Est. 2026 — A weekly paper for the hunt

Finders Weekly

Wednesday's paper. Thursday's doors. The mid-Michigan estate sale roundup, before they open.
VOL 1· NO 0· MID-MICHIGAN BUREAU· WAITLIST EDITION· FREE FOREVER
Front Page · Issue Nº 4 in the books · read the archive →
Issue Nº 5 ships Wednesday May 27 · 7 AM ET · 46+ readers and climbing

Save an hour every weekend. Find the sale your competition didn't.

Every public estate sale we can find across mid-Michigan — pulled from every major listing platform, deduped, sorted by distance. One Wednesday email. Free forever.

30 YEARS in the business ·  Lansing Bureau ·  Free forever ·  No spam ·  One-click unsubscribe

Here's the problem. The best estate sale of your week is probably listed on a site you didn't think to check. And here's the part nobody tells you — by Saturday morning, the good stuff is already gone. Most sales open Thursday or Friday at 8 AM, and the regulars know it. If you're showing up Saturday, you're picking through what's left. Most shoppers only check one of the major listing platforms — they're missing most of what's out there, and they're missing it on the wrong day.

Here's what Finders Weekly does for you. Every Wednesday morning, one email lands in your inbox. Inside: every public estate sale we can find across mid-Michigan that weekend, pulled from every major listing platform, deduped, sorted by distance. You read it with your coffee. You pick your Thursday in ninety seconds. You close the tab and go live your life. That's the whole product.

What you'll find: Classifieds by metro · An Editor's Pick (one sale we'd drive to ourselves) · Want Ads (tell us what you're hunting, readers find it for you) · The Tally (one artifact a week from a real sale) · One editor's note. Built by a mid-Michigan estate-sale family with 30 years of walking sales out of Lansing.

The best sales are scattered across four websites.

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

8
bureaus covered across mid-Michigan — Lansing to Detroit, GR to Saginaw
All
the major listing platforms checked, deduped, sorted by distance
Most
of the good sales sit on a site you'd never think to check
90 sec
to scan the whole list with your Wednesday coffee — vs. an hour clicking around

We do the checking. You read one email.

We read all 624 photos. Most people stop at twenty.

Every estate sale listing has a photo gallery. Most people scroll the first dozen and bounce. Our scout engine reads every one of them — and tells you what's worth being early for.

624 photos · 6-word listing description
An online auction nobody's reading carefully enough.
CLINTON TOWNSHIP, MI · COUGHLIN'S AUCTIONS · CLOSES WED MAY 13 · SCOUTED BY THE ENGINE, NOT THE LISTING
624
photos in the gallery this engine scanned for this week's diamond
20
photos most readers stop at before bouncing — the gap is where the diamonds live
1
diamond surfaced per issue, every Wednesday — the section the paper is built around

we don't run the gavel. we just tell you where to be when it drops.

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 Wishlist
A specific item you've been chasing — a chair, a watch, a tool, a doll. Our scout engine reads every photo in every gallery and flags a match the week it surfaces. Submit free. Keeper-tier readers get the alert the moment we find it.
New
The Tally
What sold last week, and what it cleared at. One artifact a week from a real sale — the price tag, the receipts, the find of the week, where it ran. Mom's call on the name; it stuck.
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 Tally artifact. One editor's note. Done before your coffee's cold.

You open it, you read it, you pick your Thursday 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.

Post the one thing you've been chasing.

Want Ads are casual — what you're hunting this week. The Wishlist is the long chase. The chair you saw at a sale three years ago. The watch your dad had. The specific Pyrex bowl that's missing from your set. Our scout engine reads every photo in every gallery, every weekend, and flags a match the week it surfaces.

On the wishlist right now
Watching for: Henredon scoop chair, walnut, original upholstery preferred. — J. in Okemos · since 2024
Watching for: Bulova Accutron Spaceview, 214 movement, any condition. — R. in Grand Rapids · since 2023
Watching for: Pyrex 401 cinderella bowl, primary yellow (smallest of the set). — D. in East Lansing · since 2025
Watching for: Stanley Bedrock #5 plane, type 6 or 7, any condition. — T. in Lansing · since 2024
Watching for: Coleman 200A red lantern, 1950s, brass tank. — L. in Jackson · since 2025
How it works. You submit. The scout engine adds your item to the watch list. Every Sunday we scrape every sale opening that week and run vision over the photo galleries. When something matches your wishlist — the auction window, the operator, the photo number — the alert goes out. Free tier: alert prints in the next Wednesday list. Keeper tier: alert hits your inbox the moment we surface it, before the public list goes out.
Add to the Wishlist · Free to submit

What are you chasing?

Specific beats general. "Henredon scoop chair, walnut" beats "mid-century chair." Photos welcome via email if you've got one.

Submission is free. We watch every weekend. When we find a match, we tell you.

It's on the Wishlist.

The scout engine starts watching this weekend. We'll let you know the week we spot it.

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 list, every sale we found 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 list 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 Tally?

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?

One Gen X editor working out of the Lansing bureau — a laptop, a lot of Saturdays at other people's garage sales, and a calm assumption that the work speaks first. The paper is small and honest and built to stay that way.

Newspapers used to do one thing well: they showed up. Wednesday and Sunday, the same routine — 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 there.

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 Tally 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 Thursday, fixed.

No apps. No logins. No scrolling. One paper every Wednesday morning so you're at the curb Thursday — before the regulars empty it out. Every sale worth driving to. Free, forever.

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