EstateSales.NET Is 10 Years Old!

My wife and I have been hitting estate sales for years and every week I use EstateSales.net to map out all of the sales in Houston. My most recent score is this 1951 Schwinn (with skip-tooth 'sweetheart' sprocket) picked up from the original owner's estate. I always love the stories that come with items like this one…apparently the owner received this bike as a reward for selling the most newspapers on his route back in the early ‘50s. Me being a bike collector, I can tell you it's rare to find a 60+ year old bike, especially one this original (the only non-original parts are the grips) and complete! I'll do a mechanical restoration on this and leave the original patina! Thanks

I went to an Estate Sale in a "bad" part of Detroit. There were a lot of burned down houses and it is an area known as drug areas. I could not get anyone to go with me because the area was so bad. Finally my son went with me. I only took my driver's license, insurance and $42. I saw pictures and counted 45 tea cups in the pictures. I went there and my heart sank because 28 of them were still there with 15 minutes left of this sale. Most of the cups were $15 and up. My $42 was not going to go far. I said to the seller, I would love to buy every cup, but I don't have that much. He said how much do you have and I said $42, and the seller said "SOLD". I almost had a heart attack, lol. I grabbed them up as fast as I could and he threw in some tea pots. This was for my daughter's bridal shower. I came home and looked up some of these cups and they are priced at over $100 each. I love going to the Estate Sales. I have the website on my Favorite's Bar.

My favorite pick.. estate sale auction end of last year. bought several albums filled with Star Wars cards for $50. Brought them home and several were autographed by the actors! broke them all up into lots and sold for over 20x profit! congrats on the anniversary and for the service! Here's to the next 10! cheers!

In summer of 2011 I had just been married and moved into my first house and didn't have that much money to buy furniture. Some friends came over and saw my huge living room with nothing in it. They suggested I try an estate sale, which I had never done. As retirees they really enjoy going to estate sales on a weekends and told me how fun it would be and an affordable way to furnish my house. That's when I found estatesales.net. My best friend from Florida came to visit the following weekend and I took the Friday off work. We headed to our first sale, stood in line and experienced our first "informal ticket system". It was really something! I didn't understand what was going on at all, and why they were handing out post-it notes. I was intimidated because everyone seemed to know the system but me. (it's a year later and I feel like an old pro by now.) Anyway, that weekend we went to every estate sale listed on estatesales.net in a 30 mile radius and picked up some cool items like a $5 name brand crystal figurine. By Sunday, just as one sale was closing, we found this buffet. My friend, who is alot pushier than I am, offered $125, a little less than 50%, and they said yes! We literally wrestled this gigantic thing into my aunt's small SUV (carried by me, my friend, my mom and aunt who are in their 60's). I can't believe we were able to pick it up, but it's in mint condition and my favorite piece of furniture I own. Well worth the trouble. It was the first big beautiful piece of estate sale furniture I owned, and much nicer than I could have afforded new. Since then I've furnished my "formal living room" with all estate sale pieces and everyone that comes into my house marvels at my beautiful furniture. Little do they know that if I hadn't discovered estatesales.net, the room would still be empty!

Good morning! I have attached a picture of my very first find at my very first estate sale! I had never been to an estate sale until recently. I found estatesales.net about a month ago and signed up. We were notified of a sale near our area and decided to check it out. I found this corner stand that I utilize in my kitchen. I had been looking for this item in this size for YEARS! I have a large corner stand that I use all the time and wanted something smaller. I'm sure I paid much less than I would have in a retail store. Thanks EstateSales!

I don't just attend estate sales, I also run them for a living. I've been listed on estatesales.net as a gold customer since 2007, and it has been well worth it. These daisies are one of my favorite things to have sold. They came from the home of a hoarder extraordinaire, a real collector of everything imaginable. Fortunately, since she never threw things out, she also had a large collection of memorabilia from her third husband, who had been a world famous juggler, who had previously been married to a world famous woman magician from the 30-50s. It was a fascinating sale.

January 2011 I was looking on estatesales.net and found what I had been coveting for years, pictures of Fransiscan Starburst plates. Sale opened on a Friday, I arranged a vacation day with my boss and started my planning. I would get to the house at 1am in the morning, surely there was no one there that was crazy enough to camp out in cold January for some dishes. I pack my chair, my warmest clothes, blankets and then drive to the location. As I pull up to the house, I see someone jump out of the car and get to the house before me. I almost cried, I took a day off work and didn't sleep for these plates! I get out of the car to see if the guy who got there first was after the same things I was and of course he wanted the plates! We start to talking and it turns out I "knew" him.. We had previously emailed back and forth on other mid-century finds and he often sells stuff. After sitting in the cold together for several hours, he agrees to allow me the pieces of the collection that he already owns, he would just take the items he needed for his collection. We then devised a game plan to help each other grab the other items that we wanted from the house. We ended up having a great time that day, sitting in the cold and scoring everything we wanted from that sale. We now regularly go estate sailing together, often pairing up to help each other out. Not only did I get a great set of dishes, I got a great friend out of it!

