listed all the ones were doing for the next few months at http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/auctionlist.cgi?vuid=108425. Right now I just have my Hypnotoad up, but I’ll try and get the pics up and maybe take some video on Tuesday to give you a better idea of what they look like and how they work.
Once it starts getting colder, they really start to pick up too, since we hold ours indoors. With any luck, we’ll see a fist fight or two break out. That’s when they get *really* fun!
Auctions are always better with fist fights. 😉 hay Chris, if you come across some amazing pop culture finds in your auctions, send me some pictures!
No problem. There were some neat old movie posters at a Bid Board auction I was at recently. I immediately thought of you and got some pictures, but unfortunately, because it’s a bid board, the auction card was obscuring most of it.
http://thebigtoyauction.com/images/P6244918.JPG
http://thebigtoyauction.com/images/P6244917.JPG
Fun stuff, though. If I see any other things you might like, I’ll be sure to get some more pictures for you.
Also, I’m of the firm belief that all social gatherings are better with fistfights. Especially weddings and funerals.
Check out the picture I took at the DC Big Flea a few weeks back: https://www.coolandcollected.com/dc-big-flea-pop-culture-finds-in-the-heat-of-summer/
Those same two posters were there! The vendor was from Pittsburgh, I think. I’d love to know what they sold for at the Bid Board auction. They were asking $850 each for these, which I thought was quite high, but I would have certainly placed a bid if they were going for less at auction.
That’s funny. I remember reading that post, too, but didn’t remember those posters in particular. I wonder if that’s what made me think of you and your site when I saw them.
Wow! $850 each? I didn’t see that auction end (I haven’t actually been able to make it to bid board weekend in months), so I’m not sure what those went for, but I doubt it went for that. I see people ask 500 – 750 for these all the time, but I never actually see them sell at that price. It looks like it did have a bid of $90 already, and that picture was taken early in the month so who knows. I’ll ask Doreen at the bid board, but I doubt she’ll remember. I imagine it probably went between 3 – 500, though.