Category Archives: Flea Markets

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LIC Flea & Food

Starting June 15th 2013 and running every weekend this summer, Long Island City plays home to the newest flea and food market in New York City. LIC Flea & Food invites you to come enjoy some great eats, find a hidden treasure in the market, discover new artists and great local vendors all while taking in breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline. Just blocks from the 7, E, M and G trains as well as the East River Ferry and parking across the street. Bring your friends and family to kick off the start of a perfect weekend.

The Flea Market will run through mid-November. Approximately 60 vendors will set up shop for the weekend and roughly half of those will be local Queens-based food vendors. For more information about this new Flea Market or to become a vendor, check out the LIC Flea & Food website.

To locate more Flea Markets happening in your area of NYC, or anywhere in the USA, check out our Flea Market Directory on Tagsellit.com or be sure to download our Flea Markets App for the Android and iPhone!

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What’s it worth?

Be it an attic, basement or garage, chances are you have some items that may hold more value than you think – or less. Have you ever considered checking out what they’re worth? Earlier this week the Today Show aired a short segment called “What’s it Worth?” Members of the Today Show brought in some interesting items they own and had them checked out. Take a look:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So, what kinds of cool stuff is hiding in your home? Have you ever thought about getting them appraised? A great resource we recommend to many of our users is WorthPoint. WorthPoint is the largest resource for researching and valuing your art, antiques and collectibles. They offer individual users both a free trial and paid membership-based access to their experts. Be sure to check with your trusted local Estate Sale, Consignment or Pawn Shop professional about items you have questions about. Many of these professionals have expanded access to sites like WorthPoint or know Appraisers who can help you identify and price your treasures.

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Become a Millionaire by Shopping Garage Sales


ONE MAN’S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE

So how does one become a “Garage Sale Millionaire?”

Our own Aaron LaPedis, AKA “The Garage Sale Millionaire” shares his tips:

EDUCATE YOURSELF:  Reality TV is not always reality, BUT, shows like Antiques Roadshow and Pawn Stars can still be good teaching mechanisms in that you can learn what items are in demand and how the experts appraise them. Become an expert on a handful of items, so when you come across those items, you know how much, if anything, they’re worth on the market.

Remember, sometimes the most valuable things to collect depend on the geographic region you’re in. If you live in the South, you’re surrounded by Civil War stuff, whereas in Colorado, there’s not much of it, so it’s priced at a premium. The same goes for Western memorabilia – it’s popular in the Midwest, where there’s less of it. So when collecting, consider the place you’re doing it in: What is that state or region known for? That’s where you’ll get the best price and the best value.

NEGOTIATE – IT’S THE ART OF THE DEAL:  Be it a thrift shop, consignment shop or pawn shop, when you’re talking about the money, find out who the owner is because you’ll get the best deal from that person. The owner doesn’t have to worry about paying a commission and if they’re having any kind of money crunch, they’ll want to turn inventory. Cash is often king, because a lot of places don’t take credit cards, so you’ll get a better deal if you’re willing to pay cash.

DON’T LEAD ON TO BEING THE NEXT MILLIONAIRE ON THE BLOCK:  How you dress is also important when shopping for collectibles. That means dressing in inconspicuous clothing, leaving expensive jewelry and shoes at home and parking your car a block away. If you drive up in a Lexus in front of a garage sale I’m holding, I’ll probably be hard-pressed to give you a good deal. Also, build a rapport before you start negotiating. Don’t immediately rush in with, “How low can you go?” Start a conversation about the weather an find common ground somewhere… cozy up to the seller, to the point you both agree it’s a good deal for both parties.

MIND YOUR MANNERS: Don’t be that guy… If an item is $100 and you offer $15, that’s an insult. You’ll turn that person off right away and they’ll never want to do business with you. I would start just under 50% on an item, sometimes even less, depending on how badly I want that piece. Don’t ever try to crush the other person during negotiations. The deal is never a good one if it doesn’t get done.

