Est. 2026 — A weekly paper for the hunt

Finders Weekly

Every estate sale this weekend, delivered Wednesday morning.
VOL 1· NO 0· MID-MICHIGAN BUREAU· WAITLIST EDITION· FREE FOREVER
Front Page · Issue Nº 0
Launching in mid-Michigan, Wednesday April 29

Every estate sale this weekend, in one Wednesday email.

We check every major listing platform out there. Dedupe the overlap. Sort by distance. Print it as a paper. You read one thing Wednesday morning.

The best sale of your weekend is probably listed on a site you didn't think to check. That's the whole problem. Four platforms, each with its own search, its own map, its own patchwork coverage. A Lansing operator posts on one. An Ann Arbor operator posts on another. A Grand Rapids franchise posts on its own network. You pick one, you drive, you find out Sunday that the good one was four miles from your house.

Finders Weekly is the paper that points at all of them. Wednesday morning, one email. Classifieds (every sale, by metro), Want Ads (post what you're hunting — readers and operators see it every week), The Morgue (one artifact a week from somebody's life), and an Editor's Note. Built because checking four websites every Wednesday isn't a weekend plan.

The best sales are scattered across four websites.

We audited every major mid-Michigan platform this week. Here's what the survey found.

150+
estate sales happening this week across mid-Michigan
4
separate websites you'd have to check to see them all
Most
of the good sales sit on a site you'd never think to check
0
people who actually want to check four sites every Wednesday

We do the checking. You read one email.

What's in the paper.

Same structure every week. You'll know where to find what you came for.

Front Page
The Headline Find — if you only drive to one sale this weekend, this is it. Operator, neighborhood, why we picked it.
Every Issue
Sections
Three to five rotating columns based on what's actually at the sales this week — Garage Find, Kitchen Cult, Vinyl Crate, Vintage Iron, MCM, Sportsman, Weird & Wonderful.
Rotating
Classifieds
The full list. Every sale, every metro, sorted by date and distance. Scannable in ninety seconds.
Every Issue
Want Ads
Tell the paper what you're hunting. Every Wednesday we print the week's want ads so readers and operators can watch for you. Free to post, just like the paper's always done.
New
The Morgue
One artifact a week from a real sale. A Rolodex full of names. An unopened VCR. A labeled drawer of somebody's system. One image, one line.
Every Issue
Letters
Reader replies, printed with their name and town. If you found a good one, tell us. We'll tell everyone.
As Received
Weather
What's trending at the sales this week and one tip from the road. Short.
Every Issue
Editor's Note
One paragraph from the desk. Sometimes a rant, sometimes a heads-up, sometimes nothing to add. Never long.
Every Issue

Mid-Michigan Bureau. More bureaus coming.

Live count from this weekend's scrape — local sales plus everything inside drive-circle range. We're indexing a fraction of the full market today; numbers grow weekly as we wire more listing platforms in.

Lansing / East Lansing
7 sales
Grand Rapids
1 sale
Ann Arbor
9 sales
Detroit Metro
8 sales
Kalamazoo
1 sale
Flint
9 sales
Jackson
7 sales
Saginaw / Bay City
6 sales

What a Wednesday issue looks like.

Masthead up top. Headline find. Three sections for what's actually at the sales. The full classifieds list by metro. A Morgue artifact. One editor's note. Done before your coffee's cold.

You open it, you read it, you pick your Saturday in ninety seconds. Then you close the tab and go live your life. That's the whole product.

Place a Want Ad.

Tell the paper what you're hunting. Every Wednesday we print the week's want ads — readers and operators see every one.

