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You should see the size of the spoon
The big mystery item offered for sale at the 2018 S.C. State Museum Yard Sale was a 7-foot-tall inflatable ice cream tub. Museum staffers weren’t sure where it came from or who might buy it, but at the end of the day, a Columbia confection shop, The Peanut Man, scored a sweet deal on the giant pint.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Pyramid scheme
Nikki Holloman and Chris Bookter of Columbia walked away from the sale with a 7-foot-tall panel modeled to look like a stone slab covered in hieroglyphs. “Our theme is Egyptian stuff,” Holloman said, as the couple carried it down a stairway to the museum lobby. “We’ll probably make it a decoration piece in the living room.”
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Prices so good they’re scary
Museum public relations manager Jared Glover reacts in mock horror to a Dracula mannequin offered for sale at the 2018 yard sale. With a varied selection of items and prices starting at just $5 for some items, “we have something in this room that anyone would be interested in,” Glover said.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Leaving (with) a big footprint
Brothers Brandon and D.J. Hickman became the proud owners of a plaster cast in the shape of a dinosaur footprint. “It’s actually exactly what I was coming to find,” Brandon Hickman said. “As soon as I saw this, I had to get it.”
Photo by Andrew Haworth
Even the S.C. State Museum needs to do spring cleaning from time to time.
In April 2018, the museum held a “yard sale” to clean out its prop and storage areas. While no historic artifacts were on sale, many of the items were certainly unique.
If you needed a full-size replica of a World War I trench—used in an exhibit titled “South Carolina and the Great War”—they had one.
If you were shopping for a giant Norman Rockwell image printed on wooden panels and cut to look three-dimensional, they had that, too, and it was priced to sell.
And who could resist boxes of “metal parts” from mill machines used in a textile exhibit? No, they weren’t actually metal, but a lightweight composite painted and weathered to look authentic.
During the sale, hundreds of visitors packed into the 6,000-square foot storage space on the second floor of the museum to catch deals on these unique items, as well as artwork, banners, office equipment and unclassifiable items, such as a 7-foot-tall inflatable “pint” of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. That particular item had even the museum staff scratching their heads, as no one seemed to recall what it was once used for.
“I think the inflatable Häagen-Dazs is the weirdest,” museum public relations manager Jared Glover said of the items available for sale. “When I walked in and saw it inflated I thought, ‘What is this doing here?’”
The event was free to attend, and many of the items were priced at $5. Theater groups and “DIY types” often attend the sale, Glover said, but the variety of inexpensive educational items—such as large wall prints and banners related to science and history—also makes the yard sale attractive to school teachers.
With the sale in full swing, a rustle of commotion sprang from behind several large pieces of wall art as Lexington brothers Brandon and D.J. Hickman emerged triumphantly with a plaster cast of a dinosaur footprint. They made their way to the checkout line, groaning under the weight of the $15 item, which was apparently as heavy as it looked.
“It’s actually exactly what I was coming to find,” Brandon Hickman said. “As soon as I saw this, I had to get it.”
Nearby, Caroline McKenzie of Columbia was pondering how she would use several 7-foot-tall Egyptian-themed panels modeled to look like a stone slab covered in hieroglyphs.
“I may paint them and put them on the ceiling,” she said, removing her cell phone to call a friend with a truck to come pick up the new acquisition.
Nikki Holloman and Chris Bookter of Columbia also scored one of the Egyptian panels. They had a definitive plan for the unique piece.
“Our theme is Egyptian stuff,” Holloman said, as the couple carried it down a stairway to the museum lobby. “We’ll probably make it a decoration piece in the living room.”
As the sale was winding down, a large piece of wall art based on Norman Rockwell’s painting Organist Waiting for Cue caught the eye of Elizabeth Scheffres and fiancé Lucius Watts. The art panel depicts a player about to strike the first chord of “The Wedding March.” As such, Scheffres said she thought it would “make a really cool background” for photography at their upcoming wedding.
The original Rockwell painting is valued at more than $1.3 million, according to Sotheby’s. As a life-sized prop at the yard sale, it was a mere $5.
Glover said the sale netted about $6,000, all of which will go towards supporting the museum.
“Its nice people are able to find a use for the items we’re selling,” Glover said. “They are owning a little piece of the museum.”
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Get More
To learn more about upcoming events at the S.C. State Museum, go to visitscmuseum.org.