Auction Adventures 2025

I made the drive down to Salinas this weekend which is over an hour away. I was a little nervous as it was hard to find the house on Google maps. There are two streets reasonable close to each other with the same name. The address numbers were almost the same too. I bid on several Eldreth Santas so had a lot of money invested not to go. It was in a neighborhood of big custom homes up in the hills that surround Salinas. The home looked like it was built in the early 70's (very stylish) with beautiful views of the mountains. I was sad that I didn't get the whole collection of Santas but two pieces went way over the resell value. I was disappointed that the one piece I really wanted was the wrong size. That is one down side to online auctions as you don't get to see anything in person. Would I have bid on the collection if I had known the true sizes, probably not. But it was my fault for not doing a deep dive in researching what sizes these Santas came in. 

Since I was there, I went to the Goodwill bin outlet. There you pay per pound. Books are .75 per pound, metal and glass are .99 per pound. Not sure what the clothes sell for as I didn't get any. It was a slow day at the bins and not a lot of people there. Not sure if it was because it was Sunday and most resellers are selling at the flea markets or because of the fear of ICE raids. I was one of the few who did not speak Spanish. 

I picked up an American Test Kitchen cookbook (2001-2015) that weighs almost 7 pounds. No, I do not need another cookbook but this one was in perfect condition and I don't have it in my collection. The other things I picked up were't super special. I'm hoping the butter knife is silver but the whole lot came to $6. I think because the vintage glass pitcher was heavy.