Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Found something I never expected at a local garage sale...

Raging Dufus

Raging Dufus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 2, 2018
667
1,195
Kansas USA
My wife and I are avid garage sale/estate sale shoppers. If it's Saturday morning, we're probably poking through someone's old junk in their front yard. Well, in the U.S., the Labor Day weekend (a couple of weeks ago) is the height of the "season", if you could call it that. In lots of places, entire small towns will hold citywide sales, some are even organized around particular highway routes stretching hundreds of miles across several state lines. So, there just wasn't any way we were going to miss that.

I enjoy these affairs and frequently come up with cool stuff. Much of our home has been furnished and much of my garage and tool shed have been stocked in this way. But when it comes to tech-related stuff, I rarely score because, well, you know I'm here on this board so you know the kinds of things I'm into. Like many of you, my tech-related interests are narrow and arcane; which is why I'm usually shocked when I find stuff like this:

IMG_20190920_100704638.jpgIMG_20190920_100513689.jpgIMG_20190920_100835578.jpg


They're printed cloth banners, approximately 6-feet by 2-feet. I'm pretty sure they came from a CompUSA or similar retail electronics establishment with an Apple section. Given the models depicted these would have been current in mid-2000, about a year prior to the first opening of Apple's own retail stores. I remember well going into CompUSA and drooling over these machines. Windows 98 was showing me its ugly side back then, and I desperately wanted to "think different" but couldn't afford to.

I don't have a suitable place to hang these right now. After our next move (probably a couple of years from now) I'm going to be decorating my PowerPC cave with these beauties, by which time I plan to have acquired a few more examples of what they're advertising. You can bet I'll be putting up some more photos then!
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: VanneDC, wicknix, pmac0973 and 12 others
That is very cool. I always wanted a cube, but even then had trouble reconciling the cost/performance vs building my own. I didn't make enough to justify the price.
 
Phoenix is a known hotspot for garage sales. I have a cousin who is the same way as you whose sole plan on the trip to see my aunt here in PHX when I was about 17 was to hit every garage sale he could find on a Saturday.

Now that I live here I see it every weekend (outside of the HOA communities). I've never run across anything other than PCs though, unfortunately. I always do a quick scan if I see one when I drive by. But, I'm more of a Goodwill/thrift store person.

There's a negative side though. :)

I was cleaning out my garage on a Saturday once. It was a mess and to organize it I had to move the cars and pull everything out in to the driveway. I'm not paying any attention really until I notice a couple that has materialized out of nowhere that is sifting through my stuff! Apparently they'd been there a while and had already collected things they thought they were going to take!

Had to chase them off after getting my stuff back! :D
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: VanneDC, bobesch, Slix and 3 others
eyoungren said:
I was cleaning out my garage on a Saturday once. It was a mess and to organize it I had to move the cars and pull everything out in to the driveway. I'm not paying any attention really until I notice a couple that has materialized out of nowhere that is sifting through my stuff! Apparently they'd been there a while and had already collected things they thought they were going to take!

Had to chase them off after getting my stuff back! :D
Click to expand...

I hope they were at least planning to pay you for it.

Embarrassingly enough, my wife and I have been that couple. In our defense, it's an honest mistake when it's a Saturday, there are other garage sales on the block, and somebody's putting stuff out on their driveway! I've learned, now that I live in town, to be mindful of my own stuff when I need to set things out so I can straighten up. I've had to wave people off before myself :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren
eyoungren said:
Phoenix is a known hotspot for garage sales. I have a cousin who is the same way as you whose sole plan on the trip to see my aunt here in PHX when I was about 17 was to hit every garage sale he could find on a Saturday.

Now that I live here I see it every weekend (outside of the HOA communities). I've never run across anything other than PCs though, unfortunately. I always do a quick scan if I see one when I drive by. But, I'm more of a Goodwill/thrift store person.

There's a negative side though. :)

I was cleaning out my garage on a Saturday once. It was a mess and to organize it I had to move the cars and pull everything out in to the driveway. I'm not paying any attention really until I notice a couple that has materialized out of nowhere that is sifting through my stuff! Apparently they'd been there a while and had already collected things they thought they were going to take!

Had to chase them off after getting my stuff back! :D
Click to expand...
Hey you kids, get off my lawn.:mad:
 
  • Like
Reactions: VanneDC, z970 and eyoungren
Raging Dufus said:
My wife and I are avid garage sale/estate sale shoppers. If it's Saturday morning, we're probably poking through someone's old junk in their front yard. Well, in the U.S., the Labor Day weekend (a couple of weeks ago) is the height of the "season", if you could call it that. In lots of places, entire small towns will hold citywide sales, some are even organized around particular highway routes stretching hundreds of miles across several state lines. So, there just wasn't any way we were going to miss that.

I enjoy these affairs and frequently come up with cool stuff. Much of our home has been furnished and much of my garage and tool shed have been stocked in this way. But when it comes to tech-related stuff, I rarely score because, well, you know I'm here on this board so you know the kinds of things I'm into. Like many of you, my tech-related interests are narrow and arcane; which is why I'm usually shocked when I find stuff like this:

View attachment 860786View attachment 860788View attachment 860791


They're printed cloth banners, approximately 6-feet by 2-feet. I'm pretty sure they came from a CompUSA or similar retail electronics establishment with an Apple section. Given the models depicted these would have been current in mid-2000, about a year prior to the first opening of Apple's own retail stores. I remember well going into CompUSA and drooling over these machines. Windows 98 was showing me its ugly side back then, and I desperately wanted to "think different" but couldn't afford to.

I don't have a suitable place to hang these right now. After our next move (probably a couple of years from now) I'm going to be decorating my PowerPC cave with these beauties, by which time I plan to have acquired a few more examples of what they're advertising. You can bet I'll be putting up some more photos then!
Click to expand...

I guess you could say the sellers… threw in the towel.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Raging Dufus
At that time a lot of friends worked at Systematics and later Teampoint and it was easy to get promotional items. My Apple tea cup is working since over 25 years^^
 
I love "council cleanup" days where in Sydney peeps put all Thier big rubbish on the side of the road, waiting for the inevitable Garbo truck to come along and trash everything. Scored a lot of cool stuff, including a 128k, and loads of PC stuff. Sadly enough, it's also the council cleanup where my brother put my whole c64/Amiga game collection and my SGI collection a few years back. It's become so popular, that the council have now banned it and restricted to having to call them them to pick up your stuff because they can make money out of selling the used ok stuff..

Rather annoying.. miss those days...

Nice score OP :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back