The Secret Is in the Box: Some of My Best Box Lot Finds

After my recent post about an auction box lot, I started getting questions. What is a box lot?How do box lots work?Do you really find good things in them? That first question turned into an entire post explaining the wonderfully chaotic world of box lots at rural estate auctions. But the last question? Oh, I have receipts.

Everything you're about to see came out of box lots I've purchased at auctions. And here's the crazy part:

Almost all of these are only finds from the past six months. Welcome to my favorite part of an estate auction.

Never Skip the Books

Books are one of the first things I look through during an auction preview. I've found everything from old children's books and vintage cookbooks to sets that deserve a spot on a bookshelf simply because they're beautiful. Recently, box lots yielded a handsome set of Charles Dickens books as well as a set of Great Americans of History.

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  Great Americans of History books

But never underestimate the cookbook box. Vintage cookbooks are little time capsules. Community cookbooks, advertising cookbooks and those little promotional recipe books that once came from appliance and food companies regularly get tossed into boxes with seemingly ordinary books and magazines. That's exactly where I want to find them. Lesson No. 1: Look through the books.

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The Kitchen Box Lots Are Dangerous Territory

Kitchenware is another box-lot favorite of mine because a fairly unremarkable box can have something very good hiding underneath. I've pulled out Fire-King mugs with fruit, Swanky Swigs juice glasses and all sorts of vintage kitchen pieces.

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And then there are things like this wonderfully ridiculous kitchen frog scrubbie holder. Was anyone desperately searching for a ceramic frog whose enormous open mouth was intended to hold a kitchen scrubber? Perhaps not. Did I need him once I saw him? Obviously. This is precisely the sort of thing box lots were invented to deliver into my life. He sold almost immediately in my booth.

Christmas Is Hiding in There, Too

Holiday decorations frequently end up in box lots, and I've found some fantastic pieces. One of my favorites is a vintage bobblehead snowman. And, incidentally, the Dundee Marmalade advertising crock sitting behind him in the photo? Also a box-lot find.

I've found a ceramic Christmas tree tucked among miscellaneous household items, too.

But one of the more interesting Christmas finds was a vintage paperweight showing the famous holiday display at Wolf & Dessauer, the long-gone northern Indiana department store. That's the kind of piece I especially love finding. It's not just vintage Christmas décor. It's a little piece of local history connected to Christmas memories that generations of people still remember. And somebody put it in a box. This is why we dig.

Sometimes It's Just Really Good Junk

Not every find fits neatly into a category. I've found fairy lamps, a Fenton cameo bird and an old package of Little Duke toy playing cards. They're exactly the kinds of small pieces that can disappear among dozens of ordinary household objects. Which is why I don't just glance into a box. I dig.

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Look underneath things. Pick things up. Check the bottom. Move the newspaper. Look inside containers.

The good junk does not always have the courtesy to sit on top.

And Then There Was Chanel

Every once in a while, you're digging through somebody's miscellaneous belongings and find something that makes you stop. Like a vintage Chanel No. 5 purse perfume in its original box. In a box lot. This is the moment when you very calmly put everything back exactly where you found it and attempt not to announce to everyone standing around you: EVERYBODY GO AWAY. THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING IN THIS BOX.

Handmade Things Get Me Every Time

Box lots are also where unusual handmade pieces tend to surface. I've found a handmade wooden spice rack that has all the character I want in an old piece. And then there's the hand-carved wooden swan.

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These aren't necessarily things you could type into a search bar and decide to go shopping for. You find them because you were there. You looked. And something caught your eye. That's one of my favorite things about auctions. You don't always know what you're looking for until you find it.

Sometimes You Have to Commit

Now we need to discuss one of the more stressful box-lot situations. I spotted part of a set of vintage striped Pyrex nesting bowls in one box. Excellent. There was just one problem. The rest of the set was in another box. The value—and frankly, the satisfaction—is in putting that complete set back together. So now I didn't need to win one box lot. I needed to win two.

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Suddenly this had become a mission. You have no guarantee that you'll win the second box just because you bought the first. Someone else may want it. The bidding may go higher than you're willing to pay. But this time it worked. I got both boxes and reunited the set.

Victory. These are the ridiculous little dramas occurring silently in my head while everyone else thinks we're just bidding on cardboard boxes full of kitchen stuff.

And Then There Are the Once-in-a-Lifetime Finds

Every once in a while, a box lot produces something so unusual that you know immediately: You're probably never going to see this again. That's how I felt when I found eleven Marx swimming pool and patio sets, accessories made for the company's tin lithographed dollhouses. Eleven. All new old stock. All still in their original boxes. I bought every single one. Because there are moments in this business when you can go home and think about it... and there are moments when you recognize that this is the moment.

I have been hunting old stuff for a very long time. I don't expect to stumble across eleven unopened vintage Marx pool sets again. Ever.

Some Things Never Get Resold

Not everything I buy ends up in my antique booth. Sometimes I find something I love enough that it never makes it back out of my house. One of my favorite box-lot finds is this old wooden boot form. It's big. It's sculptural. It's worn in exactly the right ways. And I incorporated it into my own décor. Occupational hazard.

Don't Overlook the Tiny Stuff

Sometimes the best thing in the box is also the smallest. I found this tiny ironstone creamer measuring only about an inch and a half tall. I've also found a wonderful little turned wooden spice container.

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Neither one is going to shout at you from the bottom of a cardboard box. You have to notice them. And that, really, is the entire game.

And Sometimes It's Just Dumb Luck

You can preview carefully. You can learn patterns. You can recognize makers. You can know what categories to watch. You can develop a pretty good eye after years of doing this. And then sometimes...

you just get lucky. Like finding a green McCoy Sunburst crock bowl mixed into a box lot. Thank you very much. I'll take it.

So, Where Do I Find the Good Stuff?

People ask me this all the time. Where do you find it? How do you keep finding these things? There isn't one magical antique store or secret sale where all the good stuff lives.

You go to auctions. You arrive early. You look through everything. You learn what interests you. You learn what other people overlook. You dig through the books. You move the towels. You look inside the weird container. You inspect the box underneath the table.

And sometimes you buy a whole box of things you don't particularly want because you spotted one very good thing hiding inside. That's the treasure hunt.

And after looking back through my photos and realizing that almost every single thing in this post came out of box lots in just the past six months, I'm even more convinced: The secret is in the box.

But shhhhh. Let's keep that between us.

Take the back road. Find the good junk.

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