TREASURE HUNTING 101 - Long Read

[megoat]

pretty good tips but:

a) i can't believe you have to show up so early in your area for estate sales. Thank God around here we only have to show up a half hour early.

b) I regularly find great stuff at antique malls, granted it's not like it was 10 years ago, but I would not say they are a waste of time. Many dealers at antique malls DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE.....

c) Thrift stores are my bread and butter. I find TONS of stuff there....

The key I have found out is you have to work hard and don't be discouraged. I will hit 15 thrift stores in one day--14 will suck hard and the last one will pay off big time. Same with yard sales. Junky sale after junky sale and then BAM the one that pays off.

[batmanmc]

great ideas i want to read more so i can do this also. mike

[theantiquetiger]

4. Garage Sales

Like I said before, choose older, nicer neighborhoods where the houses are atleast 50 to 75 years old and by the most part, have had the same people in the house for atleast 30 years, or rich neighborhoods, because rich people who do have garage sales are doing it for the original reason to have one, to sell off their junk. Rich people have more expensive "junk" and usually have it marked really cheap. Some easy rules to follow when garage selling are:

A. Tell the home owner what you are looking for. I have had home owners go inside and pull out some stuff they were not sure if they wanted to sale or forgot they had sitting in a closet for years.

B. By staying in the same neighborhoods, you will start to see the same people going to sales. Ask them what sales have they hit so far, ask if any particular one had anything you are looking for.

C. Read the newspaper before you head out. Choose two or three that look good and hit those early. Get there an hour before the time says on ad, because most don't mind early birds. Ones with "HH", "Baby items", or "Nic-Nacs" in the ads, I usually avoid or go to last. Look for keywords like "antiques", "collectibles", or "old toys"; or sales that say "Cleaning out the attic", etc.

D. Be an early bird. Some ads will say "Early Birds pay double", that is no problem, because you are looking for great items that will could make you 100x more than you paid.

E. If you see an item someone has bought that you would kill to have, make them in nice offer in the driveway. I usually only do this with something I want to keep for myself.

F. When building a bankroll, shop for anything, not just stuff you are interested in. I did really well with designer name women's shoes and purses. I usually found these at the richer neighborhoods. I would pick up a nice pair of Doc Martens or a Dooney & Burke purse for less than $10 and sell it all day long for $50 to $100 each. Vintage clothes are a good buy as well.

G. I usually don't barter the price unless it is a large lot of something and I want to get it down to a dollar or two per item. If they don't budge, I still usually get it.


Doing Research on items:

When ever I get something home that's interesting or saw it but didn't get it, start research. I use Ebay as my search engine since that is where I sell my stuff. After I find this particular item, I search similar items and get a good basic knowledge of those as well.

If you have a laptop, carry it with you. If you find something you are not sure of, you can usually find a wireless connection in a large neighborhood or in the parking lot of the closest coffee shop. This will help you avoid buying something on the higher end and getting it home and finding out you paid going value/ or higher than going value for it. If you planning to get into treasure hunting seriously, getting the $65 a month internet hook up through the cell phone companies is not a bad investment.

[Marvelmania]

I would like to hear more.

[theantiquetiger]

4. Estate Sales
Like I said before, these are my gold mines. Most of my BIG finds came from these sales. Here are some really good guide lines to follow when estate selling:

A. Call all the estate companies in your area and get on their e-mail/mailing list because they usually do not advertise in the newspaper the exact location of the sale until the day of the sale, so their regular, faithful customers can get there first. You can also get on the list at a sale for upcoming sales.

B. Get there early! This is the most important tip. Most sales around here start at 7 or 8 in the morning and they give out numbers atleast an hour before that. They let in people in the order of the numbers and in lots of 30 people or so at a time, so you want a low number. If you get a number in the 30's or 40's and the sale starts at 7 am, you may not even set foot inside for an hour or 2 after it starts. I usually get there around 4 am and usually one of the 1st 5 people in line.

C. Once you get inside, don't stop to look at something, grab it and move on, you can put it back later if you don't want it. It took me a few sales to realize this. As I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy an item that I picked up, I missed out on 10 other things I should have grabbed. Bring a large laundry basket, box, or shopping bag, because you hands get full fast. Bring a black garbage bag to cover you basket when it gets full so you can continue to shop. People will shop out of your basket if you don't pay attention.

D. Get to know the people in line. While sitting there for 3 hours waiting for your number, talk shop with the other people. 95% of the early birds are gonna be dealers with shops. Let them know what you are looking for. After a few shows, they will help you find stuff. All the people I am in line with know I am a toy collector/dealer, and they have grabbed stuff at a sale, and held it for me to see if I want it. I do the same for them.

E. When waiting in line, ask questions to the estate company of where items are located in the house; i.e. the toys. Learn the layout of the house. Most estate sales are at wealthier family's homes and the houses are usually quite large.

F. Don't forget about the garages and sheds. Most companies focus on the higher valued items in the house and let the stuff in the garages and sheds go for next to nothing. Old tools are a great bankroll builder.

