Good summary.

Loss of monies is always what people think drives way newbies but I think it's the hard work and time commitment.   I think a lot of newbies would stay in the game if it was bid, dig thru, walk away.  It would be like playing slots.  Sure I bid $1000, dug thru and it was all garbage....I'll hit a good one soon, I'm sure.

But add in dirty, hard work.  Moving. Dump runs.  House full of crap.   
Loose money AND have to work?  F**k that, they say.

I know I'd gamble on more lockers, pay more, if I could just search it and walk away!



It helps in this biz if you have slaves....er...I mean.....children to help you out.   

Spot on assessment!

The guy is (imo) a total d-bag (sorry for the bluntness).
He was one who was interviewed (in the segment I mentioned a couple months ago) and said he's made thousands.  real bright there buddy.  And he wonders why we have crowds??

He is also one who has been granted special privileges by one of our local auctioneers.  When at an auction there was a soft-sided gun case and he reached in and squeezed it while the auctioneer was standing next to him.  Don (being Don) popped off and asked if we all get a free squeeze?  The guy got the unit, but Don ran him up on it.  Left a sour taste and we really haven't dealt with that auctioneer since.

We did mention that story to a couple fellow auction buyers.  We're waiting to see him again so we can play a round of 'run his butt up!!'

Almost sounds like he got a 1 in 100 or 1 in 500 score in one of the first few lockers he purchased, so now he's a hot dog and all in, buying a fancy truck and license plate. Give him 6 months to a year and see if he is still around and buying at the same levels. I bet time will tell that he will find out the "wow factor" is as rare as Bigfoot and he should have quit when he was ahead.

Ive never taken my trailer with me to the flea, guess I have always been worried I won't find enough space, so I just load what I can get into my truck. Ergo that is why my best day at the flea market is around $280. I guess I should just start loading the trailer and take a shot at getting enough space to park, and then maybe I can get into that $400-$100 ballpark. Been doing yard sales more lately and that has worked out too.

oh yeah~back to MovieMan~we have a newbie with deep pockets that drives a big Ford duel cab and his license plate reads (and I kid you not) 'wowfctr'

It's hard to know how "deep" someones pockets are at the auction. Whats more important is how deep is his commitment! You know how tough this business is, it doesn't matter if he's got a million dollars in his pocket, if he can't handle the work, he'll quit in no time; unless he is truly just a treasure hunter and throws everything in the dump that's not valuable. Even then, he would probably get bored with finding so little truly valuable things.

Sounds like he's asking to get run up with that license plate, so go ahead and oblige him. 

As a serious buyer, I can't be bogged down by lookie-loos, newbies, & kids in strollers. I don't push and shove, but I let it be known with my body language that I am a serious bidder and I'm going to get a good look at the unit before the bidding starts. Most people figure out after a few doors and bids who the serious folks are and don't seem to mind "letting me through". Sure, there are some who mumble about "line breakers", but this aint McDonald's, this my business and all those mumblers disappear after a month anyway.

Thanks Javier,

The last yard sale was only a little over $600. Bought a bunch of junk units in May & June so trying to work through that garbage and get back to some good ones. Most everyone has noticed the quality of units up for auction around the country has been poor.

On the other hand, once they are filled at home and transported by the Pods people to a warehouse, they are THEN pretty inaccessible. SO, it's a two-edged sword. If they put really nice stuff in there (at home) it will be hard for them to pull it out at random and that's good for us. Their container may be 50 feet up in the air and hopefully NOT in the middle of a three stack row.

The other side of that sword is that they MAY NOT put super nice stuff in there knowing it will be hard to access.

****
On a related note: went to a vault sale at a non-pod facility; same idea though, break open the front panel to show the insides. These typically went HIGH even before the newbies showed up, and often were just like any other lkr from what I heard...I never got one due to the prices.

There may be some truth to the idea that these are packed by people on one side of the country and moved a long distance. Several of the vaults I saw at one sale (Mayflower) were stamped ITALY all over the place, and the prices were outrageous because people thought there was going to be lots of valuables in them.

Talking to the buyers who got them....turns out they were military (and low end troops at that) who just shipped all their crap back to the states. Now if had been a colonel or general it might have been a different story, but then those guys probably wouldn't have defaulted now would they.

I went to one of those vault type moving company actions and yea it was a lot of servicemen who had shipped stuff from Europe and didn't pay up and come get it. Most of the prices went crazy when you could clearly see military stuff showing. I won a few pieces and my military stuff was hidden in the bottom of the boxes.Fatigues, service metals, other stuff. It was like Christmas morning, everytime someone won a lot they started ripping through the boxes looking for the armory (the moving company didn't care). I saw a lot of fatigues, duffle bags, EMPTY ammo boxes, combat helmets, NO GUNS!! Obvisously most every one thought these guys were going to ship home thier M5s or whatever. NOT! All the vaults were Sargeants or lower rankings so I knew not to get two excited. While everyone was bidding like fools on the camoflage, I was picking up furniture pieces on the low-low.

I wonder that too.  But after watching last night, I think I'm going to trade a thumb tack up to a nice red Corvette! 

I must be doing something wrong........everybody wants to trade me a $200 item for my $500 item.....I better watch a few more shows!

Nooo Sh$$$$$tt!!!

Every rifle or pistol I have found has been either along the back wall or AT LEAST (in the case of pistols) inside a box, sometimes along with a cleaning kit, etc.

Foolish to put them in there at all of course, but I guess those frm owners didn't consider they might lose their lkrs.

IMO any rifle (loose or in a gun case) that is up front (or even up high) and SHOWING very well could be a plant. It wouldn't take much for a manager (or a lkr owner looking to score on an overage payment) to do a setup like that.

Same thing with guitar cases and guitars.  I once bought a lkr showing a nice nylon guitar case near the front and the end of one showing (out of the case) in another spot further back. turned out the case was empty and the guitar fit in it perfectly. I have since stopped going to that place and I hear other stories of what appear to be setups by the manager. This guy has been there for years, unlike a lot of them who last about 2 years tops.

Kind of like there is a particular facility I know about that over the last couple of years, not every auction by any means, but enough that it looks suspicious, there are motorcycles, or minibikes, or mopeds; pushed in, up front, left side of door, everytime. Meaning the motorbikes are always facing the same direction, sitting in the same part of the room. Could just be a coincidence and maybe I am being to skeptical; but this is the ONLY facility I have ever seen a motorcycle sitting in a unit, and I have seen at least six over the last two years at this particular company( actually two different locations, same company). The last time it happened the rest of the contents of the unit looked like pure left over garbage, ratty clothes, empty broken-down cardboard boxes, busted picture frames,etc. But oh look, there's a mini-bike right up front!

To me it seemed like a sorta strange non-verbal contract.

Facility Owner: "You as the highest bidder get this used mini-bike for a little less then retail price, but you have to take all this garbage to the dump for me."
Winning Bidder: "OK"