February 5, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of the What Sold Podcast, hosts Matt and Brandon discuss their recent bout with illness and the challenges it posed, causing a delay in the show. Matt shares his grueling experience of dealing with multiple health issues, including the flu. The conversation then shifts to the difficult scenarios faced by online sellers, particularly on eBay, including a recent scam where Matt was defrauded of $1,500 worth of sterling silver jewelry. He outlines the lack of support from eBay for sellers and the tactics buyers can use to exploit the system. The episode concludes with a discussion of interesting items Matt successfully sold this week, despite his struggles, such as vintage ink pens and collectible bottles.
00:00 Introduction and Health Update
02:06 Matt's Series of Unfortunate Events
07:33 The Challenges of Being a Seller on eBay
09:06 eBay's Policies and Seller Struggles
18:17 Scams and Lack of Seller Protection
22:49 Navigating eBay's Trust Issues
24:25 Dealing with Difficult Buyers
28:31 The Impact of Online Anonymity
31:10 Lessons from Selling High-Value Items
35:09 Profitable Finds and Sales
43:10 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
The What Sold Podcast Subreddit #ebayscams #winterblues #vintagebottles #vintagepens #silverandgold #silver #vintage #whatsoldpodcast #rustythereseller #whatsold #reselling #ebaystore
Rusty the reseller:
https://www.youtube.com/@RustyTheReseller What Sold: https://www.youtube.com/@whatsold Postcard Planet: https://www.youtube.com/@postcardplanet What Sold Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc513e2aPbloS20mTwuv8bAMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:38):
Welcome back to the What Sold Podcast.
If you're a regular listener, younoticed that the show dropped a
little bit later today than normal.
That's because Matt and I have beeninfirmed for whatever reason, the plague
is hitting Western North Carolina.
You probably hear both ofus sound very stuffed up.
Matt was, I think he was in a sweatlodge trying to get well with the shaman.
(01:01):
I've known Matt for a long timeand I've never seen him just
disappear for Time, but I'm gonnaask you the obvious question Matt.
Yeah, I think I know the answer,but how you doing, buddy?
Man, I have been to Hades town and back.
Hades, ooh.
I was telling, we were talking aboutthis pre production, how I can't
(01:23):
remember being sick For as long asI've been sick since I was a kid.
I was a sickly kid unfortunately.
Sickly, frail.
Yep, scrawny lots of allergies, asthma,and Just not a real strong immune system.
So I got sick pretty frequently I, whatI'm dealing with here is in the month
of December I had a bad cold that lastedabout a month just wouldn't go away It's
(01:49):
one of those annoying things, it's likethe rain, when it's just cold and drizzly,
it's like either rain or just stop.
What is this?
It just won't go away.
That's what this cold was like.
And I was well enough to operate,but I was operating and just not
feeling well, and that's aggravating.
So as that sort of started toheal up, I took a short trip
(02:11):
with my wife to Mexico City.
Wonderful trip.
I stepped in the house about 30minutes later, thought, uh, oh,
stomach's not feeling so great.
Uh, oh, the curse of Teotihuacan.
It was the worst night of my life.
It was the worst.
I've had food poisoning.
I've had E. coli poisoning in the past.
Whatever this was, was horrible.
(02:34):
And it lasted two or three days.
Really one, like a 12hour period was the worst.
And then I'm recovering.
About two days after that, my daughtercomes home with surprise, the flu.
Nice.
I then catch the flu andI am on day 10 of the flu.
Took Tamiflu, didn't seem to touch it,and I am mostly well, I would say however,
(03:01):
through the, and this is TMI, but.
Through the course of extremevomiting and coughing for days,
I have given myself a hernia.
Oh my!
So now I get to go to the doctortomorrow and find out whether or not
this is going to require surgery or not.
Oh lord!
That is, not to mention I've Iprobably weigh what I weighed
(03:24):
as a junior in high school.
Which was basically 70 pounds.
That's what I weighed in high school.
I wish I had that dietplan in my life, man.
So the people that are out listening noware there's that certain audience that's
like, Our good for Yvettet is out thereis out there like, oh no, Matt, I'm sorry.
You're not feeling well.
The rest of the audience is like,Hey, listen, man, I'm here to,
(03:45):
I'm here to make some money.
Show me the money.
I don't care.
Are you breathing?
Then give me some information.
They're like, give me some information.
I don't really care about you.
We always say on this show, weare a show about retelling, but
we are also a show about people.
We face all the things thatyou people out there face.
We are people get sick.
Just like him.
There's, there's a ridiculous, I thinkthey're for like teenagers primarily, but
(04:08):
they're like, People Magazine Us Weekly.
Where they have the pictureof a, some sort of.
Famous actor actress and they'rewalking down the street and they're
like, they sneeze to like real peoplelike they, they eat ice cream, it's
like, yeah, they're human beings.
Guess what?
We get sick.
We're human beings.
We're working hard, but you equatedyourself to a Hollywood actor.
(04:31):
Well, no, I guess that, yeah,that was, that sounded arrogant.
I'm just saying, guys, bear with us.
Be patient with us becauselisten I can get knocked down.
Just like the, if not moreso it's looking like lately.
Yeah.
I don't know if I've ever known anybodythat's gone down that hard for that long.
We almost had to skip a weekbecause we usually try to get a
(04:53):
couple of shows in the books, butit's been that kind of season.
I was laid up all day yesterday.
I'm.
I'm one of the, I'm theopposite of my wife.
My wife is when she gets sick, it's like.
She immediately wants to be surrendered.
She doesn't get sickvery often to be fair.
My wife is tough as nails But whenshe does let me tell you people I got
another kindergartner in my house It'slike I got a I got to put warm water
bottles and bring her hot tea and it'smassaging the feet She loves to be
(05:17):
cared for and tended to I am the exactopposite I am one of nine kids big family.
My mom would throw out eight pieces ofbread So when I when we got sick, it
was like, oh you're gonna have to figurethis out So I like to go into the cave.
I like to just You Leave me alone,let me, let my body deal with this.
Throwing out red, it makes meimagine your mother as this bag lady
(05:37):
sitting on a park bench and she'sjust tossing breadcrumbs and the
children are crawling up to eat them.
Is that accurate?
You're not that Far away from thetruth of the double family, but no, it
just, when you're in a big family, youjust got to figure it out because we
have friends that have seven kids andit's just like, Whoa, we have an only.
So she thinks that the world,she is the son and all the
(06:00):
world's just revolve around her.
And yeah.
It is good to be back with everybody.
It is.
We're not going to lie.
We're not on our A game today.
I'm on a solid C game right now.
I don't know where Matt is.
Not even going to predict it.
Not even, he's literally, he's an NA.
How do we get through it or do we not?
That's the biggest question.
(06:21):
Yeah.
So if he passes out, I'm justgoing to fill the space with noise.
I might do like a sound bath for you guys.
I'll just, if you all of a suddenhear a sound bath, come on the show,
you'll know that Matt has gone down.
It's over.
I blame it on your El Luchador career.
I believe that you did tell us the truth.
I believe you went into there.
You stole someone's career andyou had the curse of tale Theo
(06:42):
Khan put upon you because of it.
But that's just what it was.
It was that.
I'm just guessing it's my fault becausemy opponent offered me some street corn
and I just thought it was a kind gesture.
I took it.
You did talk about, I didn'trealize that it was laced,
with something to make me sick.
Listen, you live, you learn.
When you go to countries, I traveledquite a bit in South and Central America
when I was a teacher because I could,I would always get, like in the first
(07:06):
week, I'd always get these terribleGI because you're just not used to it.
They don't wash their food to the same,the water's more polluted, just whatever.
We're delicate.
Americans are delicate.
So regardless, Matt, it'sgood to be back with you.
I'm like a flower.
You've got to take care of me.
Yeah.
You are like a delicate flower.
We're back.
We're glad that you're back.
I was looking at information ongetting my lawn prepped for the spring.
(07:29):
So I'm going to look at information onhow to get Matt prepped for the spring.
So today we're going to do, weusually talk about what Matt sold.
I don't know if you've been soldanything this week, honestly, man.
I did.
This is all about buying and selling.
And I would say, generallyspeaking, I like my job.
I think it's.
It's fascinating.
I learn a lot of things.
(07:49):
It keeps me busy.
You get out of it what you put into it.
So if you're gonna take a couple days offa week, you're not gonna earn as much.
It's sort of common sense.
Right.
But, I have to tell you that whileI was sick with the flu, about the
midway point, about two to threedays in, about the worst point in the
course of it for me, I had to get up.
(08:12):
I'd been on my back for two days.
I had to get up because I alreadyhad 40 orders that were past due.
Now that's a lot.
And I couldn't let them go any longer.
I had to go down and I had tofulfill, I had to find, package,
make labels, package 40 separateorders in the worst part of flu.
(08:34):
And I have to tell you, This isthe only time this is the strongest
that I've ever thought to myself.
Why am I doing this job?
What am I doing?
If I was sick with any other job,I would have just called in and
nothing would be required of me.
But when you work for yourself,sometimes, there are, you're up
(08:54):
against a deadline, and you have toget things done, and I had no choice.
Because, folks, if You would, someof you out there might say listen,
if you're that sick, just like, it'sokay, you're going to get back to it.
It's yes.
And no, because the thing is, if you,there are certain types of analytics
and things that eBay is tracking onyour store, the speed at which you
(09:15):
ship things, whether or not you havedisputes that don't get resolved
between you and the buyer or you andthe seller and eBay has to step in.
There are these different markers andthey have set themselves, they set this.
There are this like percentage where ifyou're above that or below it, depending
(09:37):
on what it is, you're going to be in thegood zone, meaning you're above standard
or you're a top rated seller, but ifyou slip beyond that mark, whatever it
is, then they will start to initiateputting restrictions on your account.
And that can look likethey will hold your funds.
For a longer period of time.
So you don't get paid out.
