72 CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // JUNE 2019
GARAGE SALE SEASON typically picks up
in spring, when more people move. Bonk
relies on Craigslist to nd sales because it
has a mapping tool that helps her create a
route. When sellers post ads or yers, she
looks for key words like “furniture.” “I like when they list fur-
niture, because it’s a signal it’s a bigger move, or a whole house
of stu, which is more interesting to me,” she says. But words
like “baby clothes” alert her to skip that sale, since her kids are
older now.
Both Nichols and Settle comb the newspaper before plan-
ning their day. “I’ll circle each sale like this,” Nichols says, dem-
onstrating, “and make a priority route. Prioritize where you
want to go rst, and get there 10 minutes before they start.”SETTLE GENERALLY STAYS WITHIN
a radius that includes Myers Park and
Foxcro, and he rarely goes past Pineville-
Matthews Road. “The farther I get down
Carmel Road, and closer to I-485, the less
luck I have,” he says. Nichols has the best luck in Foxcro, “but I
avoid Raintree,” he says. “There’s nothing good there, ever.”
Bonk does what she calls “the pie,” also known as the south
Charlotte wedge. “South Boulevard is farthest west I’ll go,” she
says. “Because of the nature of Providence Road, if you go too
far out into the suburbs, you’re driving for 20 minutes to nd a
house. The sales on main
roads are easier to get in
and get out.” She says it’s a
bonus when she nds sales
along the way that people
haven’t advertised. “When
you’re alone, you learn to
drive with a peripheral
vision that’s incredible.”(Left) Jenny Bonk
and her sons Drake
and Andrew hold
an old film canister
they found for their
dad, a documentary
filmmaker. Steve
Nichols (above)
finds vinyl records to
add to his collection.
Marty Settle (right)
displays a set of deer
antlers he plans to
incorporate into one
of his sculptures.JENNY BONK, a freelance consultant
who lives in SouthPark, has shopped at
yard sales her whole life. Growing up
in Cleveland, Ohio, “it was part of my
heritage, so I’m deeply grounded in it,”
says the 42-year-old mother of four, who learned the art of
shopping yard sales from her grandfather. “(He was a) massive
yard-saler and junk picker-upper.” She remembers her grandfa-
ther would have 30 lawnmowers at his house—all at dierent
stages of repair—that he’d later resell at his own yard sale. “It
wasn’t for a prot—that was his community,” Bonk says. “He’d
always nd stu for me, too—I collected stamps when I was
little. It’s why I have the compulsion to hunt for things.”
Architect Steve Nichols, 52, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri,
and now lives in SouthPark. He started shopping garage
sales 17 years ago, when his kids were young, to nd items
like American Girl dolls, Legos, and Playmobil sets at deep
discounts. These days he looks for vinyl records to add to his
collection, and he says he can count on seeing Settle at eight or
nine sales during the summer: “One Saturday I saw Marty car-
rying a samurai sword ...”
“If you carry a samurai sword,” Settle interjects, “people give
you better prices.”
Marty Settle, 72, grew up in Quincy, Illinois, where weekend
yard sales were all-day aairs. “My mother thri-shopped and
garage-saled, so I don’t think I had any new clothes until I was
15,” he says. Today, he lives in the Ashbrook neighborhood of
Myers Park, where he scores his best secondhand
nds—and connects with old friends. “If you do this
long enough,” he says, “you see a lot of regulars.”
THE
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