For longtime vendors, Myrtle Beach garage sale means cash, camaraderie

Lined with old fishing poles, old lanterns, old books, old pennants, old license plates, old board games and other knickknacks — most of them old, too — Eddie Taylor’s booth stood in the same old spot at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

It’s a corner location, a high traffic point right beside an entryway. The convention center’s general manager annually designates that area for Taylor because every year the old guy in the camouflage ball cap comes to South Carolina’s Largest Garage Sale.

“Since Day 1,” the Hanahan vendor said.

Saturday marked the 27th year the sale’s been held in Myrtle Beach. The last seven have been at the convention center. Before that, the Pavilion parking garage served as the market. For some sellers, the event is simply a moneymaking equation: Crowds plus trinkets equals extra cash. But there’s also a nostalgic element to the annual haggling. For vendors who have been making the trip for more than a decade or two, the sale means a reunion of sorts.

“I only get a chance to see them once a year,” said Myrtle Beach’s Robert Blackburn, who has been coming to the sale for about 15 years. “It’s like a great big get-together. On Fridays, we all get together and have a cup of coffee and ask people how their kids are, what’s going on in their lives, hear about certain vendors that passed away, that type of thing. It’s a big family.”

Taylor returns to the sale year after year in part because he knows Paul Edwards, the center’s general manager, will secure his location.

“I won’t lie to you,” he said. “You won’t find a better person who runs a show like this.”

Next to Taylor’s booth stood Fred Nelson’s. Another Lowcountry resident, his table offered a variety of antiques: clocks, knives, smoking pipes, etc. Like Taylor, Nelson said it’s obvious why he’s returned since the first sale.

“The people that like my kind of stuff,” he said. “My buddy down there, they like his stuff. So we hang around here, get something done. … I generally figure if there’s 5,000 people that come here, probably 20 of them will be my customers.”

When it comes to customers, the sale seems to offer something for even the most, well, unique tastes.

In the market for a used bra? Support has arrived. How about an oversized white tiger stuffed animal? Clear some space on the comforter.

“It’s a lot of fun, you know,” said Ardell Powell, a vendor from Whiteville, N.C., who has been coming to the sale for about 10 years. “You meet a lot of interesting people, different people.”

Maurice Moultrie of Conway wasn’t looking for a dancing robot, but he couldn’t resist the spindly-legged machine and its remote control.

“Normally, I see something I want and sometimes I tend to hesitate and I walk away and come back and it’s gone,” he said. “So my mission today was: whatever you see you like, get it.”

On his second trip inside the sale, he found the robot. He named it Lil’ Mo.

Sara McCormick of Myrtle Beach bought a whitewashed hall tree made from an old beach house door and a used baby crib.

“We’ve been looking for something like that,” she said. “Not necessarily a door, but something to put in our entryway. Our house was built in ‘67 and then had an addition put on in 2008. We’re trying to keep it very beachy and unique and rustic. It fit perfectly.”

Not a bad deal for Bobby Chavis, who runs Bink’s Furniture in Little River. He fashioned McCormick’s hall tree from a door that was about to be tossed.

“There’s no sense in throwing it in the trash,” said Chavis, who sold the finished piece for $225, including delivery.

That money is important. Traditions aside, vendors acknowledge the extra cash from the sale makes the trip worthwhile.

“The money I make here helps me get through the winter,” said Blackburn, who also runs a stand at a local flea market. “In the wintertime, the jobs stop.”

Delores Wilson, who ran a collectibles shop in North Myrtle Beach for more than 20 years, used this year’s sale to clear out some of her old inventory. Her booth offered scarves, jewelry, G.I. Joes, even a photograph of Marilyn Monroe.

She’s been coming to the sale since the early ‘90s. Every year, the Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., woman looks forward to the event — for reasons both emotional and practical.

“The excitement,” she said. “Hard work. Adrenaline, probably. And, of course, money.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 7:25 PM with the headline "For longtime vendors, Myrtle Beach garage sale means cash, camaraderie."