It's Coming....

Elkhart, IN     High:  79 (!)  Low:   49

It's coming, it's coming...The "S" word, and it's not Sparky.....SHHHHHHHHH.....(Don't say it, Sparky...SN** for those who want to know.) REALLY? We're gonna get SNOW? Naw...Sparky is just having a little fun with Eldo. He's ready to leave Elkhart, with temperatures heading to a low of 33 degrees at night on Sunday...Hey, with  little precipitation, Sparky MIGHT get to see her SNOW before she leaves...HAH! Says E. And he also says, BAH, HUMBUG! 

Aw-w-w-w, c'mon, sweetie...let's stay a little longer so I can see SNOW.....(NOPE! Not happenin'....We have to go to Red Bay, Alabama to get our slide floor fixed. Sparky knows that.)  She was just having a little fun teasing....But first, we are still catching up with friends and doing the routine doctor/dentist appointment thing...And-- Grandparents' Day is happening tomorrow at both grandsons' schools so that's where we'll be all day tomorrow...

We went back to Shipshewanna today, to the auction once again...There was a hay auction going out in back of the auction barn...The Amish were out in full force today selling their hay or buying, we're not sure which...If you've never seen a hay auction, they are interesting. The buyers smell the hay and sometimes take a bite of it before they bid on it!

Back into the auction barn we went. So much fun to see what new stuff came in THIS week.....Cool trunks.....

Cool tools...Sparky loves old tools as well as new ones....

A really cool Junior Typwriter....Sparky's brothers used to have one! What's interesting now that Sparky looks back on this, is the technology of turning the wheel to line up the letter, then pushing the lever, is very similar to those Dymo label makers of today that you turn the wheel to stamp the white "embossed" letters onto plastic labels that come in different colors. This vintage kids' typewriter went for 25.00.

You see everything at the auction...Somebody brought in a bunch of ROCKS--probably not the correct terminology here...minerals? gemstones? Whaddya gonna do with these?

There was a cool lot of old typwriters, some Underwood, some Royal...

Everybody knows about Red Flyer wagons, but have you ever heard of a Dan Patch wooden wagon?

Sparky LOVES blue mason jars...But she didn't bid...These are common and easy to find currently....

Then, we saw THE ITEM that caused us to go and sign up for a bidder's number for 5.00 so we could get in the action.....Eldy's granddaughter, Cate, is a Beatles NUT and we thought this would make the perfect Christmas present! We got ready....We waited.....

And waited.......for the auctioneer to come to the records...We'd walk away and come back to see if it was still there...People moved it around...They put the Beatles record at the bottom of the stack of old 45's so nobody would see it. We came back to check on it.... We went away.....We came back....Somebody had moved it into the old children's books pile...HAH! Can't fool us..... We waited....FINALLY.....

The auction started....Eldy said he wasn't going to go any higher than 20.00 and knew he'd have to buy all the other records in the pile along with it, but that was ok. It looked like the original sleeve. The record itself was scratched some. We had no idea what it might be worth...We should have checked Ebay on our phones but the signal was very very poor inside the auction building.

Eldy got outbid. He bid again. It went past 20.00. Eldy walked away....We looked later on ebay and the Beatles 45 was going for around five bucks with the sleeve. There are some ridiculous prices on this record on Ebay, but nobody is paying them. The final stack of records went for 25.00. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some!

This little guy didn't lose, he scored some popcorn...

Tomorrow, Sparky and Eldo go to school!

An Awesome Auction

Elkhart, IN     High:  72   Low:  47

Time to check out the awesome auctions going on at Shipshewanna Auction barn....Sparky used to go to the auctions when she lived in the South Bend area years ago...It's fun, it's great to see what STUFF comes in that people want to get rid of and what ridiculous prices you might be able to get for it. And since it had been years since the last time she visited the auction in Shipshewanna, she wanted to see how it had changed and it has....Just like  all things do, the auction seemed to be smaller and bringing in less money for the sellers, due to the economy, for sure. Sparky made all the photos small today in hopes that all the photos won't cause too many problems for viewing.

You would think that people would run out of "old stuff" to bring into these auctions...But there was old stuff a-plenty here today....Old toys, old lamps, old furniture....

Some retro stuff...interesting chairs, eh?

Sparky saw some things she remembers from her childhood...Her mom had an old jewelry box that was like a little cabinet that looked just like this!

She remembers some of these old toys....

Her little brothers sitting in a similar wooden high chair...

And just in time for Halloween....

Old metal music stands...Sparky just liked the way the light hit these old pieces.....

An auction is a great place to people watch....

It's also a place that's LOUD and the cacophony was deafening with multiple auctioneers in multiple arenas--at least  six auctions all going at the same time! Sparky and Eldo didn't bid on anything, where are we gonna put it? :-)  But here are a couple of items Sparky was itching to bid on....stenciled hat boxes to store--what else?--yarn in a craft room....

Old fencing to mark a garden plot....

A cool storage cabinet to put rubber stamp pads and scrapbooking supplies in.....

A spool rack for winding ribbons or yarn on...

And that's not all...but it is for now...Sparky would definitely drag Eldo back to Shipshewanna often if we were in a sticks and bricks house! (Thank goodness, we're not! says a relieved E.)
There were TWO antique Maytag wringer washers that went out the door....

(Hey, Sparky....Too many photos today! Time to wrap it up! warns E.) Oops! Sorry about that, got on a roll with all the neat stuff at the auction today....OK...we'll see you later!