2026 Garage Sale Thread (15th Annual)

[Tarantula]

So much running around today, a fair bit of it running late.
I was lured to an estate sale after seeing a loaded drawer. It had been cleaned out earlier but my competitors, for some reason, didn't take these fine goods! Also, apparently someone made off with parts of a lathe after cracking it open and making a mess.

Utica needlenose, Evil (red) Channellock cutters, JCPenney 3/8 wrench, Craftsman speeder.
$3.


Gambled on another sale that didn't have any tool pictures except a closed box. Garage was a bust so I thought it was over, turns out the basement had a hidden tool corner. I had to fish a bunch of rusty Kobalt USA wrenches out of a flooded toolbox that I think was being used as a bucket for a pipe leak. Very gross, but I got the goods. Hanging on the pegboard I found an SK multibit screwdriver that I should not have opened because the cap threads are botched, a bunch of SK wrenches to replenish the ones I just mailed off (I can't escape them), a beautiful Duro-Chrome double open end wrench and big ol' screwdriver. Found a micrometer in the rough. My most spectacular treasure was finding an Eveready screwdriver can. One's missing but I wanted it for display and it's not banged up or rusty! I was on the verge of ordering one online.
$4 for these, maybe partly because the lady at checkout felt bad watching me try not to let a soggy pile of wrenches destroy the nice floors.


Things were winding down so I started going to my next sale. I quickly pivoted away after realizing it was hosted by a company I did not want to do business with. So I hit the next best better sale after a few U-turns. Place was a pop culture piñata, but every room in the house had a weird cluster of tools somewhere. Pretty successful haul.
Williams S-53 Superratchet, long enough to use from a neighboring room.
Snap-on 1/2" drive extension.
Proto 1/2" drive extension.
Craftsman 3/8" extension.
Proto 1/2" to 3/8" reducer.
Williams 1/4" to 3/8" adapter.
Challenger by Proto 9/32" deep socket.
Craftsman magnetic socket inserts.
Diamond pliers to go with my 16" monster pair.
Dayton pliers.
Utica cutters.
Two flavors of 4" Vise-Grips, still in the box!!
Diamond 4" adjustable wrench.
Balloon popper.

$20.


I was in somewhat unfamiliar territory and sales had wrapped up. Decided to try a new thrift store...in an RV repair station.
I should've packed lunch and a tent. I could've been lost for days in their sprawling warehouse labyrinth. I foolishly believed the storefront lobby was all there was to it.
Amazing place. If I refurnish the house or move, I'm going there ASAP to get everything I need.
But today, I got tools.

Craftsman Professional screwdriver, screwdriver only marked with Western Germany and 10,000V, Snap-on hard handle screwdriver. Slotted lot.
Armstrong 9/16 6pt combo.
Plomb 3/4×11/16 double box.
Cornwell 5/8×3/4 double open.
French SK pliers. Assuming a Facom rebadge.
Wright, Indestro, Armstrong, Craftsman, SK, Snap-on, Matco sockets.
Proto slip-joint pliers and 4" adjustable wrench.
There was so much more worth buying but I believed everything I picked up was already going to rack up a big bill, so I refrained. I was also getting tired after tearing through all the unsorted tool bins like a starving raccoon in a dumpster full of burgers.

The man up front tallied my haul up and I was shaken down for a staggering $10.
I will be back.


What an exciting day.

 

[alinc100]

SK Kind of day
3@¼”dr ratchets
2@⅜” dr ratchets
1@⅜” dr roto/swivel ratchet
¼” dr 2”,6”extensions
⅜” dr 1”,3”,8”extensions
S-K ¼” spinner handle.bit handle
Craftsman ⅜”dr ratchet

Sockets

⅜ dr SK
3/8” -13/16” 6 pt deep
3/8”,7/16”,2@9/16”,5/8-7/8” 6 pt shallow
5/8”,3/4”,13/16”,7/8” 12 pt shallow
2@ 5/8”,13/16” spark plug sockets

