[drh4683]

Originally Posted by jmdocs

One thing I've learned about reading these boards over time is that success or failure at finding great sets seems to have very little to do with any kind of "obsessive" behavior, and a great deal to do with, as the real estate agents say, location, location, location. I go to estate sales here in Chicago, too, and see all kinds of sets (very few of them have really caught my eye; I don't have a serious collecting bug, apparently.) Chicagoland is just really fertile territory and I can say from experience it would be possible to have the aforementioned "life" and still build a serious collection.

You hit the nail on the head, I couldn't have said it better myself. Whats interesting about many of the Chicago area suburbs are the fact that they were built up heavily in the 1950's-60's and many of the seniors living here are still in those houses they bought brand new 50 years ago. There seems to be a more conservative mindset here that "you keep what you buy and you take care of it" You don't experience as high of a turn over rate in a good number of the near suburbs, so your chances for finding a clean original house is very high. You've seen my estate sale photos, most of those houses never saw redecorating since 1960 yet the people took good care of their things. This "time warp" in communites and homes seems to be more of a phenomenon in Chicago vs anywhere else in the states. You wonder how long it will last? However, consider how highly populated this area is, that has huge impact too for increasing the probability of finding nice vintage items.