Storage Auctions
The Storage Locker => General Storage Auction Talk => Topic started by: Cobia on June 20, 2011, 07:51:30 AM
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When sorting through a unit won at auction, don't throw anything away until all the boxes and bags have been checked. Sometimes those random things that look like junk actually belong with other items packed in other boxes that make that item whole and sellable.
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Good advice, and I highly recommend it.
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The golden rule is, go thru everything.
Clothing has to be checked (Pockets)
Shoes has to be checked (inside)
Boxes has to be opened.
Birthday cards has to be checked (inside)
Books has to be checked (looked thru)
You get my drift, you haveto check everything, there is no telling where people hide stuff or put stuff.
I have found alot of money and giftcards that are still valid, hiddn in envelopes, books, pockets, and shoes.
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Clothing has to be checked (Pockets)
Shoes has to be checked (inside)
Boxes has to be opened.
Birthday cards has to be checked (inside)
Books has to be checked (looked thru)
From the standpoint of finding "everything" that has some cash value, this makes sense, but the idea of checking pockets, shoes, birthday cards and books is overkill for me (other people will have different levels of tolerance).
On a regular basis I quickly look through boxes of clothes...just enough to put my arm down in a box and tilt the clothes up to see if there was any piece of clothing I would ACTUALLY take to the flea market. The idea that I would take out each piece of clothing and go through the pockets just overwhelms me. This would especially be true of clothing that would just be thrown in boxes or suitcases. I am talking about ignoring the pockets of somewhat reasonably folded clothing.
Birthday cards still containing money? IN MY OPINION, the odds are slim to none, but AS I SAID, to each his own.
Shoes...the only ones I spend any time on are work boots that still have life left in them or women's shoes still in boxes and showing no wear whatsoever....otherwise, boxes of old, worn-out shoes (dress, tennis, flip-flops) I can't get in the trash can fast enough. At the dump it's a shower of shoes sometimes going over the 5 foot drop to the dump floor!
Flipping through the pages of 200 paper back books? Nope, not for me.
Again, THIS IS MY OPINION....others will have their VARYING opinions to which they are entitled.
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I have to agree with Movieman, I don't have the space and time to rationally expend my energy on a low % task. I'm sure those who do it have found success, I jst can't rationalize the time and effort such a task would require.
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If your not willing to short thru things, then you can not complain about not finding stuff of value in lockers.
Beeing lazy is one of the biggest reason to failure.
I call it lazy when people don't want to do the little extra, it takes about 2 seconds to flip thru a book.
I have in my last 4 lockers found a total of 75 dollars hidden in bibles. Took me maybe 20 seocnds to go thru those bibles. So you know what, if thats to much work for you, then i don't feel sorry for your comments about how bad lockers are or that there is no value.
A regular bidder here found 800 dollars one month ago in unopend birthday cards, i think that if you open 30-40 0f them it will take you maybe 10-15 minutes.
From what i have been reading in the post's from you Movieman, you complain a lot about not finding good stuff in the units, more or less the last 6 months most of the postings you have done have been negative about the content in your units. Well maybe you should look more in books and pockets. It might give some more positive findings.
And for all the newbies out there, in the beginnign it is even more importent to look everything.
Yet again Mr. A you seem to have to have the last word about any subject which is discussed and you apparently think YOUR opinion is the only one that counts.
I clearly stated (I think 3 times) that what I was expressing was MY OPINION and my experience. You are entitled to your opinion and you recently commented that if all of us were not entitled to express our views, what was the forum good for. You suggested the entire forum be closed if we could not express our opinions (this was after DREW deleted several of your posts).
I believe you started buying auction lkrs in Oct, 2010 and while I don't know exactly how many you have bought, I can't imagine it is any more than 50 or so ... note I say "or so". It might be 25, 75 it might be 100, but whatever it is, it doesn't matter and I don't believe it entitles you to be the "end all and be all" of advice for anyone (new or old) engaging in buying and selling lkrs (anymore than it entitles ME based on my experience to be the "end all and be all" person to listen to. It certainly entitles you to express your opinion (as my experience entitles me to express my opinion).