½” dr SK 1/2”,9/16” 12 pt deep
½” dr SK 9/16” 6 pt shallow

⅜ dr Bonney ⅜” 6 pt deep
⅜” dr Challenger ½” swivel 12 pt
⅜” dr Challenger 13/16” 12 pt shallow
Craftsman ¼” dr 1/4”,9/32” 6 pt shallow
Wrenches
Proto crowsfeet 7/8” ,1”,1-1/4”
Craftsman 14mm combo
Vulcan 5/8” x 11/16” ratchet box wrench
2 SK 5/8” x 11/16” stubby 6 point offset box
SK 11/16” x 3/4” doe
SK saltus 9/16”, 2@5/8”
3@11/16, 2@3/4”,13/16”,7/8” combination
Krauter 10” adjustable

 

[Beerhippie]

You ****

Seconded!

 

[Outlawmws]

I'm afraid, Mr. @ctuai , that Snappy score puts you over the edge into solid You **** zone.

Yes he does

Picked up this Illinois Iron & Bolt Co. 60 lbs. anvil with stand for $25 today.

So does he:

 

[Patrickm82]

2 huge ***** for @ctuai and @jb books! Nice scores fella’s

 

[Patrickm82]

Lots of stops today just not a lot of tool’s. Nothing special but did find an interesting craftsman socket box. I have not found what goes in it yet. Here’s what I got today.

1st stop. $2
The craftsman socket box
Blue Point hammer handle

#2 $20
2 Bessey clamps
2 Irwin quick grips
9 piece Easco metric wrench set
Husky diamond sharpening plate 400g and 600g


Last stop $52
Bosch sds plus hammer drill with a bunch of like new bits
Record-Marples 668 3-1/2oz cross peen
Fairmount tack hammer with puller

 

[Outlawmws]

Long day and lots of TOO's but sort of slow. one place had some cool stuff but literally were quoting Eprey prices... It's a yard sale dude!

Even the HS flea was slow - Purple Pyrex baking dish, $2:




The high priced guy had a couple of deals: I got both of these for $10 A polish/German 2" jaw reverse jaw clamp on vise, and a pivoting 3-1/4" clamp/vise:




3 boxes of tapers and an NOS air chuck for $7 total:




Starrett 24" Scale and Circular calculator, 3 Lufkin calculators, a P&C DOE, and the other industrial literature was thrown in free. $4 total.




An estate sale this was free: Parallel scales:




An American scale Homeowners 3" vise sans base, Plvmb 1/4" driver, no name flat blade driver, no name breaker and Tommy bar.

 

[bmwrd0]

Outlaw, that unnamed breaker and Tommy look SK to me, and one of the sales I hit yesterday with zero to show for it was pricing things, and there was a lot of interesting stuff, at high end eBay prices. I had to pass.

 

[alinc100]

Lots of stops today just not a lot of tool’s. Nothing special but did find an interesting craftsman socket box. I have not found what goes in it yet. Here’s what I got today.

1st stop. $2
The craftsman socket box
Blue Point hammer handle

That would be set 4438 as shown in the 1956 catalog, what I call the ''big 1/4" set" .Stays the
same through 1960 ,not in my catalogs in 61-63, pops back in in 64,not in 65 ,reappears in 1966 as set 4439 with a reconfigured interior

 

[Patrickm82]

Thank you sir! @alinc100

 

[alinc100]

Thank you sir! @alinc100

you are welcome. Note the edit to bloviate further...

 

[alinc100]

So, today on my way to the ever present dog park (sense a theme in my life?) I checked to see if any good sales that have popped up, and low and behold, my favorite low-end estate sale company was on day two of a small sale, and there was some interesting stuff in the pictures (this company never puts "tools" in the ad, so I miss it sometimes)

Combo square w/ vintage Stanley blade, almost compete set of auto wrenches, Herbrand tappet, SK Wayne combo + DBE's, leather punch, Mossberg adjustable, and an odd little unmarked obstruction wrench. All of that, plus this

SK Kind of day

2 SK 5/8” x 11/16” stubby 6 point offset box

I don't think I have/had any SK wrenches like these before( I'll have to look through the SK bin) and in the true GJ things come in threes(thanks @Private Lugnutz ) we now have 3 the same size 5/8" x 11/16" and 1 smaller at 3/8" x 7/16" 6 point dbe's

 

[bmwrd0]

If you are interested in the ones I picked up, @alinc100 , just let me know and they are on your way.

