Who rules bartertown?

The past several weeks have been so devoid of any actual book sightings that I find myself worried that I may have found all the books in the Mohawk Valley. I did seven sales in quick succession last Saturday starting with an estate sale that had nothing on offer but disassembled bed frames and leather coats. On my way back into town I stopped at all the garage and block sales I could find, increasingly desperate to mitigate the expense in gas and time and exasperation with just one ohgod real book. I passed through no sidewalk having, ruthlessly bourgeois, white flight neighborhoods. There were tables with childrens clothing and plastic toys, homemade vhs tapes and last years big box store home decorating items. Many of these sales had actually spent money in the paper to advertise books, which to everyone but me means Bionocles and Dora the Explorer softcover propaganda. These are not really books. Not even when they have all the pages and don't smell like cheesy mac. Sorry to burst your bubble there, thirteenth grade educated suburban mom. And the presentation! Mwaaa! That's me putting my first two fingers and thumb together to my lips and making the kissy noise that designates French admiration. Cause I'm classy like that.
Classy like the aromatic pile of mildewy garbage you left out overnight in preparation for today's sale. A nice touch was telling me what what I don't buy goes straight to the salvation army. Because they enjoy having to rent multiple dumpsters to dispose of your toxic crap.
Hey! A box of readers digest condensed books from when you cleaned out grandma's basement? Just $2 each and dripping with earwigs?
IMA GET MY WALLET. It's in the car, which is partially parked on your lawn. Because you don't have any sidewalks, one of the hallmarks of civilization. This region ranked dead last in a recent Forbes magazine study of places to do business and have a career. We are one of the top ten worst places in the country to live and do business. We have a college attainment of only twenty percent, less than one percentage point of income growth, job growth and projected job growth. At least our civic leaders are concerned: "The first thing is, I've never bought a Forbes magazine in my life," says Utica Mayor David Roefaro. "I don't know many people who have." - Observer Dispatch. This man and all his colleagues own business in the area.
"I would say Forbes is one of the top-10 worst magazines in the country," Utica Community Revitalization Director Robert Sullivan said. "Who reads it anyway? When's the last time you were with a friend that just had to stop off and pick up Forbes?" -Utica Daily News. This man owns a local restaurant that is currently closed for fiscal malfeasance. Something about having to pay taxes and adopting the 'not gonna' business plan. Perhaps reading Forbes, which is one of the nation's premier business magazines and covers a "wide array of topics from the worlds of industry, finance, international business, marketing, law, taxes, science, technology, communications, investments and entrepreneurship" with an annual circulation of 900,000 could have helped with that.

I believe this region's dismal lack of higher education, mouth breathing intelligence levels, Appalachian style suspicion of the outsider and intense focus on children for vicarious thrills has a direct effect on the number and amount of desirable, clean, college reading level books. Anyone who enjoys activities not related to fetishising high school sports stars and personal watercraft is not doing it here. Even if they were, where would they be buying books? The last used bookstore anywhere near to Utica closed last fall and it mainly carried used paperback romances, one of the few literary forms generally deemed acceptable for adult consumption. New Hartford's Barnes and Noble is for childrens books, toys, the latest potboiler and for sitting hours in the cafe to read the free magazines. Books are for children and *whispering* the gays (FYI so are art and music). If you like those, you might be one or the other. The More You Know.

Actually writing out all of the above helps me pull the emergency vent valve so my spleen doesn't explode, and makes clear to me that I need to start finding books in other ways. Books I care to learn about, in defined niche areas. I'm already buying on the internet through various auction sites but now it's Serious Business. I'm not going to turn down a fast selling hypermodern or self help book that crosses my path, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to hunt them down anymore. Its time to move up.

I compare and contrast part two

Here's what happened at the second estate sale last Friday. We roll up in our hoopty to a modest looking home in a nice neighborhood. There is a sold sign on the lawn of the house and the garage door is up, tables full of small items placed around the small space. I see a lot of boxes on a pallet in the back and they are chock full of books. They don't smell, aren't damp and clearly haven't been living in the garage for a long time so that's good. It's kinda dark in the garage though, and I don't see anyone who looks like they are working the sale. The boxes turn out to have some good stuff and I'm intently focused on sorting and choosing. The more I look the more I am interested the the people who owned them. There are cool vintage booklets about curling, a popular Utica sport. Lots of literature and history. Some ephemera and old yearbooks. Foreign language novels and dictionaries. Lots of Modern Library editions with nice jackets. A few flower and plant guides. A catalog of the works of Charles Burchfield, one of my favorite artists. While I'm occupied I am vaguely aware of people wandering in looking at the small stuff and wandering out but when I get like this its hard to shake my book trance. Finally, I have sorted out what I can afford and I'm thinking about my bargaining strategy. Ok, who's in charge here?

