While recorded history stretches pretty far back, it doesn\u2019t go back far enough to tell us the name of the person who invented the yard sale. Perhaps it was an early caveman named Og Yard. Maybe Og had decided to unload a bunch of spears and clubs he didn\u2019t need any more by staging a cave sale \u2013 or maybe he called it a \u201cspring cave-cleaning sale.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, wait a minute! That\u2019s preposterous. That had to be Og\u2019s wife. No man would ever get rid of perfectly good spears and clubs.<\/p>\n
When you think about it, the yard sale is really just an improvement on dragging your garbage can to the curb. Under the yard sale plan, you no longer pay anyone to get rid of your garbage. Instead, someone pays you \u2013 and they haul it away.<\/p>\n
Every weekend, the area is awash in yard-sale fever. True, they\u2019re undermined these days by Internet interlopers like eBay and Craig\u2019s List, but old-fashioned yard sales still flourish. That\u2019s because they\u2019re a quick, easy and free way to unload junk. And, as the saying goes, \u201cOne man\u2019s junk is another man\u2019s Chinese flat-bottomed boat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yard-sale entrepreneurs brazenly tack up signs everywhere \u2013 telephone poles, trees, hydrants and shrubbery. I once saw a sad-faced dachshund saddled with a handmade sandwich board announcing an upcoming yard sale. Another time, a guy in our neighborhood pinned two separate placards on the top and bottom of a traffic sign at the end of our street. It then read \u201cBe sure and STOP at our garage sale!\u201d<\/p>\n
In these summer months, they\u2019re everywhere: YARD SALE! GARAGE SALE! And, the snootiest of them all \u2013 ESTATE SALE! They\u2019re all pretty much the same thing, but estate sale sounds the best because it suggests unbelievable treasures and magnificent antiques. Of course, the treasures and antiques are usually beat-up record albums, rusty exercise equipment, funky-smelling toasters \u2013 and old shoes (which are also often beat-up, rusty and funky-smelling). In other words, the stuff at the estate sales is pretty much the same stuff you\u2019d find at the garage and yard sales. The difference is marketing.<\/p>\n
Extravagant claims and alluring adjectives are key ingredients to any and all signage. For example, BIG, HUGE FAMILY GARAGE SALE!!!! is almost impossible to pass up. Plus, it\u2019s always interesting to see just exactly how big and huge the family is.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, an entire bunch of families will band together for a neighborhood or cul-de-sac sale. Of course, it\u2019s not always possible to get total participation. There\u2019s always one crabby neighbor who doesn\u2019t want to take part. In that case, look for the signs that read: NICE NEIGHBORS\u2019 YARD SALE.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re staging a yard sale, remember that besides trying to unload your unwanted stuff, you are also putting your life on display. Examples: If you are a married couple selling a bunch of old baby clothes, you are indicating that one of you has just had a vasectomy. When you put your Abdominizer or Thigh Master up for sale, you are pretty much telling the world that you have chosen to go to seed. And if you\u2019re a single man selling a collection of high heels and ballroom gowns \u2013 well, that\u2019s your business.<\/p>\n
My wife and I have held \u2013 and attended \u2013 a BIG, HUGE number of garage sales over the years, and learned a thing or two. So just in case you\u2019re going to be staging or stopping by such a sale next weekend, here are some basic truths and rules.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Advice for sellers:<\/p>\n
1) The items you\u2019re absolutely sure will sell, will not.<\/p>\n
2) The stuff you want to get rid of the most will not sell.<\/p>\n
3) The junk that is so lame that you\u2019re embarrassed to even put it on display will sell. Immediately.<\/p>\n
4) No matter what price you put on an item, someone will want it for less. If you put a 50-cent price tag on a dollar bill, someone will want it for a quarter. That\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n
5) If you are a couple, make sure you have both agreed on what exactly is for sale. In my neighborhood once, a woman came home to find that her husband had just sold their beautiful, antique brass bed. Lucky for her, the buyers hadn\u2019t yet departed with the bed, and the sale was quickly voided.<\/p>\n
6) The worst place to hold a garage sale is in your garage. That\u2019s because shoppers will constantly try to buy the things in there that aren\u2019t for sale, like your workbench or freezer. (A tip: Put \u201cSOLD\u201d signs on everything that isn\u2019t for sale. Like your antique brass bed, for example).<\/p>\n
7) Once the sale is over, remember to take down your roadside signs, unless you want people to continue to show up for months.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Advice for buyers:<\/p>\n
1) Once the dumb guy sells you the bed, clear out as fast as you can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While recorded history stretches pretty far back, it doesn\u2019t go back far enough to tell us the name of the person who invented the yard sale. Perhaps it was an early caveman named Og Yard. Maybe Og had decided to unload a bunch of spears and clubs he didn\u2019t need any more by staging a cave sale \u2013 or maybe he called it a \u201cspring cave-cleaning sale.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23025"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}