 

[Outlawmws]

Outlaw, that unnamed breaker and Tommy look SK to me, and one of the sales I hit yesterday with zero to show for it was pricing things, and there was a lot of interesting stuff, at high end eBay prices. I had to pass.

Thx BMW! I'l try to do a comparison.

Did SK do Brazil unmarked?

 

[four.cycle]

Outlaw, that unnamed breaker and Tommy look SK to me

They certainly do. S-K was the only one that produced that fat cross bar with the knurling on the end, as far as I know. Don?

I stopped by Earthwise earlier today - because I had to drive all the way over to the Mexican mercado to find honey tangerines (the Asian stores were both out!) - and picked up this Pelouze Mfg. Co. (Chicago) 24-pound kitchen scale.
Has four patent dates on it, but I haven't been able to figure out what any of them are yet.
No idea what I'll do with it - I never measure anything when cooking other than to make pie dough or rice, and I don't need a scale for either of those!
But you know.. it's GarageJournal, right?

 

[Outlawmws]

I use a 25 Lb scale similar for weighing things all the time. I just weighed 2 smaller vises on it.

 

[Outlawmws]

Outlaw, that unnamed breaker and Tommy look SK to me, and one of the sales I hit yesterday with zero to show for it was pricing things, and there was a lot of interesting stuff, at high end eBay prices. I had to pass.

They certainly do. S-K was the only one that produced that fat cross bar with the knurling on the end, as far as I know. Don?

it looks cad plated if that helps?

 

[four.cycle]

The cross bar has a crazy diameter. 5/16" ??
Don knows the line WAY better than me!

 

[d42jeep]

The flex handle looks like wartime S-K to me too. The early crossbars are 5/16” and they changed to 1/4” in the mid ‘50s. The Brazil bars are identical to the S-K.
-Don

 

[Outlawmws]

The cross bar has a crazy diameter. 5/16" ??

Yeah, Pretty close.

 

[d42jeep]

The neighbors joined us today to check out sales in the Tahoe basin. The first sales were a couple of TOOs close to home. My neighbor spotted a bodywork set made of Chinesium which he would have left behind except for the $5.00 price. We went to a couple of listed sales in the Zephyr Cove neighborhood of Nevada but I didn’t see anything of interest. One seller offered my neighbor a well used 20v DeWalt impact minus battery for full retail. He wasn’t tempted. We headed back to CA checking TOOs found on the way but they were mostly drive-bys. We finally found one with a minimal selection of tools and I picked up three items. A Craftsman pry bar, some ‘53 patent 420 Channellocks and a pair of Klein strippers.

They were all somewhat abused so I did a bit of cleanup on each of them.
It looked like someone was practicing welding on the pry bar.


After some work with the die grinder and the buffing wheels the bar looked quite a bit better.
The Klein strippers cleaned up okay.
Even the Channellocks looked quite a bit better with some buffing.
-Don

 

[RTM]

It's been a interesting weekend on the garage sale front so far. We had a city-wide garage sale in the next town north of us and an estate sale just over the hill from that. Started on Friday, so killed a vacation day.

The estate sale was the first place I scored after standing around watching couple of jerks try to bargain down on everything they bought. As they were negotiating on price, I grabbed a few minor things, including a tire inflator assembly. About to check out, and one of the jerks come back in, he has a flat tire. Everyone is running around trying to find a compressor, hoses, etc, and everything is plumbed backwards. After about five minutes of two of us knowing what is going on, I pull the inflator out, offering it up to the masses. The guy running the sale thanks me, finds the tools to swap ends, and away they go. I wander the rest of the house, find a brass hose splitter, another guy offers to remove it for me. I go back, get the inflator, and a great price on everything, assuming due to loaning the inflator. Last few stops brought up a few more tools, saving what had been a **** start, going 0 for 6, with one no show prior.


