Sunday, April 26, 2015

You Say Garage Sale I Say Flea Market Finds

On the fourth of this month they had the first of the three times a year Northwest Largest Garage Sale. I've always said it's more like a flea market, but who cares what they want to call it. Except for the July version where the wife did great, and I came away with only an Ichiro Mariners speedboat. These shows have been a goldmine for finding some real treasures. While I didn't come away with tons of stuff at this show. What I did come away with is probably what I consider my greatest finds ever at this show.

First off a little information about the show. When this show started, and I was going it was a great place to find some good pieces on the cheap. Now the show is starting to become a haven for antique dealers, Avon, and other sales people. Finding things on the cheap is starting to become harder, and harder to do with each show. If the show continues on this path odds are I will eventually bow out of making the trip. Depending on how the summer one runs it might be the last time I do the summer version. Enough buzz-killing lets get to the real fun.

For the second time the wife thought it would make for a fun day to do the show with me. As we started making our way through the show. Going past the first full row at full speed with nothing of interest slowing us down. It was when we turned the corner for row two the wife made a stop after spotting some of the Richie Rich, and Disney comics she enjoys so much. Discussing it with me on whether or not to pay the 75 cent price tag per comic. I let her know that these have been slowly climbing in price so it was a good buy. Being very selective as I really need to make her a list of what she has. She did walk away with four that she was pretty confident were new comics.

As we continued down the row it was near the halfway point I noticed a huge Sterilite bin that had a price of 50 cents for anything in the bin. The paper claimed everything inside to be Portland Trailblazers posters. Curiosity got the best of me as I decided to spend a few minutes seeing what these Blazers posters looked like. Rolling poster after poster open it was in the top third I came across this beauty.


As you can see it is already in a poster frame, and it isn't a Portland Trailblazers poster. Once we got home I got it unrolled, and put it in the frame to hang right away.

For those that don't know about the Forest Dragons. The team played in the Arena Football League from 1997-1999 in Portland. Relocated from Memphis, and moving to Oklahoma after their short time in Portland. Only having a three year record of 13-29 they still hold a special place in my heart. At the time I was living in Bend a full three hours from Portland. A small group of us got together, and made the trip to a game one Saturday. Lucky for us we got to see a last second win by the Dragons. Who they played I can't remember, what I do remember is we had a blast. Ever since then I have tried to collect Forest Dragons items whenever I come across them. Until this month the collection was just a business card in the football binder.

Digging deeper into the bin with a new found sense of hope. It wasn't until the very bottom I found these four books staring back at me.


There was another two I left behind, and now honestly regret a little. One had a huge crease down the middle so it wasn't to hard to leave it behind initially. When I saw these my plan was to possibly frame them all together or something so I picked what I thought where the best four out. If that plan comes to fruition or not still remains to be seen.

From there I was able to add three last items I've eyeballed at a few other shows not related to this one. Until this show I just never pulled the trigger on these. This seller was selling them individually for 50 cents apiece. The other times I saw these they were minimum one dollar each, and you had to buy the entire batch of 5-10 of them they had.


Patience paid off on this deal as I got to pick only the ones I wanted. Originally I went with the Angels, and Orioles hats. The seller offered to throw in one more to make it three, and after much thought I went with the Pirates. Finding a Mariners would have been like hitting the jackpot, but I'm pleased with the three I picked up.

In the end it was a great show with some amazing finds. Like I said it is getting harder to find treasures like these, but when I do it's well worth it.

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