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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Northern Lights Lodge, post: 9753609, member: 13464&quot;]I think shipping is killing just about everyone! AGGH! I&#039;ve had a few people follow me around also... and are shocked that I&#039;ve been buying and selling since about 1971! Of course, some venues are newer than others! Still, I think that if you come from a family that treasures family heirlooms that it helps develop an interest in such things. Unfortunately, my daughters ONLY have interest in things that are genuinely family. Still, I&#039;m not complaining as many in this generation aren&#039;t interested in ANY older stuff. </p><p><br /></p><p>I have had great luck at &quot;donation&quot; sales and garage sales and family run Estate Sales - who didn&#039;t bother to ask any questions of a professional... either a) thinking there was nothing of value or b) really didn&#039;t care what it was worth anyway or c) didn&#039;t have time or money to deal with a professional - like &quot;Gramma died last October; we live out of town/out of state and we put the house on the market right away because the realtor said that it would sell better with furniture in the house and now - OMG! The house sold and we have a week to vacate&quot;!&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, these things do happen! Being in the right place at the right time helps! It doesn&#039;t happen often; but often enough!</p><p><br /></p><p>I also had an instance of a local auctioneer (who by the way I can&#039;t stand) who was doing an auction of a little cottage on my very quiet short street with 10 houses in a &quot;tourist destination&quot; area. As rule, I am never the first person in the door at a sale. </p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t like fighting other people, it&#039;s &quot;full price&quot;, too much stuff at that point to see stuff... just MUCH easier to wait.&nbsp; So THIS was the exception. The cottage was owned by a local gent of notoriety; although they didn&#039;t live here... they did visit. He passed and his wife went in a nursing home - no children. Years passed and the cottage sat untouched. One 4th of July weekend - we were headed out for a day of fun and LO and BEHOLD... there is a HUGE dumpster in the drive. When we came home late after dark...apparently there had been crew there... as the dumpster was HEAPING. </p><p><br /></p><p>As I said; my location is very quiet...no one lived on our street- not even street lights...and it hadn&#039;t rained. You better believe I went dumpster diving! Got a huge pile of local memorabilia, vintage fabric, souvenir items, artist supplies (the lady had been a local artist), and more! So a few days later there is a little &quot;for sale&quot; sign up in the yard....stating something to the effect of &quot;cottage auction on such and such a day&quot; and in tiny print under it &quot;cottage open for questions and open house on such and such a day&quot; and in even TINIER letters under that was &quot;house contents for sale on the day after open house&quot;. Cool! I never saw ANY public notice anywhere, except the sign in front of the cottage...even though that cottage was 4 cottages from a busy road.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, I certainly went to the open house. It seems like most of the people I saw there WERE interested in buying the cottage. There wasn&#039;t &quot;alot&quot; in terms of contents, but some furniture, paintings by the lady, beautiful old metal Sears industrial 40&#039;s sewing machine in a cabinet, Christmas, vintage clothing, books, kitchen was full of vintage whatnots and cookware/china, and the basement had lots of &quot;stuff&quot;... which reeked of oil which apparently, was leaking from the old oil furnace. So, it appears that the auction house just went in and slapped prepriced stickers on everything they didn&#039;t haul out to the dumpster. The most expensive thing I saw was $10.</p><p><br /></p><p>I resolved then and there... that I would make an exception to MY rule and be in line first! In fact, I took a lawn chair and camped out by 4 am. Hubby came to relieve me and I took a pit stop and came back to claim my spot. By the time a few minutes to 6 happened, hubby was waiting with me and we had taken the chair home. (I&#039;m 4 doors down). There was one VERY aggressive man who wanted in the door FIRST in the worst sort of way and I wasn&#039;t about to let him get his elbowed way in. </p><p><br /></p><p>I had told my hubby what to bee line to - and I belined the other way (this was a little tiny 2 bedroom cottage). I did get the item I was after - a French Country antique curved cleaver/knife in the shape of a fox - the tail being the handle for $5. The &#039;man&#039; offered me $50 - I declined as I knew it was worth more. Later saw one in a magazine valued at $2,000 and mine was nicer. Hubby went for the old 60&#039;s jewelry box with a $10 price tag and it was full of jewelry... including the lady&#039;s Deco 5 diamond wedding band. Never found the engagement ring; but the beautiful black enamel and chrome presentation box I found in the dumpster. Unfortunately, I sold it before I realized I had the ring that belonged in it. Sigh. </p><p><br /></p><p>The upshot is that the following day...day of the cottage auction...we strolled down to see if we knew who would win the bid on the house. MR &quot;Dude&quot; auctioneer was strolling about in cowboy boots, hat and &quot;dude&quot; gold jewelry barking out commands to his staff and having a royal hissy fit because the little old man who lived down the street had marked off the grass with flags (he did the lawn maintenance and probably never spoke to the auctioneer - but didn&#039;t want people driving all over the grass)... Dude, then went in the house and had a royal screaming match with the ladies inside because there was still stuff in the house. He said: (and I quote); &quot;Get all this g--d--- s--- out of here! Take it to the garage... give it away...I could care less! I don&#039;t want to see any of it in 10 minutes!!!!&quot; Hubby ran home and got the truck... and we loaded up the truck with all her paintings, the Sears sewing machine which sews like a dream, Christmas, craft supplies, fabric... more and more! All I can say was that I felt bad for his staff AND the heirs as he truly did not do justice with the contents! </p><p><br /></p><p>I went to one of his sales years before this one - waited all day in the rain for ONE item (a suitcase full of lace) to go up for auction. There was a lady who got to choose any item from the table for &quot;high bid&quot; of $5... and so she stood there and chose... the helper continued to take items from UNDER the table and load the table... and she continued to pick... including the suitcase. We took our complaint to him later and you can imagine his response - basically and I quote: &quot;I don&#039;t give a f---!&quot;&nbsp; I honestly don&#039;t understand why he&#039;s even in business! Nasty man.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, there still are deals to be found. </p><p><br /></p><p>Cheerio,</p><p>Leslie[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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