Sometime ago I called a truce with you regarding your lkr claims, the millions you and your partners have earned with your MLM activities, and frankly I thought I was doing very well by not saying anything about some of your outrageous claims, but now you are calling me Lazy because I don't use the same techniques you do, so time for me to speak up again. Also, I eagerly await the pictures of your $1,000,000 building project you discussed in one of your threads. (yes, that last sentence is sarcasm. If that project comes to fruition, I will fly to Cordova, TN and break a bottle of champagne across the cornerstone.)
This is all I have to say in regard to your post (quoted just above) and frankly I have always subscribed to the idea that all the readers here (regulars and newbies) can make their own judgements about WHAT they read and from WHOM they read it. I stand by that belief.
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I personally try to go through every nook and cranny of everything I get in a unit to make sure there is no hidden treasure but sometimes I get bogged down and forget to flip through all the books and check all the pockets in clothes, just the nature of the biz. I think the vast majority of us here are 1 and 2 man (woman) operation so the more units that are won the less time that can be afforded to extensive searches for hidden treasures. There is certainly a risk of missing valuable stuff, but the reward is more inventory to sell and more income. More gross sales from having more inventory is predictable, the possibility of missing hidden treasure is probably less likely.
On a side note, I won a unit a couple of months ago and found 8 or 9 unopened birthday cards. Each one had a nice personal check in it for between $10 to $50. The grand total of the worthless paper was about $170. Oh well, can't win em all. ;D
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I think thats the great thing about the forums.You can pick and coose the ideas that work for you.
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I have found some good and cool stuff by going through pockets.
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OMG ??? cant we all just get along?
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Well how can you get along with wannabe's and trash talkers. (i ment looser's)
People who can't create anything of importence or value.
Only thing they can is to make comments on others, and then again twist the facts and truth, all this because they can't do it them self.
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good advice yall. I am a newbie hooked and i do take the time to even go thru what i call "schmegma" dirty stained clothes inside trash bags...lol. cause i feel as if it's christmas everytime i buy a locker im gonna explore cause it is just plain fun for me. I am a bit of a snoopy sam and my lady is a nosy nancy! lol. btw yes we have lives, we are just as interested in other's lives too lol
be careful as i mentioned in another post--- on my 10.00 unit i got there were lots of prison letters and kites and small booty pics and within that lil packet was a small razor blade that fell out of the prison papers. so if u do go thru thoroughly , go thru carefully!
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Wear good gloves :)
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yes wear gloves! You never know what kind of disgusting crap you will come in contact with. I check every pocket, birthday card, and book. The last unit I purchased had $12 in pockets. I have also found units with money in birthday cards. And as far as books, I flip through them all. I found a 1963 red seal $2 as a book mark one time.
On that note, there is a local lady who buys lockers and takes the contents right to the auction. She rarely looks through everything. Anyways I was at an auction talking to her while the auctioneer was selling her box lots. He sold the box for $30 I believe. He bought it himself. Turns out there was $500 in cash in one of the books. That lady was pissed to say the least.
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Yeah as disgusting as some of the finds can be my wife and I sort and search it all. We have a set of grubby clothes we wear (long pants long sleeves) then put on latex gloves and even a painters mask (the cheap paper kind). When we are done the masks and gloves go into the trash the clothes come off in my garage and go into a trash bag and straight into the washer. Overkill....possibly but after some of the **** we've found and then the dust and crud and stained whatever I'd rather do the overkill.
Now on the flip side, we have found hidden inside pockets, socks, drawers of dressors such items as an 1898 Morgan Silver Dollar, a ten dollar bill in a bible. Gift cards inside books and birthday cards that were still valid and have since been used and lotsa change. The best was inside a womens dress skirt there was an inside mini pocket the same black color as the dress about the size of a matchbook. In there were a pair of gold earings 14K and an 18K gold necklace very very fine chain size, So we do our due dilligence and search it all.
