1 of 4
Photo by Andrew Haworth
The author (right) and fellow yard-sale warrior Joanie Thresher take a closer look at some of the goods at a stop on the Peach Tree 23.
2 of 4
Photo by Andrew Haworth
For the past five years, Jacqueline Dorn of Leesville has been setting up her Peach Tree 23 yard sale tables under the shady awning of a former Ford dealership on S.C. 23.
3 of 4
Photo by Andrew Haworth
Among the oddities for sale along the Peach Tree 23 route was this 8-foot-tall metal replica of the Statue of Liberty.
4 of 4
Photo by Andrew Haworth
Pat Asbill of Ridge Spring started the Peach Tree 23 to help attract visitors to the small towns along S.C. 23 between Batesburg-Leesville and Modoc. “If it’s to be found, it’ll be found on the 23,” she says.
In the dim light and lingering cool of 5:30 a.m., I am packing my car for every potential emergency. Focus on the mission: poor planning now can cost precious time later.
Ice-cold water bottles for the inevitable June heat. Power snacks to sustain our energy. Hand sanitizer in case a portable potty is unavoidable. And, most critical, wallets stuffed with dollar bills and quarters.
This is D-day for me and my fellow yard-sale warrior, Joanie Thresher—day one of the Peach Tree 23, a 44-mile bargain-hunters’ bonanza that stretches along S.C. 23 through Lexington, Saluda, Edgefield and McCormick counties. We’re on a quest to sift, sort, pick and poke through as much good stuff as we can.
“The 23,” as the annual, two-day event is known to locals, is the original among South Carolina’s three mega yard sales (see “Get There,” below). For hunters like Joanie and me, and legions more like us, it’s a gold mine of opportunity.
Drive through any neighborhood on a Saturday morning and you might stumble across a yard sale here or there. Drive the Peach Tree 23 and you’re guaranteed hundreds of simultaneous sales and hordes of yard-sale enthusiasts, all converging in a hunt for hidden treasures.
Packed and prepped—Joanie at the wheel, me in the navigator’s seat—we motor off in the still-quiet dawn, our imaginations buzzing over what discoveries lie ahead.
Everything and the kitchen sink
The massive scope of miles-long yard sales like the Peach Tree 23 is bait enough for yard-sale aficionados who will happily drive from states away to dicker and deal. One man’s trash, another man’s treasure, right?
This is not shopping; shopping happens at the mall. Yard sales are about serendipity, about bonding with a piece of history, about scoring a deal on something I didn’t know I wanted until it spoke to me.
“If you can’t find it at the Peach Tree 23, you don’t need it,” says Pat Asbill, an antiques dealer and former Ridge Spring mayor who launched this event in 2006 as a town-wide yard sale, then later invited neighboring towns from Batesburg-Leesville to Modoc to join in. The simple marketing ploy here: Let visitors discover the charms of these small towns.
“We want our towns to get noticed and for people to like us and come back,” Asbill says.
Mission accomplished. Now in its 10th year, the granddaddy of S.C.’s long yard sales has “grown into a monster,” Asbill says, with more than 12,000 cars passing through on a sale day. “Oh, my heavens, our stores do better that day than any other day of the year.”
But the main attraction is the stuff: the rummage of other people’s attics, closets, basements and garages, arrayed atop tables and blankets, in front yards and parking lots, beneath pop-up tents and shady trees. If I just say you can find everything and the kitchen sink (literally), can you picture it?
“I have bought a golf cart and a box of squash,” Asbill says. “That’ll tell you the extent of it.”
If you need tools or treadmills, Christmas decorations or cabinet handles, dishes or Disney movies, it’s for sale.
If you collect lighthouses, salt and pepper shakers, Hummel figurines, you name it, you’ll find it. I’m not a collector, but I see so many kinds of elephants up for grabs—as plates, lamps, metal yard art, tiny tchotchkes—I almost wish that was my passion.
Anything vintage, old stuff repurposed into art, new crafts made from scratch, baked goods, produce, come and get it. And if it’s been for sale on late-night TV—singing Santas, talking bass, and amazing gadgets that chop and reshape your food—it’s here at rock-bottom prices.
The thrill of the deal
Yard-sale strategy comes down to two schools of thought:
- Arrive early and get the best pick.
- Arrive late and cut better deals before sellers pack up.
In a perfect world? You dicker your way into a deal even first thing in the morning.
That works for Joanie at our first stand of day one, a lone table in a Batesburg-Leesville parking lot, with few buyers before 8 a.m. A fan of retro décor, Joanie spots a long-necked, amber-glass pitcher marked $20 and doggedly haggles down to $12.
