Juggling

Feeling a bit stressed at the moment as we've done three shows in as many weekends! At least three empty tubs as a result - that's a lot of stock that needs to be replaced. I've already told you about the adventure of the auction process. Last week we were able to visit an estate sale, and also a few garage sales in order to replenish the inventory. At the moment it's not at all a leisurely activity, but more of a bit of a panic! as I've had to update the website by deleting items as soon as we've finished a show by deleting the items that sold that day. In one case, I had to delete an item that I'd JUST added (obviously, a real find!) the day before.

So, it's busy time for me.

Compounding the "fun" is the fact that one of the lamp's bulbs burned out and I'm waiting for the replacement to arrive. This means that I'm currently taking photographs outside in the blinding sunshine - really hard to do! Most times you can't even see the object in the digital camera's screen, so you're kind of taking pictures blind. It will be nice to be able to get the little photo studio set up again in the house (and my retinas will thank me, too).

So, estate sales. Usually a professional service comes into a home in order to make it "broom clean" and ready for sale, and it does so by placing a price sticker on everything within the house that be able to be removed. This, of course, is after the family members and friends have been distributed their share of belongings that they've been promised. You can expect prices to be somewhere between retail and wholesale at an estate sale - there isn't usually any haggling to be done, but as the end of a sale approaches, and the idea of it is to empty the house compeltely, you might be able to strike up an agreement.

Some estate sales are as the result of divorce or foreclosure; more often, though, they are the result of downsizing, serious illness, or death. I can get quite melancholy going through an estate sale as I contemplate the lives that the objects had before coming to this state. Sometimes you can tell that something spend years in a closet and never had any use at all; other times you can plainly see that something was used daily and was a loving part of someone's life. It's a stark reminder of eventual possibility that all of our treasured objects might end up in an estate sale somewhere. (A gentle reminder to enjoy your treasures now! And also to find homes where they'll be appreciated and valued, else they end up in an estate sale.)

Every object in an estate sale has been priced already before the house is opened to the buying public. There's usually someone to total up your purchases on a receipt, and a cashier to take your money to streamline the process - these sales can be quite crowded. They will usually provide you with plastic bags, empty boxes, or newspaper for wrapping up your purchases.

The other place to go shopping, is the ubiquitous garage sale. I've said before that I find these to be labor intensive and not always enjoyable - but, as they say, one man's garbage is another man's treasure (and, er, vice versa). There are some perfectly dreadful things I've seen put out for sale in people's driveways. Filthy, broken, and way overpriced! But now and then, there will be a glimmer of treasure there - it's just a bit of hard work sometimes to find it.

Yesterday, for example, we went across town to one garage sale, and Bob spotted a Schmid music box for 50 cents. It was of an owl and squirrel. When we got home and cleaned it up a bit, did a little bit of research on the internet, we found that it was a Beatrix Potter music box of "Old Mr. Brown", and on one site we found it listed for $110! (I don't know what was so special about that particular one, but we saw several elsewhere for around $45, which is probably what it's actually worth.) So this was a case of someone just wanting to clear out their garage and not wanting to go through the bother of putting this object on eBay, or Craigslist - they just wanted it gone. And we found a treasure as a result. It will go on to a new home - maybe to a Beatrix Potter collector, or to a music box collector (that's called a cross-collectible, BTW). It was a VERY good find.

Oh, and that Thieves' Market we did on Saturday? The best outing yet for us - just mobbed with shoppers. Contrary to the weather predictions, it rained, and we were caught out without our tarps to cover our tables. Actually, this was to our advantage, as some people were determined to keep shopping, and we went on to make several more sales in the pouring rain while we were scrambling to pack everything up! We'll be back next month at this market, and pass on the Tampa show instead. It was just a brilliant mix of vendors - something for everyone - in a beautiful setting - and it was free to the public. The best of combinations.

Sarasota antique show also a good run!

But wow; doing two shows in two weekends is tough work. Just being outdoors for two full days in a row is enough to send you into exhausted sleep! So Monday is a recovery day for me - Bob, though, is back at the grindstone of his day job.

The Sarasota show was lightly participated in, yet fairly heavily attended. There were only 6 outdoor dealers including ourselves! The fairgrounds are basically a surface of chipped seashells, quite bright to the eyes, and dusty - not the most ideal of conditions. Sunday we brought a shade umbrella with us but it was worrisome as it really wanted to tip over when the breeze picked up; not the best solution (and I never was able to position my chair quite where the shade happened to be either). Seeing as the temperature both days reached 80 degrees, it's clear that being able to produce our own adequate supply of shade is really important.

As to just why the show itself was so sparsely subscribed, it's difficult to say: the promoters are back doing this and the Tampa shows after an absence of five years. Neither show was heavily advertised to the trade, and I understand that one dealer had to drop out due to family health issues. In this regard, we're disappointed. But the public turnout was enthusiastic; the Sarasota folks were ready to shop, and Bob and I were faced with our first rush, as one memorable customer went on a spree, scooping up many pieces of glass. Quite a few items of china were sold as well, satisfying as both of these categories had been largely passed by at the Tampa show.

Which brings me to another subject - what are people going to be attracted to at any given show? It's a mystery. At the Tampa show, jewelry sold well, as did French cruise menus. They were hardly even glanced at during the Sarasota show, where instead, the attractions were glass and china. I did re-merchandise the displays slightly, having determined that grouping items together by type was not helpful, but only pointed out how very much of a certain type of item we had (like, um, a surplus!). Instead, I mixed the glass pieces in with the china, varying the colors and textures, to create some visual interest and contrast. I think that this actually helped a lot... but then maybe it was just the alignment of the stars!

So now my job is to work at restocking our inventory - I'll spend this week at local estate sales (my favorite places to shop) and maybe an auction, to see what new-old treasures are out there. For now we've seen the full circle of the collectibles market - the acquisition, the research, the pricing, and the sale. It can be a surprisingly short cycle - there was one commemorative plate we sold at this show that we'd only just found several weeks ago; other items were those that we acquired in the purchase of the business from last October. I can see, though, that you have to constantly be looking for new stock - which means SHOPPING! Hurray!