GETTING RIPPED OFF SUCKS, SO USE COMMON SENSE: Know that 50% to 60% of all signatures on memorabilia and documents are fake. Autopens allow people to copy signatures and unless you’re a foremost expert, you’d never know the difference. When you buy an autographed collectible, you don’t want to pay cash. Use a credit card or PayPal to protect yourself, and let them know you’ll insist on a refund if it’s not real. There are third-party authenticators that will verify whether or not an autograph is real. Sometimes making a “non-refundable” deposit to show the seller you’re interested before committing to paying asking price can save your A$$.

USE TECHNOLOGY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE:  I have an online tip for buying offline – I use the website Tag Sell It and I also have their app on my smart-phone.

MOST IMPORTANT:  Read My Book

FIRM BELIEF: Not only can garage sale treasure seekers make some money reselling various items, but they can make very substantial residual profits over time.

As the owner of two art galleries in Denver and former host of a local PBS show calledCollect This!, LaPedis knows how to track down hidden treasures and turn them into a profit. His recent book, The Garage Sale Millionaire (Wiley), offers advice on how to make money by digging around garage sales, storage units and everything in between. Aaron became an owner and partner with Tag Sell It Inc. in 2013.

 

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Croquet Balls Repurposed

We had a croquet set at our house growing up; did you? We brought it out for parties in the summer and for something to do on a lazy day. I’ve always loved how bright and colorful croquet balls are and when I found a lonely set that had lost their mallets at a garage sale a while I back I had to find a way to repurpose them. So my dad cut them in half for me and then also cut a slit across the top. I think they will be perfect for summer parties as…
Place Card Holders…

Croquet Ball Place Card Holder

 

Menu Holders…

Croquet Ball Menu Holder

Picture Holders…

Croquet Ball Picture Holder

Party Favors…send your guests home with one with a picture from your event.

Croquet Ball Party Favor

They’re already listed in my Etsy shop and waiting for your summer party!

Upscale Downhome on Etsy

So they left the subject and played croquet, which is a very good game for people who are annoyed with one another, giving many opportunities for venting rancor.”

Rose Macaulay

Do you have a croquet set?

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Porter and Hollister Hovey’s Flea-Market Chic

The sisters create interior designs that combine pieces of personal history with thrift-store finds (like stuffed birds) and a smattering of modern electronics

Special thanks to Megan Buerger at the Wall Street Journal for allowing us to repost this awesome story!

In the shared Brooklyn loft of sisters Porter and Hollister Hovey, stuffed birds mingle comfortably with eclectic vintage furniture. The unusual décor displays the combined styles of Hollister, 34, a leather-loving tomboy with a taste for Louis Vuitton luggage and antique backgammon sets; and Porter, 30, a photographer who loves exotic stuffed birds, chinoiserie vases and pearls.

“It’s Palm Beach on crack,” Ms. Hollister jokes, describing Ms. Porter’s style, “but mixing and matching in an eclectic way is our game.”

A framed Hermès scarf that belonged to their mother hangs above Porter and Hollister Hovey’s fireplace. -Dorothy Hong for The Wall Street Journal

The sisters run the up-and-coming décor company Hovey Design, creating a distinctive aesthetic by combining keepsakes with thrift-store antiques and a smattering of modern electronics. Since founding the firm in late 2011, the Hoveys have decorated penthouses in Williamsburg, developed a wallpaper and an adhesive wall mural for retailer Anthropologie and published a book entitled “Heirloom Modern,” which was released last month. On May 23, décor e-retailer One King’s Lane will release a “tastemaker tag sale” with about 100 of the Hoveys’ favorite items up for grabs.

On Hollister’s blog, which she started in 2007, the sisters share old family photos, renovation tips and snapshots of thrift-shopping adventures from the Berkshires to Tokyo. Known in design circles for its vintage style and flea-market savvy, the blog receives about 2,000 hits per day.

