Gotta love those Yard Sales

[WW]

Probably the wrong place to post this, but what the heck!

Me and the wife went yard saleing this morning. I found a 15 degree Big Agnes sleeping bag in perfect condition for $20 bucks. I\'m pleased! :dance2:

What are some of the good deals the rest of you guys have found?

 

[bnsafe]

i prefer to go to stores an pay extra for the same thing, lol. seems like it always works out that way. awesome buy though, congrats

 

[Swede]

I have picked up a few quality knives at garage/yard sales. It seems the junk is priced the same as the good stuff and few people know the difference. I have picked up some excellent tools for very little, and I purchased a like new army six person officers tent and a small tent for $50. Most of the time I find nothing I am interested in so I purchase nothing.

 

[WW]

You guys aren\'t looking hard enough. Last year I got a 1000 W Kawasaki generator for $25. Also got a commercial meat tenderizer for $5.

 

[Buglemaster]

Daaang Bill! I wanna go shopping with you! Did you feel any shame handing them the $ 20?

 

[Deertick]

Geez, Bill, don\'t you care about your local merchants?

 

[Billy Goat]

I love finding true deals at garage sales, or on occasion, thrift stores.

my hunting buddy Erik takes pleasure in finding the cheapest solution possible that still gets the job done.

this year, our cook-tent is a canvas tent he bought off craigslist for $20. it is a 1965 Sears, Ted Williams model. its in surprisingly good shape, despite being older than either of us..... it didn\'t come with tent poles, so he fabricated new tent poles out of ski poles (with grips removed) and 3/4\" conduit plus some pipe clamps to join the two.

Entire solution didn\'t cost $40, and its pretty danged nice.

our tent heater is a 55 gallon drum. I installed a 4\" exhaust flue and built a fire basket out of expanded metal. The exhaust flue came from a neighbors trash. Only thing we bought new was the 4\" exhaust elbow.

I asked him..... \"so Erik, you expect me to wager my once-a-year elk hunt, approximately a $2k investment, and very possibly my life on a $20, 50 year old tent with jerryrigged poles?\". He replies..... \"do we really have to use your drum heater?\"

the ironic part is, we\'re both gainfully employed engineers, and could afford fancy new store bought equipment, but for some reason we take extra pleasure in finding the cheapest working solution. I\'ll caution you that this approach is not without perils..... Next November I may be on here looking for a new Davis wall tent + stove assembly.... =P

shane

 

[bowhunter]

I picked up a 12x14 canvas wall tent fire and water treated and a heavy duty rain fly for $200 on Craigslist. I made my own internal frame for it. I got maybe 300 in it. With the poles and the tent it is heavy so it is a good base camp near the vehicle. The funny thing is I am taking a $10 tent I got on CL also instead. It is a 9X12 Ted Williams tent with an awning about 4x6 and all the poles. The tent is a 6oz canvas with a nylon floor. It is a little worn but in a couple good rains in the back yard no leaks. I plan to spray some waterproof on it and use it for the first week as it is much lighter and I am boating to camp with a small boat.

I also bought an Eberlstock Gunslinger Backpack at a thrift shop for $20 and it was NEW. I didn\'t like the way it fit me so I sold it on Ebay. I made $185 on it and picked up a NEW Badlands 2200 for $135. I like the Badlands much better.

 

[Billy Goat]

Terry, it sounds like we\'d do just fine around the campfire.

I forgot to mention that Erik\'s \"backup\" tent is ANOTHER ~11x11 Ted Williams tent, also procured for ~$20 on c-list. this one actually had the right tent poles, requiring less jerry-rigging.

Tents look goofy, with the ~50 year old style and color patterns, but they sure seem to hold up well. Looking at it, you kinda expect Wally and the Beaver to be strolling around camp with American made Zebco fishing gear....

what do yall use for waterproofing old tents? for some reason, I\'m thinking we ought to apply some to our LBJ-era tents....

 

[cnelk]

what do yall use for waterproofing old tents? for some reason, I\'m thinking we ought to apply some to our LBJ-era tents....

I used this. Set up your tent and put it on with an old paintbrush

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[Lark Bunting]

My son picked up a Thermarest 1.5 at a yard sale this past weekend for $5. He was very happy with the purchase!

 

[siskiyou]

Just this weekend...
A Grizzly 14 inch bandsaw for $25. Ordered new rubber for the wheels for $31. Will be good as new with the new tires.
A Husky 125C line trimmer for $25. Put a new head on it for $18. Very few hours on it...retails for over $200.
Two thermarests pads for $5.

Last year I bought a $500 Burley bike trailer for $35; didn\'t look like it\'d been used at all. Gave it to my friend for him and his toddler son.

And the list goes on and on.

The cheapskate yard sale regulars don\'t appreciate the better brands, so they don\'t buy things if they\'re priced a bit more than the other crappy brands.
If you know your brands, you can get good deals...

Case in point- I\'ll bet few yard sale regulars realized that the Big Agnes sleeping bag is not in the same
category as a Walmart bag, so $20 for a sleeping bag probably didn\'t seem like a deal to them. We know better.

I used to scoff at my wife\'s yard sale fanaticism, but now I find more stuff than she does.

 

[sojourner65]

I am envious of your yard sales out west! Here, all we see is kid\'s clothing, glassware, rusty open-end wrenches, and jewelry.

 

[WW]

I slept in my $20 Big Agnes bag the past two nights at 10,000 ft. elevation. It was like having an electric blanket with me. The second night I slept with it unzipped.

 

[Billy Goat]

not a HUGE score... but $5 for a set of Uniden walkie talkies.

my hunting partners and I always \"pair up\" and each pair hunts within a couple miles of each other. we touch base at 10a, then every hour on the hour til back at the truck. this is particularly helpful if one of us catches an elk mid day, so we can help fillet and packout.

one of my Midlands died last year, so I\'m happy to have a working pair again.

I will say this.... if you dont have line-of-sight to each other, or close, they dont work worth a darn.