I'm a sucker for a yard sale. I've come across some super bargains. And I almost prefer being late, sometimes, because that's when the bargains start getting even better.
Some of the fun is, finding things the sellers didn't even know were worth having. That could be scrap plastic (Plexi, etc.). Often, I grab things just because it feels like I should. Like the non-working Hilti Mag Drill a guy sold me about a half hour before he closed, at the end of the weekend. Everyone passed it up. I gave him his $30.00 asking price. Later, I was telling a friend about it and he gave me $400.00 for it. As he pointed out, he just saved well over a grand for a new one, and it just needed a new switch.
Oddly, if I need something, it just seems to show up a garage sale. My daughter commented on this, then asked me to teach her how to do glass etch. I'd moved and didn't know where any of my several Exacto knives were, but we found two in a free box at a garage sale, on the way to town. Another time, I paid $5.00 for an O2 tank with all manner of gauges and such, just when I was throwing myself into carbonating my own liquids.
Any, one of the latest odd things I grabbed in $10.00 this-and-that bundle was some sort of gauge. I assumed it might be akin to the manometers I'd picked up with an eye to monitoring air filters and shop dust collectors. Today, it showed up when I stirred things out in the shop and I took my first close look at it. Hmm. It's a Wyn air gauge. It fits in your hand and you can alter how it operates to measure up to 60 mph winds.
It's blowing outside, so I test drove it. It works. Interesting. I did find it on line and that little piece of plastic runs $50.00 bucks. Guess it wont be monitoring any air scrubbers or dust collectors, but fun stuff, nonetheless.
Never was much of a yard sale guy, but most of the first half of my life I was at an auction at least 3 days a week. They used to be the best gauge for the value of any item. Then auctions suddenly turned into retail sales, and many bidders would bid more than retail of a new item, for a beat up POS that had little useful life in it. Now they are mostly gone.
FleaBay, Offerup, Craigslist, and all of the other ways for a person to sell items made them, well, gone. Sellers adding that "buyers premium" also helped kill them off. Used to be the seller (owner of the goods being auctioned) ate that as an expense, when they passed it on to the buyers it quit being fun.
I cruise past yard sales from time to time, but usually there’s nothing even close to what I’m interested in. Just last weekend, for the holiday, someone organized a neighborhood yard sale in another part of town…what they did, really, was get a bunch of houses involved in the general area and then created a map. Good on ‘em! Anyway, I cruised through a bunch of them and there wasn’t anything shop tool-related more than a rusty hammer or screw driver. I just don’t have the luck for that stuff!
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Funny. I found and bought the same Wyn air gauge at an estate sale. I thought it was a manometer and was thinking of using it to check when my shop vac filter needed cleaning. I showed it to a friend of mine that used to work for TX Parks and Recreations and he said that he had used one before.
I've gotten pretty lucky at garage and estate sales. My wife goes more often than I do and she has learned what to look for that I would be interested in. We have found several really nice hand planes. Many of them are in rough but still salvageable condition but usually cheap. The best sales are where the wife is out in the shop telling her husband he needs to let go of some stuff.
(Warning tool gloat ahead.) I've had some pretty big scores. One guy was downsizing and moving and so was selling all of his clamps. At the end of the day, I got over 20 Bessy K-clamps for $12.50 each. He was asking $25 each but when I balked he lowered the price because he needed them gone. I also got about 100 various F-clamps, mostly small 6", for just over $100. I bought several other things from him as well, including a couple of hand planes in excellent condition. One of my biggest scores was from a young guy who had just gotten married and needed to empty his garage of tools so that he could move to a house with a smaller garage and so his wife could park in the garage (must really be love). He was selling all of his relatively new power tools for half what he paid for them. None of the tools was more than a couple of years old. I got a complete Shark 24x24 CNC for $1200, including a stand and tooling plus several other tools for cheap. (End gloat)
Unfortunately, many people selling these days try to use eBay or some other websites to try to set their prices. No one is going to pay that at a garage sale. As soon as someone mentions eBay, I usually turn around and leave because the prices are going to be ridiculous. What they don't seem to realize is that they cannot compare a walk in crowd looking for bargains to a national audience. Also, they have to subtract all of the fees associated with selling on eBay, including credit card fees and shipping costs. Those can easily add up to 15% or more. I've tried to explain this but most people who have this mindset are not motivated enough to sell so it is not worth the effort to try to haggle with them.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
Being so close to the Bay Area here in NorCal, we should have some epic yard sales out that way. I went to a couple with my FIL before he passed. He was a tool guy too. The Bay has a long and storied tradition of old school production. Especially during WWII, so there are lots of tools to be had down there and some of them are really good vintage. But, because a) It’s California and b) it’s the Bay Area of California the prices are too outrageous to make it worth while.
I’d say it’s the thrill of the chase, but the couple times I went with him the crowds were thick and the people snobby/rude (which is, unfortunately, what 25 years of visiting there has taught me that place has become). It just wasn’t fun. I see eBay postings for stuff down there all the time that look just awesome, but not at the price they’re asking for…I guess they’re smart enough to know what the market for those vintage tools is whenyou’ve got world wide shipping! Woulda been a great place to be collecting tools 20 years ago though…
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Lazyman Unfortunately, many people selling these days try to use eBay or some other websites to try to set their prices
Especially when they have a barnacle encrusted Stanley #4, with 2/3 of the parts missing, and are saying they sell for 100 bux on FleaBay. Which is generally the situation when I hear them drag out that name.
I've had good luck off craigslist too. Got my Twinkie Mobile (Grumman step van) there. It moved me three times, in addition to saving me trips to sites.
Got my AirHandler, floor model buffer with lights, storage and filtration for $100.00. The 1"x12"x20" filter provides and education on how much crap comes off of buffing wheels into the air without it. My other favorite craigslist tool is my four wheel grinder with infinite variable speed between 0 to 2,400 RPM.
Then there is the pawn shop thing. Only one I like - The Pawn Exchange in Olympia, Wash. They are bright and clean, and they will deal.
Saw a self leveling rotary laser there for $150.00. First thing is, there are no used, self leveling rotary lasers that cheap, so I grabbed it.
It used it nearly four years, then sold it on the Bay for $400.00.
Learned, you sell on Amazon and buy on E-Bay in the course of that last sale. On curiosity, I found the rotary I sold for about half the price.
There is a pawn shop nearby that I have stopped at a couple of times simply because I was passing but. The prices they were asking were simply ridiculous. Some of them were so well used that I am not sure whether they still work and the were still asking a signification percentage of the new value.
Craigslist in my area is not great anymore. Most people have switched to Facebook Market place. I've found a few good deals on there and my wife has sold for me several of my refurbished surplus hand planes on there. We usually price them slightly below what most people do but they also sell pretty quickly.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
Only did the Pawn shop thing, looked twice, same finding on prices, haven't checked again. Not sure who their clientele are. Likely the idgits who pay retail at auctions.
For several years when they were expanding I made some tremendous buys at BiggLots, OddLots stores. Bessey K bodies for 6 bux each for 24" 7 bux for 40". That was a screaming deal. A lot of other tools that some of them are sold for big money, for a few bux.
I've walked into some good buys at HfH Restores. More there in terms of cabinets, doors, wood, trim, but I have gotten a few good tools.
