Decisions, decisions

A local Friends of the Library (FOL) organization is holding their annual book sale this week in conjunction with the Cherry Blossom Festival.  It opens at 10 a.m. on Thursday, and since the sale is fairly large, book dealers and dedicated readers start forming the line early.  I usually skip this sale because I have to work, but it always pains me to miss this money making opportunity. 

Every year, though, the FOL hosts a three-hour Preview Party, complete with refreshments, for members, who are allowed to buy books before the horde of locusts, I mean booksellers, descend upon the rows of coveted tomes.  Of course, there’s a catch.  There are different levels of membership, and each level can only buy only a certain number of books. 

From the FOL website:

The level of membership will determine the number of books a member may purchase at the Preview Party. A Student ($10) or Individual ($25) Member is entitled to purchase as many as 12 books. A Patron/Couple ($50) may purchase 24 books and a Benefactor ($100) may purchase 48 books. Members are welcome to bring their own totes or boxes if desired.

I’ve been trying to do the math (not one of my strong points) to determine if purchasing a Benefactor membership would be worth the time, effort, and money.  By joining at that level, I already would be $100 in the red.  Ella and I would have to pick out 48 re-sellable books, each costing between $1 and $4.  An average price of $2.50 per book would put us another $120 (48 X $2.50) in the red, for a total of $220.  To break even, each of the 48 books would have to be worth at least $5. 

The name of the game is profit, though.  Breaking even doesn’t cover our time or our gas costs. To make money, each of the books would have to be worth at least $10.  Now, I’m sure there will be plenty of $10 books there, but I’m also sure that I am not the only dealer who has this idea, and while there will be decreased competition at the Preview Party, I am confident there will others looking for those $10 books.

Just for the record, I also know that the membership fee is tax deductible, which helps a little at the end of the year, but not so much when writing a check in March.

I’ve been waffling about this for several days now.  Is $100 too much money to spend just to attend a sale, with no guarantee of success, or should I just be confident that I will find enough high-dollar books to make it worthwhile?

Decisions, decisions.

Elvis, an antebellum house, and the tale of two sofas

The Cherry Blossom Festival opened in Macon this past weekend, and as part of the event’s free musical offerings, an Elvis impersonator performed Friday night.  Ella insisted that we attend since the price was right (free), so we sat and watched “Elvis” sing and strut his stuff much to the delight of the ladies in the crowd.  Toward the end of the show, he mentioned that he would be signing autographs and selling CDs after his last number.

Huh?  An Elvis impersonator selling CDs?  My question is why would anyone pay $15 for a CD of an Elvis impersonator when they could buy a real Elvis CD off Amazon for around $4?

I pondered that question for a bit, but never could come up with a good answer.

Elsewhere in my little corner of the world, we went to yard sales on Saturday morning, which, for the most part, were disappointing.  The highlight, though, was an estate sale in one of Macon's largest antebellum homes.  I actually was excited about seeing the inside of this beautiful home, which I had only seen from the road while growing up in Macon. 

This antebellum house looks good from the road; up close, not so much

Excitement, though, turned to disbelief when I got to see the house up close.  The house was extremely run down, with peeling paint on the columns, water stains on the porch roof, and uneven floors throughout.  Buyers didn’t get to see the upstairs, but I imagine it was just as bad upstairs as down.  I bought a few things, but walked away unimpressed with this historic house.

At another estate sale, I picked up about 10 vintage automobile books.  I also scanned a book about French furniture, and almost dropped my scanner when it showed a price of $175.  I quickly added that book to my pile.  It’s a cliché, but you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

The rest of my free time over the weekend was spent either listing, or trying to help Ella pick out a new couch. She’s torn between two difference sofas, and like a good husband, I’m leaving the decision totally up to her so she can’t blame me if she doesn’t like the one she ends up with.

Have a great week everyone.

Just'a good ol' boys … never meanin’ no harm.