There's another guy who has some smalls in his hand and he's looking around for someone to give his money to as well. I knock on the door in the garage into the house. Nothing. I go around to the front and knock and ring the bell. The guy's wife calls from the car. "it doesn't start until noon". It's 10:45. Huh. I guess I should have read the ad a little more carefully. The guy makes a disgusted remark and leaves. Suddenly, a though occurs to me. What if some early bird forced the garage door open, took stuff and left? Then what if the sale organizers show up and find me, a stranger standing in the open, dark garage holding a box of books? Ohhhkay. Stash the box under a table and we move quickly to the car. More cars are pulling up as we drive away. At noon, I'm back! Garage door is shut and the front door is open. The first thing I do is bee line to my box which is still there. There's no crime scene tape anywhere and no one seems agitated so I decide it's just best not to ask.

At least now I get to go through the place and it's a really nice house. Every now and then, I go though a home and I feel totally comfortable in it, like I'm in sync with the place. The family room is large and airy and I spot the built in bookcases that held the books that the sale people threw in boxes in the garage. Books are for nerds, right? Shelves are for displaying your toys. Dang, didn't you know?
The decor is a little dated, but tasteful and all the furniture is of quality and well made. Classic and pleasing. You get the sense that a family of many interests was lived here. There's no overriding scheme like Kuntry Krafts or Pwecious Bears. No pink or lavender and no horrible dolls. The weird thing is I know I took a lot of pictures, but they aren't on my phone now. There's only two. This mid century dining room table and set of chairs made me hold my breath:

You don't see the likes of this too much around here. It's like some shy forest creature. Shhhhh! Don't scare it! I pulled the chair out so that you can see the angular seat. It was priced at $950.00. That probably won't even get you a footstool at the local cardboard and particle board furniture rip off stores. I hope it went to a good home.
Here's the other photo:

Someone was in the service during wartime. I'm not good at telling what branch and this photo is terrible. The main bedroom was filled with ladies hats, shoes and clothes from the 5o's through the 60's. Almost all the awesome hats had labels from bygone Utica shops. There were several fur hoods that I enjoyed trying on. There was a great fur purse. You know the kind with the snap shut mouth and no handle? A clutch I think they are called. I KNOW I took a picture of it, but it's gone. The ladies running the sale tells me that there is not much market on ebay for vintage clothing and accessories that don't have designer labels. I think all dealers are inherently pessimistic. It comes from constantly shifting through the chaff to find the one golden kernel of wheat. If I had a nickel for every copy of Profiles in Courage....

I compare and contrast, part one

First of all, here is my haul for the weekend:

It's an interesting mixed bag of cookbooks, Modern Library editions in jackets, Utica Curling Club ephemera and some early atlases.
House number one was Friday. It was one of the really nice places on the parkway. The kind that you drive by and wonder what kind of treasures are inside. None. That is the correct answer. Just lots and lots of dolls, tchotchke and kitsch horribleness. I guess kitch has its place but this house was stuffed in every room. How does this happen to an adult?

one of the many hundreds of dolls

These people were clearly wealthy and were part of Utica's social elite. They lived in one of the best areas of the city, conspicuously on the Parkway. I don't know anything about them but the evidence of their lives that they left behind. Was there art? A wine cellar? A photography studio? A library full of bookcases? Ask this guy:

Besides the hundreds of porcelain and glass figurines, there were also a lot of vintage dollhouses and toys. Not for kids. The kind older women collect to place carefully around the house next to bouquets of fake and dried flowers. Lots of general household goods as well. There were some other dealers there and they didn't seem to happy with the prices. I overheard one guy disgustedly remarking that he wouldn't be able to make a return on the resale. He had a few things in his hands though.
The house just went on and on. It was one of those places bigger on the inside that it appears from the outside because of the furnished basement and attic. Room after room of this stuff.

Hmm, where could the books be? I know there must be some around here somewhere. Oh, here they are, thrown in a pile in the basement.

