The other night we found ourselves sitting around after dinner with our dueling laptops, looking for unusual things for sale on Craigslist. We were having a contest seeing who could come up with the strangest item (gotta be family-friendly, extra points for items we'd actually buy), and it got us to thinking. How do you use Craigslist? When you're just poking around, what searches do you do?
If you just browse "collectibles" or "furniture," you miss out on a lot, because sometimes the best stuff is found under "Garden," "General" or "free stuff." So definitely, even slightly targeted searching is a better way to go. Here are some of the things we type into Craigslist when we're not looking for something specific:
- industrial -- tends to pull up cool signs and metal shelving like the orange shelves below currently on Boston CL. We bought our old blue cabinet this way.
- church -- yields interesting religious artifacts and old church pews. Also pulls up church sales (although you can exclude them, see below).
- (barn -pottery) -- this brings up old barn boards, and random things found in barns. And adding the "(minus sign) pottery" does not bring up anything from pottery barn.
- (french -connection -doors) -- we're always searching for that perfect antique French Louis chair. But we don't want to see any clothes from the French Connection, or french doors.
We're a bit spoiled in Boston because we have New Hampshire's Craigslist, Maine and Rhode Island-- they're all within a short drive from here. So we can lose ourselves just browsing if we don't have a plan.
It's a drag that you can't search multiple cities at once within Craigslist itself, but here are some tips we've learned for getting the best out of searching:
-- Did you know that you can search for either of two words in a listing? For example, if you are looking for a vintage couch OR sofa, put the two words in parenthesis and put an apostrophe in front of each of them: So search on this: vintage ('sofa, 'couch)
-- If you want to exclude a word, put a minus sign in front of the word you don't want to search on. For example, to find an Eames item that's not annoyingly referred to as "Eames era", type (eames -"eames era")
-- If you want to search on both singular and plural versions of a word, put an asterisk at the end of the word. For example, if you want a chair from The Conran Shop, but don't know if someone might refer to it as "Conrans", search for (chair conran*)
Some of the funniest things we saw the other night were a "fuse ball" table and an apple "iPot." We even saw a "slay bed." I guess no amount of searching would have pulled these up! Does anyone else have Craigslist searches or tips?
-Jeanine
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
I search for "rug" under "for sale" everyday in Los Angeles. I also try to refine my results to "by owner" to avoid the furniture spammers. I also look up "vintage orange" since I love retro orange items.
view mangabanga's profile
I'm a poor student, so I search West Elm, Crate and Barrel, and some other high ends for nice items. In Sacramento its a bit harder. But when I stay in SF, I can usually hunt up something nice.
view protogarrett's profile
wow! thanks for these tips! i do a search for "1960's" or "60's" (or 50's, 70's, you get the idea) under furniture, collectibles, and free stuff.
we just scored an awesome danish modern credenza for under $100 by searching "teak" and pestering the seller to send pictures (that were not posted).
view selena's profile
"scandinavian" in furniture.
view SFGail's profile
i want that giant letter E. Badly.
view SD's profile
i hear you on that one, SD!
view bathysphere's profile
i almost bought that big letter e!
view closertotheocean's profile
I'm a total CL addict. I often search "Vintage" "retro" "50s" "60s" "eames" "danish modern" "urban outfitters" "crate and barrel" "west elm" "pyrex" and recently "ikea malm"
view -haley-'s profile
I am becoming a Craigslist pro...at buying, anyway. Here are my two biggest tips for the best deals for stuff you actually want and need:
1.
http://craigstoolbox.com/ It's a Firefox extension (super easy to install) that let's you preview all of the photos for each section without having to click a million times through the titles. It shows the titles and the photos for all of the 100 postings on each page. I like photos.
2. http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/06/23/subscribe-to-craigslist-search-results-to-grab-great-deals/ Subscribing to Craigslist searches via RSS feeds (say you're only looking for "seattle art glass," it'll throw only the items that match your search into your reader (I use Google Reader to read all my feeds, especially...well, I must admit...AT and Craigslist). This is the way I found 4 perfect stools on the cheap for my newly renovated kitchen within the past three days. The linked blog above has great instructions. Subscribing Craigslist search results lets you find what you want fast.
Seriously, if you do these two things your Craigslist luck will increase exponentially, promise.
view A Necessary Equal's profile
Wow those searching terms are wonderful. I am a craigslist addict and use regional search terms (asian, african etc) as well as exotic or unique. But I am going to use some of the suggestions here. Yipee!!!
view Trumystique's profile
www.clpic.com
i like it better than the firefox extension
view peaceyall's profile
Great tips on Craigslist hunting! I've only found a couple of things there, but they've been biggies. First, tickets to a sold out rock show the day of the concert and, even bigger, our current apartment.
view Terry B's profile
I appreciate these tips! I didn't know about the minus signs and all but I have found, when browsing randomly, that "primitive" and "rustic" yield some interesting stuff.
view KnittingGene's profile
I haven't tried it yet, but there is also a plug in available for firefox called misspellr which allows you to find great items you may have otherwise missed. I think it also works with eBay.
Here is a great article from lifehacker on being a CL power user:
http://lifehacker.com/software/top/technophilia-craigslist-for-power-users-204312.php
view behren's profile
I bought the "e"!!! Seriously, I really did, I'm picking it up next week. Its huge (5') -- its apparently one of the "e"'s from an old Bradlee's store.
view j9brennan's profile
Use www.crazedlist.org (and modify your firefox or opera-browser - no inetexplorer, sorry) to be able to search more than one area with just one click!
view lynley's profile
This might be my favorite AT topic EVER. Great tips!
I'm always on the hunt for chairs, and I like various 20th century styles. I'll do many variations - the typical 'eames or mid century' for obvious reasons, 'deco', ' craftsman', 'metal', 'aluminum', or designers I like, spelled correctly and with obvious misspellings. I used to find some great things cheap on Ebay before they did your spellchecking for you!
I'm looking for a credenza, so I also look under 'buffet', 'cabinet', 'sideboard'.
I'm so glad someone here got that 'e' - it's fabulous.
view greer's profile
I also love this topic. I'm not very experienced with the Craigslist for purchasing stuff, I have used it for job searches. ... I don't recommend this utility for the lost found unless you have found a lost dog or cat.
I remember someone posting the thing with the pictures, but I didn't save the link before, but now I have it and the listpic, which has made my searches less boring. It is so boring to have to read every description and click to see what it is and maybe where they are that I kind of just wouldn't bother. Let everyone else find the cool things, I just can't spend the time! The lifehacker link seems a little advanced for me right now, but I saved it.
Thanks! and congratulations on your Bradlee's e. That's a weird thing to buy, does it light up or do you have to restore it?
view K T G's profile
this post is the best ever. thank you so much. I always swoon over the craigslist finds in NY, SAn fran, etc. But not being in one of those cities is sad for the finds. This is awesome!
view amandadom's profile
Jeanine- If you ever get sick of the "e" let me know ;) You have a buyer!
view closertotheocean's profile
I was initially skeptical of Craigslist but after finding my West Elm butterfly extension table and 4 T-Chairs for $125 I was hooked!
view casafroggy's profile