Friday Five: Garage Sale Special!

It's that time of year when brightly colored new growth springs up on the roadsides of America -- GARAGE SALE signs. So the RevGalBlogPals ask:

1) Are you a garage saler?
Every once in awhile -- usually only when I'm looking for something in particular, like the other summer when I was in hot pursuit of a used Cardioglide. (Which is now providing habitat for spiders and dust bunnies in my basement.)

2) If so, are you an immediate buyer or a risk taker who comes back later when prices are lower?
I have learned, at least when it comes to good quality items, to buy it when you find it.

3) Seriously, if you're not a garage saler, you are probably not going to want to play this one.
(That wasn't really #3.)
3) This is the real #3: What's the best treasure you've found at a yard or garage sale?
I have what I would call a rustic nutcracker in the shape of a squirrel that I found at a garage sale. It sits on my living room end table, as an attempt to effect that "up north" ambience I'm striving for at Cold Comfort Cottage. I think it's cute, in a garage sale kind of way.

4)If you've done one yourself, at church or at home, was it worth the effort?
Our church always brings in major bucks at its annual Labor Day weekend sale. But the cleanup -- not so much the setup but the cleanup, and trying to figure out what to do with all the ju- -- I mean garb- -- I mean generously donated items that did not sell is always a headache.

5) Can you bring yourself to haggle?
Oh, yes. My favorite line is, "What's the friendliest price you'll take for this?"

BONUS: For the true aficionado: Please discuss the impact of Ebay, Craig's List, Freecycle, etc... on the church or home yard/garage sale.
I live in an amazingly computer-illiterate part of the country -- you would not believe how many people in the surrounds of Outer Podunk have never even touched a computer, let alone own and use one -- so for that population I don't think it's made much of a difference. But -- after PBS' Antiques Roadshow became a hit that reached even beyond the usual PBS viewer demographic, I noticed a rather dramatic drop in the number of vintage "finds" at sales and in local resale shops. I remember, pre-AR and when I was collecting glass hens-on-nests, buying a fabulous Anchor Hocking chicken candy dish for a measly $6 at a local antique store; the clerk kept staring at the price sticker and murmuring, "This is the sticker that was on the bottom when you picked it up...right?" and my assuring her that it was, all the while mentally high-fiving the glass gods for leading me to such a steal. I think that scenario has gotten rarer and rarer at household sales and in stores alike.