glenmore
Well-known member
I have been going out to estate/garage sales for about the past 4 years. I started out buying all manner of tools but I have since learned to somewhat control myself. My wife helped “learn” me. Early on if a wrench was in good shape, I’d buy it, but before long, even my 2 Listas were starting to complain
I became more selective in my purchases and limited myself to tools in decent shape, and pretty much just Snap-On, Plombs, and (now) anything marked Hazet. A while back I found one Hazet wrench, a 10x14mm DOE, bought it, sent it thru an EvapoRust dip and promptly tossed it in with all my other spares and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a second wrench, a Hazet DOE 17x19mm. It still had a partial Hazet decal on it. This one I found by dumb luck. I had passed thru all the laid out tools once and thought I’d go thru one more time before leaving. There was a Craftsman pouch of wrenches that I saw before but this time I looked inside the pouch and there was the one Hazet wrench mixed in with all the rest.
I get home and check both current offerings and finished auctions for the 17x19 wrench and I ‘m shocked to find that people have paid close to $200 for this wrench! Apparently these old Hazet wrenches with the small “a” in the name are from the trunk kits of old Porsches and VWs and collectors will pay good money for them. I remembered my other Hazet, the 10x14mm and checked that one and someone had paid $350 for one! I listed both of them and got $130 for the big one and $179 for the small one
Now I'm not telling this story to give you the impression that all my estate sale purchases result in $$ windfalls. Far from it. Suffice to say that so far the cost of gas for those Saturday/Sunday morning sojourns dwarfs anything that I have ever made. Maybe if I were to sell everything, I might break even, but THAT is out of the question!
I became more selective in my purchases and limited myself to tools in decent shape, and pretty much just Snap-On, Plombs, and (now) anything marked Hazet. A while back I found one Hazet wrench, a 10x14mm DOE, bought it, sent it thru an EvapoRust dip and promptly tossed it in with all my other spares and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a second wrench, a Hazet DOE 17x19mm. It still had a partial Hazet decal on it. This one I found by dumb luck. I had passed thru all the laid out tools once and thought I’d go thru one more time before leaving. There was a Craftsman pouch of wrenches that I saw before but this time I looked inside the pouch and there was the one Hazet wrench mixed in with all the rest.
I get home and check both current offerings and finished auctions for the 17x19 wrench and I ‘m shocked to find that people have paid close to $200 for this wrench! Apparently these old Hazet wrenches with the small “a” in the name are from the trunk kits of old Porsches and VWs and collectors will pay good money for them. I remembered my other Hazet, the 10x14mm and checked that one and someone had paid $350 for one! I listed both of them and got $130 for the big one and $179 for the small one
Now I'm not telling this story to give you the impression that all my estate sale purchases result in $$ windfalls. Far from it. Suffice to say that so far the cost of gas for those Saturday/Sunday morning sojourns dwarfs anything that I have ever made. Maybe if I were to sell everything, I might break even, but THAT is out of the question!
