Hello again, Grin here, Pick is out shopping in one of those bedroom communities where the old stores that once housed the local butcher, baker and bookie, now are home to the crafts crowd, crepes kitchen and bobbles and bangles boutique. So I’m left to ponder what’s new in our antique world.
Wait, is “new in our antique world” an oxy moron? Or am I just dumb.
It appears we have turned the corner and sales are up this year over last, and that gives us greater reason to be hunting for antiques and collectibles. Even our success rate at finding items at garage sales has been better.
Our recent travels have taken us to several shops that are new to us, in areas remote to our home. An estate sale in one of the better neighborhoods produced some great finds and a shop in Northern Illinois can keep the lights on and pay the rent from all the items we carted out to the van on our last excursion. I suppose our sightseeing along the Mississippi river was more of a buying trip than it was watching for eagles, but that’s the nature of all our travels.
In case you have not guessed from past posts, Wifey (Pick) has been selling antiques so long, some items she sells now were purchased
new but now qualify as near antiques. Her “on-line” business is about eleven years old and requires lots of stock replenishing. Flea markets in the summer months are for purging items not sold on the net or too inexpensive to justify the time and energy to list. It also works better for selling larger items such as furniture. And flea market selling is lots of fun and provides interaction with customers and fellow sellers that just doesn’t occur with on-line sales.
Now back to the subject of buying. How can she find items to sell and make a profit, especially at antique stores and malls? Well, it’s more work than you would believe. Experience is the main ingredient, knowing what is collectible, at what price. Then the searching begins, at all and every place that sells antiques and selected collectibles. With magnifying glass and magnet in hand, a GPS in the car, it’s off to explore. The American Pickers are amateurs with limited focus on old metal compared to Pick’s picks.
Just look at the items from recent jaunts, and you’ll understand the broad range of what her customers are looking to collect. Finding these treasures, means looking for the one item another seller or collector has no interest in and greatly undervalues. The best example? Well, let’s take decks of playing cards, a hot collectible just now. Found everywhere, many decks were giveaway advertising from the local feed store to major airlines. I have seen recent prices range from $3.00 to $15.00 per pack in the same antique mall. And what is hot with collectors? Right now it’s the cute little kitten, lovely lily, a tax stamp still attached to a sealed deck, or the styling on and Ace of Spades. Just don’t place your bet on an airline that flew the world, they must have given out a billion decks to bored boarded passengers.
OH!! NO!! Pick is back from her excursion to latte land, with no new, old things purchased. WOW, how sad.
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