Use these 10 strategies to help you find hidden treasures among the castoffs.
Focus on moving sales or older homes
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Not sure which yard sales to hit first? For practical goods, moving sales are better than run-of-the-mill garage sales, since people are more likely to be unloading goods that are fairly new and don't have a lot of wear and tear, says Cristin Frank, who blogs about reducing waste.
Hunting for antiques or collectibles? Stick to neighborhoods that have older homes, says Reyne Hirsch, an expert in 20th-century decorative arts and former appraiser for Antiques Roadshow.
There is only one place in the world where you can find an Apollo space capsule, dinosaur skeleton, Liberace's staircase, the Batmobile and a Venetian gondola.