(09:57):
Do they tell you why?
What is holding your funds?
How can they get away with that?
It's your money.
Why are they?
Because in their all powerful, allknowing self they, that's their policies.
It's their platform.
They'll set up however they want and Theirjustification for this is that if they
see that a seller is not fulfilling theirobligations in a timely manner or keeping
(10:23):
a certain percentage, rate of doingwhatever the thing is, then they feel like
that puts their buying community at risk.
To either be defrauded or itthings are just not operating as
efficiently as they expect them to be.
And they will punish you if youdo not maintain the standards
(10:43):
that they set forth for you.
And you can see that at any giventime, you can look and see both where
you rate today and where you will ratethe next time that they go through and
check your store, which is once a month.
And so it'll say you're abovestandard or you're a top rated seller.
And then it'll say next month, you'reeither the same or above or below that.
(11:07):
Now, if you get to a point where yousay, didn't fulfill your items in a
timely enough manner, then they're goingto send you a message and say, Hey, you
had a high Rate of past due shipping,or you had a higher than average rate
of returns or item, not being items, notbeing described according to your buyers.
(11:30):
So you need to keep an eye on that.
They will enact any kind ofrestriction that they want.
I have had that happen to me before.
It's not fun.
They can hold onto your money.
If you run an auction, let's say it'sa seven day auction, seven days is
going to go before that item sells.
When you have an auction, the buyeris not required to pay immediately.
(11:52):
They can have up to three days to pay.
Let's say they wait to the third day.
So now you're 10 days outfrom initiating an auction.
To when it, it sells and it is paid for.
If you have a restriction, they mightsay, you're not going to have funds
available until three within threedays of confirmation of delivery.
(12:13):
So it's been 10 days.
I ship out this item ground advantage.
It's going to take threeto four days to get there.
Now we're looking at 16 to 17 days.
Okay.
It's arrived at day 17.
And then they're going towait another three days.
We're looking at 20 days beforethe funds are now available to you.
(12:33):
That's three quarters of amonth before you get paid.
And is it 30 days after that, thatthe money, because they can return it.
So when does the 30 daysstart, when they receive it?
I think that the 30 days beginson the day of receipt of the item.
Now, I may be wrong on that, maybethe date of the sale, but I think
it's the date that they receivethe item, they have 30 days to
(12:57):
return it to you if they want to.
Yes, you can get paid at 20 days, butthen, it's not really your money to
use, and, because you don't know ifthey're going to return it to you or not.
The point is, They're, I got up whenI was sick as a dog, okay, to do this
because if I didn't get these in and thissomehow dings my store, this can cause
problems for me and my store globally,meaning for as long as they want to hold
(13:24):
that restriction, literally anythingI sell to any person, they can hold on
to my money for as long as they want.
And you know what they'redoing with that money?
They're making money on it.
They're not giving it to me.
They're finding someother way to make money.
And.
It is their prerogative to do that becausewhen you create a store or you choose to
sell on their platform, you're signinga large, long document, agreeing to
(13:49):
adherence to their policies, which thepolicies that they've created and any
policy that they decide to change betweennow and forever, you have to follow those.
You have no recourse.
So if they put a restriction and youdon't like it, you can call them and
talk to them and try to work it out.
Good luck to you, West, whetheror not they're going to do
(14:09):
something to help you or not.
But that was a long rabbit hole.
The point is I needed to do thisbecause I don't want to have my
account, one of my accounts restricted.
By the way, this is why Ihave more than one account.
If tomorrow they put a restrictionon one account, guess what?
I'm not putting anything onthat account to sell anymore.
I'm going to start listingon another account.
(14:31):
So do you just kill thataccount all the time?
I don't kill it because I have thousandsof items on all of my eBay stores.
I gotcha.
I'm like, Oh, that's a bummer.
Now anything that sells on that store,I'm have to wait to get paid for.
And I do this full time.
I rely upon regular intervals of payouts.
For the things that I sellin order to pay my bills.
Now, if I only have one EA store and theyput a restriction on it, I'm in trouble.
(14:55):
That is a major problem.
And I have encountered that before.
That is why I have at least three eBaystores active at all times with enough
inventory on them to where I can pivot.
And wait out the othersituation to resolve.
And then anything new that I'm puttingin, I'm putting into those stores.
That's how I hedge.
(15:15):
That seems like an obvious advantage,a reason why you would have three
stores, but is there disadvantage?
I know what the advantageis to the extra stores.
Is there a disadvantage tohaving the extra stores?
I, yes.
In the sense that if you wantto say, focus on a particular
category of items, Sure.
You have a, because if you have aperson who finds an item or items,
(15:39):
they get a good price, they decidethey want to follow that store and
they want to buy items and be alertedwhen you put new things out, oops,
now my store has a restriction and.
For the next 30 days, I'm not listeningto anything on that store anymore.
So that person that's following thatstore is not following the store.
My other store that I'm now activelyusing, I try to keep them all active, but
(16:01):
at any given time, I'm more busy on onethan another just because I'm one person.
How often does that happen whereyou get a restriction on a store?
It does not happen often, but you canfollow everything through the letter,
all your policy, all their policies,and still something can happen.
I'll go to list somethingfor 10 and they'll flag it.
(16:23):
And they'll say, Hey, this is ivory.
You're trying to sell ivory.
It's illegal to sell ivoryand it's against our policies.
And this is this is going to threaten.
eBay to allow for you to be puttingillegal things on your store.
So we're gonna lock your storefor 30 days and i'm gonna be
like, ah, this isn't ivory.
What are you talking about?
(16:44):
And then they go like wellWe just got to be careful.
We just got to be safe.
Like they can do anything like that.
They don't have to have agood reason They don't have to
admit that they made a mistake.
They don't have to fix it Theydon't have to do anything.
That's eBay.
Because they're offering, they'rethe platform that if they're there
(17:05):
in their mind, they're like, if youdon't want to say, obviously there's
a tipping point for them because it'seconomies of scale, if they made enough
people mad and left or another platformcame up that was better, then they
might change that, but at this point.
Anybody that's doing what you'redoing is probably selling on eBay.
So they just have such a massive,quarter of the market that for them, it's
(17:27):
like, whatever, then don't sell here.
Exactly.
Yeah.
They don't care if I leave.
I gross six figures on eBay.
They make lots of money from me bothin monthly subscription costs and
in little nickel and dime stuff.
And the, the sale feesand they still don't care.
(17:51):
They don't care if they lose me.
I think ultimately they're, we'vetalked about this a lot on the show.
I didn't know any of this stuff,but I'm starting to pick this up.
Their real concern is the cost,is the buyer, not the seller, the
buyer is the one that they don't.
Cause if the buyers leave, then itdoesn't matter how many sellers they have.
They go out of their way.
I've experienced this firsthandof protecting the buyer.
(18:14):
To the point where it's almost absurd.
You're like, wait, what?
If you were a person that knew how togame the eBay system as a buyer, and I
know there are people out here that do it,it'd be pretty easy to scam the system.
I think I talked about this lasttime, but here's a quick example.
Recently, I sold 1, 500 worthof sterling silver jewelry.
I sent it to the person.
They responded, Hey, this is an empty box.
(18:36):
And I said, no, it's not an empty box.
It was 1, 500 of sterlingsilver jewelry that I sent you.
And they contacted eBay and say, andsaid, Hey, he sent me an empty box.
See here's a picture of an empty box.
And they said, Oh, weshould return your money.
And so they got my jewelry and theygot my money and I appealed it.
Whoa, really?
I appealed it and they said,the buyer signed an affidavit.
(19:00):
Saying that they were being honest,that it was an empty box, end of story.
They stole that stole 1, 500of sterling silver from me.
And, once all of it was done, it wasabout a 30 day process of an appeal
and everything, they still sidedwith the buyer, and then the buyer
got on and left me a negative reviewsaying that I sent them an empty box.
(19:21):
So I have a negative review on my account.
You're kidding me.
I am not kidding you.
That is horrible.
Yep.
Can you give me the name andI'm going to dox that person?
Here's the thing.
I have the person'sname and address, right?
I could go file a police report.
I suppose.
I don't know if it, is it worth that time?
What does it cost?
Do I have to get an attorney?
Do I take them to small claims court?
(19:42):
Did you take a picture of the box and.
When you go to like ship it,is there any way to prove it?
The only thing that there it'sthat person's word against mine.
And so the point i'm making your point,which is they support the buyers.
They don't support the seller.
I have a picture of the jewelry.
The picture that I, the picturesthat I listed in the listing to
attract the buyer in the first place.
(20:04):
I have them physically in my hand.
I weighed it.
I shipped it.
They got it.
They pulled out the jewelry and they said.
Oh, there's nothing here.
Now, is there a world inwhich it's conceivable that
someone stole it in transit?
Is it conceivable that the U. S.Postal Service dropped it in a hole,
(20:24):
it broke a hole in it and it fell out?
Somebody else got it?
I guess anything's possible.
But all I know for certain is thatI did send them 1, 500 of silver.
And eBay did not side with me.
They did not protect me as a seller.
They did not refund my money.
They gave the money back to the buyer.
They got the item.
(20:45):
Wow.
Or didn't.
I don't know for certain.
And that's it.
What a scam.
It was 100 percent a scam andeBay did not at all support me.
That's amazing to me because itwould, it seems like, I get it.
People scam, trust me, I'm doinga series, another show of scams,
digital scams and they're everywhere.
(21:06):
It's incredible what, how manybad criminal people are out there.
The anonymity of digitalexchanges makes it even worse.
But so you know who this person is, youknow where they live, and yet they still
are so brazen that they would do thisbecause they're like they can't prove it.
It's my word against theirsand eBay as the mediator.
(21:29):
How do they know either?
I'm just giving them the benefitof the doubt for a moment.
They don't know if I'm telling thetruth or if they're telling the truth.
