Welcome to garage sales Unhinged.
Where the characters are as quirky as the vines.
I'm Julie. And I'm Jake.
Join us as we dive into the wild world of garage sales, yard
sales, estate sales, and anywhere secondhand sales are
happening. From bizarre bargains to
hilarious haggles. You won't believe the stories
we've got lined up. Let's get unhinged.
Jacob, whenever I say the word treasure hunting, well, I guess
that's 2 words. Whenever I say the phrase
treasure hunting, I tell you that let's.
Let's cut that. We'll edit it out.
No, I'm going to keep it real because I am an.
Idiot. Whenever you hear the phrase
treasure hunting, what comes to mind?
Pirates. Is that wrong you?
Kind of said it with a question mark like yeah, worldwide.
Is that the right answer? Is that the right answer?
Did I win? Did I?
Did I prove I have the high IQ? OK, so let's let's pretend that
you're a pirate. What kind of equipment would you
need to go hunt the treasure? Well, a shovel, a map, probably
a parrot. What is that parrot going to do?
What does it provide you? It seemed, well it it it's kind
of your standard load out as a pirate.
I think they really should have. It'd be really funny bit to make
a pirate show and every pirate has a parrot on their shoulder
like every one of them. Yeah, because you don't.
You usually just see one pirate per crew.
Yeah, and I mean, I don't know where I grew up.
That was always the captain. He's got a a parrot for some
reason. OK so gosh, this is going to
show my nerd. When I was in college I did a
quote UN quote study abroad but never went abroad.
We just worked with the animals. Ever.
Yeah, apparently you don't have to go abroad.
When you say we did a quote UN quote study abroad, but we
didn't go anywhere, it sounds like it's something you
shouldn't share on a podcast that our parents extensively
listen to. It no, it was fine.
But in this course, we worked with the animals at our the
local zoo, and the animals that I worked with were monkeys and
birds. And so really we were doing
animal husbandry, we were trying to do environmental enrichment.
And one of the animals that I worked with was a macaw.
Do you know what a macaw is? It's a it's a parrot.
Yeah, so it's the big pretty. They're about 3 feet long
parrots that, you know, sometimes they can talk.
Not all of them talk. And I think a lot of times
people buy them as pets thinking like, oh, they're going to
speak. Not all of it.
You have to train it to do that. So like it's a whole thing.
These macaws get very big and they can get very aggressive.
The best way to describe a macaw that the zookeepers told me was
imagine a three-year old toddler with very sharp talons because
they would want to tear up everything.
So like, whenever we put different types of things into
their cage for animal enrichment, they would shred
them in about 10 seconds. So like, we would shove celery
sticks and they had in their enclosure, they had like,
chicken wire around for the walls, and we would shove celery
sticks in there so that they could chew on it.
They could, you know, hold it, whatever.
Those birds would grab those celery celery sticks.
That's really hard to say. Would grab those sticks and just
tear them to shreds. And it was supposed to be like,
hey, what could keep them in enriched for 30 minutes?
I didn't have enough. I didn't have celery money back
in college. Like that was a lot of money.
So then we went to corn cobs. No, they could tear that in five
seconds. Like, yeah, so the thing was is
that they had three of these macaws in one habitat, and two
of them didn't like the third one.
And so they constantly would pick on it.
So whenever you say that every pirate should have one of these
birds, the mayhem that would happen on a boat, it's just
Jake. I know what you're saying, but
I'm just letting you know it's a bad idea.
Well, OK, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take that under advisement.
No multi pirate. Multi pirate pirate movie.
Multi pirate pirate that say that three times fast.
Right. So, so you're asking me what?
What is it involved in treasure hunting in this scenario?
Yeah. You need a shovel.
You need a map, and you probably need some.
You need some guys to go do the digging for you.
You need guys and you're going to like shout at and, you know,
angrily wave your sword and like, they'll dig it and they'll
bring you the treasure, I guess just on the honor system and
you're you're set. I like how you've all
automatically elevated yourself to pirate manager.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, no, I don't have any
dirty work. Three Pirate Direct reports that
will like go and go like you guys dig up the treasure and
just let's do a status update. We'll circle back on the
treasure hunt. So is that the wrong answer?
Is it not pirates? There's no wrong answer.
I mean, it probably is, but I'm not.
I'm going to let you go for that one.
So what I really want to talk about is treasure hunting in the
second hand market and what kind of tools do people need to take
with them when they are on the hunt for their treasure?