It’s easy for manipulated authenticity, particularly one built around nostalgia, to feel contrived. “The key is to be yourself,” Hollister says. “It sounds simple, but trust us, it’s not. You have to be honest about your story. If you try to be someone you’re not, everyone who enters your home will notice. Instead, they should take a deep breath and say, ‘This is so you.’ ”

To do so, the sisters say clients must embrace their oddities and abandon perfectionism. The Hoveys’ design service, which begins with a consultation that costs about $3,500 per room, comes with a lengthy, personal questionnaire. (They typically charge between $3,500 to $5,500 to conceptualize each room, plus an additional 20% charge on top of the price of any items they source.) In the questionnaire, clients are asked about their favorite childhood vacation, the best advice their parents ever gave them and the secret career they wish they had. Those answers then become a treasure map for details to highlight in the décor.

Last fall, Anthropologie commissioned the pair to design a wall mural called ‘Photographed Antiquities’ ($248). The print is based on a photograph of the Hoveys’ living room. -Anthropologie

“Our process is very personal,” Porter says. “Sometimes it feels like therapy, unearthing childhood memories and showcasing them in a sophisticated way.”

“The memories aren’t always happy or pretty, but that’s life,” Hollister adds. “It doesn’t make your home a sad place, it fills it with life. It’s what makes it interesting.”

The Hoveys’ 1,400-square-foot Williamsburg apartment is brimming with quirky antiques, animal prints and a mishmash of design genres—a lot like their childhood home in Kansas City, Kan. The two credit their treasure-hunting abilities to their mother, who was a fan of flea markets and eccentric fashion and filled their home with trinkets from around the world.

“She believed eclecticism was fabulous and always encouraged us to be individuals,” Hollister says. “She potty-trained me by bribing me with designer underwear.”

Their mother died in 2002, and the women have turned her favorite Hermès scarf into a piece of framed wall art. Next to it sits an old family desk flanked by a pair of 1970s Art-Deco chrome chairs and a large portrait of a hunter. The space also includes a life-size papier-mâché leopard, plastic tusks made from melted toys and a trio of taxidermied birds including a pheasant, swan and scarlet ibis. None of this is supposed to go together, but that’s the point. The sisters rely on traditional design rules such as color balancing and shape variation, and then bend them to give the space personality.

Among the heirlooms is a collection of stuffed birds. ‘They’re elegant and exotic,’ Hollister says. ‘Every woman should have at least one.’ Dorothy Hong for The Wall Street Journal

Hollister and Porter Hovey took different paths out of Kansas. Hollister worked as a reporter before joining a health-care public-relations firm, where she still works, and Porter worked at an art gallery in Manhattan before dabbling in music public relations and, now, real estate.

Their first client, Peter Jenkins, was one of Porter’s bosses who hired them to decorate his penthouse loft apartment in Williamsburg. It was so well-received that it quickly led to more clients; the apartment he bought for $2.16 million in 2011 was listed for $3.25 million and is now under contract.

In their book, the sisters offer personal examples of translating a life story into décor. The book draws on a mixture of family and friends for inspiration; subjects include their aunt and grandmother, along with friends like New York hotelier Sean MacPherson, of the Bowery and Jane hotels.

“We often feel like we’ve been branded as these vintage puritans, but it’s not that simple,” Hollister says.”Taste is more complicated than that. In the book, Sean talks about how the Navajo intentionally weave mistakes into their rugs as a way of celebrating imperfection, and I thought, ‘That’s it.’ It’s the antigeneric. It’s about breaking out of traditional design boxes in order to build your own.”

Special thanks to Megan Buerger at the Wall Street Journal for allowing us to repost this awesome story!

Original Source

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Consumer Product Safety Commission Recalls on Second-Hand Finds

Shopping for second-hand treasures at garage sales? Be sure you check the item before purchasing it. Here are some tips to help your buying decision process:

Whether you’re the tag sale seller or buyer, you should look out for toy hazards such as small parts, loud sounds, soft plastics and lead contamination, consumer advocates warned this week.