Just'a good ol' boys
Never meanin' no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born

Most of you probably are familiar with the Dukes of Hazzard, a cute little late 1970s TV show featuring Bo, Luke, and Daisy Duke set in fictional Hazzard County, Georgia. It ran from 1979 to 1985, but that customized 1969 Dodge Charger stock car, named The General Lee, has been racing through reruns ever since.

This past weekend, all the surviving Dukes plus assorted main characters gathered for the Dukes of Hazzard Georgia Reunion right down the road from my house at the Middle Georgia Speedway, an abandoned racetrack.  The lure of hobnobbing with the stars was too much for Ella, who plunked down $70 of my hard-earned thrifting money to purchase weekend tickets for the both of us.  For that $70, we got the chance to listen to a few concerts; walk around the track and look at umpteen dozen real “General Lee’s”; buy $9 turkey legs; and pay to get autographs from the Dukes.

A multitude of General Lee's, Hazzard County Sheriff cars and other custom cars circled the track

To put a thrifting spin on the weekend, I had researched what Dukes of Hazzard autographs were selling for on Ebay, and figured, depending on what the stars were charging for signing their names, I might could eke out a small profit on some memorabilia.  However, my hopes were dashed when we arrived.

Each star had his/her own section of a tent, and Duke stalkers … uh … fans could buy a photograph and have it autographed for between $10 and $20.  I calculated the total cost of autographs vs. final sale prices on Ebay, and still thought I could make it work.  However, I had not factored in the crowds.

Yes, it was crowded on Saturday.  Organizers said about 60,000 tickets had been sold, and I think most of them were in the autograph lines.  It took four hours of standing in the hot sun just to get Catharine Bach’s (Daisy’s) autograph.  Ella had staked out a spot in John Schneider’s (Bo’s) line, and we both got our autographs roughly at the same time.  I think there were at least 400 people at any given time in each stars' line throughout the afternoon.

Ella is waiting patiently for Bo Duke's autograph.   She was about halfway to the stars' tents with as many people behind her as in front of her.  I was a little closer to Daisy at this point.

Daisy still looks ravishing, but angered the crowd when she took an hour lunch break with close to 400 people, including me, still waiting for an autograph

We left after that four-hour ordeal, tired, hungry and sun burnt, deciding to try our luck on Sunday morning for the remaining autographs.  I gave up on the autographs for cash idea, and decided to just enjoy the weekend, even if I did look and feel like a lobster.

We got there earlier on Sunday, and the lines at first were sparse.  Ella was able to get autographs from Tom Wopat (Luke), Sonny Shroyer (Enos), Rick Hurst (Cletus), and James Best (Rosco P. Coltraine) in about an hour. She then hit the line for Ben Jones (Cooter), and waited for two hours.  Cooter, it seems, was giving away autographs, instead of selling them, and everyone wanted their freebie.

After getting Cooter’s autograph, we wandered around the track, bought some pork rinds, and left.  We wanted to listen to some music, but there wasn’t a bit of shade, and I was not going to sit or stand in the sun for any longer.

Overall, it was a busted weekend from a thrifting standpoint, but Ella enjoyed herself, and got plenty of pictures and autographs to share with all her chat/Facebook buddies.

As for me, I’m glad Ella had a good time, but I need to start spending some serious weekend time on my online business as the weather gradually warms up.

Have a great week. 

D’oh!!!!!!!!!!!

Pricing of collectibles on Ebay is difficult for me, even with such tools as Terapeak to help. Case in point, on Saturday, I found a box of Super Nintendo Entertainment System games, and was all but thanked for taking them off the owner’s hands for a whopping $5.  Many of the cartridges were dirty, and some had masking tape price stickers on them.  None had boxes or instructions.

Plus, I had no way to test them, but a deal is a deal, right?