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make your next sale a success. So I did a vast amount of
research, about 3 minutes worth of what kind of tools do people
take whenever they are going to go find their second hand
treasure? Do you want to take a guess at
to what some of these tools are? Now when you say tools are we,
are we, are we going to be nerdy and be like, well, the
smartphone is an excellent tool or something like that Or are
you saying these are actual like something other than a piece of
technology? It's something other than a
piece of technology. So maybe a tape measure, like if
you're going to look at furniture, you want to make your
pits and everything like that. So here's The thing is, you
know, taking a heavy duty construction tape measure, great
because those go up to 2050 feet, whatever it is, 100 feet.
The other thing is that if people are looking for clothing
and not all clothing has similar sizing, they would want to take
like a, a fashion tape measure. And those are the ones that are,
they bend easy. They're almost like a ribbon
tape measure. So there's two different types
of tape measure that people do take.
OK, what else? Really depends on what you're
going after. I think in some antique places,
if you're going after like dinnerware, you probably want
something to test for lead, like, so you know what you're
getting. Yeah.
Like something that would like tell you whether, like, whether
this material is actually in a, like a valuable material, like,
is this true gold? Is this actually silver?
Something like that. So what people recommend is
taking a magnet to test for different metals.
So I don't remember if silver is actually magnetic or if it's
not. I saw a video on it and of
course it didn't stick with me because I don't hunt for silver.
But also having it a jewelry loop.
So that would help with looking for.
So jewelry Loop is like the magnifying glass that Jewelers
used to look at. OK, Yeah.
And so that way it would help you find the markings on a piece
of gold of says, you know, if it's 141824 karat.
You can also look at jewelry up close to see.
And part of me is going like that would be so much fun to
have. I wouldn't know what I'm
actually. Yeah, I know.
It'd be fun just to like, have the little monocle thing be
like, you know, and looking at it, I don't know what I'm doing.
Yeah, I've missed this much in your energy into it.
I'll take it. I guess.
I just, I just came here to show my costume.
I, I have a friend who's a very skilled jeweler and she has a
jewelry loop and like sometimes she'll bring it whenever she
comes to visit. And I'm like, oh, do you want to
look at my jewelry? And we can look at him like tell
me which one's fake. I don't know.
Yeah, I'd make the mistake of wearing my jewelry loop behind
my pirate eye patch. It really wouldn't work out.
That would be such a rude awakening whenever like someone
like ripped off your eye patch and it's just a jewelry loop
there. Somebody else also mentioned
that they take various types of batteries with them.
This is a great idea, like especially if you're going to
garage sales, estate sales and you want to test out a piece of
equipment and it needs a AA, it needs a AAA battery, something
like that to be able to, to test it out saying yes, it works and
what you want to buy it or not. The I like that idea, but then
part of me is going like how many different types of
batteries would you have to bring?
So like let's say that I wanted to collect watches and I went to
an estate cell and a watch didn't work.
Am I going to pry out to watch and like dig into my bag of
batteries to find the watch battery?
Like I feel like that how much of batteries would start to
corrode pretty fast. Yeah.
Well, and if you do, you know, carry around the batteries or at
least prepared for anybody, like any wayward pirates that, you
know, try to try to attack you in the parking lot and just
swing those batteries around and take my.
I'm now concerned that you're just going to dress up as a
pirate and go about your life. Well, look, you got me started
on Treasure Hunt and. Sorry, my bad, you can't.
Start there. Another person recommended
taking a screwdriver. Why a screwdriver?
If you need to take something apart to look at the inside of
it to like, and I think about it like, hey, is it again, it's
probably going to go to electronics or a child's game.
And I've seen before, like to access the battery panel, you
have to unscrew a screw to get into the the battery
compartment. But for a lot of people, they're
like, yeah, I wish I'd had a screwdriver whenever I was out
looking for at things. And it helps you just to like
either price up a part or get into the the innards of it or
whatever it may be. I don't know.
I've never thought about taking a screwdriver.
But again, like I think about it of like I'm looking at my office
lamp. It's like if I was in the market
to actually purchase a vintage lamp, I'd probably want to have
a screwdriver to look at the wiring to look at the inside of
it because like, you know, did mice get into it, something like
that. And you really want to be able
to say, hey, is this worth it or not?
I think as the second hand scene gets more mature and more people
kind of invest more energy into it, the more places it's, it's
not uncommon that they actually do their diligence and they're
not going to try to sell you something that's not working or
they'll at least let you know its status and a lot of stuff
like that. There's an area like, hey, we
got outlets over here, you want to test it, test it.
