Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504100047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The scene is Grandin Court. Tillett Road is teeming with traffic.
Cars flank both sides of the the street near Dave and Page Rock's brick home, and their front yard is full of people.
If this was nighttime, it might be a typical weekend teen beer blast. But the sun has just risen on Saturday morning, and the air is unusually sweet. Tulips and daffodils are blooming in flower beds.
So, it seems, are yards throughout the Roanoke Valley - with clothing, well-worn furniture, old appliances, unwanted bicycles and boxes of pots and pans.
Welcome to the annual advent of the spring yard sale season. The huge, unorganized scavenger hunt puts money in sellers' pockets and breathing room in their basements - while fulfilling buyers' quests for "great deals."
There were 133 advertised yard sales in the Roanoke Valley on Saturday, and scores of others that were promoted with no more than a few signs tacked to an odd telephone pole here and there.
For every person with a basement or attic full of junk, it seems, there are a dozen looking for good buys on pre-owned jigsaw puzzles, dog-eared paperback novels, foam pipe insulation, 8-track tapes or not-too-worn outfits for Junior.
Roanoker John Wilkes, who goes out almost every Saturday, is one of the people who has scored. He lifts an old German radio the size of a microwave oven into his beat-up Pontiac sedan. The Telefunken tabletop model cost Dave Rock's grandfather $140 plus change in 1958. Rock has just let it go for 30 bucks.
Wilkes is hoping to resell it for a profit at a booth he operates with his wife at Roanoke Antique Mall on Orange Avenue.
He works at this game. On Friday evening, armed with classified ads, he began plotting out the yard sales he would hit Saturday. He shows off a neatly-printed list of times and addresses. His car's trunk is crammed with finds.
The key, he says, is to get out early before the good stuff is gone.
Beyond the kitsch, the stretched-to-the-limit sweat pants and the bleary eyes of early bird bargain hunters, Wilkes offers this view: yard sales perform the vital societal function of recycling.
Sellers cash in on junk they would otherwise pay to get rid of at the dump. It goes to buyers who want it or need it, often people who couldn't afford it new.
Meanwhile, precious landfill space is conserved.
Of course, the popularity of yard sales also is a sign of a flourishing underground economy that remains untouched by local, state and federal tax collectors. Ask anybody if they report this income, and they just laugh.
For Cindy Ray, who has clothing and other household goods neatly laid out on her lawn at Eighth Street and Hill Avenue in Vinton, Saturday's tax-free take will buy a set of new bunk beds for her daughters.
"I'm going to get a new bumper bra for my car," said Ray's sister and yard sale cohort, Gwen Rogers.
They had one customer, they said, who buys only unrecognizable knick-knacks.
"She puts it all on a special shelf she has, marked `don't know what it is,''' Ray said.
Apart from the odd pile of plumbing parts or other items scattered here or there, most of Ray's and Rogers' merchandise is clothing. Apparel is one of the fastest sellers at any yard sale.
"Between the two of use, we've got six kids," Ray said. "And they kind of outgrow stuff."
"And fast," Rogers chortled.
The clothes at your average yard sale come in all sizes, types and colors. The kids' stuff moves quickest. Those Oshkosh overalls that retail for $20 can be had for a buck, sometimes cheaper.
For adults, its not unusual to find a pair of hardly worn, $3 jeans that could cost $30 at a retail store. Ray bragged about the 15 pairs of trousers she sold one man at $3 a pop.
The diversity of the duds is matched by the people who shop for them. Every race and age is represented on the yard sale circuit.
Shoppers range from skinny to fat, from rednecks to retro-hips, plus city slickers and suburban types. There's even an odd grungester here and there, although skinheads seem nowhere to be found.
Some arrive in Cadillacs, others in pickup trucks, vans, or small sedans.
Over on Thrush Street in Northwest Roanoke, Tammy Band surveys a lawn full of clothing, toys and car parts such as a $5 alternator and a set of small-block Chevy manifold pipes marked at $40.
"This is five people's stuff," she said. The other owners are not around. Each sale is carefully noted in a notebook, and the proceeds are divvied up at day's end.
Bandy estimated she'll take in $100 herself from these efforts. The biggest sale by 10 a.m. has been $24 to a woman who bought a bagful of stuff.
"Your flea-marketers get here real early," said Lashell Fink, Bandy's sister. "They buy in big quantities and then mark it up at double the price and resell it."
While the supply of car parts and tools seems plentiful, antiques are not. Perhaps the hottest items at any yard sale, antiques move so quickly that many buyers never see them.
Octogenarian Jerry Chocklett found that out Friday when he kicked off his first-ever yard sale with his wife, Alena, and their daughter, Ruby Boone.
Their yard on Jefferson Avenue in Vinton bustled with people Friday, and the timeworn dinette set, the ancient wheelbarrow and antique ladderback chairs moved fast.
"The [antique] dealers hit on Fridays," Boone said. "They're probably out at Happy's [Flea Market on Williamson Road] selling it now."
By early Saturday afternoon, sales were flat. The Chockletts couldn't give away the framed rooster created from glued multi-colored beans, or three electric razors, or the orange shower curtain hooks.
Chocklett's house is the 25th - and last - stop of the day for Christine Hayes of Botetourt County. Hayes, who has her three young daughters in tow, said she started the day with $20. She spends the last of it at Chocklett's after haggling over the price of a blouse.
"The secret is, you have to learn to ask double what you really want for something," Ruby Boone whispered after making the deal.
Back in Grandin Court, Betty Smith and her husband, Ronnie, climb into a shiny blue BMW with a $2 Looney Tunes jigsaw puzzle. He sells insurance; she works at a local bank and is due in by 9 a.m. The couple are regulars of the yard sale scene.
"I'm going to put it together because I like puzzles," she says. "He likes Looney Tunes."
by CNB