Garage sale trends

This Saturday, the weather was perfect for the annual Jonathan garage sales – especially compared with last year’s cold, rainy outing.

 Every year, the northwest Chaska neighborhood bands together to get rid of its stuff.

And every year, the sales provide a good indication of past trends and technology.

This year a few trends stood out more than other years:

Items on the upswing:

* The death of VHS. Everyone was unloading hundreds of VHS tapes and VHS players. Particularly notable were the entire collections of Disney tapes (once selling for $25 to $30) being dumped for about a buck a piece.

* Rubber stamps. Is this the end of the stamping trend? Could scrap-booking be far behind? Several people were selling off plastic baggies filled with rubber stamps.

* CDs and DVDs. People are beginning to unload more CDs and DVDs – but only Yanni and other questionable offerings. (I think I saw Tim Allen’s “The Santa Claus” at a couple different homes.) In a few years when everyone is downloading movies and music, people will probably be using these as drink coasters.

* Video Games. The recently released generation of PlayStation, Xbox, etc. has pushed games from only a few years ago out onto the cardboard table. And talk about throwback. There was at least one Atari console for sale.

Items on the decline:

* Records. Once everywhere, records and turntables (and other old stereo equipment) were a rarity at this year’s garage sales. Even cassette tapes are fading away.

* NordicTrack machines. I don’t know if employees once received a discount at this Chaska-based company, but NordicTrack machines used to be everywhere at the garage sales. However, they appear to be phasing out.

How about it shoppers, notice any other trends?