But I guess what you're describing those situations
where you'd need these tools to suss out whether something's
worth it or not. Honestly, in those scenarios,
that's where you're maybe you're more likely to find an extremely
rare thing. Yeah, very.
I mean, again, we're treasure hunting.
We're not just going for a ride on a weekend to go.
We are treasure hunting this other thing.
OK, Totally makes sense to have this.
Again, if you are an avid treasure hunter, you're going to
dig deep for this treasure. Latex gloves.
Yeah, yes, I guess. Man honestly there's like just
some straight brick and mortar franchise retail places I feel
like I should wear latex gloves in.
Yeah, part of me is like, I mean, I, I, I appreciate the
latex glove especially. Like some of the places I've
gone to, things are dusty, moving things around, that type
of thing. And like by the end of it, my
hands are covered in dust and dirt and like, I just want to
wash them and all that stuff. I'm going, yeah, latex gloves
would probably help with like the germs that you collect from
these places. I also think, like going to a
garage sale of like, don't really know if the person that's
hosting the garage sale, like, did they really wipe down
everything? Yeah, good to have latex gloves.
Not a bad. Idea.
Good life advice not just for second hand sales.
The last item I have on my list is AUV Light You.
You went in the direction I was hoping you didn't go in.
Oh no. So some people say, yes, going
to a thrift store, a Goodwill garage sale and they're going to
purchase clothing they will do AUV light and part of and
something were like, listen, I know I'm going to launder it
before I wear it. I really don't need to know
what's on it in order for me to purchase it.
This is where latex gloves come in handy.
But the UV light is also good to find the the radioactive glass.
Oh, OK. Yeah, I can't think of the
actual name that I'm trying to think of for this glass.
Uranium glass. Yes.
So whenever you shine and it has to be a specific type of UV
light, but whenever you shine this light onto the glass, it'll
glow green and that's how you know it is radioactive, but
that's how you know it was made with that mineral chemical.
I don't know what is it? What is uranium?
Well, it's an. Element, there you go.
Like there's, there's an isotope going on.
If it's not made from that, it's, if it's not, look, if it's
not from the uranium region of France, it's just sparkling
water. Oh my God, I hope some child is
not listening to this podcast on the way to school and they are
having to take a quiz in their chemistry class and they're
like, is it real uranium or is it sparkling water?
It's like, no, that's not on the quiz.
Just answer the periodic table. But yeah, the pirate guy said.
Yeah, yeah. He he wants so many birds that
they're going to fight on a boat.
Man if. If some, yeah, if that kids
going to get sent to some counselor because if he's
talking like that, you know, uranium, sparkling water pirate
guy, mini birds fighting on a boat.
They are shredding their sticks and latex clothes.
There you go. Yeah.
But I thought it was interesting of like, you know, before I, you
know, we've talked about like, what do you take with you to go
second hand cell? And we've always talked about a
tape measure. Yes.
But looking at these other ideas, I was like, oh, these,
these do make sense, especially to your point that you said
earlier, if I knew what I was on the hunt for, then I would know
what kind of tools to take with me.
Because again, if I'm on the hunt for a diamond ring, I'm
probably not going to take a screwdriver or batteries like,
but if I'm on the hunt for an electronic thing, then yeah, I
want to take batteries. I want to take screwdriver.
I want to, you know, maybe take a small flashlight to look into
things. So I thought it was kind of an
interesting thing. And like if anyone's out there
going, yeah, I really want to go treasure hunting this weekend to
garage sales, yard sales, estate sales.
And before you leave the house, make sure you got your your
Fanny pack full of all the equipment that you need to go
spelunking in estate sell alley. You got to be prepared, you got
to do it, you got to take the right stuff.
Why'd you become like an Italian pirate?
You got to do it. You got look, you got to do it
right. Don't be a nincompoop.
I don't think that's Italian. Maybe that's just Jersey.
That's my pirate. You don't like my pirate?
No, I don't like your pirate. Pirate's weird.
That was my pirate's parrot, actually.
You don't like my pirate parrot? No.
Are you trying to make all these tongue twisters so if I try to
repeat it I can't do it You? Don't like my pirate parrot
patois you want? To add in another P word to this
before we sign off. No, because it's going to get
dangerous. Well, I wanted to bring that to
everyone's attention this week and that's what we got for
episode. Thanks, Jake.
You all right? You got to do it.
Bye.