Fans Grab Piece of 'Sopranos' History at Queens Garage Sale

NEW YORK – The Sopranos are clearing out of the neighborhood. But first they're having a garage sale.

It's not as if Dr. Melfi's chair, Tony's bathrobe or Silvio's hair care products are for sale, though. All the iconic stuff from "The Sopranos" has been shipped to California while HBO decides what to do with it now that the series is over.

Left behind Tuesday at a Queens warehouse were lamps, rotary telephones, Catholic statuettes, kitchen utensils, bed linens, clocks, chairs, more lamps and toys. Not much was recognizable, even to the most devoted fans of the show.

In fact, most of it is quotidian, "The Sopranos" producer Henry Bronchtein said.

"Ten years of junk, that's what we've got here," Bronchtein said. "But you know, one person's junk is another person's treasure."

If your idea of treasure is a yellow flour jar with fairy tale characters that might or might not have been in the kitchen of a character who disappeared after two episodes, it's yours for a dollar.

"If it doesn't get sold here," Bronchtein said, "it's going to wind up in a big Dumpster, crushed and useless."

Despite the reverse sales pitch, fans of the show made the trek to the warehouse around the corner from Silvercup Studios, the soundstage where most of the show's interiors were shot. The critically acclaimed series ended its run this month after debuting in 1999.

Jerome Jordan said he came to find the stripper pole from the Bada Bing, the strip club that was Tony's home away from home.

That wasn't available. But Jordan picked up a 6-inch horse statue he's sure was on the set during the brief period Tony owned a race horse.

George DelFarno drove from southern Delaware for the sale. He bought a desk lamp that looked like one of Tony's -- the one the FBI put a bug in during an early season.

It wasn't the actual lamp, but owning a lamp that looked just like the one that had been bugged and was owned by the production company -- well, that was close enough.

"Seven degrees of separation," DelFarno said with a laugh.