Featured The one that got away a few weeks ago

We all been there! A year or so back found a set of bone carvings I really wanted. Not cheap, and needed to sort my finances. Bargained it about 30% down as this is someone I have bought from before. Put down some money to hold it for a couple of weeks. A week goes by, I make arrangements to pay and, bang, the hammer falls! "I'm sorry, I was away from the shop, my wife wasn't aware that it was reserved and sold it. I'll refund your deposit." Yeah, right. Someone saw it, paid full price, and I was left hanging and cursing I should have just bought it and sorted out the finances later. Bummer! Real bummer! One of those I will be grinding my teeth about till the day I go three feet under! Maybe I should ask to be hurried ten feet under, so the gnashing of teeth does not spook the passers by!

 

My recent experience was in Oxfam, nothing brilliant just a tin of Barbour wax, I wanted to look at the beads so put it with the young man on the checkout to keep, told him I wanted it and would pay after looking at the jewellery and I didn’t want have to carry it around the shop. Went back 20 minutes later to find he had sold it to someone else and had no explanation why he had done so. Not a big deal but it could have been.

 

What a RAT!

 

he could have hid it from view......

 

I don’t think he really knew what it was, he was about 20 yrs old and Asian. He apologised profusely as did his older colleagues and I said he needed extra training.

 

LOL!! I was a 20-year-old Asian working in a charity-shop once, and I found some great stuff which never made it onto the sales floor.

*Greedy glint in his eyes*

 

And most of the rest of us would have done the same.(LOL)

 

yes keep it quiet after you purchase it also , or they will watch you next time lol, i have had this happen too many times, like after i found the picasso chair in the back .no one is allowed back there any more lol i tell people that is why , some don't believe it, but the workers and i know hehehe

 

All these stories make me feel better, at least I'm not alone.

 

I make a point of not cackling or giggling until I get the car door shut.

 

Is that before or after your eyes turn yellow and your hair turns green?

 

My skin turned green some time ago, and I have a squad of monkeys who fly and do my bidding. Except at auctions - can't trust a monkey to know how to bid!

 

My advice, let it go. Don't even think about it again, its no big deal - think of how much time you spend driving to a thrift store only to find nothing there. There are lots more fish in the ocean/pond.

I have a question not about how you buy stuff, but about how you SELL it? You mentioned in a previous post that you were going to auction a bunch of your collected silver. Did you do that? Who did you use as an auctioneer? Did you get more than scrap?

 

Hey Jeff,
I meant to follow up from that story, but perhaps it was shame/disappointment that kept me from putting the words on paper. Overall, I was happy with the process through the auction house, but it isn't something I'll be doing again. I was feeling pretty optimistic about the value I would get out of my collection, and there were a number of sales that I was downright mad about. For example, I posted a beautiful non-weighted three-piece tea set made by Hamilton & Desinger awhile ago. All three items are beautiful, all three items are non-weighted, all three items weigh a combined 22.5 ounces of sterling silver......and they sold for $275.

The auction house did their job, and I got the convenience of taking it all in and letting someone else do the work for me, but I would have made more on my own selling on ebay, even with the fees and shipping. I just didn't realize it at the time. I wouldn't call it a big lesson, but a lesson none-the-less. Total $$$ that I got after the auction fee was $4150. Not a bad day at all, and I'll never complain especially on this site, but I won't make the same mistake twice.

 

If you do it again, I'd put a reserve of at least scrap weight on anything that's better than scrap.

 

Thanks for the candor. I really wish it had gone the other way, but I can't say I'm surprised. Especially unfortunate that ebay seems to be the best available option.

 

The reserve not only protects you; it indicates to bidders that your item is of serious value.

 

In my experience auction houses don't like to set reserves; its harder to manage and slows down the sale so they will often refuse unless it is a big ticket item that they expect to do well. Miscellaneous silver would go in a Skinner Discovery auction, and as far as I know they are very reluctant to set any reserves on their Discovery auctions. Instead they usually pass if they don't get half the low estimate amount, though they'll sometimes even go below that. Because of that I figure you should never expect to get more than half the low estimate amount when you send things to auction (I guess that makes me a pessimist).

 

More like a realist these days. People looking for silver to hoard or scrap aren't going to pay metal weight. They can't. Those after the good stuff will pay more, but if only the scrappers show up for that auction ...into the tank it goes.