Today I'm going to talk about my first "mega-pick" that really jump started this full-time "hobby" of mine.

One day my cousin emailed me and said that her best friend's dad lived in Knoxville (about 3 hours from where I live).  He was getting up there in years and was getting ready to sell his 40 year collection and move to Cincinnati to be closer to his daughter. He only wanted to sell everything as a lot. He didn't want to be cherry picked for the good items, leaving him left with the not so good items. Also, I would have to meet him on a Saturday morning and have everything loaded and out of there by that evening.  Sounded like a plan. I knew he had quite a few old tools but that was the extent of what I knew about his collection.

During the next 3 weeks I was both giddy and nervous with anticipation. I went to a Barnes and Noble and found a pocket price guide on tools. These little pocket books are great for a quick reference. They can teach you what to look for between the true gems and the average item. I studied this book quite a bit leading up to that Saturday.  I also studied "completed item" sales on eBay.  It was all I knew to do because I really didn't have a clue about tools.  I also didn't have any idea what else this gentleman had in his collection. Looking back, even though I thought I had a good idea of what to look for in tools and in their values, I knew nothing. I was as green a newbie as they come. This has taught me that it takes years of hands-on experience to become even somewhat familiar with any specialty, whether it's glass, sports memorabilia, or civil war artifacts.

Leading up to the pick, I knew I might need more money than I had. So it was time to find an investor. Not only an investor, but someone willing to take a chance on me. I had only a few months of buying and selling items under my belt. I had a really good, but short, track record.  After talking to the seller's family I determined I needed about $5,000. This was at a time when the most expensive item I had purchased was about a hundred bucks. What could possibly go wrong with this situation???  My wife thought her dad might be interested so I talked to him about it. He was all for it. He sent me the money.  We came up with a repayment plan and percentages of profit that we'd split. When I withdrew the money I felt like throwing up. I was in WAY over my head.  Shhhhhh. Don't tell him I said this.

The Friday night before the mega-pick my wife, son, and I drove to my step-daughters house to spend the night. She lives in Knoxville and was close to the seller's home.  I had my truck and trailer in-tow.  At least i didn't have to rent a box truck. I hardly slept that night. Both my nerves and excitement were getting the best of me. 9 a.m. couldn't come fast enough.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!  I finally fell asleep just a little bit before I had to get up. My alarm was not my friend. I wanted to throw it out the window. I quickly realized why it was going off and the nerves were back. I got ready and headed to the seller's home. It was a few miles out a country road. That got me excited. Really excited. I finally found the house and pulled up. It was a pretty old house and looked like it was in pretty bad need of repairs.  All of the bushes had started to overgrow the house. You couldn't really get an idea of what the house even looked like.  My excitement quickly turned to disappointment.  "Surely there can't be anything too good in this old house", I thought to myself. Then after a short introduction with the son-in-law we stepped inside.

Have you ever watch "Hoarders" on television?  This house wouldn't qualify to get on the show but it sure was an aspiring candidate.  Boxes. Tons of boxes. Mountains of boxes. I was going to need a u-haul. A really big u-haul. The living room had a path to the front door, kitchen, and bedroom.  Other than this 2 foot wide path, there were boxes. Anywhere from knee to chest high. There were lots of items not even in boxes....just piled up on top of one another.  The floors had even started to cave in  from the weight of everything. I recognized old lanterns, signage, crates, books, and more. The vast majority of items were tools. Some I had seen. The vast majority I hadn't. However, everything looked old. Very old. So I knew there had to be a market for it. There was no way I could go through everything to get an idea of value. So it was time to wing it. Wing it with $5,000 of someone else's money. Yeah...nothing could go wrong with this. I asked the gentleman how much he wanted for everything. He said $6,000. My heart sank and I felt sick all over again. I'm sure I was sweating. This was my first huge negotiation. I had seen American Pickers.  I knew I had to haggle. I started talking about expenses, u-hauls, storage I was going to have to pay while I tried to sell everything. I came back with $4,000. He countered with $5,000. I countered with $4,500. After a long pause, he agreed. I was the proud new owner of a lot of stuff. I was super excited.

Quickly the honeymoon phase was over. "Okay...now what", I thought.  To make a long story short, I had two huge things go in my favor. I was allowed to just pile up the trash and items I didn't want in a room. They would take care of it. That was great because I had to be out of there that night. There was no way I could get it all in a day...or in one 27' truck. The seller's son-in-law also had connections at a local college to get me some cheap college labor. Big blessing there too. I called my wife and tried to explain what had just transpired and frantically told her I needed her to drive over to the house. We needed a u-haul, boxes, tape, etc. I had 4 college boys showing up soon and we had a ton to do. I think I lost her somewhere between u-haul and hired labor. Last she knew, it was all fitting in my truck and 8 foot trailer. Not so my dear. Not so.

The look on her face when she walked in to that dilapidated house was priceless. I wish I had captured it on camera. Luckily the college kids showed up at about the same time. That probably saved my life from a quick gruesome strangling from my wife.  The next 8 hours were a blur. Somehow we rented a truck, bought a lot of boxes and tape, and packed the truck. I told the college kids to fill the boxes as quick as they could. There were hundreds of items that I didn't even see until unpacking that particular box back at home. A few hours in I was realizing how quick we were filling the truck and how many items we still had in the house. I started moving ahead of the college kids and began consolidating boxes to make as much room as possible. In the end, I would have loved to have gone back to see what we left when I was rested and had fresh eyes. In the end, we had packed a 27' box truck, my full size pickup, and an 8' trailer and were able to leave that evening. It was such a long exhilarating day...but the fun was just beginning. In one of my future blogs I will talk about my first few weeks with all of my new finds and what I've learned about vintage and antique tools.