The ES haul, L-R, 4x garden hose splitter, pair of German nippers, pair of Lindstrom nippers, Wiss double cut ( notcher) snip, the above mentioned inflator hose, 2 1" C Clamps by Cincinnati and Pony, 2x Proto and 1x Craftsman wrenches, and small vise grip. Also a future narrow dust pan up top.



One stop was a Union Carpenter cleaning out 40 plus years of his mom's garage, Grandad, Dad and he were all carpenters, so lots of goodies buried in there.


The Friday haul, L-R, Armstrong C clamp, Yankee push drill, Seekonk 60inch pound torque Allen driver, H Disston & Sons saw, Jorgensen *********** F clamp. Eagle flex spout oil can, Milwaukee screw driver, red handle chisel, guessing MF, and a #7 Stanley plane w a Bedrock lever cap, all from the carpenter. Next up a bag of Shaker pegs, possibly in cherry, a lathe measuring caliper, and a roller. The final stop had a cross peen hammer, Klein screwdriver, Proto 8" adjustable, SK Phillips driver, and my first Aluminum pipe wrench. Last up is a tambour front box w 2 drawers inside, from the Carpenter. Needs a bit of work, but a neat piece. Made for holding papers, the tambour locks, and the drawers have pins and retainers to hold the papers.




Today started off with a PAST tool sale 7 minutes south of me. Up early, in the door a few minutes after 7, box of bagels in hand, and got set up to sell. Only sold a total of $89, and bought 2 big Buck Brothers gouges. I think they are both 1-1/2" wide, the gouge is an out cannel, the chisel is a fingernail grind, and I think they match.

In the left behind pile, one of the Hazet round tool kits, with a $1500 price tag, a patented adjustable plier by Homer of Gripso fame, an Ebonite Shock Pruf Screw starter, and other goodies too numerous to remember. Pix were also forgotten.


Finally, after the tool sale, my wife had arranged for us to assist a friend whose step children were threatening to require her to sell her residence. Her deceased husband had been a fixit guy, and had lots of tools. She was going to give them to a friends nephew, who was fixing up a new-to-the-family house. She wanted help in asserting that she wasn't giving away anything of outrageous value. Went thru about three benches covered in tools and boxes, plus other stuff on shelves. Many HF items,one box of Craftsman sockets and wrenches, and a few goodies I kept.

One thing I suggested I could sell was a Reed 104-1/2, with meatball and the 1914? patent, with a bit of surface rust. Will go pick it up in a day or two

L-R, some sharpening stones, including a Diemond, left a box of others there, will need to swing back by later. Couple of Sheffield made cabinet makers turn screws or screwdrivers, my second aluminum pipe wrench, and Endress and BH looking screwdriver, two long reach forceps, an Xcel water pump pliers, 2x vise grips (6BN, 4WR), the bottom pair is needle nose and bent to the side, a Duro refrigeration ratchet, cigarette lighter (thoro lite) that needs researching, and a pair of scissors to clean, sharpen and return to her. Have no idea why the clamp ended up in our box.



And tomorrow is a nearby industrial shop clean out sale that started today, and the last day of the city wide sale, with a few stops still of interest.

 

[Beerhippie]

Cruised by one TOO today in the Vanagon. Gal at the sale just looked at me and shook her head. I guess no guy stuff.

 

[NYBODYMAN]

FBMP pick up this morning....not the deal of the century but I think I did ok. I picked up Columbian C43 and a Columbian D43 1/2 for $60/pair.

 

[r_olson_06]

I forget to post on here but every now and then.
I had been searching for cheap storage since we picked up the massive Plomb tool haul. The wife and I went to Menards to take a look at a Masterforce chest but decided to sleep on it. Leaving Menards my son needed a few metric screws for his scooter so we went down to our local hardware store Ace. Walking by the bolt and screw bin I noticed they were swapping out their bins with newer ones and they had a pallet of the old ones for sales. Ended up with about 80 6 section bins with some hardware for about $300. Here they are set up in garage and the wife and I are working on sorting out the Plombs along with some other tools.

