The Observer Newspapers | Weather Takes Its Toll on Yard Sales

May 19 , 2008

Weather Takes Its Toll on Yard Sales

I'm not a yard sale warrior. I have never cruised around town on a Saturday morning looking for the fantastic bargains you can find when people unload their stuff in their front yards. But yard sales are great places to find odds and ends, and the occasional treasures.

My wife and I had a huge pile of stuff waiting to be sold on a bright spring day, so we decided to hold a yard sale of our own last weekend. We got several neighbors on board, and advertised the sale appropriately with an ad in the newspaper and some signs at the nearby major intersections.

But much to our dismay, the people didn't come. It was one of the first days in which the weather was not gray, chilly and wet. The Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival was underway, as were some other big events in the region. But surely more people will stop by than this, we thought after we had only had about 10 visitors by 9 a.m.

We finally sold our first item at about 10 a.m. Our neighbors made a few sales, and our friends, who had joined us with some pretty impressive children's furniture for sale, were leading the pack in items sold. But when we prepared to pack up at noon, about 90 percent of the items we brought were still on sale.

I was amazed. Our neighbors were selling unused kitchen cabinets and knobs. Our friends were selling an impressive collection of little chairs for a children's school. My wife set up a table with china, silver, crystal and finery. We even had an original, working Victrola available. We thought our junk was pretty good.

What did sell? An old stereo amplifier for $15, some children's videos and some odds and ends.

The yard sale gods are fickle, I suppose. There is nothing left to do but É have another sale this weekend, of course. But this time, we'll move the venue to our friends' neighborhood, if nothing else than for the change of scenery.

I don't hold yard sales very often, so I didn't know what to expect. But somehow I expected more attention than we got, and we thought we had done a pretty good job of promoting ourselves.

One thing's for sure, my wife and I don't want to carry all that stuff back into the basement to store it until another sale. We'll just keep on selling.

Enjoy your weekend, everybody. And keep an eye out for bargains.