Last weekend Rich held another one. As it turns out, our only allowed one for the year, per the HOA! Now the remainders are again cluttering up our world, awaiting their removal either to a: another friend's site where they can be offered again, b: the back of my car for multiple trips to local thrift stores, or c: a dumpster. If a and b fail within a certain time frame, c is mandatory. There will be grumbling, but tough!
The sale had its moments. I decided to offer some snuff bottles that I realized I'd stored in a display cabinet for, apparently, hiding away for a decade. They're not the inside painted ones I treasure, and keep in their boxes in totes to prevent sun damage to their colors. They're also not the ones I collected as examples of various stones. While nice enough,these were not what I treasure. So I put 8 of them out, thinking either our customers would look at them and yawn, or would go, "Wow! Chinese art! Gimmee gimmee!" At $20 a pop, they would both indicate value and still be bargains for the enthusiastic Chinese art collector.
Along came a pair of women who informed us they were from Jackson Hole. Not Jackson, but Jackson Hole. Emphatically. Despite other Jackson locals we've met who insist the opposite. They were down here, having left their husbands back home plowing the latest snowfall. And, incidentally, they were here bargain shopping. One of them spotted the bottles, made an offer for the lot which I accepted, and we all were happy. Except... The woman who hadn't purchased the lot had her eye on a particular cloisonne bottle which had two cast metal dragon handles. I just suggested she bring it up with her friend. Hopefully, still her friend.
When Steve came back from his next stint minding the sale, he informed me that another fellow, conveniently across the street and two houses up, had also been interested and wondered if there were any more. Next morning I put the rest of the ignored bottles out, same price range, and then went and knocked on the right door and informed him that more were there if he were interested. He promised to come by later. What he meant by that, it turned out, was he was going to drive by later without stopping on his way elsewhere. Oh well. At least he waved from his car. I can spend that on....
There were books offered for sale too, and one couple who had been doing very serious browsing and some actual buying caught my attention. He picked up a thick book on the slightly higher priced table ($2 vs. $.25) and took it over to where she was looking at something. What I heard him say, was "Look at this book, it'll look great in our library, won't it?" Opening it to a random page, he explained to her, "Look at all these words!"
Uh, OK, sure. Books have lots and lots of words. Glad you get excited by them. I'll happily take your money, fella, whatever your reason. I glanced over at the open page and noted that indeed, it did hold lots of them. The ones at the beginning left margin in each paragraph were printed in bold type. Ah ha! It must have been some kind of dictionary, likely a two language translation / dictionary. So, not a complete rube after all. At least not this way. But still....
Look at all the words, Honey!
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