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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;elarnia, post: 26238, member: 159&quot;]Several years ago I went to the annual rummage sale for a private school. The sale started at 7am - I got there about 8:30. There were several women looking at the jewelry table, holding up items, seeking each others opinions, occasionally trading off a piece or adding a piece to what was obviously a &quot;stash&quot; for buying.&nbsp; There were several other women standing a few feet back, looking over their shoulders and muttering a bit. The woman in charge of the table announced that it was 8:45 and the tempo picked up a bit, sort of like at closing time, and they started to finalize their picks and pay for them.</p><p><br /></p><p>I asked a friend of mine who was one of the organizers what that was all about.&nbsp; He told me that they had been having trouble with a few dealers who came in, swept the jewelry table, grabbed things out of other people&#039;s hands, then made a low ball offer for the lot.&nbsp; They had been thinking of dropping the jewelry table entirely when someone came up with this solution.&nbsp; They priced the good stuff at low retail, and for the first two hours didn&#039;t make any deals.&nbsp; This gave the collectors a chance to add to their collections without having to fight the dealers for it, and gave the school top dollar for the items someone really wanted.&nbsp; After two hours they cut the prices in half but no bulk deals - at this point the dealers moved in but had no incentive to grab everything, just the stuff they knew was worth it to them.&nbsp; At 10am they opened it up to offers and bulk deals. </p><p><br /></p><p>I expect this worked for them because they had some serious collectors who didn&#039;t mind paying a good price for the school, so whenever anyone complained or tried to beat the system there were sufficient others to oppose them, not just the organizers. And because they had a fairly well to do base of supporters who donated enough good stuff that the dealers still found it was worth their while, even after it had been picked through.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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