This is the easy way to tell what is still available. Just click on the link below. Otherwise, look at the bottom of the post. If the item is sold it will read GONE! SOLD!
ADDRESS: The Estate Store of the Community Warehouse 3969 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97212
The Estate Store
Hours: Open 10am to 4pm Thursday through Monday. Closed Tuesday & Wednesday Closed Monday May 28th For Memorial Day
THE Garage Sale
Hours: Open 10am to 4pm Thursday through Monday. Closed Tuesday & Wednesday Closed Monday May 28th For Memorial Day
Telephone: 503-445-1449
Email: Ed at communitywarehouse dot org
West Side Donation Center:Open Wednesday-Saturday, from 10:00 am – 4:00 p.m. at 8380 SW Nyberg Rd. Tualatin, Oregon 97062. TUALATIN STORE NOW OPEN 10:00 am – 4:00 p.m. Friday, Saturday & Sunday!
Not in Portland but want an item? We can ship most things to most places most of the time. Shipping costs for furniture are often prohibitvely expensive! If you still think you want it, contact Ed to see if we can ship what you want where you want and how much it will cost you.
In the Portland Metro area and wondering if an item is still available in the store? Contact Ed.
The story of thread ad told by the folks at Coats & Clark in 1962. Stretching from the earliest piece of sinew to the most recent (then fifth generation) leadership of Coats & Clark. This piece was produced to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Coats & Clark thread making empire, which is still going strong at 200.
This glass tid-bit serving tray is in excellent condition, in fact it appears unused, and it measures 9 inches by 6 /4 inches.
The rules of the road in working woodlands are pretty simple: no matter what you’re doing, if an over height and over loaded truck carrying timber is careening down the road in your direction you are responsible for getting the H E double hockey sticks out-of-the-way.
If you don’t you will very much regret it, perhaps most when meeting the maître d’hôtel in a very warm place (Hi! My name is Beelzebub and I’ll be your server tonight, and every night. Smoking or non? Just kidding! Every table is smoking, as are the seats and you will be too.Salut!).
Luckily these log trucks are a little more forgiving since they are toys and only measure 5 or 6 inches long.
Summer is coming and with it the need for cold drinks and ice cubes to do the job. Just pull the lever and you’ll hear one of the quintessential sounds of modern summertime, the cracking of ice in an ice-cube tray.
We have four regular trays and one double tray, they are in great condition and are just over 11 inches long. They’re made from aluminum so we can be assured that they are BPA free too.
The single trays are $5 each and the double is $10.
The two great innovations of western culture, perhaps the only two notable ones, together at last, pastry and forks!
Individually useful, together they are a unparalleled marvel.
What’s not to like?
Better even than snail forks, or fish forks, or shellfish forks these 5 inch long forks are in the Loxley pattern by M. S. Ltd of Sheffield, England and are guaranteed to be vegan safe.
Of course, excessive indulgence in pastries could be troublesome to one’s health, but what’s the point in living without indulging now and again? And, if you’re going to indulge, why not make it a ceremonial act?
Sacred implements and ritual only known the the initiated are key elements ceremony. These forks could easily be incorporated into a pastry invocation, the secret rituals are secret of course . . .
Now I take the bus, walk or bike because I can’t afford the insurance, but Life’s Been Good.
Maserati club car badge and belt buckle. The buckle is 2 1/2 inches high and the car badge is about 4 3/4 inches tall, or perfect for attaching to your bicycle rack. If there’s any question about whose bike it is when you’re attempting to force the lock with a set of bolt cutters because you lost your keys (again) at dollar Pabst and (tofu) wing night, you can just flash your belt buckle like a diplomatic passport in a smoke and whiskey-vapor filled second world drinking establishment.
It may not save your skin, but you might have enough time to run for a bus.
Vintage ’lucky’ pipe rest with horseshoe motif, jockey’s cap and riding crop. It’s a great accessory for a day at the race track or for smoking your pipe at pig number one’s straw house.
It seems to be made from some sort of cast resin and it measures 4 1/4 inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide. If you’re not a pipe smoker I can see it used for other purposes, including (but not limited to): pin tray in the sewing room, serving dish for fennel seeds after a big meal, a paper weight for when the big bad wolf is next door and the windows are open, or just as a conversation piece.
Nothing says indolence on the first hot afternoon of the season like a quart pitcher of gin. Although a quart pitcher of premixed gin and tonic might be a little wiser.
With a lovely tinkle, tinkle upon the keys Willard would play every day, beginning at half past six for the bar patrons in a basement just off Burnside. By a quarter past two in the morning he’d be the last canine sitting at the bar and the hipsters would come in and be astounded that the dog could get a last beer but they couldn’t.
The barkeeps would try to explain that he was the piano player but everyone would just look incredulous, insulted and more petulant than usual and storm out, later to vilify the establishment in anonymous on-line reviews.
