Your best garage/estate sale find?

[Default]

Saturdays are a mythical beast to me. The best deal I can think of was finding a Mike Matthews SS amp with the phase shifter, sitting outside a rental house. Nobody knew anything, so I took it home. Turned out to have a couple of exploded capacitors and an English made Celestion speaker. Still have it and pretty good sounding. Oh, and found a similarly functional Dynaco Stereo 400 sitting out on the curb. Still have that too.

 

[beecee]

Never seen any musical gear...ever!

 

[crank]

Never found anything super great. Asked a woman about a patio table and chairs she had for $700. I offered her $300 which I thought was a lot. "These are Brown and Jordan." She huffed. WTF is Brown and Jordan I thought and why should I care?

I picked up a couple tom toms, a really nice kick drum pedal and a nice drum throne all for $40 from a tag sale in our hood. Also met a nice woman drummer who I have jammed with a time or 2.

As to free shyte from work.... 2 guitars, 1 pair skis, backpacks, tents, tons of high-end outdoors and cycling clothing and a zillion country cd's.

 

[Sal]

I contacted a man selling a nice RCA DX77 ribbon mic and he offered to swing by my place with it. It was a very fair price to begin with and then he showed up with two nice old Atlas studio boom stands and a satchel full of XLR cables that he threw into the deal. He was helping to liquidate a friends estate and thought I might like this extra stuff too. You bet!

 

[wileypickett]

A friend was walking by an old house in Somerville, MA, that had been empty for years, but was now being gutted from top to bottom to be reconditioned.

There were dozens of contractors bags in front of the place for the next day’s trash pick up. He nudged a couple of them and discovered they were full of books. Without opening them (it was raining) he just grabbed a couple and hurried home.

When he opened them a day or two later, he discovered many books on magic from the late 1800s / early 1900s. The former tenant of that house had been an amateur magician around the turn of the century.

Among them was one autographed to the magician by Harry Houdini.

He sold it (I believe to Penn of Penn & Teller). He wouldn’t say how much he got for it, but said it covered his mortgage payments for the year.

 

[jp]

Behind one the houses I lived in during my 20s, the landlord emptied the house behind us and dumped the everything in alley for garbage pickup. I yanked a complete Leslie 900 two-part cabinet out of the pile that worked perfectly. It was just missing the cable and connectors.

 

[JohnW63]

I got nuthin'

My brother was doing a home appraisal and saw a 3/4 ton pick-up truck that had been sitting for quite a while. When he asked about it, they said it was their sons, but it was no longer needed. The 5th wheel was long gone. Brother called my dad and he got it for free. 4 not flat tires and a toe bill latter, Dad sold it for $1500.

 

[ruedi]

There are not many of these around here anymore, everything seems to be sold online on local marketplaces. No flea markets either in the moment because covid restrictions.

My best finds are a couple of nice toys for the kids, but nothing spectacular...

 

[adorshki]

There are not many of these around here anymore, everything seems to be sold online on local marketplaces. No flea markets either in the moment because covid restrictions.

My best finds are a couple of nice toys for the kids, but nothing spectacular...

If you ever come across one of the original Addams Family playsets from the '60's it could be worth a fortune.

 

[ruedi]

If you ever come across one of the original Addams Family playsets from the '60's it could be worth a fortune.

This would be funny! No seriously, I think nowadays it has become much harder to find hidden gems. Everyone can easily look up stuff and estimate the value, even when not familiar with the subject... and "pawn stars" didn't help either...

 

[dreadnut]

Still in search of that old Gibson mandolin, or??? I always ask about instruments even if there are none in the garage sale, and sometimes they'll go in the house and bring out an instrument.

 

[Coop47]

Fender Pro Jr. for $75 that I eventually traded for a 76 Vibro Champ.

 

[Steelman]

On a break from playing Tootsie's in Nashville, I strolled around Lower Broad. In the dust window at Rose's pawn shop was an open case displaying a tenor sax. A glance revealed that it was a King Super 20. I had never played woodwinds but had a King trombone--and knew that the Super 20 was desirable. When the man quoted a price of several hundred dollars, I threw down a 20, raced home to get the rest , and bought it.

I have been [sort of] playing it for 30 years now. Not a garage sale or Flea Market Find, but unexpected!

 

[Nuuska]

We were going around in MPLS for weekend garage sales - just for fun. Walking up a driveway I noticed what looked like Hewlett-Packerd sine wave generator - it sure enough was. Those days a new one was listed about 800 USD - grabbed it for 70. The guy was one of the owners of then SOUND 80 studios - Leo Kottke - Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens have recorded there.

I still have it - lowest frequency is 4Hz - top somewhere 200kHz - enough for analog audio work.

 

[GAD]

We were going around in MPLS for weekend garage sales - just for fun. Walking up a driveway I noticed what looked like Hewlett-Packerd sine wave generator - it sure enough was. Those days a new one was listed about 800 USD - grabbed it for 70. The guy was one of the owners of then SOUND 80 studios - Leo Kottke - Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens have recorded there.

I still have it - lowest frequency is 4Hz - top somewhere 200kHz - enough for analog audio work.

What is MPLS? In my world it means Multi-Protocol Label Switching, but I imagine that's not what you're saying.

 

[geoguy]

Minneapolis.