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I agree Steve. I have seen the same thing at garage sales and even seen it in ads for garage and yard sales. NO DEALERS. How would they recognize a dealer if they saw one? It’s not like we have a secret society tattoo on our forehead or anything like that.
I take a perverse pleasure in buying from those sales, especially when they have things severely under priced. There’s a little snarky voice in my head that wants to tell them that they just sold to a dealer, but of course I never would. It’s enough to walk away with the goods, smiling to myself.
20 listings for me this week.
Fantastic picking week for me, including a couple of First Editions that should sell for over a thousand bucks. One of my best finds ever! Seriously exciting!!! (and I found them at the bins, of all places)
great picking, low listing.
Hope everyone has as great week ahead.
We are lucky to have a multitude of estate sales here in the Portland Oregon area, which is a great thing but there are tons of dealers to compete with and lots of folks who go to estate sales as a hobby. Most are run by 25-30 local professional companies and with observation you can figure out which ones are good to go to. There’s a few that price their items at antique mall prices and we avoid those. At least half do reasonable prices, especially at half price on the second day. The professional companies do NOT dicker or come down on prices and they really don’t need to since they are so well attended.
IF they have 30-40 good pictures online and look like there’s lots of vintage treasures at the sale, then there can be over 100 people waiting to get in when they open first day. The hope is always that there’s at least 15 on a Friday or Saturday, as that helps spread all of us out across the city.
We especially like the family run sales, although they can be hit or miss when a member of the family decides that all of Grandma’s treasures should be priced high since they are “antiques”. We’ve done crazy good at estate sales in mobile home parks and went away with nothing at sales in rich neighborhoods.
Sales where nothing is priced don’t tend to do as well. People don’t want to ask.I do like y’all mentioned and ask about something right away to get a feel for it. You can tell immediately how attached they are to the items and how eager they are to unload, or reluctant.
We went to a family one last weekend where it was just a bunch of motorcycle and garden stuff in the garage and saw on craigslist yesterday that they were giving away everything in the house that didn’t sell. They were so disorganized they weren’t telling people everything in the house was for sale too! There’s also the dishonest people who call their garage sales “estate sales” because they know it will draw more traffic.
I love estate sales because I am a voyeur. You can get a sense of a person by walking through their home and see their possessions. I have seen some crazy collections. One estate featured a collection of over a thousand cat-related item. Dishtowels, couch pillows, cuckoo clocks, you name it. Another was a woman who was crazy about cows. My very all-time favorite house was a woman who loved the color turquoise and the house was a time capsule from the 1960s. Turquoise carpet, couches, kitchen, wallpaper. Oh, it was marvelous! I admire people who live their passion!
I went to one last weekend where there were built-in bookshelves in every room and thousands of books and lots of interesting artsy collections of things. As I walked through the rooms I thought to myself, what an interesting life she led….I would have liked to have been friends with her.
Just 13 for me. Too much time fiddle farting around on other stuff last week. I hate weeks where you spend so much time on little stuff it doesn’t feel like you got anything major done.
I had a good long version to tell…but I will just do the highlights. Did the estate sale. VERY long weekend. Let’s just say I don’t do drama and over-bearing bossiness very well. That’s a story in itself.
The estate included a collection of role-playing items, swords, shields, a mace and a broad ax. A scary dude showed up Sunday and bought the mace at half price. He was thrilled. He came back later that afternoon, after it was over and just Charlie and I were there boxing up leftovers for a charity rummage sale. He brought a friend. He wanted to buy the remaining four pieces. He had $152 in crumpled up bills. He was being friendly but my spider sense was on high alert. There was just something off about him. We made the deal and off he went, so pleased with his purchases. It could have gone a whole other direction and we knew it. I don’t scare easily…I have traveled around Europe by myself….but when in doubt trust your gut.
Two more van loads to pack up this afternoon and then I am free…and ready to list lots this week.
Amatino, good on you for showing your ladies just how challenging it is to work out the details of a complicated event. Yes, I can relate! 🙂
Trying again. I tried to post several times yesterday on this thread and it wouldn’t let me.
I did 18 listings, and have a good story to tell!
I have a friend who’s husband is a safety inspector for a travelling carnival and they follow the carnival all over the country nine months out of the year in a large motor home. She buys and sells sewing patterns and ships from the road. She likes patterns because they store so easily in boxes in the storage compartments of the motor home. If you found the right kind of small items it’s very doable.
Amatino, so sorry to hear about your beloved dog. I can only imagine how hard it is for you. Our fur babies bring so much joy and pleasure to our lives but such pain when we lose them. I still miss my sweet Coco and it’s been more than a year since I lost her. Sending you a huge hug.
Sharyn…we are tied twins this week, as I listed 20 too. I have been really wrapped up in the estate sale, and took time to go to a bunch of estate sales Friday and Saturday too…the picking was most excellent.
Vintage Treasures…great attitude and one I need to keep in mind too. Concentrate on what I have control over and stop worrying about the rest.
