Not sure what's going on, my first thought is the overall quality of the units up for auction might be dropping rapidly. I am wondering if more people are purposely leaving garabage in units to have auctioned off, if more managers and employees are pilfering the units before they auction them, or people making deals with managers to auction off there yard sale left overs, but the are more empty boxes in units, and less sellable goods in units it seems.

Maybe all of the above, but of course hard to tell which locker through which technique. I do know that the quality over all is DOWN and my one feeling (supported by auctioneers) is that more people are paying up rather than lose their lockers...and those would tend to be the better goods I would think.

After all when any of us see a listing for 15 and there end up being 7, what could we expect except that the 7 left are for the most part going to be trashy. Sure, MAYBE one of the 7 would be good, but the odds of much more than that being good are slim.

I heard about one place I missed a couple of weeks ago though  listing 3 and having 3 and they were apparently all OK lkrs. One went for $1000 and consensus was the newbie who got it overpaid by about half, but oh well.

Anyway, quality is down over the last few years and especially since December, 2010 when the tv shows started. I think we can legitimately blame the shows for letting people know their goods WOULD go to auction.

Out of my Air Jordan unit~

Proving once again that some people have more money than sense .... a baseball cap for $125?   But congrats anyway !

So is anybody still watching this? 

Nope, didn't go back to it. I saw some previews and even in those  the trades were obviously over the top, so I didn't go there.

Oh, I got  call from a guy about a slot machine I had for sale and he asked if I would consider a barter situation.
He ran off a list of stuff he had, gave me his address and said just call before you come.

The next day I called (he was supposed to be home all day) and his dad said he was at work. Called his cell phone and left a message I could come over anytime in the next 6 hours. Never heard from him again...so much for bartering.

lol.  I figured it would be better to resurect this thread than clutter with a new one.

Mainly it gives people a chance to read up on your subject from the original perspective..and of course the answers and questions generated by your first post.

I saw a CBS news story on sports cards. A dealer at a convention said that some years ago it was common for he and others to have $3K to $4k days...now it's $300 to $400.

I once sold a Babe Ruth card for $1.00 to a fellow who was "developmentally challenged". He was happy as a clam for however long it took someone to show him the 1989 date on the edge of the card.

My other story is that a fellow was rummaging through a box of loose cards and one binder. I had looked a bit at them and the binder cards looked worth something, but they're not my thing. He said "would you take $100?" and I said yes without hesitating. Maybe they were worth much more, but I didn't care and still don't.

Went to three auctions today by the same auctioneer. He is the best of the 4 regular auctioneers so I asked him what the "trends" were right now.

1) Crowds about the same (that's not true in my area...they are smaller)
2) Prices about the same (again, in my area they are down)
3) Number of lkrs up for sale...DOWN.  (now THAT is true in my area)

He does more selling some distance away from me and his answers to the first two questions tell me to
stay away from there (too far for me anyway).

****
Meanwhile the units at the first place went for decent prices. First 3 lkrs were 5 x 10s and I started the last one at $100 after the  first two went for that. HOWEVER, there was one other guy there who loves to overpay and he did. I went up with him to $350 and someone else took over and the overpaying guy got if for $475.

The next place had 5 lkrs. Three by same owner but sold separately. The first one, 10 x 20 with about 50 garbage bags (dust covered) along one long wall. Other wall mixed bag. All looked old. Guy got it for $100...probably a good buy.

The next two from same owner were 10 x 30 and this time larger stuff. First one started out at a reasonable $100 but one of the year old newbies gave a $500 bid thinking he would get it. I knew for a fact he had $950 on him and that was his last bid as a newbie took it away at  $1000. Finally, mr. 950 got the next and last same owner lkr for $750.

All three were from an elderly woman who had put everything she owned in them, but nothing looked that great to me.
The only thing I remember was a little breakfast table (yellow formica, fold down leaves)...could have been worth a bit especially if chairs were in there, but nothing else great showing and a lot of broken wicker stuff and baskets.

****
Third place we went had 3 lkrs. First was mgr's mattress lkr (hooray !). Second and third, nothing special. So, with maybe 13 lkrs total at all 3 places, I bid on one and got none.

Have to say the "picking" is looking better all the time, but If I can get a really good one every two months + picking I would be happy. Been 2 months and 9 days since my last lkr buy.

Storage Wars Texas comes back August 15, 2012 !  Two new cuties to spark some interest in the male audience..that other bimbo is GONE !

I'm just waiting for the episode when they find ...... the pistol used to assassinate Lincoln. 

What, you missed that one?  Don't worry, it will run again along with the episode where they find the Carcano used by Lee Harvey Oswald and Hitler's little auto pistol (both of those were found in the same locker along with 20 bags of Walmart clothes).