Value of the safe itself only, minus the cost of getting the combination.  Generally that means from what I have seen-I rarely win units with safes.  Every now and then I manage to get the small safes.

So...what has occurred since the original posting:

Wife is on-board with it...but wants something different.  Soo..some changes...

I have 240 sq.ft of area for my sorting and shelving of items to put on craigslist and ebay.  And another 100-200 sq ft area for furniture items, plus some areas for shelving etc for any foot traffic that comes through.  Not a ton of space, but not bad.  She will man the front desk, handle people coming in to pick things up, shipping, etc.

She will use the rest of the area for Tarot readings (can you believe she married an atheist?), painting her artwork, and selling dye sub stuff we do.  Overall...a couple complimentary income streams. 

Worst part is...she has already lined up customers for her Tarot readings!  We signed the agreement for the shop  and it opens July 1st.  Sooo...I need to buy some lockers!  Cant let her earn more then me!

Fraser's Gifts and Curiosities, LLC.  Est 2013.

And its not like we NEVER find weapons.....

Really the next mass murderer tv show should have him buying things to kill people with from storage lockers....

Advice taken.  Went to look at a small shop, rents doable for me even with no income, so that not an issue.  Its a little smaller then I would like, but still I will have  a decent sorting room, and stuff for sale room.  Intent:
Large stuff goes to my garage for sale on craigslist, smalls etc to the store.  If I ever outgrow the store, then I should have enough income to justify moving to something larger.  Shrug.

And don't quit my day job.  Wife is running it, and im working on weekends and weeknights helping.

Still reviewing everything and taking our time before deciding on the store we looked at.  $750 a month, good foot traffic, and 1,000 sq ft.

So I live in a large metropolitan area, and saw a Saturday auction in a town about an hour away.  I figured hey why not, another opportunity for me and my wife to take my daughter to one.

Wow.  Just Wow.  about a dozen people, so a lot less then I expected.  Some comments were made that my wife overheard saying that we were basically there because of the shows, and were going to overbid etc.  I advised her to ignore them.  I suspect it was caused because I accidentally put my badge on from work this morning.  LOL.  Apparently they assumed anyone working at Intel has more money then sense. 

Anyways I learned that the prior auction only had one person show up so they cancelled it.  3 units out of the 6 advertised were up for auction.

1st one...a older stove, a small tv (not flatscreen), and a big box, marked with $100 that appeared to be for a crib.  sold for like $20.  With the distance from home this wasn't worthwhile for us to bid on.

2nd one...and the DRAMA!  smaller unit, owned by the same person as the 3rd locker, but being sold separate.  So as its being shown, a couple commented it was a staged unit and got overheard by the manager.  Claimed they had been there last auction and this unit had been up for sale, but had been cancelled by the manager who was running the auction because the owner had paid.  The manager took exception to this, some words were exchanged, and she banned them from the auction and told them to not come back ever. 

Now...was it staged?  Only if the person staging it was dumb.  *I* didn't see anything.  This was a mistake as I later learned, wife said some of the statues in the front on the floor were worth some bucks, but didn't bid because she thought I knew.  So-some discussion afterwards led us to the decision we would bid to the highest either of us thought, not the lowest in case one of us saw something the other didn't.  We shall see how that goes.  This would have gone home with us if my wife had continued the bidding.  ended up going for under 50 I think.

So manager is upset and almost crying, and as she calmed down we went to the next one.

Now this one...10x20 I think?  Saw some older furniture, LOTS of stuff.  Some of it worth some money.  we figured about 1K (more if we would have been located closer).  Its dusty as well, been in storage for a long time.  We can see a grandfather clock in the back, but some suspicion it was not mechanical.  we took it up a couple hundred, then got to watch two local folks go up.  at 700 the one guy says "you're gonna get this cause you want the clock, but I am going to make you pay for it".  Really?  The other bidder just kept going up.  Went past our limit near the end.  Sold for a little over 1,000

So we walked away with nothing, some regret on not taking the second locker. 

Lessons learned:  Daughter learned to NOT say numbers discussing price during the bidding as I told her afterwards that that was a bad plan.  lol. 

I learned I talk too loud when discussing units with wife.

We learned we're better off going to the max that either of us thinks rather then the minimum.  Obviously more discussions will occur as we decide the best method. 

