Published: September 13, 2006 04:48 pm      

Baby clothes or bayonets: Bargains abound at summer yard sales

“Why did you take a picture of our sign?” That was a legitimate question. I was taking a couple of hours one Saturday morning to garner enough facts and quotes for a nice Pride feature on yard sales, so I guess my activities seemed a bit odd. I was tempted to tell her that it was my hobby, but better sense made me spare her and speak the truth.

I was also getting a last dose of summer. Garage Sale and hand-drawn yard sale signs are as sure a sign of summer as shorts and the aroma of sun block.

Every weekend I can count on seeing yard sale signs at the intersections and browsers braving traffic to reach front yards.

Most of the time I don’t find anything that particularly grabs my interest. Being single, I’m not in the market for baby clothes or children’s shoes, and I have all the glasses and dishes I need. Once in a while I do pick up a good book for almost nothing. For instance, I was walking down Oakvale Avenue for my Saturday morning exercise when I noticed a sale. I idly inspected the merchandise and found a mystery novel for 50 cents. Normally, I would have paid more than $7 for it.

Every shopper I interviewed last Saturday was looking for something in the same broad category, a bargain.

One man with several children said he didn’t know what he would do if it wasn’t for yard sales and flea markets; they helped him economize. I suppose children’s clothes are an automatic bargain because they are often like new. I know my nephews outgrew their baby clothes almost as fast as my sister bought them, and those were often classic hand me downs. It takes several generations of babies to wear out a little shirt or jacket.

Other shoppers seek out items they can resell at flea markets or add to their private collections. These seekers look for specific items such as video games or pocket knives, and they often arrive in the wee hours of the dawn. My parents saw this phenomena when they hosted a yard sale a few weeks ago.

Dad went out at 6 a.m. to get the morning newspaper, and there were already a couple of cars parked outside. They wanted to see the merchandise before hoards of other shoppers descended.

The sellers I spoke with had two motives: Earn a little extra cash and dispose of unwanted goods. The latter was my main goal when I told Mom and Dad they could sell the things I had stored in their home. A coffee table I had no room for was sold almost immediately to a neighborhood guy heading for college.

Another offering, a box filled with about thirty VHS copies of science fiction and fantasy movies sold with surprising speed, too. A guy browsing through them asked Mom how much she wanted for the entire box. She named the highest price she thought fair, $35, and he bought them immediately. They’re probably in somebody’s VHS cabinet or at a flea market.

One woman I interviewed asked me a logical question: Why hang on to something you don’t want if somebody else would like to have it? I didn’t want that coffee table or those tapes any more. They were just taking up space, and it turned out that somebody else wanted them.

What do I want? I keep a lookout for military knives and bayonets and books. Those are the sort of things I keep a wary eye out for when I visit flea markets and other sales. Most of the time I find out-of-print books, but once in while I find a knife. The prices are often bargains, and sometimes the prices are fair, but not quite a bargain.

A few weeks ago I encountered this situation at Bluefield’s weekly flea market, that Saturday gathering at the parking garage. A man selling hunting rifles showed me a special item, a current issue Army bayonet.

It was the same type being used in Iraq. The stainless steel blade was covered in gun oil, and the hilt felt nicely heavy in my hand; a sort of compact sword, really. And when you attacked the blade to a notch on the sheath, you had a wire cutter. I have a Russian bayonet with the same feature.

What did the man want for it? The price was $90. It was high, but I have to admit it was reasonable, too. Copies for sale on the Internet were going for $140 or more, and often they were not authentic Army issue.

I decided that I had to pass. I set limits on how much I’m willing to spend at a given time, and $90 was over the limit. If I didn’t set limits, I’d be broke.

But shopping is still fun. Like others, I’ll hit the yard sales and flea markets when summer arrives again, eyes open for that rare elusive bargain.

Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com