The life of a working piano dog is harder than you’d think. That reach for the F above middle C is a killer if your fingers are accustomed, through genetics and use, to be digitigrade feet. The solution is to play fast and loud, like punk rock piano and hope no one notices your lack of range.
5 inches long, 4 1/4 inches wide and mercifully silent.
There, I can see the thing’s body. It’s large, large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . Ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate. The monster or whatever it is can hardly move. It seems weighed down by . . . possibly gravity or something. The thing’s raising up. The crowd falls back now. They’ve seen plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience.
Well, we ought to see some action soon. One of the companies is deploying on the left flank. A quick thrust and it will all be over. Now wait a minute! I see something on top of the cylinder. No, it’s nothing but a shadow. Now the troops are on the edge of the Wilmuth farm. Seven thousand armed men closing in on an old metal tube. Wait, that wasn’t a shadow! It’s something moving . . . solid metal . . . kind of shieldlike affair rising up out of the cylinder . . . It’s going higher and higher. Why, it’s standing on legs . . . actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework. Now it’s reaching above the trees and the searchlights are on it. Hold on!
The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known survivors. The rest strewn over the battle area from Grovers Mill to Plainsboro, crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to cinders by its heat ray. The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey and has effectively cut the state through its center. Communication lines are down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad tracks are torn and service from New York to Philadelphia discontinued except routing some of the trains through Allentown and Phoenixville. Highways to the north, south, and west are clogged with frantic human traffic. Police and army reserves are unable to control the mad flight. By morning the fugitives will have swelled Philadelphia, Camden, and Trenton, it is estimated, to twice their normal population. At this time martial law prevails throughout New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.
I look down at my blackened hands, my torn shoes, my tattered clothes, and I try to connect them with a professor who lives at Princeton, and who on the night of October 30, glimpsed through his telescope an orange splash of light on a distant planet. My wife, my colleagues, my students, my books, my observatory, my. . . my world. . . where are they? Did they ever exist? Am I Richard Pierson? What day is it? Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks? . . .In writing down my daily life I tell myself shall preserve human history between the dark covers of this little book that was meant to record the movements of the stars. . . But to write I must live, and to live, I must eat . . . I find moldy bread in the kitchen, and an orange not too spoiled to swallow. I keep watch at the window. From time to time I catch sight of a Martian above the black smoke. The smoke still holds the house in its black coil. . . but at length there is a hissing sound and suddenly I see a Martian mounted on his machine, spraying the air with a jet of steam, as if to dissipate the smoke. I watch in a corner as his huge metal legs nearly brush against the house. Exhausted by terror, I fall asleep. . .it’s morning. .
Suddenly, my eyes were attracted to the immense flock of black birds that hovered directly below me. They circled to the ground, and there before my eyes, stark and silent, lay the Martians, with the hungry birds pecking and tearing brown shreds of flesh from their dead bodies. Later when their bodies were examined in the laboratories, it was found that they were killed by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared. . . slain, after all man’s defenses had failed, by the humblest thing that God in His wisdom put upon this earth. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seedbed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a remote dream. It may be that the destruction of the Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, is the future ordained perhaps.
Strange it now seems to sit in my peaceful study at Princeton writing down this last chapter of the record begun at a deserted farm in Grovers Mill. Strange to see from my window the university spires dim and blue through an April haze. Strange to watch children playing in the streets. Strange to see young people strolling on the green, where the new spring grass heals the last black scars of a bruised earth. Strange to watch the sightseers enter the museum where the dissembled parts of a Martian machine are kept on public view. Strange when I recall the time when I first saw it, bright and clean-cut, hard, and silent, under the dawn of that last great day.
Seven inches long, 5 1/2 inches wide, 2 1/4 inches tall. In excellent condition and although originally designed as an ashtray it appears unused. Suitable for use as a candy dish, pin tray or as an invasion device on unsuspecting alien worlds.
Maybe not so much a hemisphere as part of a hemisphere, perhaps from the tropic to the poles. Regardless of any passing resemblance to a hockey puck it is still magical.
It must have been quite a trick to maintain the shape of a dandelion puff-ball while pouring the resin. Therein lies the magic. I could guess how it was done, but sometimes a sense of wonderment is better than the truth of how things happen.
It is 3 1/2 inches in diameter and about 1 1/2 inches tall
Mr. Fox, we’re just here to help you clear up this matter and our records indicate that “a few days late” was roughly 37 years.
Details! Details!
Yes Mr. Fox, details. Our records also show that you never paid the fine for this transgression which was assessed at 1/2 sou per week.
Let me see . . .1/2 sou per week at 37 years, 1,924 weeks, divide by two . . .so you’re here after a debt of 962 sou? 962 sou in a currency that went out of circulation in 1795? Seriously?