As many of you know, this past weekend, Jacob and I set up a booth at the Nashville Flea Market.  This was our first time selling together as Rust and Relics Revival.  Many hours of work and preparation came down to this three day monthly sale held at the Nashville Fair Grounds.  Jacob and I sold here last Memorial Day too, but as separate companies.  Here’s a little bit about the weekend…

On Thursday, my dad (who came in town to help us sell) and I loaded up our truck.  Jacob was driving in town that afternoon and we met to set up.  Around 2pm or so, we were in the fairgrounds unloading our trucks.  Set up was pretty easy.  There was some threat of rain so we didn’t want to put out too much and run the risk of getting everything soaked.  We knew with the threat of rain, it wouldn’t take a long time to get the booths ready for action.  As we were setting up, as is customary, many other dealers were already going through our boxes seeing what we may have that they would want to purchase.  You see, a lot of action is taking place before the show among all of the dealers.  It’s almost its own economy.  Matter of fact, we talked to one of the dealers who we’ve seen many times.  He sets up a really small booth every month just to get in early every day (including Thursday).  He uses this time to hunt for deals and items that he thinks he will have an easy time reselling.  He gets free parking every day (typically $5 a day).  Most days he isn’t even manning his booth.  He has a phone number on a table so if anyone is interested in an item, they can call him and he’ll be there in a minute or so.  For him, these flea market weekends are all about finding mispriced items from other dealers.  To him, his booth fee (probably around $50 for the weekend) is completely worth all of the perks…even if he doesn’t sale a thing.  I can say I’ve never done this….but it’s not a bad idea.  After looking around a little bit too, we headed to the house.  That evening, we worked on a sign to hang over our booth that Jacob had made.  We’ve had many comments about our business cards and sign….well they were all created by Jacob.  We’re very proud of them.

Friday morning the show was from 8am to 5pm.  To beat the rush hour traffic, we left the house at 6am.  After arriving, we finished setting everything up.  We were ready to go by 8.  Unfortunately, there was one issue…I was sick at my stomach all morning.  I felt really nauseous.  I didn’t know if it was food poisoning, vertigo, a virus, allergies, or what.  I know this….it sure wasn’t a fun morning.  Friday morning, Jacob and I were making lots of sales, but I don’t remember much.  Every little bit I had to head to the bathroom.  I was sure I was going to throw up but never did….until….. (Due to the graphic nature of the following, this portion of the blog may not be suitable for all readers…you can just jump to the next paragraph).  I exploded!  It was the most violent bout of throwing up that I’ve had in a long time.  I really wanted to die for a while.  We are talking the movie “Sandlot” where after eating chew for the first time, all of the boys are on a spinning ride and none of them can hold it in any longer.  Thank goodness no one was in the bathroom at the time to hear the exorcism of Satan’s child from my body.   Even while all of this was going on Jacob kept the booth running.

Back to the action in the booth….I felt quite a bit better after my little “bout”.  Sales were still brisk.  After a time though, I started to feel bad again.  I was thinking “here we go again”.  Luckily, Mysti (my wife), my son, mom, and dad showed up.  Dad was there to assist in the booth.  Mysti and mom were there to do some shopping (there go my profits).  My son was there because he had to be.  Like most 13 year olds, he’d rather be on X-Box or playing sports.   Unfortunately, after just a little bit, I had to have my wife, mom, and son take me home.  The rest of my day was spent in bed or on the couch.  So I don’t know much more about the sale, other than Jacob and I did alright for our first day together.  I’m going to let Jacob tell you about Saturday and Sunday in his next blog.  I’m going to leave you with a few observations from this weekend.

1.        If a potential buyer tells you that “I’ll be back in a little bit to buy that” it probably won’t happen.  After countless times of being told that, only one person came back to actually purchase the item they were interested in.  Unfortunately I had already sold it.  This brings me to the 2nd point.

2.       As Mike Wolfe says, the time to purchase something you want is when you see it.  If you see something you’ve never seen before, chances of finding it again are slim.  Don’t regret not purchasing something that in your gut you know you should have.  I did that one time when I first started out.  I had the opportunity to purchase an old Pepsi machine for what I thought seemed like a cheap price, but the owner didn’t know if it worked or not so I passed.  I ended up thinking about it for a while. 30 minutes later I drove back to buy it.  Too late….it was gone.  I got home that day and found out that if the machine didn’t work, I would have still made about $400.  If it worked….well it would go up exponentially from there.  I should have followed my gut.

3.       The early bird USUALLY (not always) gets the worm.  Some of the best stuff sells on Friday morning.  Most of your serious collectors and dealers are out shopping on Friday morning to get the best of the best….however; it’s at the steepest prices.  As the weekend goes on, prices will drop, but so will the selection.  There are exceptions.  A dealer found a great hand hammered copper pot from the 1800’s on Sunday that many people passed over.  He could tell it was old.  He looked and looked with his jewelers loop and finally found a maker’s mark.  His $15 purchase will probably net him $500.  Those items are out there…but it takes a lot of work and digging (and a little luck). 

4.       There are some people who just kick tires.  No matter what you price something at, you can tell they just aren’t interested in actually buying that piece.  They may have the same thing and want to see what it’s worth.  They may just want to get an idea of value.  Could be as soon as you tell them, they realize that no matter what the price, even $1, they really don’t want the item.  This is just part of the selling process.

I love selling this stuff and money is only one aspect of it.  I love to talk to other collectors.  I love to tell the stories of these pieces.  I love hearing the buyer’s own stories.  I especially love to learn from long time collectors.  There is so much to learn from people who’ve devoted parts of their life to their collection.  That’s why we do this blog and website.  Please feel free to ask questions below in the comments or just tell us about your collections.  You may be able to network with someone else on here that has your same interests.  We can all learn from each other.

Jason