Now they should look and see that I'vebeen selling on their platform for
over 20, like nearly 25 years and thatthey make hordes of money from me and
I grow six figures on their platformevery year and I continue to use it.
You would think that would meansomething to them, but apparently not.
(21:53):
Wait a second.
It seems, oh my gosh, thisis so frustrating to me.
I just think about it, one, becauseyou're my friend and I just don't
like dishonest people, but it seemslike you could have some sort of
a certified thing on eBay where itsays, hey, Matt is a certified seller.
We know he's not going to Steal from you.
There's too many layers, Matt,wouldn't it just, you may just
(22:15):
say, we don't need to do that.
We don't care.
Like this person has probablydone it somewhere else, right?
They don't care.
They don't care enough to put anysort of measure like that in there.
It's on me as the seller to insureit if I want to insure it, to make
sure that it requires signature ifI want that, both of which I did.
I can chase down the insurance claim.
I can just claim it as a loss on taxes.
(22:37):
That's it.
This was a loss and it'sexactly what it was.
Much like I'm going to have toclaim all the inventory I lost.
When hurricane Helene washed away abuilding that had a lot of my inventory
in it, crazy natural disasters.
There's not a whole lot leftfor me to do other than that.
At the end of the day.
Any job you have for yourself,there are risks and there are
(22:58):
potential losses or realized losses.
And that's what I have to do.
It leaves a really bad tastein my mouth because listen, I
want everyone to understand.
I use eBay, not because I love eBay.
I use eBay because it is the largestplatform that attracts the most buyers and
I stand to make the most money, but do notbelieve for one second that I trust eBay.
(23:22):
I do not trust eBay.
Do not trust eBay at all to dothe right thing to support me.
They're not going to most of the time.
They're not.
If I'm the seller, if I'm the buyer,they're more likely to support me,
but you know what, I'm not out to scamanybody as a buyer, so I'm never going
to get advanced the advantage of that.
Unless a seller tries to scam me.
(23:42):
And that almost never happens.
Almost has never happened.
It seems, and I'm way deep in the weedson these scams, but it truly does feel
like there has to be some fundamentalshift in the way we do business online.
And with the way that people can scamand are willing to scam, that there
has to be some easier way to deal withthis because all that's going to do is
(24:06):
discourage people from wanting to sellon, like I would never sell on eBay
because I had a terrible experience.
At some point businessesdon't last forever.
Somebody else will comealong and do a better job.
You just wonder, is there someway to, like the verification
part of this whole thing, thatthere has to be some verification.
The only thing I can do,unfortunately, is just to block them.
(24:28):
So there is a way you can block buyers.
So if I have an interaction likethis, then I will go in and block
that buyer on all of my stores.
Like it, it stinks.
It was a bad situation, but guess what?
Never going to do it to me again.
You're not buying from me again, ever.
You're not allowed to.
I've blocked you.
I just.
It's rough.
That's the scammers.
(24:49):
And then there are peoplewho are just really unkind.
I had a person this week while I was,I made a mistake, I made a mistake
and I sent a person bought a coupleof like antique, they were like pin
backs essentially, but they werelike metals, I guess, like brass.
I sold two to one person andone of them that I sent was
(25:10):
very similar, but it was wrong.
So as I was going through in my sicklystupor I pulled one that was very close
and similar, but it wasn't the exact one.
One was correct, one wasn't.
I sent it off.
I get a response or I get anemail from the person saying that,
Hey, one of these is incorrect.
I would like it back.
I responded within 24 hours.
(25:32):
But in less than 24 hours, I gottwo more very hateful messages being
like, Why have you not responded?
I'm gonna have to take this up with eBay.
I'm sick.
I'm in bed.
I can't, I get on my phone andI go, Listen, I'm sorry that
it's taken me less than a dayto respond to you, but I'm sick.
I'm going to do my best to fix this.
I'm very sorry.
(25:52):
They get on and their responseis, I'm glad that you have the flu
because, whoa, otherwise you werejust a super dishonest person.
I expect to get my trueitem as soon as possible.
That's their response.
And I get on and they signed it asretired military, blah, blah, blah.
(26:13):
I get on and I say, wow, really,I admitted that I made a mistake.
I'm a human being.
I've been very sick.
I'm going to take care ofthis the best of my ability.
I would like to think that someonein your position, trained military,
would understand that treating ahuman being better than that is more
(26:34):
important than a little piece ofcopper, and it, I'm going to be very
honest with you, it made me angry.
I was, I'd been sick for like two months.
And this, by the way, this was like a,this was like a less than a 10 item.
And I got on, I said, you know what, whydon't you go ahead and initiate a return?
(26:54):
And when I get them, I'm going to giveyou a full refund and I'm going to be
happy to sell this to somebody elsewho has a little bit of integrity.
That's what I did.
So I didn't, I, I chose not to fix it.
I said, I have a 30 day returnpolicy, return the items.
One of them is correct.
And one of them is not, but return them.
I'll refund you and I'm going to blockyou, I didn't say this, but I'm going
(27:15):
to block him and I'm going to sell itto somebody else because you know what?
I don't like that.
I don't like you getting onand being aggressive, verbally
aggressive like that towards me.
Because again, I'm a seller.
I know I'm using someone else'splatform, but it's my item.
I can choose who I want to sell it to.
And guess what?
You're not that guy.
Did he return it?
He has initiated a return.
(27:35):
I haven't received it yet.
He ain't getting his money back untilI get it, but I have blocked him.
Sometimes that's the way it goes.
Anyone who's worked in retailand this is pseudo retail.
I'm not actually having to stand anddeal with rude people, but anyone who's
worked in the retail world in person knowspeople can be very hateful and nasty.
(27:55):
And you know what?
Brandon, most of the time, I cangive people the benefit of the doubt.
Even when people wererude, I can brush it off.
I don't know what'sgoing on in their life.
Maybe they're having a bad day.
Stuff happened to them.
It's not fair that they'retaking it out on me.
But I want to give themthe benefit of the doubt.
But when I'm sick, and I'm down and out,and someone treats me that way, I just.
(28:16):
There's a limit.
Everyone has a limit andthat was my limit that day.
My limit would have been a longtime ago, but that's you and
I are very different people.
The part of this whole thing is,and this is more of an editorial
comment for people listening.
The anonymity of The internetis a big part of this problem.
For sure.
This person might be aperfectly normal person.
(28:38):
And I always say that, when yougo to a retail store, you have to
actually physically face the person.
So if you're going to be rude tothem, they're going to see you.
They're going to know who you are.
As opposed to this, it just lendsitself to people doing mean things.
Let's hope that Rusty doesn'ttake too much of this and that
this is sort of an anomaly.
If you're out there, if you're outthere listening, retired, Military
(28:58):
colonel, you need to change yoursalutation to retired military, active
a hole, because that's Meaty pants.
That's right.
Active meaty pants.
That's right.
Because, Come on.
Why treat people You'reasking for me to help you.
You're simultaneously askingme for me to help you.
And then you're being hateful.
I just don't, I just don't get it.
(29:18):
I think that part of that probably, I'mjust, I don't know this, but I do know
that when you have things that you'vebought online, you don't see the person.
So you're like, are they scared?
He's like, is this guy scamming me?
Sure.
And instead of thinking, let'slook through the process.
And I think that eBay, because theyprotect the buyer so much, they also
helped create this problem where they,the buyer could just be a complete.
(29:41):
Maybe pants and there's no recourse.
There's no.
I think what we're also seeing isjust the sad Reality of our culture
now, which is we go from zero tooutraged in one move There is no what
is this on a scale of one to ten?
It's A one, and then it's a ten.
(30:01):
You think the worst.
I'm being scammed, I'm outraged, andnow I need to get out and be nasty.
Folks, that doesn't help your cause.
You need to give peoplethe benefit of the doubt.
You need to work with people.
Be patient, for goodness sake.
There's another mantra of this show,which is obviously we want to help people
sell, and we want to Talk about all thisstuff, but the you call people cousins
(30:25):
for a reason We really are all the in thistogether We are there are gonna be times
where you're gonna have disagreements withpeople, but we could disagree cordially
We can say hey I'm not sure about if theperson's a bad person You could deal with
that and the way you want to deal withthat But if the person just made a mistake
Let's all just be cousins here and say,I'm not going to do that to my cousin.
Yeah, exactly.
If my cousin made a mistake,I'd be like, oh, it's okay.
(30:47):
We'll figure it out.
So anyway, all right.
Wow.
I That was a long one.
I do have some things I would loveto talk about and what we sold.
Yeah.
I want to talk about what you sold, butI am, I thought this was going to be one
of these shows we're going to limp in.
I'm like you hit it.
Well, this has been a downer so far.
This has been a downer.
This is my fault.
Again, I'm operating off of inrecovery mode and but I've been dealing
(31:07):
with it, I've been dealing with itand there are better days ahead.
Let me ask you a question because weare about teach people like in this
case with that silver, is there anythingyou would have done differently?
Or is this just part of the deal?
I would have insured it for 1,500 dollars, I suppose, and paid
the 50 bucks, whatever it was.
You can insure, if you're shippingthrough the U. S. Postal Service, you
(31:28):
can insure things up to 4, 000 dollars.
But if you're going to sellsomething for 10, 000 dollars,
and you want to ship it through U.
S. Postal Service, you're in trouble,because if something happens, And you
have to, seek that, that insurance.
You can't go above four grand.
So I actually don't exactly know howpeople insure things that are that much.
(31:50):
More expensive.
Luckily, I'm not, I push thatsometimes with vintage instruments.
I may sell something that's fiveor six grand, but I'm requiring
things like signature anddelivery, they need to sign for it.
And, or I'm going to.
Physically take it to myself orthey have to come and collect it.
But I guess I could have done that.
Why didn't you insure it then?
(32:11):
Because I sell things worth athousand dollars or more, dozens and
dozens and dozens of times a year.
And if I paid 50 everysingle time I did that.
I'm going to have the need toaccess that claim once a year.