But WTH?  all the auctions I have attended here in the city are all pretty polite, no obvious bidding up of other people, etc,  this place, had bannings, people crying, and some pretty obviously stated bid up.  Wow.  They've watched too much storage wars.  What funny is...that was their comment towards me when I showed up.  what the heck?

I am surprised that people who claim to be able to run a business doesn't know better.  If your competition (or anyone really) says something bad about you, its generally not a good idea to respond unless its to resolve a situation.  It rarely ends to your benefit.  If you disagreed with the numbers the correct response AT MOST is to post different numbers from a different source, and use that to generate conversation.  If someone throws mud, ignore it, let it dry and flick it off later.  You try to wipe it now and it just smears everywhere.

Don't bring your personal beliefs into things, claiming to be god fearing doesn't immediately lend you any credence.  Quite the opposite actually.

There are so many other things I could go on.  Creating multiple accounts from your home or office is a horrible plan, IP numbers usually don't lie. 

As Travis points out-this is his place.  If you don't like what he says...too bad.  He can delete comments at will, etc.  There is no right to speak here.  The only reason he has to let you post is if it makes you look bad, or if he has a sense of fairness.  Or both.  I'm kinda surprised he even bothered responding.

So...yeah this has been way too much fun buying and selling stuff.  Soooo...

Time to step it up a notch.
1. I'm not quitting my day job.  I make way too much money at it (6 figures).  Plus this wont make a ton of money ever.
2. My wife however is not currently employed.  And if I were to be laid off it could make a good supplemental income until a new job was found.

Now I've looked at this, thought about it, and have come to some conclusions:
Filling a store with this sounds pretty good, but the overhead will brutalize you, and it will be unprofitable for a long time. 
Similar issue with getting warehouse space.  Although it IS doable.  Its more doable if you start from a large running amount of stuff.

So...2 paths are open I think.
I can rent a smallish warehouse space, and she can buy lots of lockers and fill it.
OR
I can find a self storage that will let em run a business out of a storage unit.  Say a 10x30 or so. 

If we go the storage unit route I need to get:
1. A storage unit that running a business like this out of is allowed.
2. Shelves (possible to find in a storage unit auction, but I might just buy so its all uniform)
3. Tubs (see #2-I still might buy my own for the uniformity)
4. A box truck.  Uhaul sells those for $2,500-anyone have any experience with these trucks?

The idea is...place the racks in the storage unit like two upside down U's for a total of 6 racks.  They hold 3 layers, of 5 tubs each.  I've done this in my garage and it works very well.  Buy the 90 tubs for them, and label them all.  Place this in the back of the unit, facing forward.  on the Right side attach white sheets to cover the sides and front for a oversized white box to take pictures inside of, while still maintaining the usage of the shelves.

The front of the unit will have 3 areas, from left to right each separated by tape marks on the floor: garbage run stuff, sorting stuff, and keeping stuff.  This allows my wife to sort it all as she unloads it into the middle, then we can do a dump run with stuff on the left. 

Process-
1. win more lockers!  (yay)
2. Move stuff to the storage unit from the won locker, marking boxes with a marker as we load them (thus we can tell which locker boxes came from so we can return personal items correctly, and track profit/loss on wins.
3. unload, and sort using the areas mentioned above.
4. make a garbage run.
5. take pictures of items, and list them on craigslist, ebay, or for consignment as appropriate.
6. Record which plastic tub they are placed in.  If too large they just go in between the shelving
7. Ship purchases out and record their removal from the tracking system.

I can use existing software, or write my own.  I could use barcodes and my scanners if I wanted to for adding/removing things, but I am not sure it is worth the effort. 

Any thoughts on this?  Is the storage unit a feasible way, or is it just too small? 

The warehouse idea is very attractive, but it brings monthly costs up a lot.  On the other hand, its larger, AND has a bathroom and office.  I CAN afford to own one without making any profit.  But of course we plan on doing better then that.  I am hesitant on it though because...the more units I buy, the more likely I am going to be to overpay for some.  So more work, but smaller profit margin.  Other side is it provides a good place to have people come to pick things up.

Anyways any feedback from folks?

not a typo, I even emailed the storage center, and they confirmed it in a email.  So...looks like I have some sunday auctions to attend.