Here Be Old Things: Find stoop sales in Brooklyn

Photo by Michelle V. Agins for The New York Times

Stoop sales are the urban version of garage sales, and Brooklyn is the perfect venue – all those stoops. But finding one is usually a matter of serendipity. There you are, strolling along in your flip flops, and there's a neighbor with a card table loaded with household detritus. Score!

Now, scope out the weekend action using StoopSales.com. It sorts sales by neighborhood, lists times, gives you a preview of what each sales offers, and even locates each sale on a Google map. (Expect to see sales listed approximately mid-week.) If you're on the other side of the card table, submit your sale and alert the world.

Like anything in New York, stoop sales have gotten competitive. Last fall the New York Times published a story about the scene, The Retailer Next Door, where they quoted Kim Mingo, the creator of StoopSales.com:

“It used to be something people in the neighborhood would do. . . . You’d get a coffee, get the paper, and walk around looking for treasures at stoop sales. Now you see cars pull up from all over.”

In many of those cars are the people who traditionalists call the vultures — the used-book, jewelry and antiques dealers who circle Park Slope and other neighborhoods early on weekends before the sales start, haggling for the best stuff before the sellers are fully caffeinated, then reselling it on eBay. Although there have always been some dealers at the sales, their numbers and tenacity have increased, according to several sellers interviewed.

Ahem. If that sounds like you, dear reader, you now know how to get a jump on the competition.