Garage sale
Encyclopedia
A garage sale, also known as a yard sale, rummage sale, tag sale, lawn sale, attic sale, moving sale, or junk sale, is an informal, irregularly scheduled event for the sale of used goods
by private individuals, in which "block sales" are allowed, so that sellers are not required to obtain business license
s or collect sales tax
.
Typically the goods in a garage sale are unwanted items from the household
with the home owners conducting the sale. The goods are sometimes new, like-new, or just usable, offered for sale because the owner does not want or need the item, to minimize their possessions, or to raise funds. Popular motivations for a garage sale are "Spring cleaning
" or the owner's move to a new residence, to even getting some well-earned spending money. The seller displays their wares to the passers-by or those responding to signs, flyers, Craigslist postings, Facebook updates, Twitter posts or newspaper ads. Sometimes local television stations will broadcast a sale on the local public channel. The sales venue is typically a garage
, driveway
, carport
, front yard
, porch
, or occasionally, the interior of a house. Some vendors, known as 'squatters', will set up in a highly trafficked area, and not on their own property.
Staples of garage sales include old clothing
, book
s, toy
s, household knickknacks, lawn and garden tools, sports equipment, and board game
s. Larger items like furniture
and occasionally home appliance
s are also sold. Garage sales occur most frequently in suburban areas on good-weather weekends, and usually have designated hours for the sale. Buyers who arrive before the hours of the sale to review the items are known as "Early Birds;" they often are professional restorers or resellers. Such sales also attract people who are searching for bargains or for rare and unusual items. Bargaining, also known as haggling, on prices is routine, and items may or may not have price labels affixed. Some people buy goods from these sales to restore them for resale.
In the USA, the act of going to garage sales has spawned the use of a new verb construction in the vernacular known as "garage saling." One who frequents garage sales is said to be going "garage saling." This collocation has become the common spelling for what has emerged from the oral use of the phrase "garage sale-ing."
Some cities, such as Beverly Hills, California
, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
, Town Of Sweden, Monroe County, NY and Bessemer City, North Carolina
require that the homeowners apply and pay for a yard sale permit, and even with that homeowners in Beverly Hills can only hold yard sales in the back of their homes. Typically these permits cost only ten dollars or so.
In addition to signs, many people advertise their garage sales in the Newspaper
in the advertisement section.
The Highway 127 Corridor Sale
, promoted as "The World's Longest Yard Sale," encourages private individuals and professional vendors to conduct simultaneous yard sales along a 630 miles (1,013.9 km) corridor spanning five U.S. states.
Running east to west, the Coast-to-Coast yard sale runs along US-50 in May of each year. Though not as popular as "The World's Longest Yard Sale", the US-50 Coast-to-Coast sale is in its eleventh year.
During the second Saturday in August, a 50-mile stretch of U.S. Route 11
becomes a continuous yard sale that at Stephens City, Virginia
's Newtown Commons south to New Market, Virginia
. The event, in its seventh year, is sponsored by the Shenandoah County
Chamber Advisory Group, five chambers of commerce, and two town governments. In years past, the Yard Crawl has attracted people from as far away as Canada.
Located in Bondi Beach, Australia
the first Garage Sale Trail took place as part of the Sizzle Bondi Community Festival on May 9, 2010.
126 Garage Sales occurred simultaneously. The Garage Sale Trail was designed to deal with the community's concern over illegal dumping
Since the first event, the Garage Sale Trail has won a Green Globes award for Media Excellence,
and the Wentworth Courier's Business Achiever award.
In July 2010, organisers of the Garage Sale Trail announced their intention to take the Garage Sale Trail national and involve thirty local councils across Australia's states and territories potentially making it the largest garage sale in the world.
Informal sales also occur across the country. One such example is in the Bismarck-Mandan
area. Coinciding with the United Tribes International Pow-wow, it is tradition for the weekend following Labor Day
to be the area's biggest garage sale weekend due to the influx of visitors in the area. On any given year, total garage sales number at least 500, while Bismarck surpasses Fargo, North Dakota
as the state's largest city. The only state event that is bigger, is the North Dakota State Fair
held in Minot, North Dakota
during the last week of July.
produced in 2004 that covered the aspects of find bargains as well as the cutthroat practices of professional resellers and the previously noted "early birds." New Jersey
artist Robert A. Emmons, Jr.’s short documentary film Yard Sale, released in 2006, examines the American practice of buying and selling goods in one’s front yard and the sociological impact of such activities. Tom Zarrilli, an artist, photographer and writer has kept a long running online journal entitled Yard Sale Addict that explores the anthropological aspects of the yard sales he visits near his home in Atlanta, Georgia
. Zarrilli’s interactive installation "A year in the yards of clutter and the driveways of divestment" was presented at The Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center in 2006. The conceptual work was presented as a staged yard sale with hundreds of the artist’s photographs embedded in the artifacts. The work was turned into an actual yard sale and sold off item by item at the end of its gallery run.
