One Woman’s Treasure

‘Junker’ loves stories that go with odd, antique, abandoned things

LARA JO HIGHTOWER

lhightower@nwadg.com

Shara Stacks has had a busy week: The Junk Ranch — the giant, open-air flea market in Prairie Grove that boasts over 150 different vendors — is Friday and Saturday, and Stacks, who has been with the show from the beginning, is finishing weeks’ worth of collecting and pricing items in preparation.

Her Junk Ranch booth carries the name of “Monkeybox,” which is the same as her flea market booth space at Fayetteville’s Funky Yard Sale and her popular blog, which details her junking expeditions. Stacks has a cavalcade of vintage and antique finds that she’s meticulously curated from her year-round searches at yard sales, estate sales and flea markets. There is a huge variety of items in her booth, which resembles a jam-packed store that has been picked up and plunked down in middle of the gorgeous farmland on the outskirts of Prairie Grove where the Junk Ranch is held.

Some of Stacks’ favorite items that she’ll be offering are vintage Christmas decorations.

“One of my favorite things I’ve ever found was my four foot-tall vintage Santa with a rubber face,” she recalls. “I found him in a back yard sale for $2. When I see something that I love so much, I can’t believe that there weren’t 30 people waiting in line to get it.”

Stacks has secondhand shopping in her blood. An only child, she used to take long Saturday car rides in the country with her parents, always stopping for the occasional yard or barn sale they passed.

“We went to a barn sale once, and there was a man wearing overalls there,” says Stacks. “My dad asked him if he had any other overalls to sell, and he said, ‘You can have these for 50 cents,’ and took his overalls off!”

What on earth was he wearing underneath?

“I don’t know,” says Stacks, laughing. “I didn’t look!”

As an adult, her interest in secondhand shopping was, at first, primarily a way to be frugal. She had to decorate her college apartment and, later, her home as a newlywed on a small budget. But she has a distinct memory of the item that shifted her interest from practicality for inexpensive items to love of old things.

“It was a Holt Howard set of dishes,” she says. Holt Howard was a popular, mid-century line of collectibles known for whimsical designs. “The plates were shaped like lettuce leaves, and the bowls were tomatoes. I found it at the Salvation Army for a dollar. And I loved it. I still have it.”

Stacks started her blog in 2005. Her chatty, informative writing style quickly found fans; she often has hundreds of hits a day, and her readers frequently email and even use snail mail to send her vintage items they’ve found that they know she would love. She started an Instagram account two years ago, and it conveys the same palpable passion for what Stacks finds irresistible. Her favorite finds are the ones that tell a little story about themselves, like the library card she found in a 60 year-old book that showed that the same young girl had checked out the book four different times. Stacks says she has trouble leaving some things behind, even if she has no place for them in her own home and knows they won’t sell in her booth.

“It makes me feel sad,” she says. “It makes me feel like no one is going to rescue it and give it a new home but me. I bought these tulle mesh bags as big as a pillow at an estate sale. They were sewn shut, and they were full of the ribbons off of the wedding gifts and had the garter belts. I had to buy it. It seemed like it was special to someone at one point, and it needed to be appreciated by someone else.”

She’s also gone out of her way — more than once — to return to its rightful owner a meaningful item she has found.

“I bought a quilt at the Goodwill in Fayetteville,” she remembers. “It was made out of all different pieces of western shirts, with the pearl snaps and all.” The quilt was embroidered “My Paw Paw” on the front and, on the back, “Love without end…amen.” There was also a name embroidered. Stacks hopped on the Internet and tracked down someone she thought might be a relative of the man honored by the quilt. Sure enough, she had found the grandson of Paw Paw, who was knocking at her door 30 minutes after she sent him a message. “He said that it wasn’t supposed to be donated, but it got put in the wrong pile. I was so happy.”

And sometimes, Stacks is monetarily rewarded for her stewardship of these old, well-loved items. A year or so ago, for example, she came across an old Blythe doll at a yard sale. She knew that the dolls, produced in the early 1970s and based on the big-eyed portraits by Margaret Keane, were highly collectible. Despite the apparent damage to this particular doll, she bought it on a hunch.

“It was just her torso — her head and her arms,” says Stacks. “I thought maybe someone could use her for parts. I got her for three dollars, which did seem like a lot of money — I really had to think about it. But then I sold her on eBay for $527! I did not expect that. I rescued her out of a box. She probably would have gone to a landfill if someone else had bought her.” Stacks follows the Instagram account of the man who purchased the doll from her, and she was gratified to see the results after he had restored her to her original glory.

“I rescued her, and then she got rescued again.”

Stacks’ booth at The Junk Ranch — where you can see many of the items she has “rescued” over the years — can be found in its usual place right beside the little white ranch house near the front of the grounds. She says she loves participating in the event.

“I always wanted to do a show like this,” she says. “I liked the idea of building displays and vignettes. But I think the most exciting part is watching the people come into the booth and see things, and then tell me their memories, you know, ‘My grandma had this!’ You don’t get to see that when you have a booth in a regular flea market.” In fact, Stacks often finds herself deep in conversation throughout the two-day event, listening to people relate why this item or that item means so much to them. It’s almost as if they sense her own love for these items, and it makes them want to share their memories with her.

“I had an aluminum Christmas tree set up by my booth all day on a Friday, and then on Saturday morning, a girl came in a dead run with her debit card out saying, ‘I want that!’” she says. “They had their grandmother’s tree out in a storage shed behind their house, and it caught fire and they lost everything. That was her dream, to come to The Junk Ranch and find an aluminum tree.”

For Stacks, sharing those experiences — and the love for the old — is what it’s all about.

“Where we are in our little corner of the farm, sometimes I feel like it’s just us,” she says. “And then I go to the corner and see all of these other booths, and I’m just amazed at how many of us appreciate this old stuff.

“And then I see the customers come out in droves, and they’re all just beaming. That makes me so happy.”

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FAQ

The Junk Ranch

WHEN — 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday

WHERE — 1195 Centerpoint Church Road in Prairie Grove

COST — $10 Friday; $5 Saturday

INFO — thejunkranch.net

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FYI

Next Weekend:

Vintage Market Days

WHEN — 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Oct. 13 & 14; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 15

WHERE — 7640 SW Regional Airport Blvd. in Bentonville

COST — $10 on Oct. 13; $5 Oct. 14-15

INFO — 918-671-9712

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FYI

Also this weekend:

Junk at the Mill

WHEN — 9 a.m.-5 p.m. today through Sunday

WHERE — 501 S. Mock St. in Prairie Grove

COST — Free

INFO — 957-0948

AND

Homegrown Festival

WHEN — 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday

WHERE — South Broadway between Central and East Main & on East Main to the end of the bridge in downtown Siloam Springs

COST — Free

INFO — mainstreetsiloam.org