οὐδὲν οἶδα: Estate Sale Sundays

A few years back, I decided to start a blog. The idea came to me while driving around on a Saturday while doing what I call garage-sale hopping. This is when you drive around a neighborhood chasing garage sale signs. It is a mostly futile endeavor, but somehow satisfying nonetheless. I thought it might be funny to write about these weekend exploits. But that never happened.

Even better than garage sales are estate sales. I have a morbid curiosity in seeing what people spent their lives collecting. Mostly Christmas decorations, it turns out. On Sundays, most estate sales sell everything half price. Today, like most Sunday mornings, I went to http://www.estatesale-finder.com/ to see what was going on. There turned out to be several estate sales happening very near to each other, so I wrote down addresses, numbered them according to the route I’d take, and set out in my pickup. Five estate sales and three garage sales later I had scored one full but opened vintage bottle of Trader Vic’s Pomegranate Grenadine Syrup with the classic pin-up girl label for $1.75.

Score! I don’t know exactly what year it’s from or if it’ll still be any good, but who cares? This particular grenadine isn't supposed to be any good anyway.

At one estate sale, I witnessed a girl picking up a Boston shaker and saying, "We should get one of these!" The reply? "What is that?" Wow; different strokes....

My route led me past Village Merchants, on SE Division and 34th, so I stopped there, too. I always hope they’ll have these specific chairs I’ve been searching for. Turns out they had two short stemmed cocktail glasses that match a pair I already own for $1.50 apiece.

These are “double” cocktail glasses that hold more than the 6 ounce capacity of a normal cocktail glass. They come in handy if the recipe calls for more than 4 ounces of ingredients plus (melted) ice. I like short-stemmed glasses because they fit in the door of the freezer, so I can serve cocktails in properly chilled glasses. Don’t get those cocktail glasses with balls instead of stems. I bought four and broke all of them within six months.

After rolling my eyes at a garage sale with some old guy trying to sell bulk Costco goods, I couldn’t resist the urge to go to my favorite Goodwill, in southeast on 7th near Division. I almost immediately found yet another Glencairn scotch glass!

These sell for $20 new or 99 cents at Goodwill. I spent probably 30 minutes scouring through the enormous glassware section hoping to find a mate with no luck. I have seven of these now, five of which were purchased from Goodwill. I’ll admit that only the two I purchased new are crystal. I passed on a nice crystal tasting copita that they wanted $1.99 for. I already have four of them that I never use.

One thing you learn when you’ve been to Goodwill as many times as I have is that they don’t know the difference between a whiskey snifter and a candle holder. Sure enough, I found a round-bottom chimney-shaped glass in with the votives that is a mate for one I found at another Goodwill several months ago. It was also 99 cents.

I actually haven’t used this style of glass yet, but I have become rather fond of the round-bottom glasses, both because you can keep your whiskey stirred while on a table and because they freak everyone out. (In case you’re interested, there are currently two round-bottom old-fashioned glasses in with the votives at the Lombard Goodwill by my place.) You’d have to be suicidal to put a candle in a round-bottom glass.

Similarly, Goodwill employees often put decanters in with vases. I found a very nice wine decanter today, but passed on it because I already have one and am holding out for a Riedel.

At the same Goodwill, I also found a never been used, still in the box ice shaver for $4.99. I’ve been wanting one for making mint juleps in the summer, but usually you find kid ones in the shapes of annoying Disney or Peanuts characters, and you can’t remove the blade to clean or sharpen it.