Used goods
A second-hand or used good is one that is being purchased by or otherwise transferred to a second or later end user. A used good can also simply mean it is no longer in the same condition as it was when it was first transferred to the current end user...
by private individuals, in which "block sales" are allowed, so that sellers are not required to obtain business license
Business license
Business licenses are permits issued by government agencies that allow individuals or companies to conduct business within the government's geographical jurisdiction. It is the authorization to start a business issued by the local government....
s or collect sales tax
Sales tax
A sales tax is a tax, usually paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, itemized separately from the base price, for certain goods and services. The tax amount is usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the taxable price of a sale....
.
Typically the goods in a garage sale are unwanted items from the household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
with the home owners conducting the sale. The goods are sometimes new, like-new, or just usable, offered for sale because the owner does not want or need the item, to minimize their possessions, or to raise funds. Popular motivations for a garage sale are "Spring cleaning
Spring cleaning
Spring cleaning is the period in spring time set aside for cleaning a house, normally applied in climates with a cold winter.The most common usage of spring cleaning refers to the yearly act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which would take place in the first warm days of the year typically...
" or the owner's move to a new residence, to even getting some well-earned spending money. The seller displays their wares to the passers-by or those responding to signs, flyers, Craigslist postings, Facebook updates, Twitter posts or newspaper ads. Sometimes local television stations will broadcast a sale on the local public channel. The sales venue is typically a garage
Garage (house)
A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...
, driveway
Driveway
A driveway is a type of private road for local access to one or a small group of structures, and is owned and maintained by an individual or group....
, carport
Carport
A carport is a covered structure used to offer limited protection to vehicles, primarily cars, from the elements. The structure can either be free standing or attached to a wall. Unlike most structures a carport does not have four walls, and usually has one or two...
, front yard
Yard (land)
A yard is an enclosed area of land, usually tied to a building. The word comes from the same linguistic root as the word garden and has many of the same meanings....
, porch
Porch
A porch is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location...
, or occasionally, the interior of a house. Some vendors, known as 'squatters', will set up in a highly trafficked area, and not on their own property.
Staples of garage sales include old clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
, book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, toy
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...
s, household knickknacks, lawn and garden tools, sports equipment, and board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
s. Larger items like furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
and occasionally home appliance
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...
s are also sold. Garage sales occur most frequently in suburban areas on good-weather weekends, and usually have designated hours for the sale. Buyers who arrive before the hours of the sale to review the items are known as "Early Birds;" they often are professional restorers or resellers. Such sales also attract people who are searching for bargains or for rare and unusual items. Bargaining, also known as haggling, on prices is routine, and items may or may not have price labels affixed. Some people buy goods from these sales to restore them for resale.
In the USA, the act of going to garage sales has spawned the use of a new verb construction in the vernacular known as "garage saling." One who frequents garage sales is said to be going "garage saling." This collocation has become the common spelling for what has emerged from the oral use of the phrase "garage sale-ing."
Some cities, such as Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettysburg is a borough that is the county seat, part of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and the eponym for the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park and has 3 institutions of higher learning: Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg College, and...
, Town Of Sweden, Monroe County, NY and Bessemer City, North Carolina
Bessemer City, North Carolina
Bessemer City is a small suburban city in Gaston County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 5,592 at the 2010 census. The city is approximately 6 miles northwest of Gastonia and 25 miles west of Charlotte...
require that the homeowners apply and pay for a yard sale permit, and even with that homeowners in Beverly Hills can only hold yard sales in the back of their homes. Typically these permits cost only ten dollars or so.
Advertising for a garage sale
Advertising for the event of a garage sale is typically done by posting a seller-created sign, usually made from cardboard, in a public location. Signs are posted with the intent that people passing by will take note of the event, time, and location of the garage sale. In many cases signs may feature an arrow or some other means of expressing the direction of the event.In addition to signs, many people advertise their garage sales in the Newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
in the advertisement section.
Special community sales
In some areas garage sales have taken on a special meaning to a community and have become events of special local significance. In these situations large areas of a community hold a communal garage sale involving dozens or hundreds of families at the same time.The Highway 127 Corridor Sale
Highway 127 Corridor Sale
The Highway 127 Corridor Sale is an outdoor second-hand sale held annually for four days beginning the first Thursday in August along U.S. Route 127. The event has been promoted as "The World's Longest Yard Sale."...
, promoted as "The World's Longest Yard Sale," encourages private individuals and professional vendors to conduct simultaneous yard sales along a 630 miles (1,013.9 km) corridor spanning five U.S. states.
Running east to west, the Coast-to-Coast yard sale runs along US-50 in May of each year. Though not as popular as "The World's Longest Yard Sale", the US-50 Coast-to-Coast sale is in its eleventh year.
During the second Saturday in August, a 50-mile stretch of U.S. Route 11
U.S. Route 11
U.S. Route 11 is a north–south United States highway extending 1,645 miles across the eastern United States. The southern terminus of the route is at U.S. Route 90 in the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana. The northern terminus is at the United...
becomes a continuous yard sale that at Stephens City, Virginia
Stephens City, Virginia
Stephens City is an incorporated town in the southern part of Frederick County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 1,829 at the time of the 2010 Census....
