Featured Covid-19 impact on antiques business

I did see two "regulars" in the last two days. One is nice; the other I can't say I've missed. When she left the tag sale we both found, she got there first, the ladies running it asked if she'd paid for something. I asked if the person they were talking about matched her description and they said yes ... and wasn't a bit surprised. She has a rep.

 

On the sad side, another show was canceled today.

On the plus side my local flea market opens this weekend with extra spacing between dealers, I do not know about any other restrictions but I will find out. Tomorrow I will go by to see how things are set up and Sunday I plan on setting up. I will have gloves, a mask, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes with me. Wish me luck!

 

I got to an estate sale this morning. We had to sign up for slots and I was too late for the 8AM. I went early in case of no-shows and got lucky. The same dealer has another one next week a lot further away; this was in my back yard.

But this no tag sale, no thrift store existence is putting a crimp in the action.

 

U no the old sign...
"If u break it , u bought it ! "

well now...

" If u touch it, u bought it ! "

good luck..

 

There was another auction last night & it went very well.

This one was run pretty much like a silent auction. Each item or lot had a small sheet of paper with its lot number, a place to write your bid & your bidder number. Some stuff, mostly the furniture, had a starting bid, but for the most part I thought they were reasonable.

You could start to preview this past Monday morning at 9:00 & they were open from 9:00 to 5:00 each day. Bidding ended at 5:00 PM yesterday.

Everyone who came in the building had to have a mask in place. If they did not have one they had some that were available for purchase.

I went over there on Tuesday afternoon to preview & there was only a few people in the building. I went back yesterday & got there at about 4:00 to place my bids. I was sort of surprised when I drove into the parking lot & saw how many cars were there.

However everything worked just fine & really it was not much different than being at a grocery store. Everyone had their mask in place & for the most part everyone was going about their process of evaluating the lots they were interested in to figure out how they would bid. At 5:00 everyone was asked to leave the building so the bids could be recorded. They were told that pickup would be available at 9:00 today & again masks were mandatory.

Depending on how quickly they fill up the buildings they figure the next one will be in about 2 weeks.

 

OK, back from selling at the local flea market...

There were not a lot of dealers and we were spaced out so it looked a bit sparse. Not a lot of shoppers, but I did my happy minimum and a few other dealers did very well. All in all it went better than I expected

 

Estate sales return with a roar — and longer, socially distanced lines
https://buffalonews.com/news/estate...cle_c0faf990-c3aa-11ea-a01c-dbe5bb775086.html

“Increasing amounts of people are coming out. They’re here to look and see as opposed to being tied up at home. The result is increased buying, by more than 20%,” said Sharpe. “The spectrum of items people are looking for is much broader than it used to be before we had this event. They’ll spend more time looking and be more prepared to buy things. Before they were in a hurry; now they have nothing to do.”

Interesting read. I have been seeing this phenomenon at antique malls, auctions, and thrift stores too in recent weeks. They are all jammed packed with buyers right now and people seem to be spending fairly freely. No idea if this will continue if the economy continues to spiral downward but at this point a lot of antiques and collectable niches like coins and sports cards are seeing a resurgence of interest they haven't seen in a while.

 

Thanks Joe, I just read it

This paragraph is not entirely true, but ok No hand sanitizer to the few I have been to. I had no idea it was part of phase 2, I just wish the sales around here had some stuff that was good to buy. I am seeing a lot of not good junk.

In New York, estate and garage sales were included in Phase 2 of the state’s reopening starting June 12. Social distancing of 6 feet was required between people. Organizers provided hand sanitizer and regularly cleaned and disinfected high-traffic areas. Face coverings were mandatory.

 

I hope this works for us this week, Thursday is the first Antique Show being held on Cape Cod since winter. I'll be selling

 

Wishing you good sales!

 

Estate sales have been back up here for a while, but they're not crazy busy. First off they can't allow more than a certain number in at a time, and second the professional ones often make you sign up ahead of time.

 

Our collective shop has been open almost continuously with on-line sales only at first and now business as usual with masks since end of June. Sales have been about 50% of normal but we are seeing an uptick of late. This is when we typically head in to our busiest season with so much revolving around a University calendar here. Hope this will get us back to some semblance of normalcy and people find their way back through our doors.

I have not returned to clerking as I am 65 and we have someone at home with multiple risk factors. The store had a little scare last week with one employee having been exposed to a virus positive person outside work. Our owner closed for an extra day until all employees could be tested and get results back. All came back negative and the store reopened. This was all posted to our facebook page with dates that the subject employee worked so that customers were aware of potential exposure. Thankfully, no one tested positive. Our customers appreciated the abundance of caution and transparency.

 

but not from this cold

 

Thank goodness he doesn't even try to sing much. (LOL)

Every time I go to the grocery store these days I come home and wipe down groceries and throw everything I was wearing into the washing machine. There are some estate sales this weekend. I'm not going - they're a pretty fair hike and in these temperatures that's not on. The antique stores, such as they are, here are open but for shorter hours.

 

Thanks Cluttered!

Just heard 2 more shows that were scheduled for August have been canceled. I think that really makes the show Thursday the only one on the Cape this year!

 

That means it's either going to be a blockbuster or ... it won't.

 

I know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

 

I suspect if the weather is good, you will have a good day. People are tired of being cooped up.

 

Yay! Today was my last day at the antique mall. I managed to get all of my fixtures either sold or given to friends. All my "stuff" I packed up and sent home for ebay or to GW, some set aside for a later auction. I'm so looking forward to having a clutter free home, although that's still a little off.

Due to COVID I am not able to go hunting any longer so I had to just stop. It feels better than I thought, although I will really miss the people.

 

Congrats on finishing what I know all too well is a huge job!!!

I know what you mean about missing the people. I told someone the other day that it would not hurt my feelings if they just kept doing the auction the way they had been until the first of the year. They were shocked to hear me say this & I do miss seeing everyone on Friday nights, but I am really enjoying the fact that I am moving along a lot of stuff that has been hanging around for far too long.

I buy a lot of my stuff at the auction & a majority of the times I buy items in lots. So it is often not a matter of getting just one or two things listed, it is very often getting a large lot of similar items listed.

For instance, I have finally gotten all of the vintage calculators listed that I bought almost 2 years ago. Between researching them, testing them to see which ones still worked, cleaning them & then doing all that goes into getting something listed it has been about a 2 to 3 week project. I have done other things during that time, but I am really glad to have them soon to be OTD.

I knew I would do very well with them, but they got semi buried in my office when I cleaned & rearranged it in preparation for a visit from my granddaughter. When I set up this office 7 years ago she needed a place for her toys & to play during her visits. So I made a space for her, but would use it to stage stuff in between visits. She is now 13 so has not really messed with any of the stuff for the last 2 or 3 visits, so I no longer move my stuff.

On Tuesday I was almost home when I realized I had already passed the GW & had not had the usual argument in my head about the need to just keep on going.