Every Day With Rachael Ray

That’s how much you could expect to clear if you host what we like to call “the new tag sale party.” Think of it as an

opportunity to get together with friends, meet new ones, share some tasty snacks—and make a little cash.

Thought tag sales were floral-china-filled affairs? To prove otherwise, we enlisted some folks from Brooklyn Flea

( brooklynflea.com), an über-hip market that attracts up to 8,000 bargain hunters each weekend, to help us pull off a successful sale that feels like a fun get-together. (The secret to the Flea’s success: People flock there for the “social scene, neighborhood setting and amazing food,” says co-founder Eric Demby.)

Your sale will feel like a party, too, once you make room for friends to peddle their own wares. So roll up your sleeves and start seeing all that old stuff in a new light. After all, that starship-shaped lava lamp you’re ready to trash could be some Trekkie’s treasure.

Crazy Deals
You Sold
What?!

You wouldn’t believe some of the weird, wacky and just plain fabulous things that have changed hands.

So dream big—the items below prove you really can sell anything.

Valerie Bowers-Coombs of Kings County Salvage

OLD-FASHIONED CASH REGISTER

She traded a brass typewriter-style machine from the early 20th century to a high-end Manhattan barber in exchange for three haircuts and a shave for her husband.

WENT FOR the equivalent of $180 TAXIDERMIC SKUNK

Pepé Le Pew was snapped up by a “taxidermy enthusiast” who asked Bowers-Coombs to keep her eye out for other small rodents, including the elusive (who knew?) chipmunk.

WENT FOR $35

Chris Goodman

of Totally Bruce

MOUNTED SHARK’S FIN

A merchant marine’s
“trophy,” this Victorian-era
dorsal fin perched atop a piece of
wood was “so cool I almost didn’t
want to sell it,” he says.
WENT FOR $250
TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY
DENTIST’S CHAIR

“It looked like something you’d be put to death in,” Goodman says of the cast-iron recliner he picked up at the estate sale of a dentist. WENT FOR $300