 

[four.cycle]

80 6 section bins with some hardware for about $300.

WOW. That's quite a score!

 

[alinc100]

If you are interested in the ones I picked up, @alinc100 , just let me know and they are on your way.

Thanks but no thanks. I don't see myself heading down that path at the moment.

 

[Outlawmws]

"Clearing the house to sell" sale a garage estate sale:

$3 for all - I'm happy.

a good 3/4 gallon of CF - the dented/damaged can matters not; I'll put this into my 4 Gal fill station tank right off - I already used an oz or so to clean sap off the front of the T-van (from Ocean Cove camp last WE):







NOS Coghlan's sparker, Gam driver main body, (I may have the other parts) Westley's Polish - need to verify no Ammonia - Hoppes Patches, Radiator seal powder, Toy 4WD emblem - not correct for the T-van but that's where it will land; NOS mask filter canisters & Eagle Claw treble hooks




Food waste can; looks to never have been used. - terrible for food waste, but useful for other things:




Palmgren DP vise, needs cleanup and the set screw for the dynamic jaw reset so it pulls the jaw, but should cleanup well - Dang; 4 vises this weekend!




Guessing: 50 ft of poly rope:

 

[knock knock]

Stopped at a family run estate sale of sorts. This morning was the third day and still had tons left to go. Spent forty went back a second time and spent $60 more. Don’t believe I have seen the chain vise grips with an arm that long, and a beefed up chain.

 

[zachgeo]

Not much of a haul this weekend - got to an estate sale just as they were announcing they'd be shutting down in 15 minutes, so I made a beeline for the garage. $3 later and I can saw away to my heart's content! I actually needed the jigsaw, having thrown out my old B&D plasticky one that was falling apart, so not a bad deal. This one is solid and seems to run great. Almost missed it because it was in a box from an old plasticky one just like the one I threw out - glad I decided to open it and take a look.

 

[bmwrd0]

My wife had originally volunteered me to help her friend move, but that fell apart, so I had extra time today for yard sailing. I hit four sales that looked promising, and found the following at one of them (the rest being busts for various reasons)

Diamond needle nose and channel style plyers, Snap-on 10mm hex, Cornwell and MAC sockets, Cornwell extension, an odd little Whitworth wrench. $4

Missed from Friday, a Masterwrench and Klein dykes.

 

[David99]

Fridays Estate Sale-
SK Socket set w/Snap-on ratchet & extensions, SK Wayne double open end wrench, Bench Top double open end wrenches, Trucraft 12" Adj Wrench, SK 3/8 ratchet, Snap on 12pt combination wrenches (3/4,11/16,5/8,1/2,7/16,3/8), Snap on screwdriver, 3 cans of Rust Oleum paint and a craftsman variable speed rotary tool.


Today's sale (Saturday)-
Sockets- 2 Craftsman & 1 Snap on, Snap on 1/2" crows foot, Bag of small spring clamps, Set of Thread Chasers, Craftsman pin vise, Craftsman Midget Dbl. box end wrench Set, Blue Point 600 amp Current indicator.

 

[Beerhippie]

Fridays Estate Sale-
SK Socket set w/Snap-on ratchet & extensions, SK Wayne double open end wrench, Bench Top double open end wrenches, Trucraft 12" Adj Wrench, SK 3/8 ratchet, Snap on 12pt combination wrenches (3/4,11/16,5/8,1/2,7/16,3/8), Snap on screwdriver, 3 cans of Rust Oleum paint and a craftsman variable speed rotary tool.


Today's sale (Saturday)-
Sockets- 2 Craftsman & 1 Snap on, Snap on 1/2" crows foot, Bag of small spring clamps, Set of Thread Chasers, Craftsman pin vise, Craftsman Midget Dbl. box end wrench Set, Blue Point 600 amp Current indicator.

Unless you paid over $200 for that, methinks thou sucketh!