G. Ask if you can look in out of the ordinary places. Most estate companies are run buy older women who don't want to crawl in the attic or dig in the basement (which we don't have in Louisiana). The family of the estate have taken out every thing they want and the house is usually for sale, so EVERYTHING in the house is for sale. Some of my greatest finds came from attics. I found a dozen Tonka sized Marx pressed steel truck and tractors in the attic of a garage that cost me $5 each, sold for around $700, and a 1952 Daisy BB gun in the open rafters of a backyard shed that cost me $2, that I sold for $300.

H. Be helpful and respect the family. This is an estate sale after all, and for those of you who don't know what this means, the owner has died and the family is liquidating the estate. If you find something that looks personal, i.e. pictures, give to the company. This will get the company to know who you are and will help you get into the attic or even a sneak peek of future sales. Be on the lookout for shoplifters. Most of the sales will have a hired security because of the shoplifting that goes on. I know of one case where some one swapped the price tag of a $100 Aurora Frankenstein model still in the box, paid $2 for it and walked out the door. Since I am 15 - 30 years younger than most customers, I always offer to help carry out larger items that some one has bought. This helps me get in good with the customer, because they will remember me in the future and may grab a toy and hold it for me. It also gets me in good with the company and helps me get into the out of the ordinary places to look.

I. Learn the history of the estate. When you learn of an upcoming sale, call the company and ask who was it and what did they do. If they were store owners/ business owners, I usually find good stuff. I made over $3000 at one sale because I learned the estate was from a man who did the radio show for LSU football and worked for LSU for 30 years. They told me there was alot of LSU stuff marked cheap. I spend just under $400. This was the sale where my most valuable single item find came from, a mint condition #1 Thun'da comic book. I paid $5 and sold it for over $600.

To be continued if you want.....

[toys2cool]

LOL! just kidding,good stuff so far,for the most part I do pretty much what you do,but it's good to know there are others who do it the exact same way,the only thing I've never done is an estate sale,but there are so many awesome thrift shops in Miami that you could keep yourself busy with those alone,funny how I have friends who want to come with me and make money too,But I'm there thinking yeah I'm sure if I find something very valuable I'm gonna turn around and give it to you so you could sell it

[batmanmc]

great read i thoght of trying to do soemthing like this . some good ideas. mike

[theantiquetiger]

After reading Megoat's post under Classic Toys about his great garage sale finds, it got me thinking about telling members here on how I got started to some of the secrets/tricks I have learned. I hope this helps:

1. How I got Started:
When I first started out, I had no plan other than I would only bring $20 with me and keep it to a minimum, no more than $5 an item, and NEVER go over my $20 limit. I was buying stuff from $1 - $2 each and selling on Ebay for $10 to $20 each for the most part. I did this every weekend for a few months, basically to just increase my bankroll, or "play money" I call it. After a few months, I had a nice little bankroll of $300 or $400 inorder to go alittle bigger with my purchases. This sounds like good money, but if you consider the time in shopping, listing, and shipping, it probably came out to less than minimum wage, but it is a hobby and will take time.

2. Where to Shop:
For the most part when garage selling, I stay in older, up-scale neighborhoods, where the homes are atleast 50 to 75 years old or in rural farm areas where the houses have been in same family for generations. If there is not much by way of these two options, i try to find one in a rich neighborhood. I avoid auction houses because they know what they have, and are known to place shill bidders in the crowd to run the price up. The flea market is OK because some people set up "garage sales" there instead of having them at their homes.
I completely avoid antique shops, because you will never find a good bargain. They know what they have and are in the same business as you and are doing it for a living, so they are not gonna cut you a deal. Use these only for stuff you wanna keep yourself.
Estate sales have been my gold mines because the estate companies focus on the art, jewelry, furniture, and other "nice" stuff and put $5 price tags on all the toys, sports items, and strange items. I will go more into detail about estate sales later.
Goodwill stores are good as well, but I have never found a great find at one of these yet.

3. What to Buy:
This is the $64,000 question. I have alot of people who ask to go shopping with me so they can try making money. I tell them I have no idea what to buy, you just have to be willing to risk the money. My main rules when deciding whether to buy something or not are:

A. If the item is less than $5 and looks interesting, buy it. 9 out of 10 times, you are right and usually double or triple your money at the least, building your bankroll.

B. If the item is strange, stranger the better, buy it. Just make sure it falls within your spending limit. A great example I have was 24 tokens from AA. They were anniversary awards of 1 week to 1 year of being sober. They were very plain, not too ornate and I paid 25 cents for the lot and sold them for $100. 999 people out of 1000 would have passed on them, but I thought they were strange, so I grabbed them.

C. If there is a good size lot and the total value comes out to less than a dollar or so per item, buy it. I bought a comic book collection when I first started out. I splurged and paid $40 for 300 comics. I didn't know too much about comics, but I figure I wouldn't lose money. Come to find out, there were quite a few golden age comics, including the 2nd appearance of Thor (1st appearances of his arch enemy). I sold the collection for over $300.

To be continued tomorrow.....