This week's want ads
Wanted: 1950s chrome toaster, working. Anywhere in mid-Michigan. — M. in Lansing
Wanted: Snap-on 3/8" drive set, no garbage sockets. Will travel. — J. in Grand Rapids
Wanted: Hamilton pocket watch, gold-filled, fair condition is fine. — R. in Ann Arbor
Wanted: Orange Pyrex mixing bowls. Yes I know I have three already. — D. in East Lansing
Wanted: John Deere model toys, 1/16 scale, pre-2000. — T. in Jackson
Wanted: Old Coleman lanterns, parts or whole. — L. in Okemos
Post a Want Ad · Free

What are you hunting?

Be specific. "1950s chrome toaster" works better than "old stuff."

Your ad prints in Wednesday's paper. Readers and operators see it.

Your Want Ad is posted.

Look for it in Wednesday's paper, printed alongside every other reader's hunt.

Help us build this paper.

Beta readers, early subscribers, Rita's friends — you're the first people in the room. Tell us what missed, what broke, what we should add. No length limit. No wrong answers.

Finder free forever. Keeper when you want the edge.

Finder
$0 forever

Everything you need to stop missing sales.

  • Weekly Wednesday paper, every sale in your metro
  • Classifieds sorted by distance, with map pins
  • Three active Want Ads
  • Unsubscribe any time

Run sales? We send buyers to you.

Every subscriber is a ready-to-drive, ready-to-buy hunter in your metro. Get your sale in front of them without paying the dominant listing site's featured-listing fees. Founding operators get grandfathered rates forever — $99/mo for the first twenty, $199/mo after.

Bonus: we show you aggregated Want Ad data for your metro. You'll know exactly what your neighbors are hunting before you price the sale.

Join the operator waitlist

The questions you're already asking.

Is this actually free?

Yes. The Wednesday paper is free forever. Keeper ($5/mo) is optional and unlocks early previews, SMS alerts, and unlimited Want Ads. We make money from operators who want their sales featured, not from you.

When does Issue Nº 1 ship?

Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 7:00 AM Eastern. Every Wednesday at 7am after that. You can set your watch.

Where do you get the listings?

Every major listing platform we can find — including the national franchise networks. Public listings only. We don't scrape private groups. We don't touch Facebook Marketplace. We're a reference layer, not a marketplace.

How is this different from the big listing sites?

They show you their inventory. We show you everybody's inventory, deduped, in one email, sorted by where you actually live. You still click through to the operator's original listing. We take no commission, run no sales, take no custody.

Will you spam me?

One paper a week. Wednesday at 7am. That's it. No drip campaigns. No "last chance" emails. No "we noticed you haven't opened." One email, then we go away.

What's The Morgue?

One recurring column. One artifact from that week's sales, one photo, one line. A Rolodex full of names in pencil. An unopened VCR, still in the box from 1994. A labeled drawer of somebody's system. If you've ever been to an estate sale you know why this column is here.

What if I don't live in mid-Michigan?

Subscribe anyway. We add bureaus in the order waitlists fill. Every new ZIP that comes through moves its metro up. Tell us where you hunt — we'll build that bureau next.

Who runs this?

Matt "Bots" Botsford, one Gen X editor with a laptop and a lot of Saturdays at other people's garage sales. The paper is small and honest and built to stay that way.

Newspapers used to do one thing well: they showed up. Wednesday paper, Sunday paper, crossword, classifieds, comics, obits. You read it with coffee. You closed it. You went on with your day. Nobody felt stalked by it. Nobody felt lectured by it. It was just your paper.

That ritual's mostly gone, and the people trying to sell it back keep making it loud, paywalled, or both. Estate sales never got a paper in the first place — they live scattered across four websites nobody has time to check. This is the paper for them.

Finders Weekly is small, honest, and built to stay that way. Classifieds for what's being sold. Want Ads for what you're hunting. The Morgue for what somebody spent a lifetime keeping. An editor's note when there's something worth saying. One email, Wednesday morning, free forever. Every generation is welcome at the garage sale.

The Editor, Mid-Michigan Bureau

Your Saturday, fixed.

No apps. No logins. No scrolling. One paper every Wednesday. Every sale worth driving to. Free, forever.

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