So I'm going to spend, am Igoing to spend two grand a year
that I'm not going to get back?
(32:32):
Cause even if I go and do pursue thatinsurance claim, are they actually
going to fulfill it and give mea hundred percent of that money?
It's insurance.
No, they're not.
That's it's in the name.
It's insurance.
Insurance never pays out fullywhat they're supposed to.
What I do is I chalk that up as a risk.
One time a year.
I'm going to get taken and that's abummer and I'm going to count that as
(32:55):
a loss and I'm going to put that on.
Some years I won't haveone and guess what?
I saved myself 2, 000 because I didn'tinsure everything all the way up
to however much it was every time.
Now if it's an instrument, ifit's four or five thousand dollar
instrument, I will pay that money.
Usually I will build that intothe cost of the item itself.
(33:16):
I'll say, listen, I know that shippingbeing 80 is a lot, but 30 is the box and
the material and 50 is the insurance.
And you're paying that on,cause I don't get that.
I'm not going to just lose that money.
If you want this item, I'm an insurantand that cost is being pushed onto you.
I'll do that sometimes.
And sometimes I won't, I don't know.
(33:36):
I wouldn't have done anything differently.
I would have hoped that a personwasn't trying to defraud me.
That's, which is probably alsopart of the reason why you like to
work with the same people when itcomes to selling gold and silver.
A hundred percent repeat buyers are great.
If I've had a good experiencewith you, I want to sell to you.
I want you to keep, Idon't want your money once.
I want it every time that you findsomething that you think is worth
(33:58):
it at the right price, come to me.
We talked about that estate sale guy,and it's like, when you can develop,
that's a verification, the person'sexactly, you've worked with them, you
can trust them, and it's a good thing.
All right.
So in our last few minutes we weregoing to talk about something completely
different, but you took me down thebest rabbit hole we've ever been down.
It was amazing.
People be nice to cousin Rusty.
He seems to have it a rough time.
(34:20):
What did you sell?
This week, don't tell me I'm gladyou had the flu rusty because I'm not
going to continue that conversation.
Be nice.
I'm glad you had the flu because itproves to me you, God smoted you.
That guy got back on, he gotback on again and responded.
He was like, no, you don't understand.
The alternative was you werea terribly dishonest person.
Go back and see the message.
(34:40):
And I'm thinking, are youtrying to justify that you told
me you're glad I got the flu?
This is ridiculous.
Get out of here.
I'm glad you did what you did becausethat colonel needs to not get that piece.
And come, I hope the colonelis listening to the show.
He's like, what?
I didn't realize thatwas you Cousin Rusty.
Had I known you were listening in orwatching, I would have worn a little
(35:01):
badge here, just so you could seeit, what you're not getting from me.
Colonel wow cousin rusty.
No, i'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
That's taking it too far Let's talkabout some cool things that I sold
and i'm excited about so one itemis this tiny little it's a women's.
Pocket watch, because I knowyou love pocket watches so much.
This is a small, this would be considereda zero S size, but it's octagonal.
(35:25):
In its case, and the thing that'sunique about this, even though there is
no brand or maker on the dial is thatit, the case is 14 carat solid gold.
So it's small and it doesn't work.
You can wind it and it's just not, Idon't know if the balance staff is off
or what's going on with it, but it'seven in not currently working condition.
(35:47):
It's still sold for 280.
Wow.
And I bought this for 20 in a littlelot of other mixed pieces of jewelry
and vintage watch parts and things.
They saw that it was a little watch.
They didn't care.
It was old.
They didn't look on the inside tosee that it was made out of gold.
So I happened to win in that.
(36:09):
Situation because it ended up beingmuch more valuable than they realized.
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
And that can happen folks.
As it starts getting, I say, as it getswarm, we're in Western North Carolina.
It's early February and I'm tellingyou, it's been like 67 degrees.
Beautiful.
I don't even understandwhat's happening around me.
The point is when there are yardsales and estate sales and stuff,
(36:31):
this kind of thing can happen.
You can find valuable stufflike that in little mixed lots.
Another thing I sold and this sold for 14.
It's just a little and I have thecase, but it's a roll of film.
It's Kodak gold, super200, 35 millimeter film.
There are only 12 exposureson it, but it's not been used.
(36:53):
It's older.
I have no idea exactly how old, butit's unused and it's been in a light
tight little plastic container.
A lot of people might thinklike why is people people are
still buying 35 millimeter film.
They're still takingphotographs and developing them.
It's not as common as it once was becausewe have digital cameras and everyone
has a really high quality camera ontheir phone now, but people who like
(37:17):
photography and use that, they stillbuy these and they don't mind going to
a platform like eBay and buying them.
From someone like me, I came acrossa little baggie of this stuff
at a thrift store for a dollar.
And there were like five orsix in here and guess what?
I split that up and I sell themall individually and 14 a piece.
By the time I sell five of those,that's a great 1 investment.
(37:39):
Yeah.
That's like a 30, 40 X,50 X on my investment.
So that's pretty nice.
So if you happen to have film layingaround, maybe grandpa's old camera in
the closet, you've got a bag with thecamera and then you, but there's some
film in there still that's not been used.
You can sell that film.
It's still good.
People will use it.
Another lot I sold for 24.
(38:02):
99 was this lot of five vintageink pens and one little refill of
ink that would go in a pen as well.
And these are various kinds.
I don't, none of these are reallyeven all that These are just
probably from like the 1970s, 1980s.
(38:22):
I'm seeing simplex manufacturing company.
Here's a state farm insurance pin.
Here's one, a fabric company.
So a lot of these have advertising.
Oh, they're like giveaway pens.
Yeah.
They're like advertising pins, right?
You'd go into a store and here's theirpins with their company on them and then
this little refill and I find these allthe time, little bags with pens, vintage
(38:45):
pencils, twisting, mechanical pencilsthat have the lead in them, or antique
ink pens, or, best case scenario, are oldfountain pens that still have the nibs.
Those nibs can be made of14 karat gold sometimes.
There's gold content in them.
Sometimes you'll come across really goodquality ink pens or fountain pens of
(39:07):
nice brands like Schaefer or Mont Blanc.
They're not looking at this.
They just see a bag of pensand they're like, Oh, 50 cents.
You know what I mean?
At a thrift store happens all the time.
You can pluck one thing out of there andmake way more than you spent on all of
it, or you can sell it as a whole lot.
But I love, I actually love, I thinkthey're interesting and shoot, I can pull
(39:28):
a couple out and just use them at my desk.
And then sell the rest and make money.
And I've won twice.
Nice.
That's a good one.
Here's another cool little old bottle.
Old bottles sell really well.
And especially, I've had I've gota few that I've listed lately that
were like little inkwell bottles.
Some that were apothecary type bottlesor from old doctors bottles that
(39:52):
they would have medicines and things.
This one is cool becauseit has a little lid.
It's a brown, like an amber glass.
And it says Hydrarg salicylpoison on the label.
So it says poison.
That's cool.
Bottles, generally speaking,bottles, older bottles that
still have their labels intact.
can go for more money because peoplelike those, sometimes they're just
(40:16):
little things they put up on a bookshelf.
They think it's interesting.
Or I don't know what else, maybe theycraft with them or they do other things.
Maybe they clean them out andthen they use them for something.
They can repurpose that in thekitchen or something like that.
It'd be funny to have a little bottlewith salt or something on the table, but
it has a label that says poison on it.
(40:37):
I'm not suggesting you do that, butyeah, who knows, there's all kinds
of things that people do with it.
Yeah.
It reminds me of it's a wonderful lifewhere he discovers that Mr. Gowers, but
Mr. Gower, there's something, you putsomething bad in that bottle, Mr. Gower.
Exactly.
Exactly.
He wasn't paying attention.
Last thing I have here, which is cool.
Oh, by the way, this bottlejust showed sold for 24.
(40:57):
It's not a big bottle.
It's just a small bottle,but it's, it's vintage.
The last thing I'll show is this.
These are bottles as well, but theseare miniature beer bottles right here.
We have one with labelsays Gunther's beer.
And when I say miniature, theseare probably four inches tall
and they have the little caps onthem, but what these were actually
(41:19):
for were salt and pepper shakers.
So the top of them have little holesand they're made to look like lager beer
bottles with the label and everything.
They look.
Everything about them looks like aregular beer bottle, the amber glass,
with the exception that the top has thoselittle, the holes in them, so you know
you could use them for salt or pepper.
And there's a bunch of peopleout there who collect salt and
(41:42):
pepper shakers, that's been acollectible thing for a long time.
There is two sets.
We got this one of Gunther's and thenthis one of Blatz, B L A T Z, Blatz
Beer, Milwaukee's finest, it says.
And again, the top issalt and pepper shakers.
And so this lot also sold for 24.
(42:02):
These happened to be ones that I soldfor someone else, so I didn't buy them.
But things like this, if I had seenthis for a couple bucks, two, three
bucks, I would have bought it.
That's a good price.
I'll turn three bucks into 25 bucks.
That's fine.
It's small again.
It fits in that mold of whatI like to sell things that fit
within a six by six box or a littlebubble mailers, cardboard mailers.
(42:26):
And you'll notice that everythingI discussed today fits that bill.
They're all small items.
I can store a lot of themcheap and easy to ship.
All of these things are things youcould find in your communities.
Nothing, none of it wasextravagant or super rare.
It's just out there.
Also, you have the skill and the knowledgeto be able to recognize what is and what
(42:47):
is not worth picking up for a dollar.
So that, that's very helpful.
But you've probably got acomputer in your pocket.
Pick it up and use Google Lens, geton eBay, search it, see what's sold.
If they're selling.
That's all the proof you need ifpeople are buying them and they're
buying them at a price that isenough for you to make money.
(43:07):
It's not really much morecomplicated than that.
This has been far better than Iwould have thought for two sick guys
to put together you know after aweek of being laid up on your back.
