Antique shops & good auction houses

[Dantheman]

dabhand....you clearly have to much money my friend ? did you actually win it?if so what on earth did you do with it or sell it to in the end?

 

[dabhand]

I used to buy and sell here at Park Hall

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regularly on a Sunday many years ago as a hobby, (which it still is) All the dealers used to go, it used to be far more than a boot sale, don’t know what it’s like now though!

 

[Dantheman]

dabhand looks good I'll take a peak i do love buying and selling at car boots picked up some great stuff and love the banter

 

[dabhand]

dabhand....you clearly have to much money my friend ? did you actually win it?if so what on earth did you do with it or sell it to in the end?

Try saying that to the dealers you might wish to deal with Speculate to accumulate mate

 

[h1ghway1]

It seems to me that its easy to buy things but then it becomes a problem with selling... the costs of auctions and Ebay are pretty steep..

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[Dantheman]

dabhand ... I like your style mate I wouldn't have the balls to bid on something like that ?

 

[Dantheman]

h1ghway1 ...your not wrong there buying is actually the easy part...well to a degree it is, in the antiques game there are alot of fairly high quality fakes and of course very poor quality fakes also but generally buying is the easiest part unless at an auction as quality obviously attracts other bidders and collectors and dealers like me don't want to be paying collectors prices as no meat on the bone as such.

Selling is the issue ...I do use eBay and find it fairly good but I am pretty well established on there as been selling since 2004 on there. Ebays prices have gone up alot I agree but I take advantage of £1 final fee offers which actually come around fairly regular and help alot with profit. I do buy alot of joblot at auctions and sales usually only for 2 or 3 items the rest goes to car boots and I can usually make a couple of hundred quid of the crap which usually covers what I pay for the whole lots anyway.

Do you buy and sell at all?

 

[h1ghway1]

Dan,
Totally agree with your reply...

Never really a trader .. but I'm only a buyer now on Ebay... rather than sell I tend to donate to charity... I'm trying to downsize so
I'm not looking to add unless its a nice piece of art like a painting or small scuplture....

 

[Dantheman]

h1ghway1 ....hey I can understand that totally alot of people get addicted and end up with far more than they can handle and end up getting depressed with it all. It's best to stick to the odd nice piece here and there every so often as a treat ?.

 

[dabhand]

dabhand ... I like your style mate I wouldn't have the balls to bid on something like that ?

Most of the stuff I bought I already had a buyer for, keep a book of contacts, know what they want and what they’ll pay up to, ask them what’s selling buy for your contacts and you’ll sell everything. Dealers love a travelling buyer.

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[Debs]

The problem is I can’t resist bidding, take a look at this, I bid 10k on one once because I thought it was cheap, I had no way of moving it, no where to put it, and at the time, absolutely no use for it whatsoever. I didn’t even have anybody to sell it on to! There is no logic to it.

View attachment 353075

? Nice one Si
Les's brother once got half a dozen east European 4x4 vehicles, all non runners, no idea if he got rid of them. Also a load of water bowsers & several sets of traffic lights?.

 

[dabhand]

I was watching a programme on Thursday about this cockney guy who buys and sells Militaria and war machines like tanks etc, anyway, he’s in Germany buying a rare half track machine for a Russian Client, long story short he pays 100k for this machine as it’s rare and there aren’t many left in the world, and many more thousands to transport it back. His client drops out and he’s ranting and raving about being 100k out of pocket, anyway he gets this historian out who tells him it’s not the vehicle as described in the paperwork, more shenanakins as he thinks he’s lost all his money. What is it then? He asks the historian, who tells him. It turns out it’s the ONLY one in existence and worth in excess of 500k. You win some you lose some eh!

 

[Dantheman]

dabhand I have seen a few of the shows before think it's called combat dealers. Broad cockney guy pretty excentric really interesting programme though he finds some pretty amazing stuff. I could certainly do with finding a 500k tank! ?

 

[Wild Brambles]

It seems to me that its easy to buy things but then it becomes a problem with selling...

Actually I believe that the hardest part is to buy at the right price. If you are good at this, you can always find buyers. For example, I used to sell at the Devizes toy fair, and I had buyers who use to travel down from London the buy there. I sold to other dealers, and was regularly told that people were pricing goods for 2 or three times what I had paid, but they still had the items 3 months later. I used to arrive with a Luton full of stuff, and I sold more than half of it. I used to buy van loads from house clearers, and unsold lots at auctions, and I did really well. The secret is to leave some profit for the other guy, and to sell items quickly. I owned a disused farm then though, and I could dispose of the rubbish in a van load of house clearance fairly easily.

It's also amazing what you find. - A Rolls Royce spanner for example, and Jack Barclay's offer them for sale at £95, and a motor aneroid that sold for £550 at auction. That wasn't mine, and I'll take a photo for you guys, you would probably put it in the scrap if you picked one up.

 

[chaser]

Actually I believe that the hardest part is to buy at the right price. If you are good at this, you can always find buyers. For example, I used to sell at the Devizes toy fair, and I had buyers who use to travel down from London the buy there. I sold to other dealers, and was regularly told that people were pricing goods for 2 or three times what I had paid, but they still had the items 3 months later. I used to arrive with a Luton full of stuff, and I sold more than half of it. I used to buy van loads from house clearers, and unsold lots at auctions, and I did really well. The secret is to leave some profit for the other guy, and to sell items quickly. I owned a disused farm then though, and I could dispose of the rubbish in a van load of house clearance fairly easily.

It's also amazing what you find. - A Rolls Royce spanner for example, and Jack Barclay's offer them for sale at £95, and a motor aneroid that sold for £550 at auction. That wasn't mine, and I'll take a photo for you guys, you would probably put it in the scrap if you picked one up.

When I started farming nearly 60 years ago, an old cattle dealer used to come and help me, one day I was complaining about someone selling on one of my cows for more than he had bought it off me.
I shall never forget his words, " ee lad you were happy about the price when you sold it , everyone's got to make a shilling, if you hadn't left something in it you wouldn't have sold it at all"
Remembered that ever since , if you are selling at a fair price, folks will come back , but if you do them once you will never sell them anything again or their friends they tell about it.

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[Dantheman]

Wild Brambles wow would be good to see the pic of that... £550 sounds amazing price. The kind people on here have sent me quite a few good links and leads to follow so I'll be doing some research and visiting some of the these places that I think will suit me the most ?

 

[Dantheman]

chaser you couldn't be more right. I always try to be as fair as I possibly can if I can make a small profit and turn it over quickly that is the aim of the game. I actually get great pleasure out of selling to people and seeing them really happy with the item I have sold them. I was making very good money working in the corporate side for BT but I was unhappy, I earn alot less now but the pleasure I get is 10 fold ?

 

[Wild Brambles]

Your best source of stuff to sell is the stuff that tradesmen and businesses don't want. I did well by clearing plumbers' waste. You don't have to mess with retail either. It can be hard work though, and you need to be able to stand up to the gypsies.

 

[Spriddler]

.......... if you are selling at a fair price, folks will come back , but if you do them once you will never sell

Back in the (late?) 70's I was with the Duracell company and used to train the salesmen.
I was in London in one of only half a dozen Dixons photographic shops getting a hard time from Stanley Kalms, son of Dixons founder Sir Charles and have always remembered his words: "My boy (BOY, I was 30 'ish!), you make your profit when you buy, not when you sell. I buy pound notes for seventeen shillings and sell them for eighteen and six".
It seemed to have worked rather well.