Halloween Estate Sale Finds

My mom and I like to check out local estate sales. We're usually on the hunt for vintage jewelry and glassware, and have found some very nice antiques in the past. Yesterday, mom was combing through the classified ads and found an estate sale with some important words in its description: Halloween items.

So, after going to a Farmer's Market, we drove to the estate sale. It was just something we fit into the day. I doubt either of us expected to find such great things at dirt cheap prices. As nice as a lot of items are at estate sales, the holiday things are usually just cheap old knick-knacks. Not this time!

I left the price stickers on what we bought, because I wanted to brag about the deals we found. :) The most expensive thing we bought cost $4.00! I'm not sure what its intended use was, but I imagine this enamel bucket as a cookie jar. It could also work as an ice bucket, candy container, or flower pot. It was marked Hallmark and still had its price sticker of $9.99 from whenever it was being sold in stores. I'm thinking that was a while back, because everything is so expensive now! I searched for this pumpkin bucket online and found it being sold for $28, $65, and $68! I guess $4.00 wasn't so much to pay after all.

This paper mache pail is somehow both a pumpkin and a skull at the same time. It has sort of a Day of the Dead feel to it. I'm not sure which store carried this originally, but it cost $6.99 once upon a time. We got it for 25 cents!

These pumpkin earrings were another 25 cent find! They are marked with a "lifetime guarantee". I'm thinking that this offer no longer applies since the company was in business from 1932-1998. Although, I can't see myself complaining about anything I got for 25 cents anyway!

I saved the most exciting find for last. I saw this cauldron (probably not its intended purpose) buried under some other things. It was marked $1.00 so I figured it was plastic. In any event, I figured it was cute for one buck and it would be a good decoration for our annual witches party! So, I picked it up and was surprised to find that it was made from a very heavy ceramic. This definitely had to come home with us.

I looked the cauldron over later in the day and tried to guess how old it is. The woman who was running this estate sale looked like she was in her 60's and it was her mother's and grandmother's stuff that was being sold. So I knew this could potentially be pretty old. I turned it over and was excited to see a maker's mark!

It was marked RRP Co. Roseville. O U.S.A
I told my mom it was marked Roseville and she got pretty excited, as any Antiques Roadshow fan would be. Roseville pottery is a big deal as a collectable. Well, I looked it up and found that RRP (Robinson Ransbottom) Roseville is different from standard Roseville pottery. Both companies were manufacturing out of Ohio around the same time, but original Roseville is worth a little more. This is because they've been out of business since 1954, while RRP Roseville has only been out of business since 2005. Both the Roseville company and the RRP Roseville company went into business around 1900! I'm still trying to learn how old our cauldron is.

Anyway, I decided to see how much our dollar find was worth. After an online search, I learned that one of these (that is half the size of ours) sells for somewhere between $40 and $80. I couldn't find any big ones like ours (8.5 " x 12") online. I'm thinking our cauldron is worth way more than $1.00 for pottery collectors. Don't worry, it isn't going anywhere. You'll all get a chance to see it as a decoration in the party photos this year! Maybe it will even be the centerpiece on the table. It would look nice holding some roses.

The woman who had this estate sale told us that she hadn't gone through most of her mother's belongings yet. She said her entire home and basement was filled with 400 boxes. I couldn't tell if that was an exaggeration. Anyway, she said there would be many more Halloween things for sale, so we should come by again. So, there might be a few more blog posts about Halloween estate sale finds in the future!

Oh, and even though this isn't Halloween related, here's a photo of what we bought at the Farmer's Market:

These peppers were just too pretty not to share! I think they'll be turned into salsa in the next few days.

The costume I mentioned in the last post has arrived in the mail. I'm really pleased with all the costume parts and started taking some photos of them today. I'll share all of that in the next blog post!