Seller Virginia Graham works this stand alongside granddaughter Denise Smith of Batesburg, a Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative member. They have some cool stuff—45 rpm records by Elvis, The Beatles, Johnny Cash; old movie and concert posters; collectible soda bottles; vintage glassware. But nothing makes me pull my dollars out. The day is young.
We do a slow crawl down S.C. 23 to find a multi-seller spread set up in front of stately Southern Fox Manor, a two-story Southern beauty wrapped in porches.
Stacks of vintage Life and Look magazines top one table. I’m loving the cover photos of “young senator Jack Kennedy” and his glamorous wife, Jackie, Clark Gable, Twiggy, and assorted mid-century icons. The ads inside are a step back in time. Cultural history, for a buck apiece.
“I have more plastic tubs at home, filled with these,” the seller says, waving his hand as he walks off, as if he doesn’t care how much I pay, just so he can unload some. I cannot resist. I buy one with a John Lennon cover for my Beatlemaniac brother and one with a photo essay on Ernest Hemingway.
At a nearby sale, I bury my nose in a pretty Lane cedar keepsake chest, stamped “J.A. McAllister Furniture, Mount Carmel, South Carolina” inside the lid. (I own a similar one that belonged to my grandmother, but I have two daughters. You do the math.) There’s a convincing cedar scent and a working key. No price tag, though.
“How much for this?” I ask the harried seller.
“Two dollars,” she says, a bit distracted. That’s not even worth dickering over. Sold.
Our next stop is where I strike pay dirt. Before we’re even out of the car, I spy an old typesetter’s drawer—a little piece of journalistic history, softly calling my name. I play it cool, stroll casually among the mishmash for sale. Its sticker once read $45, but it’s been scratched through a couple times, down to $30. I’d love to pay $20.
“How low can you go on this?” I ask seller Jacqueline Dorn of Leesville, trying to act as if the answer doesn’t matter.
“Hmm ... $25?” Dorn suggests. I hem and haw and change the subject; we chat genially for a few moments. This is her fifth year selling at the Peach Tree 23, always under the shady awning of a former car dealership. She drops her price: “$22.50?”
“I was thinking $20,” Joanie pipes up on my behalf. Gotta love Joanie.
The gracious Dorn concedes. Ah, sweet victory! I’ve got my prize.
“I finally learned, price higher than what you want, because people want to negotiate,” Dorn says.
Peach ice cream and Lady Liberty
Since 23 runs through prime S.C. peach country, we pass more orchards than yard sales in places. Who could pass up a mid-morning visit to Watsonia in Monetta for freshly picked peaches and just-made peach ice cream? Not me. Score one for the Peach Tree 23: We’ve discovered a new destination to come back to.
On the road again, front-yard sales dot our path, enough so we can pick and choose where we want to stop. Clusters of parked cars mean multiple sellers; worth a snoop. At Ridge Spring, there’s a definite uptick in activity. Parked cars jam both sides of the street, and buyers roam the town square like fire ants on a busted mound.
My favorite table is a champion of the unexpected: A U.S. military first-aid kit from the 1960s, with unopened packages of bandages and ointments. Vintage car-hood emblems. Assorted retro refrigerator magnets tucked inside old-fashioned candy tins. A pair of old wire-rimmed bifocals in a case imprinted with “Henry J. Godin, Optometrist, Augusta, Ga.”
“I try to keep a duke’s mixture of everything. Sometimes it works and people will buy it. Sometimes not,” vendor Johnny Conder says of his wide-ranging assortment. He also has a stash of old eight-track tapes. Does anybody even own a functioning eight-track player? Doesn’t matter, Conder says: “People who have these show cars, they like to take ’em and set ’em on the dash, kind of gives it the look of that era.”
The eye-catching sale on the square has to be Johnnie Barnes’ trailer, with its 8-foot-tall metal replica of the Statue of Liberty, a reproduction cannon and a hodgepodge of cast-iron schoolhouse bells. Barnes, of Jackson, isn’t interested in haggling. You meet his price or he’s not selling. (The $1,500 price tag on the cannon tempts one man, but his wife won’t go higher than $800.) It’s a win-win for Barnes. Even when his attention-getters aren’t selling, they’re attracting curious crowds.
He quotes me a price of $450 for Lady Liberty.
“It’ll last forever,” he assures me.
Good to know. If I pay that much for a Statue of Liberty, I sure don’t want to ever have to buy another one. It’s still on the trailer when we leave town.
