Frustrating Estate Sale

[woodchucker]

I need to vent.
I've been cooped up since Wed with an eye issue. So I had the wife drive me out to an estate sale. Todays the last day.
They had pics on Estatesales.net
Well I like the lights that swing and have springs, I like putting them at each machine.
normal price $1. They wanted $5 no switch and cracked wiring.
They had a brown and sharpe digit mic that he wanted $50 for, he said it was worth 75 to 100. I told him it wasn't even worth 20 in its condition. you turn the barrel and the rod doesn't move. He still wanted $50. I tried with a screw driver to get it to move, nothing doing.
So I take the 3 lights, and a surge protector. He want's 30. I offer 15. He's not budging. He wants $5 a piece for the lights and 15 for the surge protector. Don't get me wrong the surge protector is the best there is... a Zero Surge, but I'm not paying him $15 for the lights. I offer 18. He's now down to 22.50 because they are offering 25% off today.
I put it all back and walk away. He let me walk.
The house was still packed, after Friday and today. I have to wonder why they won't deal on prices .. Freaking frustrating. Some guys are clueless. They think the stuff is gold. These were all bent up an needed work...

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[C-Bag]

Good job. I woulda walked too. It's no wonder the house is still full. I think the worst thing that ever happened is theses silly "picker" shows and people trying to price things off eBay. I know what it's like to be on the other side, but I'd bet a million bucks that same guy would have tried to give you next to nothing if the tables were turned.

 

[Terrywerm]

A common problem with garage or estate sales is how to properly price items. I've been on both sides of this and it can be very difficult to establish proper prices for some items, especially for machine tools and associated hand tools. Too many times family members have no clue what an item's true value might be. Comparing to equivalent new tools is often what people do, and all they know is that micrometers are precision instruments that are expensive. If they compare to prices on eBay, they are often starting with inflated prices to begin with. They also seldom realize that hand measuring tools actually do wear internally and consider them to be durable tools with lifelong accuracy.

There is the other side of the story, too. The one where people expect to get good things for less than bargain basement prices. The swing arm lamps you were talking about can often be purchased new for under $25, and would be worth $5 in good, used condition in my opinion, But, if the cords are cracked, parts are missing, or they will not stay put, as you found, their value drops very quickly and I would overlook them at anything more than a dollar. There is also the issue of liability. At my dad's garage sale when he moved out of his house we scrapped items that had cracked cords or other safety issues. It was not worth the time to fix them just to get a dollar for them. We did not want anyone coming back to us saying that someone was injured by a device that we plainly told them was not usable in its current condition, so we just scrapped those items instead. It was not worth the time or money to fix them just to get a couple of bucks for them.

His air compressor was a similar issue. His reservoir was an old 200 pound anhydrous ammonia tank that had a manufacture date of 1946. We sold the compressor, but not the tank. The risk of liability with a pressure vessel that old was just too great. It got cut up for scrap.

On the other hand, there were about 50 Tonka Toys trucks on the sale. My grandmother worked for Tonka Toys when I was a youngster, and we received lots of Tonka trucks for birthdays and Christmas when we were younger. We advertised the sale and on the day of the sale we had eight or ten people waiting for the sale to start. Two of them were antique dealers and they were waiting in the street at 5 AM to be the first ones in line and in the door. When we opened at 9 AM there was a flood of people headed in looking for the Tonka Toys. We darn near had fights going back where those toys were. Pricing those trucks was difficult, some brought good money, some did not, depending on their popularity and rarity. There was a UPS panel van from the late 50's that still had the sliding doors and everything. It brought $120 from one of the antique dealers, no questions asked. I visited their store a week later and they had already sold it for over $300. I don't begrudge them that, I just found it amazing what someone was willing to pay for it.

Long story short, some things are worth money, some are not. The hard part is knowing which is which. The value of various items also varies from one person to the next, my idea of a treasure is different from someone else's. We all have to keep that in mind and be willing to walk away if a deal cannot be struck. If the prices are too high, the best message we can give the seller is to just walk away empty handed.

 

[woodchucker]

yep, This was not the owner though. It was an estate sales company, and the tool guy had no clue. He thought everything was worth a lot of money.
He would not bargain.
I have had the same with private sellers too. As you both have said, I just don't think they have a clue especially when they have that much stuff left. They should be aware that many of the items they pictured are still here... gotta be a reason.

 

[markba633csi]

Also too how do they know that surge protector was any good? Some of those are self-destructing one-time only devices if they encounter a big surge like lightning-
Mark

 

[Terrywerm]

Estate sales companies have another angle though, and that is to maximize profits, not just get rid of the stuff. After the sale was over they probably loaded it all up and took it to their auction house to auction it off at a later date and with a larger crowd, usually resulting in higher prices and greater commissions, maximizing their profits. They often put one desirable item in a box with a bunch of other junk just to drive the price up and get rid of the junk at the same time.

 

[C-Bag]

Almost all estate sales here are "companies". I use that term loosely because they know next to nothing about machinist related stuff. And 99% of the sales have little or no tools so they are all over the map as to supposed worth. A name like South Bend or Atlas or Bridgeport are sky high. Meanwhile some other stuff is dirt cheap. I got a set of Brown & Sharpe v-blocks for .50c. With the stipulation I tell the person what heck they were!

 

[Terrywerm]

Also too how do they know that surge protector was any good? Some of those are self-destructing one-time only devices if they encounter a big surge like lightning-
Mark

The neat thing about surge protectors is that the device that fries during a large surge is replaceable at very low cost. Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs) are easily replaced if you can solder and you can buy two for less than a dollar.

I had a 1983 Honda Aspencade which had one of Honda's first LCD gauge clusters. Long story short is that it fried after the voltage regulator failed and let the voltage go too high. The board for the display had its own protection circuit that was trying to dump excess voltage to ground through the MOV. Honda wanted over $800 for a replacement board, but I was able to repair it by replacing the fried MOV and a fried resistor. Cost me less than a dollar including the cost of the solder and the parts!

 

[woodchucker]

Also too how do they know that surge protector was any good? Some of those are self-destructing one-time only devices if they encounter a big surge like lightning-
Mark

That's why the zero surge is unique. They don't go bad like that.,

Edit: I play volleyball with the owner, he bought the company because they do survive after a lightning strike. And my neighbor who's an ieee says they are good, but not the only way to do it and survive.

 

[markba633csi]

It's a shame how much stuff gets tossed just because one little part goes bad- unfortunately the labor involved to fix often exceeds the value of the unit
- only practical if your time is free (mine is) but I only do fixes for friends and family- not worth it otherwise
Mark