Tuesday Treasures - part of the City-Wide Yard Sale Special! - October 1, 2024

 Yes, another City-Wide Yard Sale took place.  It seems like it came too soon after the last, and that was this past May, so I wasn't just imagining it!  Not a lot of participants, and what was offered wasn't very interesting, just a few odds and ends not worth mentioning.  That changed!

I'd gotten some cash at the grocery store, and put it in my purse with the receipt.  My son and I went yard saling, and I ran out of money.  I'd used $1 bills, and I thought I'd lost my $5 bill somewhere.  We came home, and then I found I'd folded the cash in with the receipt, and I hadn't spend it at all!  By then my son was done (or so he thought), and I went to St. Vincent de Paul (they have a minimum of $5 to use credit or debit, so that cash was burning a thrifting hole in my wallet!) to check out the postcard situation.  They had some. 

 They also had this artist's proof #2 print called "Women" by K. Simon, done in 1968, for $1.00 (in mat).  I don't know how many in the total print run, since an artist's proof isn't numbered like usual.  An artist's proof is for the artist's use, to check quality before the first numbered print, or to check the quality during the printing process.   Some people collect only artist's proofs as they are rarer, usually only 10% of a total edition.   This is the first time I've seen an artist's proof numbered. 

I'd forgotten I'd received a text while out earlier, and finally read it.  A friend was telling me about a yard sale, including photos with lots of artwork!  I rushed right over!  Lots of artwork.  Some big, some small.  Some paintings, many antique prints and photographs. I asked how much and the woman said, "Small are $1, large are $2."  WHAT?  Why was anything left?  She emptied a tote for me to put my choices in, and I filled that thing!  Well, nearly.  17 items I think.  I wondered how much it would be, so far, so I could base the rest of my shopping.  $18!  Not $2 for the large at all! 

Some of the best and/or most interesting.  (I did remove some from their frames and rotting backing)

I wonder if this is one of those traveling pony photographer ponies?

I haven't identified this spot.  It wasn't until after I took it out of its frame I noticed the gravestone!  It was framed in Mountain View, CA.  I think this might be Lake Tahoe.

This is one of my favorite finds.  I think.   It's a copper engraving from the 1785 French edition of a book of Capt. Cook's third voyage (which has this ridiculously long title) of "An opossum of the land of Diemen." Van Diemen's Land is Tasmania.  He described the animal as being twice the size of a large rat, with "long, soft, glossy hair of a rusty brown color and a dirty white belly."  There are five opossum species in Tasmania, one being the sugar glider.

I have another print from the English edition, ''A Man of Kamtschatka, Travelling in Winter," which shows a man and sled dogs in Russia.  These two are my oldest prints.

Watercolor by M. Minor - in a hideous frame I will date to the 1970s!  Painted wood sprayed with some sort of texture.

You know what?  I'm going to make a post tomorrow with more of the artwork from this sale.  There's a lot to cover, and I want to get on with the story!

So, after filling my tote (which they let me take), I browsed the books.  SO many books!  Newer, older, vintage, antique.  I found a few, and after spending a mere $20 I went home.  I went home to convince my son he needed to go back to look at the books!  It helped that I'd found something he was very interested in, and along with the lure of more, we went back.  

I had already gotten all the art I wanted.  In fact, most of the art that there had been!  So, books it was.  And magazines.  And other old periodicals.  And more old photos, which I consider art.  

A sampling.  The first is artwork in a book. 

What is says on the cover, from the St. Louis Artist's Guild.

24, plus the cover, original block prints. 

Mixed in with old magazines (and I mean old old, antique old, not just dated old) were these four wedding portraits.  One definitely dates to the 1920s, and I have no reason to believe the others would be different.

I'll leave it at this for today, and leave you with this photo of cypress and the Pacific Ocean in Carmel, CA. 

Tomorrow brings some interesting things!  A teaser... Salvador Dali! No joke.