25 cents: "Auto Bingo," this adorable cardboard road trip game where you pull a little translucent tab over various pictures (chicken, horse, police car) as you see them while driving. Even at a quarter I overpaid; it's a flimsy thing and there's only one instead of a set so you can actually play with other people, but it was such a charming piece of 1950s nostalgia that I couldn't leave it there. Maybe I'll find another someday.
10 cents: The Devil Wears Prada paperback. Can't remember if I like it enough to keep or if I'll resell it, but it is in fantastic shape. It's clearly been read and the spine has some narrow slashes like somebody nicked it with a blade while slicing open a box - but overall, it's in pretty dazzling shape.
$1: Walt Disney's Worlds of Nature, which was SUPER CRAZY EXCITING to me because it's part of a 4-book boxed set from the 1960's Mom brought home when her parents died, and when I was a young and stupid child I cut some of the animal pictures out of it to make a collage. I have been plagued by guilt for years and always hoped to replace it - and there it was! It's in better shape than mine anyway - the spine's not as tight, but the corners are quite nice whereas mine are all banged up from use, and it has no markings or any writing in it.
$1: Strange Red Cow (and other curious classified ads from the past.) Sort of a gift or coffee table book, compact and endlessly fun to page through.
Meanwhile, Dad paid a dollar for Sweet Home, or: Friendship's Golden Altar - ed. Frances Percival.
It is an ancient scrap of a book that has just overtaken the title of "oldest literature in the house" - 1858. It is also in terrible shape - a child has scribbled over all over the inside covers in pencil, there are watermark stains in the same place, and the cover on the spine is 80% gone (part of it came off in his hands as he bought it!) - but, being as it was 150 years old he just couldn't let it go. I probably wouldn't have bought it, but we are admittedly now all charmed by it, as despite the cover condition, all of the pages inside with text are still clear and readable, and the binding is holding together pretty well.
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But my favorite part of the morning was when a woman asked if she could bring her dog into the tent sale, and being as it was a small little tricolor Corgi, they said sure. CORGI SIGHTING, WOO!