This is a shelf in my office that contains only items collected at estate sales found on estatesales.net. My favorite are the two 'gil hiben' knifes in the back. They were found at a downtown HB sale. I saw them and just had to have them. Funny thing was I went to look at a coke cooler (that was sold before I got there) ended up buying the knifes and a couch (wife was shocked) I truly loving getting an email telling me I have a sale coming up local. My goal is to fill this entire bookcase with collected estate sales items over the next year. Thank You and good luck on the next 10 years!

I'm proud of my first apartment thanks to estatesales.net. One of my favorite areas is my guest bathroom wall. The two 70's decoline floral medallions that I found in Long Branch, NJ, remind me of the Beaux-Arts detailing on the Astor Hall ceiling of the new York Public Library. On the right is a beautiful hand painted floral hook found at an estate sale in Rutherford, NJ. It just happened to be the exact color of my bathroom and a unique and special piece. There I hang my towel, nice and close. No one would ever believe that these three pieces cost me all of $15! Thanks for helping me make my apartment fab!

We walked into this estate sale and the home was all decked out in white marble and gold accents. Let me first say, it's not like the home was in a ritzy area. The owner had champagne taste no matter her budget though and it was a really fun sale to check out. I just knew by the decor I would find some fun jewelry. I collect cocktail rings so I was especially hoping to find a nice one. By the time I made it into the room with the jewelry, my husband was already there holding this ring. He just knew it would be my pick and he was right! I find that with a cocktail ring this large and glitzy, you don't find an occasion where it isn't appropriate. I was really excited to do a little research and find that, while it's not real gold or stones, it is worth 5-10 times what I paid for it. Not that I would ever part with it of course, because it is my favorite estate sale find!

The chair that started this whole collection is in the middle, peeling paint and all. got it for $1.00 because the seller thought i was going to finish her botched paint job, but i love it just as it is - there must be six different layers of colors on this... what character!

Check out this $17 dingy vinyl chair that my cousin Joyce helped me find buried in a basement. (From EstateSales.NET: Before and After pictured...Kim wrote a whole article which we will be sharing when we go live with our new blog.)

I LOVE your website! Since my husband and I retired, we set aside every Thursday or Friday to go to some of the great sales your have on your site. We drive 2 hours into Denver to hit 6 to 10 sales a week. I have gotten so many cool things! But my latest cool find was a Singer sewing maching table. We were at a sale in Denver about a month ago and were about to leave. We saw a storage building that we had not explored, so we went out there and starting digging around. Underneath a huge pile of "treasures" I saw this great Singer sewing machine table. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to dig this thing out! It was covered with spider webs and dirt, but I had to have it!! We finally got it out and there was no price. So I took it to the sales table and negotiated a price of $18! What a find! And it looks great in my house! Keep up the good work, Estate Sales, Net! Love you, mean it!

This is one of the COOLEST ITEMS I have found at an Estate Sale. I did some searching, and there is not much information on it, but it is said to be the FIRST EVER Hand Held Blow Dryer! Made by US Racine Universal Motor Company in 1920. This blow dryer is very heavy, all chromed out and looks like a vintage microphone. It is in FANTASTIC condition, has a stand, and STILL WORKS :o) I had it appraised, and the appraiser told me NOT to sell it. It is the only one he has ever seen. I bought it from a estate sale in Royal Oak MI for $5.00 along with some other VERY AWESOME stuff. (Found this sale because of EstateSales.Net - THANK YOU!)

I purchased a 1936 Yearbook from Wiley College in Marshall, TX and little did I know it was probably the only one left out of the 10 that were made. Back then, only the well to do had enough money to purchase a yearbook. After the purchase I found out there was a movie coming out in December called The Great Debaters with Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker and other great actors! I did a search and found the screenwriter, Bob Eisele and sent him an email. Much to my surprise, he called me the next day and was interested in purchasing the book as well as Denzel's wife who wanted it for his birthday! Long story short, I decided to keep the book and have stayed in contact with Bob Eisele. I promised him one day he could have the book with the stipulation that he come to Tyler to get the book himself and he agreed. I'm looking forward to one day meeting him! We were on the local news and when Forest Whitaker came to Tyler to support the Obama campaign, my husband carried the yearbook in for Forest to see and ended up signing autographs along side Forest to the people who had seen him on the news with the book. We now keep it in a safety deposit box until Bob decides to make a visti! We did take it to the Antiques Roadshow when they came to Dallas and they could not give it a value other than "priceless"! The condition is excellent and the pictures really are priceless!!