Yes, it's true folks. The United States government allowed the image of Santa Claus to be put on a $1 bill.

Well, not quite, but close.

Here's info from the Dept of Printing and Engraving

What is a Celebrity Note?

A celebrity note is a note upon which the portraits of well-known personalities (such as Santa Claus and movie stars) are temporarily affixed.  They, for the most part, are found to be genuine United States currency. Private businesses produce these novelty items by purchasing new currency notes from banks and subsequently apply the picture of a well-known personality over the engraved portrait on the note by means of a pressure-sensitive adhesive.

Well for crying out loud, you've kept Mike here all week. How is he supposed to be here and film new episodes at the same time. It's your fault that we don't have anything entertaining to watch tonight! 

Maybe Mike left NYC to go to SLC. 

In order to answer the question, one needs to know what is considered a good locker. A $2000 profit?  A $5,000 profit? A $10,000 or greater profit? What about a 2000% return on a $100 locker?

Well, if after all this time you can't tell a good locker from a bad one, we have a leadership problem!

IN GENERAL....a good locker is one that makes ANY profit; the more profit the better. A bad locker is one that loses money and a locker that just breaks even would be considered a disappointment indeed. This factors in effort, time, etc in the "good" definition.

I would also guess that any member here would be happy with a locker that made a $2,000 or $5,000 profit whatever the locker cost in the first place. Certainly the 2,000% return on a $100 locker would qualify under any circumstance.

Went to an auction today with 24 lockers and two vehicles for sale. Sounded promising as facility hadn't had an auction in over two years.

This facility used to be a large lumber yard type store with a lot of open space in the store plus a lumberyard out back.
The regular sized units inside don't have tops (no ceiling) but wire mesh over the tops. It's another 20 feet to the actual ceiling of the main building.

I have gotten good lockers in the past, so was looking forward to it.

They also have rinky-dink container type lockers outside...all 5 x 5 or 5 x 10 kinds of things.  Of the 24 lockers, 16 were outside. Units sold for $1 to $180. The 180 should have been $80, but oh well.

Inside the usual 10 x 10s didn't have much to offer but sold for $25 to $250. Only one of the people I run with got any of the 24 lockers. Regulars couldn't get away fast enough from the outside bins and the inside ones weren't inspiring either, but were better at least.

A 1992 RV (trailer) went for $600 despite the leaky roof which resulted in green mold growing in the walls of one bedroom.  A "quilted" looking food trailer went for $3,100.

So, another day with no buys from me, but getting more OK with that as the picking is doing well and I have stock that hasn't seen the light of day in a while.

Saw a 10 by 20 locker the other day that was setup as workout room by the facility manager.  Guess he was done building muscles as it sold for $600 plus. Had a lot of equipment and weights so buyer should do OK. Much more stuff than I wanted to lift !

The auctioneer sold it without mentioning that it was the manager's room. I think if he had it would have gone for less, but maybe that's why he DIDN'T mention it.

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The only weights I've bought in the last year were by the piece and were used in canvas bags to weigh down my two Caravan canopies so the wind wouldn't take them away.

If you live in a region with a large city or two you are bound to have a choice of flea markets....not so much if you are more rurally located.

In my area there are 4 flea markets within 10 miles and if you go out another 50 miles you will find another 10.

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I sell at what is considered to be the "best" of the four in my area for cleanliness, vendor count, buyer count, etc.
I also buy there (picking) on Saturdays before I am set up and on Sunday when I don't sell. Those buys are from what we call "daily" sellers (less experienced) and not so much from regular or reseved sellers.

On the other hand I go to the other 3 flea markets to buy from both regular and reserved sellers as those fleas are in less desirable parts of town and many more of the sellers don't know what they've got. Picking can be good. It's sporadic of course, but when you hit, you hit big. I'm talking items you buy for $5 to $50 and sell for 3 to 10 times what you paid for the item.

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What has been your experience with buying at one place but selling at another ?  Or do you have the opportunity to do that at all?

I've given up on getting newbies to use the search function to find out if topics have been discussed before, and it only recently dawned on me that even some folks who have been on here for 6 months or more may not have "browsed" for topics that might be of interest to them, so I am asking this question anew.

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This is an effort to DEBUNK the tv shows view of the storage auction business which is basically that almost every locker holds valuable items. Each of the tv series makes these assertions though Auction Hunters has a disclaimer (in print on screen, not verbalized) that the filmed segments represent the best of the hundreds of lockers they buy.

So, what is the ratio? Is it 1 in 1, 1 in 10, 1 in 20, 1 in 100 or 1 in ?

I realize that people will have different experiences with this, so you should probably indicate roughly how many you have bought to make your point valid. In other words, if you've bought 1 and it was great, that's not much to go on. Likewise, if you've bought 1 and it was trash, that's not much to comment on either.

I've bought just short of 400 and my ratio would probably be about 1 in 50 as I can think of 8 super-deluxe lockers. Of course there is an entire range of "treasure to trash" values, so that complicates it too.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. It's just to give a ballpark idea.