If it were only that simple Mr. Fox . . .you see there is the small matter of compound interest. If we were to calculate it at this moment in your time it would be the trifling sum of only 166,528,734.54 sou, or 33,305,746.91 livre, roughly equivalent to 133,222,987.60 United States Dollars.
That’s a lot of cash; would you take a check?
We’re not done Mr. Fox. as you may have noticed we’re not your average debt collectors, sure, we may LOOK like your average BEMs, but we are rather different. You see we recently took payment on Dave Lister’s unpaid* light bill. We’ve now travelled from three million years in the future and we’re going to assess you at the rate from that point in time.
What?!
Well Mr. Fox we wouldn’t want to upset the time space continuum and alter the course of history or anything, now would we Mr.Fox?
I suppose . . . so exactly what is due by your reckoning?
Mr. Fox we show that you owe us one Galactic Reynard.
A Galactic Reynard?
Yes, it is a unit of currency that we named after you; you should be honored at such consideration. The Reynard represents all the wealth of all known species plus one dollar and fifty-seven cents.
So . . . would you take a check?
No.
Visa?
Sorry, but your visa is expired.
Damn.
Well Mr. Fox?
Uhhh . . . would you care to step over to the ‘banking cage’ and I’ll be by in just a moment to give you the funds….
Of course Mr. Fox!
Suckers.
Reynard would like to take this opportunity to announce the sale of two (TWO!) genuine bug-eyed-monsters. The proceeds from the sale of these monsters will (of course) go to repay his massive library late fee debt and will not (of course) be squandered on a chicken dinner.
The big green monster is 5 inches tall, the not-so-big purple monster is 3 inches tall. Although they have travelled from 3 million years in the future and bear small amounts of dust (or the soul-dirt that all debt collectors bear) they are in good condition.
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*Holly: Also you left seventeen pounds, fifty pence in a
bank account. Thanks to compound interest you now own
ninety-eight percent of all the world’s wealth, but since
you’ve hoarded it for three million years nobody’s got any
money except for you and NorWEB.
Lister: Why NorWEB?
Holly: You left a light on in the bathroom. I’ve got a final demand
here for one hundred and eighty billion pounds.
Lister: A hundred and eighty billion pounds!
Years ago we had a little creepy clown figurine. Somehow* it ended up in a mandolin slicer box that was then put on a sales shelf. Poor Margaret found it and was not pleased. I think that’s understandable, how would you feel if you opened a box to see if all the parts were there only to be greeted by a little purple haired creepy thing?
He stayed around for a while but then we sold him to one of Margaret’s friends who was traveling out-of-state with her so that the clown could make another unexpected appearance.
Oddly we haven’t seen much of Margaret since.
We’re pleased to offer a slightly less creepy, but still sort of sketchy clown doll. This one is too big to fit into a mandolin slicer box, but small enough to fit in carry-on luggage. He stands (sits?) 14 inches tall and has a ceramic head and hands.
It is in good condition.
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*”Somehow.” I put it in the box intending to surprise the person pricing when they checked to see if all the parts were there. They didn’t check and so the joke had an unintended victim.
Somewhere beyond the sea somewhere waiting for me my lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailin’
This vintage (1970′s?) metal novelty music box plays “Beyond The Sea” while the lighthouse turns.
It is 6 1/4 inches long, 3 inches deep and the top of the lighthouse is 4 3/4 inches tall. I’m not a big fan of music playing knickknacks, but this one isn’t too bad. We’ve attached a video below so that you may judge for yourself.
The Maltese Falcon got all the attention in Hollywood, but everyone knew the Corsican Owl was the brains of the operation.
The Sardinian Kestrel had thought of doing something to change that and had even gone so far as to talk about it with close friends. This was a key oversight (he forgot that even the most muted conversations would eventually be overheard).
For years later every-time someone asked about the Kestrel, the Owl would just turn, vacantly stare and ask “Who?”
The Owl is 8 1/4inches tall, the other raptor is just under 6 inches tall.
Manchester, New Hampshire, is a broken down mill town on the Merrimack River with an aggressive Chamber of Commerce and America’s worst newspaper.
Hunter S. Thompson -Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (p. 69)
It’s not in my personal top ten list of New England vacation spots, but I have to admit that Manchester itself has bounced back quite a bit since Thompson was there. Even the Chamber of Commerce has improved, they’re still aggressive, but it’s tempered by wisdom.
The Union Leader is not only the newspaper referenced by Thompson but it is also the name* of the tobacco originally sold in this tin.
While it originally contained tobacco it was designed for reuse later as a lunch or storage box. It had a wire handle in the center of the lid which is now gone. Overall the dimensions are 7 3/4 inches long by 5 1/4 inches wide by 4 1/4 inches tall.