End of the road
By 2 p.m., we are hot, hungry and tired, but only halfway down Highway 23. The Johnston Railroad Diner seems like a good place to catch a second wind. Between taking orders and serving sandwiches, owner Marion Bledsoe tells us no matter how busy it’s been today, it will be crazier tomorrow. “On Saturday, the traffic looks like a funeral procession out here all day,” he says.
When we hit Edgefield late that afternoon, only the diehard sellers are still braving the heat, including aptly named woodworker Ike Carpenter. He fesses right up to being the town character, as well as a fifth-generation folk artist. Easily the most entertaining find on our trip, he works out of a former gas station, surrounded by rustic carved bowls, spoons, tables, and his specialty—complex chains with moving parts, all carved from a single piece of wood.
For half an hour (at least) we are awash in Carpenter’s detailed stories, one on top of another, about his family’s carving legacy, the origins of his art, the 63 hours he spent on a single piece, plus pop quizzes about the S.C. and American history reflected in his tools and his carvings. When he finally takes a breath, Joanie and I each buy a cherry-wood spoon with a bowl shaped like South Carolina to carry home the memory of this craftsman and his riddles and tales.
“Next time y’all come, you’ll have to let me do some of the talking,” he jokes as we leave.
Ten-plus hours after we set out, there’s still cash in our wallets, but our energy is spent. Modoc, last stop on the Peach Tree 23, will have to wait until next year.
Final score
At day’s end, we drive toward home, air conditioning on high, assorted treasures safely stowed in back. Despite some sore feet and sunburn, I’m still smiling about that typesetter’s drawer. It’s in great shape, with a metal drawer pull embossed with “Hamilton Mfg. Co.,” one of America’s biggest manufacturers of letterpress type and printers’ cabinets. For a lifelong journalist, it’s a pretty cool find. It’s going to look great hanging in my home office.
Maybe next yard sale, I’ll find stuff to display in it.
_____
Get There
South Carolina is home to three long yard sales. Before you go, check websites to confirm dates and locations.
Peach Tree 23: You can start at either end of the route, but it’s always 44 miles, along S.C. 23 between Batesburg-Leesville and Modoc. Well established, it’s a highlight of the year for this region, and it’s always the first Friday and Saturday in June, rain or shine.
Next dates: June 3–4, 2016. Visit peachtree23.com or call Edgefield County Chamber of Commerce, (803) 275-0010.
The Big Grab: Denise Jones of Blythewood has successfully met her goals for the event she launched four years ago: “It brings people to the community, it brings the community together, and it fills our hotels and eating places.” The route loops over 43 miles, through Blythewood, Ridgeway and Winnsboro, “so you can jump on anywhere,” Jones says. It’s always the Friday and Saturday after Labor Day.
Next dates: Sept. 11–12. Visit Facebook or call Blythewood Visitors Center, (803) 550-9323; Ridgeway Town Hall, (803) 337-2213; or Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce, (803) 635-4242.
I2I: The new kid on the block, the I2I (pronounced eye-to-eye) runs for 49 miles, from I-77 to I-26, through Chester, Union and Newberry counties. The nonprofit Community Development Zone, in partnership with the Whitmire Economic Development Board, the City of Chester and Chester County, organized the first I2I in 2014, hoping to copy the success of the nearby Big Grab. The other two sales stay on a tight track, but this one meanders, so you’ll need good directions to find your way. Still in its infancy, plans are to hold it the first Friday and Saturday of June.
Next dates: June 3–4, 2016. Visit i2i or call Jamala Kim Wallace at (803) 463-0678 or Elizabeth Claytor at (803) 379-1683.
_____
Tips for tackling mega yard sales
- Start early to beat traffic and get first shot at the goods. Most vendors set up by 7 or 8 a.m.
- Come later in the day to make deals with sellers who want to unload what’s left.
- Keep an eye on the weather. Rain may make vendors pack up early.
- Expect lots of cars and pedestrians, especially around large clusters of vendors. Park where you are not blocking traffic.
- Bring cash—lots of quarters and dollar bills, plus some bigger bills for larger purchases.
- Wear cool clothes, sunscreen and a hat. Comfortable shoes are essential.
- Drink lots of water.
- Handy items: Wet wipes for grimy hands; shopping bags to hold smaller items; measuring tape; truck or car with large carrying capacity.
Sellers, get permission. You may need to fill out a permit form with the yard sale’s organizers or get approval from a property owner before setting up your stand.