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CAPE MAY COUNTY MAGAZINE 31 AUGUST '83

Yard Sales-

(From Page 19)

playpen for her son for $5, and soli it a year later for the same price. “I GOT A FREE year’s use out of it,” she said smugly. Burton had also brought in $50 in the first hours. Just over 100 yards down the block were three more yard sales. Brainard Avenue had been tranformed into a mini-mall. Kay Miller admitted to going to yard sales every weekend. "It’s my hobby,” she said. “You feel like you’re getting some nice things for 50 cents." FOR THAT WEEKEND at least, she was trying to sell some of her own things. A friend urged a 1983 calender—cheap. Her sale was also, "mobbed” by 8:3d, she said, adding “I don’t mind early birds. You're here to sell the stuff." She related one incident that happened at a yard sale she went •to in Cape May. The proprietor had not allowed the bargain hunters onto her property until the exact time listed in her ad. And, she rang a bell. By that time, Miller wouldn’t have cared if there was a genuine Renoir for 25 cents.

Ruth Hemmingway, West Cape May, has had a yard sale every Saturday for the last seven years. She and her friends and family clean their attics and set up shop. "YOU MEET a lot of interesting people,” she said with obvious understatement. Most of them, she added, try their best to get a lower price. “We sell cheap as we can. We don’t wheel and deal,” she pronounced. Pat Wentzel, of Cape May Point, conducts a different kind of yard sale every week in an open lot along Perry Street in West Cape May. HERS IS ADVERTISED as a flea market, and all her merchandise is new. She said she rents the yard because she is unable to afford the rental costs of opening a shop for her wicker accessories. It’s nice to work out of doors, she said, even if the furniture gets dusty and spotted with tree sap. The perfect business day, she added, is when it’s too cool for the beach and cloudy enough to inspire shopping. • * * “Normally I don’t buy clothes," one yard saler confided in the course of relating bargain buys. LAST SATURDAY was the exception, she said. She bought 11 blouses for 50 cents each. “They still had the tags on!” she marvelled. She’d also found two bolts of hand-screened print material, 50 yards each, for 25 cents a yard. After the buy, she rushed home to call an aunt who had claimed a bargain buy of $1 a yard a few weeks earlier. The aunt lives in Florida. “You get a whole year of

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Kay Miller. Marjorie Smith and Betsy Barnes enjoy selling and buying yard sale bargains.

miserable, lousy yard sales and then you hit a good one,” she sighed estatically. EVEN MY MOTHER keeps a running bargain-buy correspondence. She writes on stationery bought at yard sales. “Did I tell you we got a p.p. table for $27?’' she wrote earlier in the summer. “Only used six times. It’s like new." First of all, what does p.p. stand for? Porky pig? Peeling pine? Partially painted? Did she know? And what did used only six times means — six days or six owners, and why would you believe anyone who got that specific anyway? Besides Ping-Pong tables were on sale at K-mart for $17.99.

Even the office at the Herald and Lantern has not escaped yard colp mnnin THE MANAGER bought a silk pig on a swing to hang in her office, only $5. And then there’s the typewriter stand that falls over every time you type, and an' editor’s desk lamp that turns on and off only by plugging and unplugging it. A recently-divorced man, who bought candlesticks at a yard sale because a woman assured him that they were "masculine,” noted that yard sales may replace singles bars as a meeting place. Perhaps that’s why so many single women have “I Brake For Yard Sales” bumper stickers on their cars.

-Rules Varied— V % as Merchandise

By BARBARA METZLER The rules for yards sales are as varied as the merchandise. In Cape, May, there is a $2 license issued for two days, and this is given out only once a year to potential yard sale holders. The license must be applied for one week in advance, and there are no signs allowed off the property. The rules in Avalon are similar, except that two yard sales are allowed per year, but not within 30 days of each other. In Stone Harbor, there is no charge for registration, but only one yard sale may be held a year. Signs are also confined to the property. Wildwood assesses a $10 fee per day to yard salers, and two yard sales of one day each are permitted a year. In North Wildwood, there are no permits and no restrictions, but anyone having a sale on a regular basis is asked to get a mercantile

license, usually used by flea markets. Wildwood Crest is similar: no restrictions, and no posted signs of the property. Sea Isle City asks only that the sale not extend over the sidewalk. In Ocean City, the sale must not be held on Sunday; no license required. Middle Township allows two licenses per year for a two $2 fee. The sales may be two consecutive days, and the second sale of the year can be held 30 days after. Lower Township charges $4 for a two-day sale. Residents can have two sales a year, providing they are six months apart. In Dennis and Upper townships, West Wildwood, and Woodbine there are simply "no rules." West Cape May, designated “yard sale haven” by one veteran, is the same: no rules, no licensing, no jurisdiction, pronounced City Hall. The citizens have a right to sell their stuff.