First story is a
huge (in weight and magnitude...) missed score story. See thumbnail 1.
One of the first things I see at my flea this morning is a massive Columbian (at least 6 inch jaws) in excellent shape except for surface rust. It looked like it was never used, frankly, and just sat around like that for many years. $50.
But, I am not a big spender, I had just gotten there, I'm not a
vises-uber-alles kind of picker, and I wasn't sure that's what I wanted to spend half of my "pocket budget" on without looking around first. (I do keep a "backup budget" in the truck, but it's gotta be something really earthmovingly good for me to dip into it.) Long story short, I passed, and when I came back around, of course it was gone.
Now I am kicking myself in the ****. Of course I should've taken it on the spot. Even if I didn't keep it, I probably could've moved it along to another owner for at least 4 x that. Really epic dumb decision.
Second story is an
a&&hole vendor story that I am sure all seasoned pickers have had in one form or another.
The preamble is that I have a bunch of house liquidator type guys at my flea. They don't bother with renting tables. They unload huge trailers along the edges of the dirt road on the way in and out of the tables area. They set up on folding tables or tarps on the ground and big plastic bins. Any sense of organization is the bare minimum. These guys (and gals!) barely know what they have, and they don't care - it's all about volume. Getting rid of this stuff and moving onto the next house to clear out. Which is exactly why I like them. And I am on a first name basis with most of them.
So this morning I'm going through a bunch of tools dumped (and I mean dumped) into large blue plastic bins. It's a mess. And there's household **** mixed in. And no order to the tools at all. Wrenches, pliers, hammers, a mix of socket drive tools, drills, etc, from vintage to modern chrome, US to Taiwan, and I spend a good 15-20 minutes on my knees digging through everything, almost sort of organizing as I go, at least so I know what's there, what I've discarded, etc, and I come up with five (5) really nice Snap-On sockets, all satin finish, all 1940 date codes, and a really nifty little radiator kit from the 50's in a red vinyl snap pouch.
I take it to the guy in two hands and he sets it all down on a table and starts to tally in his head.
I should've known better. The guy is one of the sons of another house close-out guy who is also a bit of a douche. Normally, with one of the other vendors, I'd be expecting to hear something like $7. Maybe $10. He says, "Thirty bucks."
I say something about that being way higher than normal for this market, and he says, "Those are Snap-On. I can sell them on eBay."
Which is true. But this isn’t eBay. Which I point out, to no effect. Deal unstruck, I start to walk away. Been in that position way too many times to get upset about it.
That's when I see him take my handful to his truck and put it on the front seat.
Now I am pissed off. It takes a lot to get me pissed off. I have a high tolerance. But when I blow, I blow big. He didn't even know there was Snap-On in there, and my little haul would've gotten thrown away at the dump with everything else that went unsold at the end of the day, and he knew it. And I knew it. So I follow him and tell him off and a little scene ensues and a couple "f^ck you's" later I walk away and we're still slinging insults at each other with everyone gawking.
Now I am just mainly mad at myself. If I had still had my stuff in my hands after he told me the price, I would've said, "No thanks," walked back to his messy blue bins, looked around at him to make sure he saw me, and dropped one socket into the seething mess in each bin, which is pretty much how I found them.
