After a cold blustery bout at the 2008 Jonathan Festival of Garage Sales, I noted a number of trends.

The biggest garage sale development may be the sale of pop, coffee, bars, cookies and muffins.

While people have sold these items in the past, it was rare. In many cases, kids sold pop and water to supplement their allowance, or the proceeds went to some sort of charity.

Now, people are selling these items out of their garages, en masse, to earn money on the side. I’m not sure yet if the government is using this trend as an “economic indicator.”

On the upswing:

* Fish motion lamps and lava lamps.

* Electronic dart boards.

* Portable CD players and other, small CD stereos – iPods could be leading to their demise.

* Christmas characters that play music and move. This may be the first time that robots are being sold out of garages on such a large scale. It may also mark the beginning of the end as far as our good relationship with robots, perhaps setting in motion some sort of “Terminator” scenario. Future generations of robots could turn on their masters for rejecting their forefathers and selling them like so many broken lawnmowers. But that’s another blog ….

* Harry Potter toys and figurines. (Although people are apparently hanging onto the books.)

Thriving

* Xbox, PlayStation and other computer games.

* Compact discs. Compact discs first came on the garage sale scene a few years ago, and are now flooding the market.

People are pushing out their Spin Doctors and Hootie and the Blowfish CDs unto the unsuspecting public. Something that made me feel old? A woman commenting “Remember the Crash Test Dummies?” like they were the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

* DVDs & VHS tapes.

Endangered:

* Record players and records. I only ran into two caches of records this year. (This item was listed as “On the decline” last year.)

* Rubber Stamps. While still around, this item apparently peaked last year, and was only in a handful of garages.

Extinct:

* NordicTrack machines. At one time this Chaska-based product was everywhere. I didn't spot one NordicTrack this year.

Items that I spotted that are worth noting:

* A piece of barbwire with a tag stating (something like) “German Barbwire: Occupation of Normandy.” No price listed.

* A home entertainment system that was the ultimate in 1970s style. It had a spinning disco ball, and an LP and 8-track cassette player (with an 8-track cassette older) and lights that went on and off with the sound of the music. $100 or best offer.

* One sign promoted a “Heated Garage Sale.”

Click here [0] for 2007 trends.