Rummage!

On Sunday, Miss B., the Mom and Dad and I hit up the Visiting Nurse Service of Somerset County's Annual Fall Rummage Sale at the fairgrounds in Far Hills, NJ. The sale is held twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring and is billed as 75,000square feet of goodies. On Sunday the sale is only open from 12:30-3:30 and we got there about 2pm. When we arrived, there were lines outside many of the tents (such as the "Vintage" tent, the "Notions/Costumes" tent, etc., etc. The sale is organized into a number of different categories, though, many items seem to bridge the gap between categories. My favorite tent, by far, was "Dry Goods". The Dry Goods tent included knitting yarn, needlepoint and all sorts of yarn-based and needlepoint type crafts, fabric and then bedding/tablecloths/napkins, etc., etc. Friday and Saturday things are as marked, but on Sunday, many of the Tents are either "half-price" (as was the case in the Book tent) or, even better, $10 per grocery bag, or $25 per garbage bag. Let me tell you, you can get a *lot* of stuff into a grocery bag. I have to take pictures of all of the needlepoint that I got, and napkins, and yarn.

Then the Mom and I hit up the "housewares" tent and got a $10 bag which included multitudes of cool vintage sandwich-plate sized china, mugs, quiche pans, ceramic molds, a Homer Laughlin gravy boat, a salt cellar, two pitchers, two vintage dinner plates.

I got a bazillion great books (including a first edition copy of William Manchester's "The Death of a President"-- which was recently the subject of an article in Vanity Fair). Books were half price, but I got more than a $10 bag's worth for a whopping $9.

Then we hit up the "Vintage" tent. There Mom got a plaid Blazer, I got a vintage camel hair coat, I got two hats (including a 1950's Mink hat from Lord & Taylor, with the original sales slip and hat box), 1950's sunglasses, a Princeton University ashtray, an Aligator handbag (made in France), a beaded handbag (made in Italy), another vintage hat, etc., etc. Our finds in the Vintage tent (including a giant vintage Detecto Infant Scale) for a total of $29. (Yes, that included the Mink hat!)

The atmosphere was a bit crazy, but I think it was worth it. Adrenaline was high, but it was bargains galore!