I am hoping you're going to be feelingcontinually better I know that the cousins
that are out there are sending you goodvibes and wishes we will be back with
a brand new show next week, hopefullyon time, but let us know, reach out.
(43:28):
If you know where the mean colonel is,or the evil silver buyer is, let us
know, go to their house, knock on theirdoor and say, you're a meanie pants.
Anyway, any last words, Matt?
Just be friendly, be kind,be patient with people.
Everyone makes mistakessometimes, and that's okay.
But let's just treat each other withdignity, to the best of our ability.
(43:49):
Yeah.
In a world that's tellingyou to be outraged.
Take a moment, pause, bringit down a couple of notches.
And I think you're going to,you're going to be better off.
Absolutely.
All right, everybody have a great week.
Talk soon.
Take care.
Welcome back to the What Sold Podcast.
If you're a regular listener, younoticed that the show dropped a
little bit later today than normal.
That's because Matt and I have beeninfirmed for whatever reason, the plague
is hitting Western North Carolina.
You probably hear both ofus sound very stuffed up.
Matt was, I think he was in a sweatlodge trying to get well with the shaman.
(01:01):
I've known Matt for a long timeand I've never seen him just
disappear for Time, but I'm gonnaask you the obvious question Matt.
Yeah, I think I know the answer,but how you doing, buddy?
Man, I have been to Hades town and back.
Hades, ooh.
I was telling, we were talking aboutthis pre production, how I can't
(01:23):
remember being sick For as long asI've been sick since I was a kid.
I was a sickly kid unfortunately.
Sickly, frail.
Yep, scrawny lots of allergies, asthma,and Just not a real strong immune system.
So I got sick pretty frequently I, whatI'm dealing with here is in the month
of December I had a bad cold that lastedabout a month just wouldn't go away It's
(01:49):
one of those annoying things, it's likethe rain, when it's just cold and drizzly,
it's like either rain or just stop.
What is this?
It just won't go away.
That's what this cold was like.
And I was well enough to operate,but I was operating and just not
feeling well, and that's aggravating.
So as that sort of started toheal up, I took a short trip
(02:11):
with my wife to Mexico City.
Wonderful trip.
I stepped in the house about 30minutes later, thought, uh, oh,
stomach's not feeling so great.
Uh, oh, the curse of Teotihuacan.
It was the worst night of my life.
It was the worst.
I've had food poisoning.
I've had E. coli poisoning in the past.
Whatever this was, was horrible.
(02:34):
And it lasted two or three days.
Really one, like a 12hour period was the worst.
And then I'm recovering.
About two days after that, my daughtercomes home with surprise, the flu.
Nice.
I then catch the flu andI am on day 10 of the flu.
Took Tamiflu, didn't seem to touch it,and I am mostly well, I would say however,
(03:01):
through the, and this is TMI, but.
Through the course of extremevomiting and coughing for days,
I have given myself a hernia.
Oh my!
So now I get to go to the doctortomorrow and find out whether or not
this is going to require surgery or not.
Oh lord!
That is, not to mention I've Iprobably weigh what I weighed
(03:24):
as a junior in high school.
Which was basically 70 pounds.
That's what I weighed in high school.
I wish I had that dietplan in my life, man.
So the people that are out listening noware there's that certain audience that's
like, Our good for Yvettet is out thereis out there like, oh no, Matt, I'm sorry.
You're not feeling well.
The rest of the audience is like,Hey, listen, man, I'm here to,
(03:45):
I'm here to make some money.
Show me the money.
I don't care.
Are you breathing?
Then give me some information.
They're like, give me some information.
I don't really care about you.
We always say on this show, weare a show about retelling, but
we are also a show about people.
We face all the things thatyou people out there face.
We are people get sick.
Just like him.
There's, there's a ridiculous, I thinkthey're for like teenagers primarily, but
(04:08):
they're like, People Magazine Us Weekly.
Where they have the pictureof a, some sort of.
Famous actor actress and they'rewalking down the street and they're
like, they sneeze to like real peoplelike they, they eat ice cream, it's
like, yeah, they're human beings.
Guess what?
We get sick.
We're human beings.
We're working hard, but you equatedyourself to a Hollywood actor.
(04:31):
Well, no, I guess that, yeah,that was, that sounded arrogant.
I'm just saying, guys, bear with us.
Be patient with us becauselisten I can get knocked down.
Just like the, if not moreso it's looking like lately.
Yeah.
I don't know if I've ever known anybodythat's gone down that hard for that long.
We almost had to skip a weekbecause we usually try to get a
(04:53):
couple of shows in the books, butit's been that kind of season.
I was laid up all day yesterday.
I'm.
I'm one of the, I'm theopposite of my wife.
My wife is when she gets sick, it's like.
She immediately wants to be surrendered.
She doesn't get sickvery often to be fair.
My wife is tough as nails But whenshe does let me tell you people I got
another kindergartner in my house It'slike I got a I got to put warm water
bottles and bring her hot tea and it'smassaging the feet She loves to be
(05:17):
cared for and tended to I am the exactopposite I am one of nine kids big family.
My mom would throw out eight pieces ofbread So when I when we got sick, it
was like, oh you're gonna have to figurethis out So I like to go into the cave.
I like to just You Leave me alone,let me, let my body deal with this.
Throwing out red, it makes meimagine your mother as this bag lady
(05:37):
sitting on a park bench and she'sjust tossing breadcrumbs and the
children are crawling up to eat them.
Is that accurate?
You're not that Far away from thetruth of the double family, but no, it
just, when you're in a big family, youjust got to figure it out because we
have friends that have seven kids andit's just like, Whoa, we have an only.
So she thinks that the world,she is the son and all the
(06:00):
world's just revolve around her.
And yeah.
It is good to be back with everybody.
It is.
We're not going to lie.
We're not on our A game today.
I'm on a solid C game right now.
I don't know where Matt is.
Not even going to predict it.
Not even, he's literally, he's an NA.
How do we get through it or do we not?
That's the biggest question.
(06:21):
Yeah.
So if he passes out, I'm justgoing to fill the space with noise.
I might do like a sound bath for you guys.
I'll just, if you all of a suddenhear a sound bath, come on the show,
you'll know that Matt has gone down.
It's over.
I blame it on your El Luchador career.
I believe that you did tell us the truth.
I believe you went into there.
You stole someone's career andyou had the curse of tale Theo
(06:42):
Khan put upon you because of it.
But that's just what it was.
It was that.
I'm just guessing it's my fault becausemy opponent offered me some street corn
and I just thought it was a kind gesture.
I took it.
You did talk about, I didn'trealize that it was laced,
with something to make me sick.
Listen, you live, you learn.
When you go to countries, I traveledquite a bit in South and Central America
when I was a teacher because I could,I would always get, like in the first
(07:06):
week, I'd always get these terribleGI because you're just not used to it.
They don't wash their food to the same,the water's more polluted, just whatever.
We're delicate.
Americans are delicate.
So regardless, Matt, it'sgood to be back with you.
I'm like a flower.
You've got to take care of me.
Yeah.
You are like a delicate flower.
We're back.
We're glad that you're back.
I was looking at information ongetting my lawn prepped for the spring.
(07:29):
So I'm going to look at information onhow to get Matt prepped for the spring.
So today we're going to do, weusually talk about what Matt sold.
I don't know if you've been soldanything this week, honestly, man.
I did.
This is all about buying and selling.
And I would say, generallyspeaking, I like my job.
I think it's.
It's fascinating.
I learn a lot of things.
(07:49):
It keeps me busy.
You get out of it what you put into it.
So if you're gonna take a couple days offa week, you're not gonna earn as much.
It's sort of common sense.
Right.
But, I have to tell you that whileI was sick with the flu, about the
midway point, about two to threedays in, about the worst point in the
course of it for me, I had to get up.
(08:12):
I'd been on my back for two days.
I had to get up because I alreadyhad 40 orders that were past due.
Now that's a lot.
And I couldn't let them go any longer.
I had to go down and I had tofulfill, I had to find, package,
make labels, package 40 separateorders in the worst part of flu.
(08:34):
And I have to tell you, This isthe only time this is the strongest
that I've ever thought to myself.
Why am I doing this job?
What am I doing?
If I was sick with any other job,I would have just called in and
nothing would be required of me.
But when you work for yourself,sometimes, there are, you're up
(08:54):
against a deadline, and you have toget things done, and I had no choice.
Because, folks, if You would, someof you out there might say listen,
if you're that sick, just like, it'sokay, you're going to get back to it.
It's yes.
And no, because the thing is, if you,there are certain types of analytics
and things that eBay is tracking onyour store, the speed at which you
(09:15):
ship things, whether or not you havedisputes that don't get resolved
between you and the buyer or you andthe seller and eBay has to step in.
There are these different markers andthey have set themselves, they set this.
There are this like percentage where ifyou're above that or below it, depending
(09:37):
on what it is, you're going to be in thegood zone, meaning you're above standard
or you're a top rated seller, but ifyou slip beyond that mark, whatever it
is, then they will start to initiateputting restrictions on your account.
And that can look likethey will hold your funds.
For a longer period of time.
So you don't get paid out.
(09:57):
Do they tell you why?
What is holding your funds?
How can they get away with that?
It's your money.
Why are they?
Because in their all powerful, allknowing self they, that's their policies.
It's their platform.
They'll set up however they want and Theirjustification for this is that if they
see that a seller is not fulfilling theirobligations in a timely manner or keeping
(10:23):
a certain percentage, rate of doingwhatever the thing is, then they feel like
that puts their buying community at risk.
To either be defrauded or itthings are just not operating as
efficiently as they expect them to be.
And they will punish you if youdo not maintain the standards
(10:43):
that they set forth for you.
And you can see that at any giventime, you can look and see both where
you rate today and where you will ratethe next time that they go through and
check your store, which is once a month.
And so it'll say you're abovestandard or you're a top rated seller.