These dangers were highlighted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in its 24th annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, the first since sweeping consumer safety legislation went into effect earlier this year.

“This is definitely a time when people are going to be thinking about making purchases for the holidays, so we want people to be aware of these hazards,” said Elizabeth Hitchcock, public health advocate for U.S. PIRG.

The organization focused on four hazards: small parts that can choke children younger than 3-years-old, loud toys that can cause hearing damage, lead-tainted toys and soft plastic toys that contain chemicals called phthalates.

If you’re shopping a garage sale and have a smart phone, check out ToySafety.mobi, specially designed for use with mobile phones, to look up toy hazards while shopping.

Recently there have been massive recalls on select cribs and stollers, most notably the “Drop-side” baby cribs, in some cases causing death, and Maclaren Strollers that have posed a serious safety threat to young children’s hands and fingers where they could get pinched. It’s always best to be aware of children’s items and recalls prior to shopping, but be especially cautious when shopping for second-hand items at garage sales. It’s not worth the risk to your child to save some extra money.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission along with the US Government ruled in a law that it would be illegal to sell recalled items at any consignment, thrift store or garage sale.

Remember “buyer beware” and when it comes to your kids’ safety, don’t jeopardize it by trying to save money on a product in question sold secondhand.

 

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The Child’s Anti-Slavery Book

Do you watch the Academy Awards? We do at our house. It’s how we get ideas for which movies we want to rent for the next few months. We’ve been working our way through the list of Best Picture nominees and have recently watched Django Unchained and Lincoln. Both pictures take place in the 1800s before the Civil War and at the end of it. Ironically I found a wonderful treasure from the same time period during my antiquing adventures.

The Child’s Anti-Slavery Book

You may be thinking that it looks like an ordinary book; an old one but quite ordinary. That’s precisely why you can’t judge a book by its cover. It’s a rare copy of an anti-slavery book for children published in 1859. This mid nineteenth-century, abolitionist tract, distributed by the Sunday School Union, uses actual life stories about slave children separated from their parents or mistreated by their masters to appeal to the sympathies of free children. Vivid illustrations help to reinforce the message that black children should have the same rights as white children, and that holding humans as property is “a sin against God.”
It contains 3 sets of stories about the lives of real slaves and also has a short introduction about the immorality of slavery from a Biblical perspective. I’ve always enjoyed history class but through watching the movie Lincoln I realized I’m just a casual observer on the subject. During my education, history was approached through a series of events and dates and not from the perspective of its participants. I always thought that “everyone” in the North was against slavery and “everyone” in the South was for it. I never realized the political wrangling that went on to get the 13th Amendment passed and that a good portion of the people in the North were against it.

Illustration by Hammatt Billings

The book contains 10 etchings depicting slave life by Charles Howland Hammatt Billings who also illustrated Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I read this book this week and found it to be quite moving. I absolutely can not believe how despicably humans can treat each other. I can appreciate the way Quentin Tarrantino rewrites history for his movies so the bad guy loses in the end and the good guy triumphs. That’s the way we’d all like it to work. Even though Django Unchained was quite violent and there were parts I could not watch, I do admire his creativity.
I’m so glad that fate had me stumble across this simple and powerful volume and that I took the time to learn from its contents. I plan on selling it on Ebay to someone else who will appreciate it.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Aldous Huxley

Did you like history class? Have you seen either Lincoln or Django Unchained?

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Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

Have you ever posted an item for sale online and felt it took forever to sell… if it even sold at all? Chances are it wasn’t the item that wasn’t selling, it was the description, or lack thereof. If you’re a sales professional or have a sales background, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “telling isn’t selling.” A customer needs to be sold, not told. In this post we’ll share a great tip for advertising your items or sale events in online marketplaces and classifieds.

