Features

Six cowhide trivets. Five napkin rings. Four serving trays, three yearbooks, two end tables…and a photograph of Yosemite. 

That’s some of what I bought at the last Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale.  

Commonly shortened to “WES,” the event might be call ed with equal accuracy the Mother of All Garage Sales. Held in a warehouse on the Oakland Estuary, the sale has grown to gargantuan proportions during the 40-plus years since it was born as a modest fundraiser in an East Bay garage. The 2004 edition of th e WES takes place this coming Saturday, March 6 (9 a.m.-4 p.m.), and Sunday, March 7 (11 a.m.-4 p.m.), at 333 Lancaster St. in Oakland. 

Reputed to be the largest sale of its type in the world, the WES draws thousands of customers eager to cull through yesterday’s treasures and pay bottom dollar for them. The event raises more than a million dollars a year for the Oakland Museum of California. 

The WES has become not only a local tradition but a cross section of the oddity and excess of American material culture. Generations of useful and useless objects past their time eventually wash up here as flotsam on the shores of our cultural sea, ready for another chance to shine on the bric-a-brac shelves or disappear into the cluttered garages of Bay Area resid ents. 

The scale of the sale is staggering. Thousands of objects are priced as little as 25 cents or 50 cents and or just a dollar or two. Prices for some of the larger or rarer items—such as Persian carpets and antique furniture—can run up to several hun dred dollars. 

Among the items for sale every year are a few hair-raising aesthetic atrocities and a large number of things that were must-haves for the stylish contemporary home of anywhere from two to six or eight decades ago. (Visit the lamp section; y ou’ll understand.) Any adult will recognize (or, perhaps, cringe) at the familiar gewgaws of past generations arranged here for sale at pennies on the original dollar.  

Many items have made the transition from trendy or stylish to kitschy (remember Rubik’s Cubes? Wooden salad bowls carved in the shape of tropical fruit? Giant ornamental clusters of plastic grapes? 1970s furniture designed to make your home look like the captain’s cabin of a pirate ship? Any sort of decorative candle? Anything avocado green or burnt orange…oh, wait, that’s trendy again). 

Some WES goods are on their way to being “collectible” and there are true treasures hiding here and there. Other things you’ll just want because you didn’t buy them when they were new a few decades ago, and thank goodness that you didn’t, since you’d have paid full price then! Some objects you’ll remember from childhood and just have to have for nostalgia’s sake. 

That’s not at all to say that everything at the WES is a decorative object. There are many finds of great value, practical and inexpensive items, from attractive and/or serviceable furniture to luggage, small appliances, sewing machines, perfectly worthwhile clothing, lamps, tools, home medical equipment such as walkers and crutches, dishes, an d endless aisles of good hardcover books. You could outfit a college apartment, campsite, or even a permanent home here, if you had the time and the truck to haul away all your second-hand loot. 

Here’s how the WES works.  

The sale is staffed by volunteers from the Oakland Museum Women’s Board and their friends and husbands. They’re the friendly people with badges and white cloth coats. Many of them labor throughout the year to get the sale items properly prepared. One volunteer has supposedly worked at more than 40 consecutive sales; others are said to represent three generations of the same family. And they’re fun to talk with. At one checkout counter a volunteer packing up my purchases delivered a mini-lecture on the history of basketry.  

Items for sale are meticulously organized; furniture and other largish items crowd the center of the warehouse, and smaller objects are grouped by type in bays around the perimeter. There are extensive sections for books, art, clothes, housewares, electronics, toys, and several other categories.  

Each section is further subdivided. In one section you may wander past the multitude of wicker baskets, alcoves filled with decorations arranged by holiday, brassware, miscellaneous office supplies, shelves burdened with bric-a-brac and, oh yes, a case of genuine white elephants (the latter not for sale). 

Let’s say you pause in the large area devoted to decorative glass. Around you are tables and shelves occupied by a bewildering variety of blue glass, brown glass, glass vases, glass jars, glass ashtrays, glass lanterns, stained glass, in every conceivable molded, blown, cut and poured shape. And, there’s more! Investigate other sections of the warehouse and you’ll find areas with fine glass (crystal vases and what not), mirrors, glass dishware, punch bowls, wineglasses, picture glass in frames, glass sculptures and old-style glass aquariums. 

As you lug your treasures away you may spot the disclaimer posted on the wall saying the Oakland Museum Women’s Board does not war rant that objects purchased at the WES “can be used for any particular purpose.” Don’t let that deter you. It’s essentially the lawyer’s definition of a white elephant. You’re still having fun, participating in a local tradition, and making room in the warehouse for all the donations for next year’s sale.