And then it'll say next month, you'reeither the same or above or below that.
(11:07):
Now, if you get to a point where yousay, didn't fulfill your items in a
timely enough manner, then they're goingto send you a message and say, Hey, you
had a high Rate of past due shipping,or you had a higher than average rate
of returns or item, not being items, notbeing described according to your buyers.
(11:30):
So you need to keep an eye on that.
They will enact any kind ofrestriction that they want.
I have had that happen to me before.
It's not fun.
They can hold onto your money.
If you run an auction, let's say it'sa seven day auction, seven days is
going to go before that item sells.
When you have an auction, the buyeris not required to pay immediately.
(11:52):
They can have up to three days to pay.
Let's say they wait to the third day.
So now you're 10 days outfrom initiating an auction.
To when it, it sells and it is paid for.
If you have a restriction, they mightsay, you're not going to have funds
available until three within threedays of confirmation of delivery.
(12:13):
So it's been 10 days.
I ship out this item ground advantage.
It's going to take threeto four days to get there.
Now we're looking at 16 to 17 days.
Okay.
It's arrived at day 17.
And then they're going towait another three days.
We're looking at 20 days beforethe funds are now available to you.
(12:33):
That's three quarters of amonth before you get paid.
And is it 30 days after that, thatthe money, because they can return it.
So when does the 30 daysstart, when they receive it?
I think that the 30 days beginson the day of receipt of the item.
Now, I may be wrong on that, maybethe date of the sale, but I think
it's the date that they receivethe item, they have 30 days to
(12:57):
return it to you if they want to.
Yes, you can get paid at 20 days, butthen, it's not really your money to
use, and, because you don't know ifthey're going to return it to you or not.
The point is, They're, I got up whenI was sick as a dog, okay, to do this
because if I didn't get these in and thissomehow dings my store, this can cause
problems for me and my store globally,meaning for as long as they want to hold
(13:24):
that restriction, literally anythingI sell to any person, they can hold on
to my money for as long as they want.
And you know what they'redoing with that money?
They're making money on it.
They're not giving it to me.
They're finding someother way to make money.
And.
It is their prerogative to do that becausewhen you create a store or you choose to
sell on their platform, you're signinga large, long document, agreeing to
(13:49):
adherence to their policies, which thepolicies that they've created and any
policy that they decide to change betweennow and forever, you have to follow those.
You have no recourse.
So if they put a restriction and youdon't like it, you can call them and
talk to them and try to work it out.
Good luck to you, West, whetheror not they're going to do
(14:09):
something to help you or not.
But that was a long rabbit hole.
The point is I needed to do thisbecause I don't want to have my
account, one of my accounts restricted.
By the way, this is why Ihave more than one account.
If tomorrow they put a restrictionon one account, guess what?
I'm not putting anything onthat account to sell anymore.
I'm going to start listingon another account.
(14:31):
So do you just kill thataccount all the time?
I don't kill it because I have thousandsof items on all of my eBay stores.
I gotcha.
I'm like, Oh, that's a bummer.
Now anything that sells on that store,I'm have to wait to get paid for.
And I do this full time.
I rely upon regular intervals of payouts.
For the things that I sellin order to pay my bills.
Now, if I only have one EA store and theyput a restriction on it, I'm in trouble.
(14:55):
That is a major problem.
And I have encountered that before.
That is why I have at least three eBaystores active at all times with enough
inventory on them to where I can pivot.
And wait out the othersituation to resolve.
And then anything new that I'm puttingin, I'm putting into those stores.
That's how I hedge.
(15:15):
That seems like an obvious advantage,a reason why you would have three
stores, but is there disadvantage?
I know what the advantageis to the extra stores.
Is there a disadvantage tohaving the extra stores?
I, yes.
In the sense that if you wantto say, focus on a particular
category of items, Sure.
You have a, because if you have aperson who finds an item or items,
(15:39):
they get a good price, they decidethey want to follow that store and
they want to buy items and be alertedwhen you put new things out, oops,
now my store has a restriction and.
For the next 30 days, I'm not listeningto anything on that store anymore.
So that person that's following thatstore is not following the store.
My other store that I'm now activelyusing, I try to keep them all active, but
(16:01):
at any given time, I'm more busy on onethan another just because I'm one person.
How often does that happen whereyou get a restriction on a store?
It does not happen often, but you canfollow everything through the letter,
all your policy, all their policies,and still something can happen.
I'll go to list somethingfor 10 and they'll flag it.
(16:23):
And they'll say, Hey, this is ivory.
You're trying to sell ivory.
It's illegal to sell ivoryand it's against our policies.
And this is this is going to threaten.
eBay to allow for you to be puttingillegal things on your store.
So we're gonna lock your storefor 30 days and i'm gonna be
like, ah, this isn't ivory.
What are you talking about?
(16:44):
And then they go like wellWe just got to be careful.
We just got to be safe.
Like they can do anything like that.
They don't have to have agood reason They don't have to
admit that they made a mistake.
They don't have to fix it Theydon't have to do anything.
That's eBay.
Because they're offering, they'rethe platform that if they're there
(17:05):
in their mind, they're like, if youdon't want to say, obviously there's
a tipping point for them because it'seconomies of scale, if they made enough
people mad and left or another platformcame up that was better, then they
might change that, but at this point.
Anybody that's doing what you'redoing is probably selling on eBay.
So they just have such a massive,quarter of the market that for them, it's
(17:27):
like, whatever, then don't sell here.
Exactly.
Yeah.
They don't care if I leave.
I gross six figures on eBay.
They make lots of money from me bothin monthly subscription costs and
in little nickel and dime stuff.
And the, the sale feesand they still don't care.
(17:51):
They don't care if they lose me.
I think ultimately they're, we'vetalked about this a lot on the show.
I didn't know any of this stuff,but I'm starting to pick this up.
Their real concern is the cost,is the buyer, not the seller, the
buyer is the one that they don't.
Cause if the buyers leave, then itdoesn't matter how many sellers they have.
They go out of their way.
I've experienced this firsthandof protecting the buyer.
(18:14):
To the point where it's almost absurd.
You're like, wait, what?
If you were a person that knew how togame the eBay system as a buyer, and I
know there are people out here that do it,it'd be pretty easy to scam the system.
I think I talked about this lasttime, but here's a quick example.
Recently, I sold 1, 500 worthof sterling silver jewelry.
I sent it to the person.
They responded, Hey, this is an empty box.
(18:36):
And I said, no, it's not an empty box.
It was 1, 500 of sterlingsilver jewelry that I sent you.
And they contacted eBay and say, andsaid, Hey, he sent me an empty box.
See here's a picture of an empty box.
And they said, Oh, weshould return your money.
And so they got my jewelry and theygot my money and I appealed it.
Whoa, really?
I appealed it and they said,the buyer signed an affidavit.
(19:00):
Saying that they were being honest,that it was an empty box, end of story.
They stole that stole 1, 500of sterling silver from me.
And, once all of it was done, it wasabout a 30 day process of an appeal
and everything, they still sidedwith the buyer, and then the buyer
got on and left me a negative reviewsaying that I sent them an empty box.
(19:21):
So I have a negative review on my account.
You're kidding me.
I am not kidding you.
That is horrible.
Yep.
Can you give me the name andI'm going to dox that person?
Here's the thing.
I have the person'sname and address, right?
I could go file a police report.
I suppose.
I don't know if it, is it worth that time?
What does it cost?
Do I have to get an attorney?
Do I take them to small claims court?
(19:42):
Did you take a picture of the box and.
When you go to like ship it,is there any way to prove it?
The only thing that there it'sthat person's word against mine.
And so the point i'm making your point,which is they support the buyers.
They don't support the seller.
I have a picture of the jewelry.
The picture that I, the picturesthat I listed in the listing to
attract the buyer in the first place.
(20:04):
I have them physically in my hand.
I weighed it.
I shipped it.
They got it.
They pulled out the jewelry and they said.
Oh, there's nothing here.
Now, is there a world inwhich it's conceivable that
someone stole it in transit?
Is it conceivable that the U. S.Postal Service dropped it in a hole,
(20:24):
it broke a hole in it and it fell out?
Somebody else got it?
I guess anything's possible.
But all I know for certain is thatI did send them 1, 500 of silver.
And eBay did not side with me.
They did not protect me as a seller.
They did not refund my money.
They gave the money back to the buyer.
They got the item.
(20:45):
Wow.
Or didn't.
I don't know for certain.
And that's it.
What a scam.
It was 100 percent a scam andeBay did not at all support me.
That's amazing to me because itwould, it seems like, I get it.
People scam, trust me, I'm doinga series, another show of scams,
digital scams and they're everywhere.
(21:06):
It's incredible what, how manybad criminal people are out there.
The anonymity of digitalexchanges makes it even worse.
But so you know who this person is, youknow where they live, and yet they still
are so brazen that they would do thisbecause they're like they can't prove it.
It's my word against theirsand eBay as the mediator.
(21:29):
How do they know either?
I'm just giving them the benefitof the doubt for a moment.
They don't know if I'm telling thetruth or if they're telling the truth.
Now they should look and see that I'vebeen selling on their platform for
over 20, like nearly 25 years and thatthey make hordes of money from me and
I grow six figures on their platformevery year and I continue to use it.
You would think that would meansomething to them, but apparently not.
(21:53):
Wait a second.
It seems, oh my gosh, thisis so frustrating to me.
I just think about it, one, becauseyou're my friend and I just don't
like dishonest people, but it seemslike you could have some sort of
a certified thing on eBay where itsays, hey, Matt is a certified seller.
We know he's not going to Steal from you.
There's too many layers, Matt,wouldn't it just, you may just
(22:15):
say, we don't need to do that.
We don't care.
Like this person has probablydone it somewhere else, right?
They don't care.
They don't care enough to put anysort of measure like that in there.
It's on me as the seller to insureit if I want to insure it, to make
sure that it requires signature ifI want that, both of which I did.