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but the idea of checking pockets, shoes, birthday cards and books is overkill for me
I agree, especially if you are buying and selling in volume, you just don't have time for that. I do go through every box and container but the idea of digging through someones dirty shorts just doesn't appeal to me.
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I have come across a few good things going through everything. But also alot of bad things. I do not recommend using latex gloves, I recommend either mechanic or construction gloves. Two of my 10 units so far had drug paraphernalia. First one had alot of meth pipes and razors, one of the razors literally cut my glove. So it was a good thing I had gloves on. The other lkr had alot of used needles. That was one unit I decided not to dig in the clothes, I just felt on the outsides to see if the pockets had any thing in them.
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Great advice from all those reminding us to wear gloves when sorting. Sometimes I get busy and forget to put them on. Along those lines of thinking, it would probably be smart to wear dust masks and safety glasses while loading/unloading and sorting. Years of breathing in that dust and pet dander is not good for your lungs, not to mention how dangerous rodent feces dust is, and then there is the mold/mildew spores, cocaine/crack residue, household chemicals, and who knows what else! :o
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Great advice from all those reminding us to wear gloves when sorting. Sometimes I get busy and forget to put them on. Along those lines of thinking, it would probably be smart to wear dust masks and safety glasses while loading/unloading and sorting. Years of breathing in that dust and pet dander is not good for your lungs, not to mention how dangerous rodent feces dust is, and then there is the mold/mildew spores, cocaine/crack residue, household chemicals, and who knows what else! :o
Is it just me, or does your description just make this job sound so romantic? ;D
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I always recommend that first time buyers be vigilant in processing everything they can find inside the units they win - not necessarily because they're going to turn a healthy profit from each and every item they find - but because doing so sets the base of self-discipline that you need to turn steady profits with storage auctions.
Before I got into storage auctions I worked with eBay for a long time and saw many small and large businesses whose entire income stream was based off eBay. Some people understood the basic premise of processing your inventory intelligently - doing your research, refurbishing what you could, and then listing absolutely everything up there once.
More people, however, even the ones that had been selling on eBay for years, got stuck in that same old loop of hoarding crap that is simply not worth the time and effort and re-listing fees .They get so fixated and emotionally attached to the stuff that has proven to them, time and again, that it won't move. It still baffles me.
Guess I don't have the hoarding gene. Anyway, to make a long story short - I think it's great to learn how to force yourself to go through everything, especially in the beginning. Eventually you will hit your rhythm in determining what is junk and what can be sold. Even if you have a bunch of small items that only sell for a few bucks a pop, if you are diligent about listing and shipping them, pretty soon they add up.
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This is an great thread for a new guy like me. All of your thoughts give great insight into how one might approach their business. This seems to be driven by 2 things, time and personality. As for me, I have the time because this is a part time endeavor for me. However, my personality is geared to go through everything. My units coughed up about 15.00 in coins from every nook and cranny. I can see the other side as well, but I'm a long way from that level where every quarter doesn't matter. Continued good luck to everyone!
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Believe me and I'm certain many others even us old timers agree that every quarter, dime, nickle and penny counts. I've been doing this and estates for a long time and I still dig in every nook and crany. 4 years ago my wife and I took a ten day Alaskan Cruise and we had enough money from all the change we gathered over the previous 5 years to pay for all the spending money we used on the cruise including excusions. I ended up with over 2K in misc. coins gathered up from all those nooks and crannies so keep on digging.
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Believe me and I'm certain many others even us old timers agree that every quarter, dime, nickle and penny counts. I've been doing this and estates for a long time and I still dig in every nook and crany. 4 years ago my wife and I took a ten day Alaskan Cruise and we had enough money from all the change we gathered over the previous 5 years to pay for all the spending money we used on the cruise including excusions. I ended up with over 2K in misc. coins gathered up from all those nooks and crannies so keep on digging.
Now thats INSPIRATION :)
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Don't forget to consider having a Tetanus shot/booster. You need a new one about every 10 years. I sliced my leg on some rusty metal equipment I was cleaning out of a unit and it made me think about it.