They had been there a good long time too. Most were completely ruined by mildew. Actually, I think I didn't check well enough and may have to throw away a few of the ones I salvaged.
Overall, this was a lovely home and well maintained. Owned by wealthy people with completely different values than I hold dear. They had no time for books or reading. Every room was pink or lavender or covered with lace and filled with infantile baby shaped decorations. The older I get, the less patience I have for this. What makes an adult obsessively collect this kind of thing? The world is full of so much of value and I plan to spend the rest of my life searching it out, not regressing into a second childhood.
I know for a fact that a man had lived there but there was no evidence of such. Except for the man cave in the basement. Dark wood, an ugly comfortable looking recliner, old tv and several complete sets of untouched 1980's encyclopedias dustily stored on a bookcase. It was a Brady Bunch era retreat from the saccharine froth upstairs.
I grew up in a house that valued reading and education. Dad was an academic and Mom loved to read. Both had post graduate degrees and were interested in a variety of subjects. We traveled and we kids were encouraged to stretch our minds. They bought art, took us to the opera and cooked exotic foods. We were not wealthy. I was so lucky.

I am thwarted in my goal

Honestly, I am never going to realize my goal of finding the next equivalent of Tammerlane in a box of old papers if you people don't stop selling abject crap at your yard and garage sales. Seriously, lets step it up out there. Alright, all joking but not really joking aside, if I'm going to drive 20 minutes to the literal middle of nowhere based on an ad that promises antiques, books, ephemera and other interesting items, I expect some of that to actually be present. Deerfield, I'm looking at you. What I don't want to see is your kids lemonade stand and a rat infested barn filled with used Tupperware, ripped up Simplicity dress patterns and a single pile of contemporary, chewed on kids board books. That's just cruel.

It took an immediate trip back to the Creekside diner for a short stack of pancakes to regain some enthusiasm. However the post pancake hunt was not roaringly sucessful either. I went to two garage sales in quick succession where the prices were pants on head retarded. At BOTH houses I heard mention that they were going to sell their items on Ebay after the sale. Why go to all the trouble to pay to advertise a sale, set it up, price everything, spend several days in your garage/driveway and then have to pack it all up again if you are not going to price things competitively? You are not an antique dealer/retailer and I'm not going to pay those prices if I'm standing in your carport. Frankly, with the amount of stuff both places had left over on a Sunday afternoon I don't think the strategy worked out.


The one place that did seem to get it was the tail end of an estate sale in its second weekend. I had been before but it was a hoarder's house and packed pretty tightly so in the hopes that new stuff had been churned up, I stopped by again. Everything was at least 50% off and deals were being made. Got a bag of books for $1.50. All interesting and I have hopes for a very old street guide to Venice.

I cast my nets

This weekend was lovely and called for some semi serious book hunting. Pictured is my haul. I did alright for my first time out this spring. There were a few advertised sales here and there around the region to choose from but none of the ads gave me that lucky feeling so I decide to take the shotgun approach and hit a neighborhood sale in a not wealthy, but middle/lower class area with tiny one story starter homes on small plots. Not old Utica. No sidewalks. Detached garages. Decade built circa 1970.
Very generally, the kinds of people in these neighborhoods are not readers. Reading is for children and old women so what is mostly on offer are scruffy kid's books, ratty paperback romances and James Patterson in hardback.
The big draw for most shoppers here is 'kids clothing'. Nearly every house had two or three folding tables set up with eight metric tons of clothing. Under the tables were boxes full of plastic toys and cheap junk. Every garage was packed to the ceiling with stuff which was not for sale. In fact, while browsing along line of plastic kitchen implements in tubs, I got to close to the open garage door of one gentleman who sternly ordered me away. Glancing inside I could see a wall of cardboard boxes marked 'kids clothes-storage'. Who knows what kind of Wallmart dragon's horde of treasures lie within! I shiver to think.

I come to these when I have limited time because I can hit ten to fifteen houses in quick succession. I am hoping that someone will decide to finally get rid of granddad's old worthless civil war reference books or train books or Aunt Mabel's crazy alternative medicine manuals. I'm just sayin, its happened before. However, the books on offer were mostly as described above and no antiquarian gold mines were struck.
I did hit one house that had a box full of recently printed text books and culled out the keepers. These are fairly advanced biology text books indicating that someone was doing some serious book learnin. I probably should have asked after more. Once I talked my way into a house of a nurse who was selling medical books and emerged with several hundred dollars worth of texts. It helps that I don't look like an ax murder. Also I impulse bought two vintage magazine ads which are both seductive and irresistible so clearly I had no choice. OH! and the book on knitting your own farmyard. Not just the animals, not just the farmer, but the houses and landscape too. That one is going to be hard to part with even though I have no intention of knitting, not ever.