I can chase down the insurance claim.
I can just claim it as a loss on taxes.
(22:37):
That's it.
This was a loss and it'sexactly what it was.
Much like I'm going to have toclaim all the inventory I lost.
When hurricane Helene washed away abuilding that had a lot of my inventory
in it, crazy natural disasters.
There's not a whole lot leftfor me to do other than that.
At the end of the day.
Any job you have for yourself,there are risks and there are
(22:58):
potential losses or realized losses.
And that's what I have to do.
It leaves a really bad tastein my mouth because listen, I
want everyone to understand.
I use eBay, not because I love eBay.
I use eBay because it is the largestplatform that attracts the most buyers and
I stand to make the most money, but do notbelieve for one second that I trust eBay.
(23:22):
I do not trust eBay.
Do not trust eBay at all to dothe right thing to support me.
They're not going to most of the time.
They're not.
If I'm the seller, if I'm the buyer,they're more likely to support me,
but you know what, I'm not out to scamanybody as a buyer, so I'm never going
to get advanced the advantage of that.
Unless a seller tries to scam me.
(23:42):
And that almost never happens.
Almost has never happened.
It seems, and I'm way deep in the weedson these scams, but it truly does feel
like there has to be some fundamentalshift in the way we do business online.
And with the way that people can scamand are willing to scam, that there
has to be some easier way to deal withthis because all that's going to do is
(24:06):
discourage people from wanting to sellon, like I would never sell on eBay
because I had a terrible experience.
At some point businessesdon't last forever.
Somebody else will comealong and do a better job.
You just wonder, is there someway to, like the verification
part of this whole thing, thatthere has to be some verification.
The only thing I can do,unfortunately, is just to block them.
(24:28):
So there is a way you can block buyers.
So if I have an interaction likethis, then I will go in and block
that buyer on all of my stores.
Like it, it stinks.
It was a bad situation, but guess what?
Never going to do it to me again.
You're not buying from me again, ever.
You're not allowed to.
I've blocked you.
I just.
It's rough.
That's the scammers.
(24:49):
And then there are peoplewho are just really unkind.
I had a person this week while I was,I made a mistake, I made a mistake
and I sent a person bought a coupleof like antique, they were like pin
backs essentially, but they werelike metals, I guess, like brass.
I sold two to one person andone of them that I sent was
(25:10):
very similar, but it was wrong.
So as I was going through in my sicklystupor I pulled one that was very close
and similar, but it wasn't the exact one.
One was correct, one wasn't.
I sent it off.
I get a response or I get anemail from the person saying that,
Hey, one of these is incorrect.
I would like it back.
I responded within 24 hours.
(25:32):
But in less than 24 hours, I gottwo more very hateful messages being
like, Why have you not responded?
I'm gonna have to take this up with eBay.
I'm sick.
I'm in bed.
I can't, I get on my phone andI go, Listen, I'm sorry that
it's taken me less than a dayto respond to you, but I'm sick.
I'm going to do my best to fix this.
I'm very sorry.
(25:52):
They get on and their responseis, I'm glad that you have the flu
because, whoa, otherwise you werejust a super dishonest person.
I expect to get my trueitem as soon as possible.
That's their response.
And I get on and they signed it asretired military, blah, blah, blah.
(26:13):
I get on and I say, wow, really,I admitted that I made a mistake.
I'm a human being.
I've been very sick.
I'm going to take care ofthis the best of my ability.
I would like to think that someonein your position, trained military,
would understand that treating ahuman being better than that is more
(26:34):
important than a little piece ofcopper, and it, I'm going to be very
honest with you, it made me angry.
I was, I'd been sick for like two months.
And this, by the way, this was like a,this was like a less than a 10 item.
And I got on, I said, you know what, whydon't you go ahead and initiate a return?
(26:54):
And when I get them, I'm going to giveyou a full refund and I'm going to be
happy to sell this to somebody elsewho has a little bit of integrity.
That's what I did.
So I didn't, I, I chose not to fix it.
I said, I have a 30 day returnpolicy, return the items.
One of them is correct.
And one of them is not, but return them.
I'll refund you and I'm going to blockyou, I didn't say this, but I'm going
(27:15):
to block him and I'm going to sell itto somebody else because you know what?
I don't like that.
I don't like you getting onand being aggressive, verbally
aggressive like that towards me.
Because again, I'm a seller.
I know I'm using someone else'splatform, but it's my item.
I can choose who I want to sell it to.
And guess what?
You're not that guy.
Did he return it?
He has initiated a return.
(27:35):
I haven't received it yet.
He ain't getting his money back untilI get it, but I have blocked him.
Sometimes that's the way it goes.
Anyone who's worked in retailand this is pseudo retail.
I'm not actually having to stand anddeal with rude people, but anyone who's
worked in the retail world in person knowspeople can be very hateful and nasty.
(27:55):
And you know what?
Brandon, most of the time, I cangive people the benefit of the doubt.
Even when people wererude, I can brush it off.
I don't know what'sgoing on in their life.
Maybe they're having a bad day.
Stuff happened to them.
It's not fair that they'retaking it out on me.
But I want to give themthe benefit of the doubt.
But when I'm sick, and I'm down and out,and someone treats me that way, I just.
(28:16):
There's a limit.
Everyone has a limit andthat was my limit that day.
My limit would have been a longtime ago, but that's you and
I are very different people.
The part of this whole thing is,and this is more of an editorial
comment for people listening.
The anonymity of The internetis a big part of this problem.
For sure.
This person might be aperfectly normal person.
(28:38):
And I always say that, when yougo to a retail store, you have to
actually physically face the person.
So if you're going to be rude tothem, they're going to see you.
They're going to know who you are.
As opposed to this, it just lendsitself to people doing mean things.
Let's hope that Rusty doesn'ttake too much of this and that
this is sort of an anomaly.
If you're out there, if you're outthere listening, retired, Military
(28:58):
colonel, you need to change yoursalutation to retired military, active
a hole, because that's Meaty pants.
That's right.
Active meaty pants.
That's right.
Because, Come on.
Why treat people You'reasking for me to help you.
You're simultaneously askingme for me to help you.
And then you're being hateful.
I just don't, I just don't get it.
(29:18):
I think that part of that probably, I'mjust, I don't know this, but I do know
that when you have things that you'vebought online, you don't see the person.
So you're like, are they scared?
He's like, is this guy scamming me?
Sure.
And instead of thinking, let'slook through the process.
And I think that eBay, because theyprotect the buyer so much, they also
helped create this problem where they,the buyer could just be a complete.
(29:41):
Maybe pants and there's no recourse.
There's no.
I think what we're also seeing isjust the sad Reality of our culture
now, which is we go from zero tooutraged in one move There is no what
is this on a scale of one to ten?
It's A one, and then it's a ten.
(30:01):
You think the worst.
I'm being scammed, I'm outraged, andnow I need to get out and be nasty.
Folks, that doesn't help your cause.
You need to give peoplethe benefit of the doubt.
You need to work with people.
Be patient, for goodness sake.
There's another mantra of this show,which is obviously we want to help people
sell, and we want to Talk about all thisstuff, but the you call people cousins
(30:25):
for a reason We really are all the in thistogether We are there are gonna be times
where you're gonna have disagreements withpeople, but we could disagree cordially
We can say hey I'm not sure about if theperson's a bad person You could deal with
that and the way you want to deal withthat But if the person just made a mistake
Let's all just be cousins here and say,I'm not going to do that to my cousin.
Yeah, exactly.
If my cousin made a mistake,I'd be like, oh, it's okay.
(30:47):
We'll figure it out.
So anyway, all right.
Wow.
I That was a long one.
I do have some things I would loveto talk about and what we sold.
Yeah.
I want to talk about what you sold, butI am, I thought this was going to be one
of these shows we're going to limp in.
I'm like you hit it.
Well, this has been a downer so far.
This has been a downer.
This is my fault.
Again, I'm operating off of inrecovery mode and but I've been dealing
(31:07):
with it, I've been dealing with itand there are better days ahead.
Let me ask you a question because weare about teach people like in this
case with that silver, is there anythingyou would have done differently?
Or is this just part of the deal?
I would have insured it for 1,500 dollars, I suppose, and paid
the 50 bucks, whatever it was.
You can insure, if you're shippingthrough the U. S. Postal Service, you
(31:28):
can insure things up to 4, 000 dollars.
But if you're going to sellsomething for 10, 000 dollars,
and you want to ship it through U.
S. Postal Service, you're in trouble,because if something happens, And you
have to, seek that, that insurance.
You can't go above four grand.
So I actually don't exactly know howpeople insure things that are that much.
(31:50):
More expensive.
Luckily, I'm not, I push thatsometimes with vintage instruments.
I may sell something that's fiveor six grand, but I'm requiring
things like signature anddelivery, they need to sign for it.
And, or I'm going to.
Physically take it to myself orthey have to come and collect it.
But I guess I could have done that.
Why didn't you insure it then?
(32:11):
Because I sell things worth athousand dollars or more, dozens and
dozens and dozens of times a year.
And if I paid 50 everysingle time I did that.
I'm going to have the need toaccess that claim once a year.
So I'm going to spend, am Igoing to spend two grand a year
that I'm not going to get back?
(32:32):
Cause even if I go and do pursue thatinsurance claim, are they actually
going to fulfill it and give mea hundred percent of that money?
It's insurance.
No, they're not.
That's it's in the name.
It's insurance.
Insurance never pays out fullywhat they're supposed to.
What I do is I chalk that up as a risk.
One time a year.
I'm going to get taken and that's abummer and I'm going to count that as
(32:55):
a loss and I'm going to put that on.
Some years I won't haveone and guess what?
I saved myself 2, 000 because I didn'tinsure everything all the way up
to however much it was every time.
Now if it's an instrument, ifit's four or five thousand dollar
instrument, I will pay that money.
