Originally Posted by
G-DDT
I mention the last point, because estate sales in Dearborn are a peculiar thing. I have gone to quite a few of them [[only passed up one on Highland St. that belonged to some important deceased radio personality because the line was outrageous, the items overpriced, and the estate sale company insisted everyone must put on "shoe booties" before entering). They are mostly held in homes of aging German Catholics who passed on or went into a nursing facility, and their kids hire folks to come in, arrange, price, promote, and sell all the Hummel [[or clowns or dolls-lots of folks in Dearborn were into Doll-making or Dollhouses), silverware, encyclopedias sets, half-used house cleaners, and postcards rather than toss all of it out into one giant wasteful pile on the curb.
Estate sales are a step above most garage sales [[I'm less likely to walk away empty-handed with an estate sale vs. a garage sale), but they do draw a throng of odd personalities. There are folks in the large South Eastern Michigan area who constantly have their ear to the grapevine and will travel great lengths [[Clarkston and Saginaw are no big hike for them) just to be at these sales. If a sale starts at 10a., they will start lining up outside at 5a. in the morning [[no lie), and the line will continue until 12p. [[I've actually waited in some of them), as the folks running the sales will let in a limited amount of folks at a time and issue out numbered tickets. The folks fanatical about this know the various companies running estate sales [[and rate them), and they all know each other, as they greet each other and swap juicy tidbits about the sales they've just hit up. Should one be a regular well-known frequenter of such sales and is a collector, when they pass away, all the other sale-goers can't wait to dig in and check out the estate sale of the items put up from what they once collected.
Some of the estate sale companies I've seen are private family-owned deals, and the folks roped into working for them look tired all the time. Sometimes they are too tired to help carry out large items. On more than one occasion I've volunteered to help a single mom jam in and strap down a large collection of furniture to their minivan that they bought from a sale.
I've seen the most ridiculous personalities get indignant and start holding up lines with their petty haggling, even when they are already getting a dang good deal with the haul they already have. I even saw one woman tell a woman to her face that she was a "bad person", just because they weren't getting their way [[while I actually got quite a good deal from the seller).