Saturdays, the store is short-staffed and I often end up doing all sorts of things outside my Books & Toys.
I. Apples
To begin with, yesterday I bagged apples--this industrial gaylord was donated half-full of them.
We gave them away to people dropping off donations and put bags of them in the front exit hallway too, for people to take. They were all gone by the end of the day.
I. Apples
To begin with, yesterday I bagged apples--this industrial gaylord was donated half-full of them.
We gave them away to people dropping off donations and put bags of them in the front exit hallway too, for people to take. They were all gone by the end of the day.
My hair is gleaming in the sunlight of the donations-bay garage door.
II. End Caps
Since Ass't Man left three months ago, no one's been doing anything creative with displays.
For the past month, Xmas decorations dominated. Xmas was taken down, leaving the three end-caps bare. So I did them (two, below).
We had a lot of little bird statues, which I put throughout.
The blue typewriter ^ is the most interesting thing. Ten bucks!
A customer asked me if it worked. (He was early middle-age.)
I plugged it in for him, and it does work.
The platen returned all the way to the left. "It's broken," he said.
"I think it just needs adjusting," said I, old person who took Typing in high school.
I fiddled with it, and yep--there's a key that says "SET", which allows you to set the paten return.
"I don't want it," the customer said. "Maybe if it had a case..."
I did not say, "Why did you ask then?"
Ass't Man came in later and said the end caps looked nice. I said he should come volunteer and do them--Honestly, the staff is calmer and happier without Ass't Man, and I'm not interested in being friends with him, but I hand it to him--he has design skills.
"I was thinking I'd like to do that," he said. "I don't have kid duties on Thursdays, I could come in after school.
. . .You know it was my favorite thing."
It's weird to have this somewhat intimate knowledge of someone whom you don't trust. Again, I feel like we are a divorced couple.
"I do know," I said, "and you were the best at it."
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Donations have been kinda lackluster lately, but there's always something interesting--like this, below, plaster St. Therese of the Little Flowers in a glass shadow box.
Volunteer Art dislikes Catholica (he grew up Catholic and thinks it’s creepy)--and he always prices kitschy stuff way too low. I grabbed it and priced it $48.
Looked online later and see them for $160, and up.
ABOVE right: And this vintage dresser with awesome art-deco pulls!
I don't usually price furniture, but Grateful J asked me for help.
He'd just put this piece out when a woman offered him $25. This woman restores furniture--she knew very well it was worth a lot more. The drawer pulls alone!
J sensed it was worth more, so he asked me to look it up.
I did a google image search and found a similar one (from the 1930s) for $2,000 on Chairish--an overpriced site, but indicative.
$250, I said.
"Oh, I wouldn't pay more than $50," she said.
Her haircut cost more than $50.
"If it doesn't sell, we'll drop the price," I said. "But people in this neighborhood need working furniture, so it'll sell for more than fifty to someone who just needs a chest of drawers."
The price was high for the store--we don't get a lot of antique collectors--and I thought it wouldn't sell for that much.
But within an hour, someone else bought it--didn't bat an eye at the price.