The secret to sales success lies in an easy-to-remember acronym…

A.I.D.A or “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action”

Capture their ATTENTION: You need to craft a title that captures people’s attention. Putting in text symbols and unrelated content in the title of an item is not just useless, it’s wastes valuable space you could otherwise use for keywords in naming the item you have for sale.

Keep their INTEREST: Capturing a prospective buyer’s interest can be difficult, especially when there’s competition in the marketplace. Creativity, accuracy, details and quality photographs make a big difference in keeping your prospect’s interest in what you have to sell.

Fancy their DESIRE: Your goal is to get your prospective buyers to crave what you have to sell them. Make them want what you have and your sales will increase. You need to offer what your prospect hasn’t found anywhere else. Are you selling them an experience? A one-of-a-kind? A hard-to-find? What makes your item special so prospective customers will buy from you?

Get them to take ACTION: If they’ve emailed you or phoned you to speak with you about the item that’s for sale, job well done and goal accomplished – you have a potential buyer on the line! Be polite, be honest and be real. Don’t just look at this opportunity as a one-time sale, consider the future investment opportunity, repeat sales, referral sales and most importantly, word of mouth sales.

Some websites like eBay for example, have even streamlined the process of listing items based on keywords. The site can instantly and fairly accurately categorize an item you have to sell based on the keywords you enter, thus making it easier for shoppers to locate exactly what you’re selling.

One lucky seller on Tagsellit.com gets their item featured here as an example since they did a great job describing their item…

Title: Antique Hand Painted Desk

The seller describes the desk as an antique, distressed and includes the measurements.

Here’s a picture of the item they’re selling

Asking $100.00

Posted under Virtual Sales / Category = Furniture:

http://www.tagsellit.com/items-for-sale-online/2661903

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Solving Mysteries as Furniture Detectives

Riddle:
What has 6 sides, 28 joints and is red all over?
Answer:
My latest antique purchase!

19th Century Red Six Board Chest

Mr. Upscale and I enjoy a good mystery whether it’s a movie plot or an antique so we purchased this six board chest at the auction house on Sunday. I loved it for its milky red paint and he for its dovetailed joints. We hauled it home and started to clean it and discover some of its mysteries.
Case in point: Notice the different types of woods between the chest and the trim.
The trim is oak and the chest is pine. This means that the trim was probably added at a later date. Sometimes the maker did use different types of wood on the same piece but these two just don’t look like they go together at all. Different types of woods would be used because people used what they had on hand and also because they planned on painting the piece. Most likely it was someone’s effort to restore it. We believe it had trim originally and here’s how we know for sure. We removed the nasty oak trim and found this underneath.

Red Six Board Chest with Trim Removed

Notice the nail holes. There are small ones where the oak was nailed in and there are larger ones which means there was another type of trim on the chest. It was most likely made of pine like the rest of the piece. Now that the trim has been removed another question has to be asked…Is that red paint that I love original? What do you think? Are you a furniture detective, too? I don’t believe that the red paint is original because of the gray look of the boards underneath. It could have been painted red with the trim on and then this top piece would still have a gray border but this picture of the back leads me to believe it was originally  gray.
The back of the chest has no red paint on it at all but can you see the traces of gray in the picture above? I do believe the red paint is quite old just because of it’s lovely worn and milky patina.
Even though this six board chest is missing some of its original elements, like it’s original trim, paint and hinges it’s a lovely example of 19th century handmade furniture. It’s called a six board chest because it is made of six individual boards and there was no joining of wood to make wider pieces. Think about how big those trees had to be to harvest wood that wide.
Now it sits in my living room as my coffee table and I will thoroughly enjoy it in all its handmade glory. If you’d like to see more examples of antique chests, I found this Pinterest Board called Trunks, Chests. It’s definitely eye candy for the antique chest lover!  I also found this example of a blue six board chest that is earlier than this one but with all its original parts.

Uncertainty and mystery are the energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

R. I. Fitzhenry

Do you love a good mystery?