Usually I will build that intothe cost of the item itself.
(33:16):
I'll say, listen, I know that shippingbeing 80 is a lot, but 30 is the box and
the material and 50 is the insurance.
And you're paying that on,cause I don't get that.
I'm not going to just lose that money.
If you want this item, I'm an insurantand that cost is being pushed onto you.
I'll do that sometimes.
And sometimes I won't, I don't know.
(33:36):
I wouldn't have done anything differently.
I would have hoped that a personwasn't trying to defraud me.
That's, which is probably alsopart of the reason why you like to
work with the same people when itcomes to selling gold and silver.
A hundred percent repeat buyers are great.
If I've had a good experiencewith you, I want to sell to you.
I want you to keep, Idon't want your money once.
I want it every time that you findsomething that you think is worth
(33:58):
it at the right price, come to me.
We talked about that estate sale guy,and it's like, when you can develop,
that's a verification, the person'sexactly, you've worked with them, you
can trust them, and it's a good thing.
All right.
So in our last few minutes we weregoing to talk about something completely
different, but you took me down thebest rabbit hole we've ever been down.
It was amazing.
People be nice to cousin Rusty.
He seems to have it a rough time.
(34:20):
What did you sell?
This week, don't tell me I'm gladyou had the flu rusty because I'm not
going to continue that conversation.
Be nice.
I'm glad you had the flu because itproves to me you, God smoted you.
That guy got back on, he gotback on again and responded.
He was like, no, you don't understand.
The alternative was you werea terribly dishonest person.
Go back and see the message.
(34:40):
And I'm thinking, are youtrying to justify that you told
me you're glad I got the flu?
This is ridiculous.
Get out of here.
I'm glad you did what you did becausethat colonel needs to not get that piece.
And come, I hope the colonelis listening to the show.
He's like, what?
I didn't realize thatwas you Cousin Rusty.
Had I known you were listening in orwatching, I would have worn a little
(35:01):
badge here, just so you could seeit, what you're not getting from me.
Colonel wow cousin rusty.
No, i'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
That's taking it too far Let's talkabout some cool things that I sold
and i'm excited about so one itemis this tiny little it's a women's.
Pocket watch, because I knowyou love pocket watches so much.
This is a small, this would be considereda zero S size, but it's octagonal.
(35:25):
In its case, and the thing that'sunique about this, even though there is
no brand or maker on the dial is thatit, the case is 14 carat solid gold.
So it's small and it doesn't work.
You can wind it and it's just not, Idon't know if the balance staff is off
or what's going on with it, but it'seven in not currently working condition.
(35:47):
It's still sold for 280.
Wow.
And I bought this for 20 in a littlelot of other mixed pieces of jewelry
and vintage watch parts and things.
They saw that it was a little watch.
They didn't care.
It was old.
They didn't look on the inside tosee that it was made out of gold.
So I happened to win in that.
(36:09):
Situation because it ended up beingmuch more valuable than they realized.
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
And that can happen folks.
As it starts getting, I say, as it getswarm, we're in Western North Carolina.
It's early February and I'm tellingyou, it's been like 67 degrees.
Beautiful.
I don't even understandwhat's happening around me.
The point is when there are yardsales and estate sales and stuff,
(36:31):
this kind of thing can happen.
You can find valuable stufflike that in little mixed lots.
Another thing I sold and this sold for 14.
It's just a little and I have thecase, but it's a roll of film.
It's Kodak gold, super200, 35 millimeter film.
There are only 12 exposureson it, but it's not been used.
(36:53):
It's older.
I have no idea exactly how old, butit's unused and it's been in a light
tight little plastic container.
A lot of people might thinklike why is people people are
still buying 35 millimeter film.
They're still takingphotographs and developing them.
It's not as common as it once was becausewe have digital cameras and everyone
has a really high quality camera ontheir phone now, but people who like
(37:17):
photography and use that, they stillbuy these and they don't mind going to
a platform like eBay and buying them.
From someone like me, I came acrossa little baggie of this stuff
at a thrift store for a dollar.
And there were like five orsix in here and guess what?
I split that up and I sell themall individually and 14 a piece.
By the time I sell five of those,that's a great 1 investment.
(37:39):
Yeah.
That's like a 30, 40 X,50 X on my investment.
So that's pretty nice.
So if you happen to have film layingaround, maybe grandpa's old camera in
the closet, you've got a bag with thecamera and then you, but there's some
film in there still that's not been used.
You can sell that film.
It's still good.
People will use it.
Another lot I sold for 24.
(38:02):
99 was this lot of five vintageink pens and one little refill of
ink that would go in a pen as well.
And these are various kinds.
I don't, none of these are reallyeven all that These are just
probably from like the 1970s, 1980s.
(38:22):
I'm seeing simplex manufacturing company.
Here's a state farm insurance pin.
Here's one, a fabric company.
So a lot of these have advertising.
Oh, they're like giveaway pens.
Yeah.
They're like advertising pins, right?
You'd go into a store and here's theirpins with their company on them and then
this little refill and I find these allthe time, little bags with pens, vintage
(38:45):
pencils, twisting, mechanical pencilsthat have the lead in them, or antique
ink pens, or, best case scenario, are oldfountain pens that still have the nibs.
Those nibs can be made of14 karat gold sometimes.
There's gold content in them.
Sometimes you'll come across really goodquality ink pens or fountain pens of
(39:07):
nice brands like Schaefer or Mont Blanc.
They're not looking at this.
They just see a bag of pensand they're like, Oh, 50 cents.
You know what I mean?
At a thrift store happens all the time.
You can pluck one thing out of there andmake way more than you spent on all of
it, or you can sell it as a whole lot.
But I love, I actually love, I thinkthey're interesting and shoot, I can pull
(39:28):
a couple out and just use them at my desk.
And then sell the rest and make money.
And I've won twice.
Nice.
That's a good one.
Here's another cool little old bottle.
Old bottles sell really well.
And especially, I've had I've gota few that I've listed lately that
were like little inkwell bottles.
Some that were apothecary type bottlesor from old doctors bottles that
(39:52):
they would have medicines and things.
This one is cool becauseit has a little lid.
It's a brown, like an amber glass.
And it says Hydrarg salicylpoison on the label.
So it says poison.
That's cool.
Bottles, generally speaking,bottles, older bottles that
still have their labels intact.
can go for more money because peoplelike those, sometimes they're just
(40:16):
little things they put up on a bookshelf.
They think it's interesting.
Or I don't know what else, maybe theycraft with them or they do other things.
Maybe they clean them out andthen they use them for something.
They can repurpose that in thekitchen or something like that.
It'd be funny to have a little bottlewith salt or something on the table, but
it has a label that says poison on it.
(40:37):
I'm not suggesting you do that, butyeah, who knows, there's all kinds
of things that people do with it.
Yeah.
It reminds me of it's a wonderful lifewhere he discovers that Mr. Gowers, but
Mr. Gower, there's something, you putsomething bad in that bottle, Mr. Gower.
Exactly.
Exactly.
He wasn't paying attention.
Last thing I have here, which is cool.
Oh, by the way, this bottlejust showed sold for 24.
(40:57):
It's not a big bottle.
It's just a small bottle,but it's, it's vintage.
The last thing I'll show is this.
These are bottles as well, but theseare miniature beer bottles right here.
We have one with labelsays Gunther's beer.
And when I say miniature, theseare probably four inches tall
and they have the little caps onthem, but what these were actually
(41:19):
for were salt and pepper shakers.
So the top of them have little holesand they're made to look like lager beer
bottles with the label and everything.
They look.
Everything about them looks like aregular beer bottle, the amber glass,
with the exception that the top has thoselittle, the holes in them, so you know
you could use them for salt or pepper.
And there's a bunch of peopleout there who collect salt and
(41:42):
pepper shakers, that's been acollectible thing for a long time.
There is two sets.
We got this one of Gunther's and thenthis one of Blatz, B L A T Z, Blatz
Beer, Milwaukee's finest, it says.
And again, the top issalt and pepper shakers.
And so this lot also sold for 24.
(42:02):
These happened to be ones that I soldfor someone else, so I didn't buy them.
But things like this, if I had seenthis for a couple bucks, two, three
bucks, I would have bought it.
That's a good price.
I'll turn three bucks into 25 bucks.
That's fine.
It's small again.
It fits in that mold of whatI like to sell things that fit
within a six by six box or a littlebubble mailers, cardboard mailers.
(42:26):
And you'll notice that everythingI discussed today fits that bill.
They're all small items.
I can store a lot of themcheap and easy to ship.
All of these things are things youcould find in your communities.
Nothing, none of it wasextravagant or super rare.
It's just out there.
Also, you have the skill and the knowledgeto be able to recognize what is and what
(42:47):
is not worth picking up for a dollar.
So that, that's very helpful.
But you've probably got acomputer in your pocket.
Pick it up and use Google Lens, geton eBay, search it, see what's sold.
If they're selling.
That's all the proof you need ifpeople are buying them and they're
buying them at a price that isenough for you to make money.
(43:07):
It's not really much morecomplicated than that.
This has been far better than Iwould have thought for two sick guys
to put together you know after aweek of being laid up on your back.
I am hoping you're going to be feelingcontinually better I know that the cousins
that are out there are sending you goodvibes and wishes we will be back with
a brand new show next week, hopefullyon time, but let us know, reach out.
(43:28):
If you know where the mean colonel is,or the evil silver buyer is, let us
know, go to their house, knock on theirdoor and say, you're a meanie pants.
Anyway, any last words, Matt?
Just be friendly, be kind,be patient with people.
Everyone makes mistakessometimes, and that's okay.
But let's just treat each other withdignity, to the best of our ability.
(43:49):
Yeah.
In a world that's tellingyou to be outraged.
Take a moment, pause, bringit down a couple of notches.
And I think you're going to,you're going to be better off.
Absolutely.
All right, everybody have a great week.
Talk soon.
Take care.
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