's Newtown Commons south to New Market, Virginia
New Market, Virginia
New Market is a town in Shenandoah County, Virginia, United States. It had a population of 2,146 at the 2010 census. New Market is home to the Rebels of the Valley Baseball League, and the New Market Shockers of the Rockingham County Baseball League.-History:...
. The event, in its seventh year, is sponsored by the Shenandoah County
Shenandoah County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 35,075 people, 14,296 households, and 10,064 families residing in the county. The population density was 68 people per square mile . There were 16,709 housing units at an average density of 33 per square mile...
Chamber Advisory Group, five chambers of commerce, and two town governments. In years past, the Yard Crawl has attracted people from as far away as Canada.
Located in Bondi Beach, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
the first Garage Sale Trail took place as part of the Sizzle Bondi Community Festival on May 9, 2010.
126 Garage Sales occurred simultaneously. The Garage Sale Trail was designed to deal with the community's concern over illegal dumping
Since the first event, the Garage Sale Trail has won a Green Globes award for Media Excellence,
and the Wentworth Courier's Business Achiever award.
In July 2010, organisers of the Garage Sale Trail announced their intention to take the Garage Sale Trail national and involve thirty local councils across Australia's states and territories potentially making it the largest garage sale in the world.
Informal sales also occur across the country. One such example is in the Bismarck-Mandan
Bismarck, North Dakota
Bismarck is the capital of the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Burleigh County. It is the second most populous city in North Dakota after Fargo. The city's population was 61,272 at the 2010 census, while its metropolitan population was 108,779...
area. Coinciding with the United Tribes International Pow-wow, it is tradition for the weekend following Labor Day
Labor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
to be the area's biggest garage sale weekend due to the influx of visitors in the area. On any given year, total garage sales number at least 500, while Bismarck surpasses Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...
as the state's largest city. The only state event that is bigger, is the North Dakota State Fair
North Dakota State Fair
The North Dakota State Fair is an annual state fair held each July in Minot, North Dakota. The fair features carnival rides, agricultural expositions, government and commercial exhibitions, and a variety of musical and performance entertainment....
held in Minot, North Dakota
Minot, North Dakota
Minot is a city located in north central North Dakota in the United States. It is most widely known for the Air Force base located approximately 15 miles north of the city. With a population of 40,888 at the 2010 census, Minot is the fourth largest city in the state...
during the last week of July.
The arts
The cultural phenomenon of garage and yard sales in the United States has been examined by several artists. The Thunderground Film production Zen and the Art of Yardsailing is a documentary filmDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
produced in 2004 that covered the aspects of find bargains as well as the cutthroat practices of professional resellers and the previously noted "early birds." New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
artist Robert A. Emmons, Jr.’s short documentary film Yard Sale, released in 2006, examines the American practice of buying and selling goods in one’s front yard and the sociological impact of such activities. Tom Zarrilli, an artist, photographer and writer has kept a long running online journal entitled Yard Sale Addict that explores the anthropological aspects of the yard sales he visits near his home in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
. Zarrilli’s interactive installation "A year in the yards of clutter and the driveways of divestment" was presented at The Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center in 2006. The conceptual work was presented as a staged yard sale with hundreds of the artist’s photographs embedded in the artifacts. The work was turned into an actual yard sale and sold off item by item at the end of its gallery run.
See also
- Estate saleEstate saleAn estate sale or estate liquidation is a sale or auction to dispose of a substantial portion of the materials owned by a person who is recently deceased or who must dispose of his personal property to facilitate a move.-Reasons for an estate sale:...
- Jumble saleJumble saleA jumble sale or rummage sale is an event at which second hand goods are sold, usually by an institution such as a local Scout group or church, as a fundraising or charitable effort...
- Car boot saleCar boot saleCar boot/trunk sales or boot/trunk fairs are a mainly British form of market in which private individuals come together to sell household and garden goods.The term refers to the selling of items from a car's boot or trunk...
- Flea marketFlea marketA flea market or swap meet is a type of bazaar where inexpensive or secondhand goods are sold or bartered. It may be indoors, such as in a warehouse or school gymnasium; or it may be outdoors, such as in a field or under a tent...
- Charity shopCharity shopA charity shop, thrift shop, thrift store, hospice shop , resale shop or op shop is a retail establishment run by a charitable organization to raise money.Charity shops are a type of social enterprise...
- Free boxFree boxA free box is a box or location used to allow for people to rid themselves of excess items without the inconvenience of a garage sale. When someone has items they wish to be rid of, but which might be useful to another person, they are set out and given to whoever wants them...
- White elephant saleWhite elephant saleA White elephant sale is a collection of used items being sold by a non-professional group of individuals second hand, much akin to a yard sale or garage sale, usually as a fund-raiser.-Description:...