So, I get them home, clean them up as best as I can, take a picture, and list them on Ebay for, well, I had no idea at first.  Some of the cartridges, at least according to my research, were worth in excess of $20, provided they actually worked.  Most of the cartridges were worth nothing, though.  I tabulated the online prices of the worthwhile games, then basically cut the result in half because the games were untested, and came up with a price of $39.99.  It seemed reasonable, and would bring a tidy profit on my $5 investment.

However, literally within five minutes of listing the cartridges, they were bought and paid for.

D’oh!!!!!

Ol’ dopey me thinks I should have priced them higher now.

Another sale that made me wonder about my pricing was a small lot of vintage sailing ship books.  These books, which were not in good shape, had been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I finally got tired of looking at them.  After researching the books, I discovered that they were quite common, and not worth much.  So, I priced them at $18.99 for the lot.  They didn’t quite sell as fast as the game cartridges, but were gone by the end of the day.

Meanwhile in Atlanta, my brother, Joey, who has become quite the picker/thrifter despite listening to my advice, related a funny incident from Friday.   He showed up early for an estate sale, and noticed that a Chinese gentleman was sleeping in his car, waiting for the sale to open.  My brother waited by the door.   The man finally woke up, saw Joey, and made his way to the door, insisting that he be allowed in first.  Well, both went in, and while the Chinese guy wandered around, Joey asked about the media, and made a beeline to the DVDs, including pricey Star Wars boxed sets for sale.  When the Chinese man finally made it to the media, he saw that Joey had grabbed most of the DVDs, and got angry enough to start “cussing” Joey out in Chinese.

Joey said he laughed all the way out, and apparently to the bank as well.

Have a great week everyone.

Black Monday

Today is Black Monday, at least for Ella, as the last Blockbuster in town goes into clearance mode, no longer renting DVDs, only selling them in preparation to shut its doors forever. 

Ella not only was a member at the store, but also utilized Blockbuster By Mail, a service similar to Netflix, but which had the added benefit of returning the by mail DVDs to the store, and trading them in for an in-store rental.  She used the in-store trades to view current releases, and used the by mail service to see TV show seasons, older movies, etc.  She had honed her DVD system of trades and returns to an art form, and could get quite irritated when the mail service didn’t deliver on time, or her errant husband forgot to drop off a DVD on his way to work.

She’s in mourning now, so please keep her in your thoughts.

Of course, store closings always present thrifting opportunities, and I have picked up many good deals as area Blockbusters faded into oblivion.  We’ll see what goodies this store has to offer in coming weeks.

Speaking of thrifting, I’ve mentioned before that it always pays to keep your “head on a swivel.”  I saw this add in the Books listing on Craigslist last week:

“Pastoral / ministerial home library. Literally thousands of books. Commentaries, histories, fiction, biographies, ministerial aids, references, and countless other types of books, including a number of antique texts dating to the 1800s. This is a lifetime collection of books by a now-90-year-old minister/missionary. If interested, let me know and we can make arrangements for you to see it. Everything will be included in an estate/moving sale Saturday, but I will be available Friday to show the library. Offers on all or part of the library will be considered.”

Now, I could have waited until Saturday to see the books at the estate sale.  However, I’m a firm believer in the old adage that the early bird gets the worm, and quickly made arrangements to see the books on Friday.  The owner let me scan the shelves, and I quickly found a tote full of quality books, including this one:

I then asked the owner about the rest of the house, and he said everything was for sale, and I was more than welcome to look around.  I found CDs, DVDs, and new micro-cassettes, and probably could have found more if I had not been on my lunch hour from my day job.  I spent $50, and hoped no one noticed that I got back to my desk a little late.

On Saturday, Ella and I had planned to sleep in, but the lure of the yard sale proved too strong, and we got out and about a little late, but still managed to find a few treasures.  I spent Sunday packing and listing books, toys and CDs, and getting two boxes ready to send to Amazon for their FBA program.  I also finally listed my large collection of Happy Meal toys that were just given to me at a sale a couple of weeks ago.

It’s a terrible picture, I know, but it was the best I could do.  I really need to work on my Ebay photos this year.

Have a productive week!