Val Dolan - an eye for used treasures

One can find all sorts of treasures at garage sales. Val Dolan can attest to that, as she finds a variety of vintage and unusual items she can resell.

Val operates a booth that is open the first Friday and Saturday of each month in the West Bottoms business district. Her space, called Bottoms Up, sells a variety of collectibles. She also has a space in the Lone Elm Antique Mall in Olathe, which is open daily.

Val Dolan at Bottoms Up

“I call myself eclectic,” Val said. “I sell vintage clothes, some jewelry, lots of men’s items, pictures, lamps.” Some of her items are classified as antiques, meaning they’re more than 100 years old, but mostly the items are considered collectibles. “The whole antique business has changed, and I had to change with it,” she said.

Val was an avid garage sale shopper when her two daughters were young. “I used to go to garage sales every Saturday,” she said. “I’d buy clothes for the girls and stuff for the house.”

When the family moved to Virginia, Val’s interest branched out. “My mother had some crystal and asked me if I wanted it,” she said, “but I didn’t. It was too fragile for me.” So Val’s mom advertised the crystal, which caught the notice of a company called Replacements. Soon, her mom was regularly buying items that she resold to Replacements, and Val picked up on that. “I started going to auctions and garage sales, finding pieces that I could sell to Replacements,” she said. “I’ve been told I have a good eye. I could see something, and I just knew.”

Val also starting placing goods in a consignment shop. When the shop’s owner got sick, she asked Val if she would like to work there. “I said yes,” Val said. “I learned from her. For example, I learned what a good piece of glass was.”

When Val’s family moved to the Kansas City area, she started selling in monthly shows. But she said that was a lot of work, packing up everything to take, setting it out, then packing it back up. So several years ago she opened her space with her daughter Kelly in the West Bottoms, and found her niche.

Val said the business has changed primarily in the reasons people buy and what they buy. Val used to sell lots of china, glassware and decorations that people wanted to take home and display. “Now, you get young people who are buying something they can use,” she said. “So now it’s how are you going to recycle it, how can you use it to do something else. So a bucket now becomes a magazine holder. You get a mason jar and fill it with something.”

One of the more unusual items Val found was a diver’s helmet ice bucket from the 1950s. But that didn’t touch the monkey coat, which Val spotted at an estate sale. She said as she walked by a rack of coats, she noticed one coat was made with really long hair. “I thought oh my gosh, that’s an ugly coat,” she said. She walked on, but the strangeness of the coat drew her back, and she decided to buy it, noting it wasn’t an endangered species or anything like that. She displayed the coat for a while, until finally a lady came in her shop and bought it for $400.

Val doesn’t do this to get rich. “My philosophy is that I know what I paid for it,” she said, “and as long as I make what I want, I’m happy.” Nor does she hang on to what she buys. “I’m not attached to things,” Val said. “If I buy something really cool, I’ll put it on the shelf for a while to enjoy it, but then I sell it. But artwork, I go crazy for that. And I like some types of pottery.”

Val’s business has led her into opportunities to share her knowledge. When Blessings Abound thrift store in Overland Park was in the conception stage, Val was invited to come to a meeting. “I helped with the location, setting it up, pricing and marketing,” she said. She now donates her time two days a week at the thrift shop, and is the go-to person when a vintage-type donation needs to be assessed and priced. Val also helps find donations for the Metro Lutheran Ministry Spring Fling fundraiser, as well as gathering and delivering gifts for the MLM Christmas Store.

One of the greatest enjoyments of her business is the social aspect. “I like it because I like to work with people,” Val said. “And I like watching all those people walk by as they’re shopping.”

Val advises anyone interested in getting into the business of buying and selling used merchandise to start small. “It’s a lot of work,” she said, “and it takes a lot of time.” On the plus side, it gives her a great excuse to skip the housework.