Hope everyone has a great week as we head into May.
bcfol440—-I do quite well at the vintage pop up shows and switched over to doing them instead of mall spaces. There’s quite a few in Portland and the surrounding area. I’ve had a booth for many years at one in Oregon City in August. They shut down Main Street and line the streets with booths (set up time 5am!!!) and the diehard collectors are there are 5am with flashlights looking through your boxes as you unpack. That one attracts the true antique collectors and I can get great prices for things….they won’t blink at spending $60-80 for a cool old book. It’s fun and good money.
I don’t do as many as I used to, as I have been concentrating more on my online shops and the show I put on myself, so I now only do three a year because there’s only so much time and I am pulled in many directions, but I know quite a few people who do the pop-up vintage circuit and do tremendously well. The appeal is that they are fun events, not stodgy malls. The other that I participate in is called the Plucky Maiden Junkfest…..a summer show and a Christmas show. The show has been featured in national magazines and it’s hipster cool, with live music and alcohol served during.
I would suggest going to one of the events in your city and looking around. Watch to see what people are buying, if anything. If there’s lots of people walking around but nobody has anything in their hands, it’s a bad sign…but not the only sign. I am not sure that selling larger pieces of furniture would be the way to go at the pop-ups and I speak from experience. People might buy a stool or a chair, something easy to carry to their car, but not larger things. People will want to dicker, so be prepared for that. I tend to build in a 10-20% margin into my pricing at these events so I can easily come down a bit and still get what I want for the item. People also expect you to take Square, or the equivalent, as nobody carries around cash anymore. It’s well worth a try though….and let us know how it goes!
Mike, thanks for your long and thoughtful response and analysis. I agree with what you are saying. I have had booths at quite a few antique malls over the years and each and every time I always came to the conclusion that the mall was making much more of a profit than I was off my stuff. I generally did it to unload when I had volumes of vintage that needed to be turned and I never did it for any long length of time.
12 years ago I had two containers of antiques shipped over from England, with about 500 pieces of furniture and copious amounts of smalls. My partners and I decided to try the antique mall route with some of it with disappointing results. I too like to crunch numbers and I also came to the conclusion that most dealers in malls make little or no profit. I think in part they do it for fun and they like the thrill of the hunt and don’t really need the money…it’s more of a hobby. I have also heard that they see it as storage…instead of paying for storage they keep it in a mall.
Having said that, I do know a couple of dealers who make a good living using the mall approach, but one deals in high end mid century modern and the other in higher end farmhouse/cottage decor. You can start making a profit pretty easily when you are selling tables for $800 and chandeliers for $1200, even if you are paying a bit more for your inventory. You have to have the right eye and always be on the hunt.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I wouldn’t be surprised that she is paying a premium price in the mall because Portland is such a hub for vintage and the mall is in a hip part of Portland. I still want to find out what the mall is charging, because my curiosity is piqued. The woman she was talking to was elderly and I can’t imagine that she saw her as competition, or at least fierce competition, but who knows.
“This is why I can understand how you have to commit to a craft and put everything into it to make a living at it.” – T-Satt Best quote of the day!
I sold a St.Patrick’s day item two days ago and both a Christmas item and Halloween item this past week. It truly does sell all year long.
I’m skeptical too, Jay. I looked at the website for the vintage mall and saw pics of rack after rack of clothing, and she can source that easily and cheaply at the bins, but still. I used to have a brick and mortar and even though rents are high in Portland, she could be renting her own storefront for less than the $3800 she’s supposedly paying the mall. It seems extremely high rent. I am buddies with the owner of another antique mall (who has rent at about 10% of what she’s paying.) I’ll ask him if he knows anything about the other mall.
Love the belly-dancing photos Amatino! Just beautiful.
I don’t pull so-called duds from my storefront either…I let them ride a long time, although I sometimes price adjust. I agree with Jay and Ryanne’s list it and forget it approach. However, my boyfriend tends to get impatient with his listings and pulls them in a couple of months if they don’t sell right away. I do sell long-tail items here and there, enough that it works for me. I still even sell books that I listed on Amazon 7 or 8 years ago, for decent money too, although I have been going through the Amazon inventory and finally pulling most of the very very old stuff.
I did 22 listings last week, after catching up on my sleep and sore muscles from the show, and starting a new little adventure, helping a buddy put on an estate sale, which will occupy me for the next two weeks as well. I get first pick on the estate, which is half the fun. It’s a filthy cluttery house, so that part’s not so much fun, and much of the treasures are down in the very spooky basement. I got goosebumps the first time I ventured down the narrow cement stairs. There’s a lot of 70s owner-made chipped pottery, but there are some treasures too.
Hope everyone has a great week!
No listings for me again last week but we unloaded both trucks this morning and the show is over, except for about 15 hours of bookkeeping. A good solid spring show…not fantastic, but decent and I personally sold so much one of the two trucks was almost half empty. I am pleased.
Best sellers for the show….lots of furniture, vintage linens (especially tablecloths and hankies), old suitcases, vintage-inspired Easter, old galvanized tin buckets and other rustic farmhouse, bumblebee decor (a lovely line of watercolor signs in soft colors of yellow and gray with BEE sayings and images), and vintage gloves (perhaps for Easter or Mother’s Day events.)