After the long passage of time the walls of this item aren’t quite square anymore and the lid is a bit tough to close. The exterior print is in OK condition however so it’s nice bit of collectible Americana.
I’m not sure of the history of the Union Leader brand but it was for sale as early as 1913. It sprang into greater commercial prominence from the late 1920′s through the 1950′s. From what I can tell it was still manufactured into the 2000′s (and may still be) although it is seen by many pipe smokers as an ‘old codger’s’ blend.
“But officer there is nothing on the TSA prohibited items list that states barbeque tools aren’t allowed in carry-on luggage!”
This folding BBQ tool set by Brookstone (“Purveyors of the obscure, the unnecessary and the useless since 1973″) will easily fit into your overnight bag and will probably pass security unnoticed, especially if you do a strip tease at the screening area.
It measures a modest 12 3/4 inches long when folded and extends to 20 inches. Included are a spatula, fork, knife and meat thermometer.
If your plane goes down on a deserted island (and you survive) and all you have to eat are feral pigs and wild sausages you are totally in luck with this handy tool.
Providing you brought a source of fire that is, because a lighter isn’t included. If not the thermometer will be there, like an old friend, to remind you how it was ready, but you dropped the ball. And, by the way, aren’t those cold hotdogs simply wonderful?
Unfortunately for us, the creamery that used this bottle probably used a paper label and as a result it’s tough to figure out how old this piece is or where it came from.
The Duraglas trade name came into use after 1929 so we know this is a terminus ante quam (time before which) so it is no older. The use of the name persisted into the 1950′s so it is reasonable to guess that this post dates World War Two.
For you kids out there this is a ‘cream-top’ bottle wherein the cream would rise and collect in the bulbous neck for easy separation by the discerning consumer. Since the practice of homogenizing milk is now wide-spread there’s not much call for bottles like this anymore.
This is a one quart bottle and it stands 9 3/4 inches tall, it is in excellent condition and with a quick sanitizing would again be serviceable for use, if one knew some nice, local cows.
If so you might be smoking a Brodhaven cigar like the one that originally came in this case.
Approximately 10 inches long, with removable hind-end*.
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*If your cigar tastes like the burnt wooden derriere of a dachshund you also might be smoking a Brodhaven cigar like the one that originally came in this case.
The collective name for a group of cats is a clowder or a glaring (seems right doesn’t it?). I suggest that a puzzle would be another appropriate name. Anyone who’s seen a pile of sleeping felines will know what I mean, all those legs and tails and the purring . . .
This puzzle of cats is wooden and stands 7 3/4 inches tall. It’d make a good shape recognition tool for the average hipster.
The plane has a long history in woodworking. The earliest known examples date to Roman ruins at Pompeii , but they were probably around for quite a while before that.
The key to a successful and functional plane is having the metal cutting edge. This one doesn’t, so shaping wood is not going to happen. I imagine you could rub it along a board and eventually get a nice burnished finish or maybe remove a thousandth of an inch or two if it’s particularly soft wood.
This plane was made by J.S. Kellogg of Amhurst, Missouri and it is 16 inches long.
Having half a plane is the perfect excuse for never finishing those half-completed woodworking projects.
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. Archimedes
And afterward, with weights like this, he can leave the lever in place and take his federally mandated 15 minute rest break.
This is an old cast iron counter-balance weight stack from a large scale, probably once in a warehouse, feed dealer or fish mongers shop. The weights are graduated to counterbalance a load of up to 8000 pounds so whatever they were moving they had a lot of it.
“Hey! Have you heard the Community Warehouse is moving their west-side location? That today, Saturday March 17th will be the last day at the current location and next week they’ll be open for donations at the new spot at 8380 SW Nyberg Road in Tualatin?”
If not and you bring something to the old spot you might be unpleasantly surprised. . . . Our world headquarters on MLK in Portland isn’t moving though. So until we open for donations in the new location on Wednesday, March 21st, you can take them there.
We hope to have a store open there and begin serving client families in early April, or as soon as we possibly can.
These two little thumpers are available now however. The tallest one is 5 1/2 inches and they are vintage Josefs Originals, inspired by and closely overseen by Muriel Joseph George. The production run of her pieces spanned from 1945 to the 1980′s, for the last 20 years or so they were made in Japan but the earlier pieces are from in California. These have the Josefs Originals tag but I’m unsure of where they were made.
A set of drinks coasters wouldn’t have been my guess as the next thing I’d see the Union Pacific Railroad corporate logo on.
It’s usually old silver plated flatware that was probably nicked from the dining car long ago.
I’m going to guess that these were probably a thank you to shareholders sometime in the 1980′s (much like the Omni Exploration glasses from late January).
They are heavy brass and suitable for use as a paper weight if you’re not thirsty. They are approximately 4 inches in diameter.