SecondMoonshot

Zabrina has hand crafted a few initial sets of blank greeting cards featuring her moon and natural scenery photography. These are in individual cellophane sleeves and available in sets of 10 on Etsy. The price is $19.99 USD and domestic shipping included.  Visit our  Etsy SecondMoonshot Store to see more details or order. Have you seen the retail price of greeting cards lately? $2 per card is a deal! Number sold: ZERO Dropped price to $9.99 with free shipping and nothing. Going to just start giving away in the eBay shipments as a Freebee. They are on eBay now and not Etsy if you want to get a set…heck  pay shipping and they are yours   John and Zabrina

 A few shots from Zabrina of the Hunters Full Moon early this morning. John

Over the last year, I have gotten couple items which I just haven’t been able to identify. For some reason, that only encourages me to buy it! See if you can offer any help and post your thoughts in the comments. #1 - Some kind of needle or primitive pick? (SOLD) I got these with some other upholstery and rug making or repair lot, so best guess might be some kind of rug or upholsters needle. They are made of steel (magnetic), too heavy to be knitting needles which are traditionally lighter weight. SOLVED : Bull pin #2 - Some kind of mini sewing machine-like device? (SOLD) Got this recently, haven’t researched yet. It’s a bit rusty and cast iron, about 6” tall, and it moves/rotates in some way, but all the rust might be jamming things up. Some medieval garlic press maybe? There are 1/2” needle like tines below the small platform. SOLVED : Reasonably certain this is a device to get the pits out of grapes or raisins (based on what the buyer told me, but sounds right). This was the fastest...

On Saturday, decided to hit a JMS Sale which turned out pretty good getting some decent items and very fair prices (typical JMS)….and did a bit of low effort picking in the garage. While I was in the garage attic, I noticed a large volume of flat large heavy duty boxes and also picture boxes, probably a few hundred. Went back on Sunday to get the boxes with Zabrina and to make it worth JMS’ time, picked up a few other things along the way. We got as many boxes that we could get into our Volvo XC60, which ended up being about a 30” stack. I will use these for custom boxes, cut down into backing board for the books and other periodicals, but will be great for custom boxes of large pictures which really need the heavy duty cardboard (which I have been getting at Lowe’s for probably $3.50 each - so this should cover me for a year or two! Update: The Chalk board was listed as a “Harvard” chalk board, not sure why as it had an IKEA sticker on it, apparently from the Luns product line. Didn’t...

 Some of the latest, a few really nice half-moon pics with good detail. Starting to look for a 500mm lens for her to take it to the next level. John

 I originally had some travel planned today but that fell through and ended up finding one of those infrequent Thursday estate sales by a company I haven’t been to before in Oxford, NC…Lloyd’s Estate Sales. It was to start at 9a, so I got there at 8a and noone was there, I wasn’t even sure if maybe there was an error or it was cancelled. Decided to make a run to an ATM (which apparently, Wells Fargo does not recognize Oxford). When I returned, there was a small line of 5 or 6 people and I got to the end. The owners didnt show up until 8:45a, not something that I see that often, most recognize the value of a list and then once your on the list, you can go get a bite to eat, restroom, etc….anyway, probably an opportunity for them in that regard or they just dont like the concept of a list…its their company, so who am I to dictate.  The other customers were all relatively docile, courteous and no major jockeying for position, a good casual estate sale, the kind I like. There wasn...

Decided to go to a couple sales this weekend and ended up starting at a first day sale with Carolina Estate Sales and a second day 2 house sale with JMS Estate Sales. Both a positive overall experience. Carolina Estate Sales This sale was in the North Raleigh area and less than 10 miles from the house. Mostly mid-upper end stuff and we didn’t make any huge effort to get there too early, opting to stop in 1 hour before, get our number, and go check out a few garage sales in the area (which didn’t yield much). This sale was the type I tend to enjoy the most because the people (Staff and customers) were all super nice, prices were reasonable as much as could be expected for a 1st day sale and we ended up with some decent picks. This was the first time we did one of the Carolina Estate Sales and were very pleased overall. A solid professional crew. JSM Estate Sales This sale with JMS was a combination of a tag sale and a picker sale.  I decided not to go there on the first day as it wa...

Let’s blog about something other than eBay! I decided to take my first vacation since the origin of SecondMoonshot! It has been in planning for the last 9 months and planned out with precision by Mark, a colleague from years past in corporate America. He’s one of the few people I still keep in touch with from that world and he coordinated a 4 day driving vacation, of which I only participated in 2 of the days - the last 2 days were track time at Road Atlanta which perhaps I’ll do next year. The overall plan was for a group of like-minded car guys to meet up at a hotel/resort near Robbinsville NC (Tapoco Lodge) and ride the Tail of the Dragon and many other spirited roads along the area, stopping for some great sights, keeping an eye on the speed limit (then completely abandoning it), and having some great food which mostly consisted of pork product. Pretty much everyone were serious driver with tons track time and I was the weakest link, but felt like I held my own for the most part, a...

Not too often we see a Thursday estate sale and had some time to kill so took the 40 minute truck from Wake Forest to Apex, NC. It was a liquidation sale and pretty much a bust. Got a few items which will probably brake even on but maybe will get lucky with. Everything was priced above any price a reseller would purchase at and threw in significant lots of consignment (most low quality items) for giggles. Not much more to say about this. I have been to previous sales from this crew and none were memorable (other than the prices) although people were personable. John

Following up on my post on Finding Signed Books , I thought I would share the outcome of a 3rd visit to a local thrift shop in Raleigh, NC….North Raleigh Ministries Thrift Store. Went to a dud of an estate sale so on the way home, wanted to see if maybe I could salvage the day and hit the store. I have been there a few times before and previously have come away with 12-18 books and probably 2 dozen on the first trip. They have about 10-12 bookshelves with 5 rows of books each (6’ shelves or so). Overall, the hunt took me probably about 25 minutes, skipping some of the religious areas and kids books. I was very selective on what I pulled off shelves and only passed on one book, Flame-Out by James Blackburn as I already have 2 copies and they are generally low value; I don’t need another but picked it up to see if it was signed…it was. This store is in a pretty nice area of town with homes ranging from the $500k - $1m, and not far from downtown, so no surprise this get some good donation...