Around here there are only a small handfull of estate sale companies, so you get to know which ones price things high and which ones price to sell, and which are firm on prices and which will wheel & deal...
Right now there are so few sales (like yesterday was 1 garage sale & 3 estate sales), that I plan my route so it brings me back home, or is along my way running other errands...
Unless there are a large amount of quality tools involved, I'm not going to try and get there before they start, I might show up around 9am after traffic has died down. Usually when they are going to have a big tool sale, they make sure to announce it because they know all the guys will storm that place. Some that have a bunch they will do a "tool only" day before the rest of the house.
Garage sales are always a wild card. You never know what prices will be, and you never know what they will have. The sale yesterday that I found the Parker vise & SK tools and other things I thought I got a good price on... My neighbor came back with the bed of his truck full of boxes of stuff... I think he ended up paying less than $20 for all of it. Most of it was small-engine parts for Briggs & Stratton and Tecumseh, gaskets, caps, rings, carbs, rebuild kits, etc, etc... Then a couple buckets of rusty tools... Some he will keep, but he also knows a guy that works on small engines too that he can flip and make some money.
There are people from all walks of life that go to these sales that I've seen. Everyone is looking for something. Can't say I've seen any hipsters, though they are probably more down in Fayetteville around the university. Up where I live is families and retired people.
OMG, yesterday I saw like this 90-yr old guy driving a mini-van going to an estate sale. He kept veering to the right towards all the cars parked along the side of the street. I swear he was only a micron away from hitting someone's mirror. One reason I always fold in my (trailering) mirrors on my truck and park kind of far away... lol
Today is the day I found out how much college is going to cost for my oldest child.
I put that thought out of my mind when I realized how much I'd pay for this ratchet...
Mine! Though I saw one on eBay for $10 you can cut & grind to do the same... lol. Heck of a lot cheaper than a real stubby!
Try putting the head of the ratchet in a magnetic parts dish while working on the small parts, I learned it the hard way after losing two balls from a Craftsman rebuild kit during install on one ratchet. The ball tends to stick to the ratchet or dish if it comes loose when you use the magnetic bowl.
When I took it apart, I had a rag covering it all, but it was all caked in grease that both the spring & pin stayed in place. lol... Good tip on the magnetic bowl though. When I was putting it back together yesterday, I made a pile of rags around my work area and was careful to angle the part so that it something did shoot out it wouldn't go far.
Do you need any rebuild kits? Owner of my Hometown store has a few boxes of them in the back. He lets me go digging through them when I need one. They are mostly for 1/4" drive, but there is still a good amount of 3/8" and some 1/2" drive...
Hemifalcon - Nice find!