April 16, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of the What Sold podcast, Brandon and Matt discuss the current crazy economic climate and its implications for resellers, emphasizing the importance of adjusting strategies and the value of the secondary market amid rising tariffs and market volatility. They share personal experiences with shifting consignment percentages and recount their own recent sales, including valuable items like a rare Gibson guitar and intricate antique collectibles. They also touch on noteworthy topics such as the impact of the stock market's sentiment-based swings, the historical context of items they sold, and consumer behavior in uncertain times. The episode closes with fan interactions and responses to listener questions, along with some lighthearted personal anecdotes.
00:00 Introduction and Hosts
01:08 The Aftermarket Merchant in Crazy Times
02:11 Market Uncertainty and Economic Concerns
05:12 Reselling Strategies and Adjustments
13:54 Stock Market Volatility and Historical Context
15:28 Viewer Comments and Questions
26:29 Honesty in Business Deals
27:19 The Bed from Hell: A Facebook Marketplace Story
28:40 Weekly Sales Highlights: Citrine Ring
31:59 Giuseppe Armani Sculpture: Comet
36:06 Vintage Gibson Guitars: A Collector's Dream
44:20 The Curse of the 27 Club
44:48 Gold and Silver Market Insights
45:32 Dukes of Hazzard Memorabilia
46:58 The Ivory Samurai Sword Dilemma
50:14 Wrapping Up: Final Thoughts and Announcements
The What Sold Podcast Subreddit
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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.
I am Brandon.
This is Matt.
He is the machete of merchants,the man, the Master of Mayhem.
Wait a second.
That makes it sound like I'mjust tearing through people.
You kind of are tearing through thewhat sold world, that's for sure.
I had no idea when I started this,how many people were out there.
(00:59):
Involved in this business.
I always assume.
I was like, oh, that's, it's interesting.
He's a reseller.
We know.
No, you're an aftermarket merchant.
Yes.
And it's interesting because rightnow, if anybody's been paying attention
and Oh man, maybe some of you have.
We're in crazy times, brother.
We're in crazy times.
Forget the politics.
Yes, just the simple economics of it all.
(01:21):
It is nutty bug.
So we have, what do theysay when you get lemons?
Make lemonade.
This is the time to be a aftermarketmerchant because if these tariffs go
through the prices of everything is gonnago up, and that means that the secondary
market is going to be as valuable, ifnot more valuable and it's ever been.
(01:44):
What do you think about that, Matt?
The tariffs not, what do youthink about the but about as far
as a reseller, I. I am concerned
this is not a political podcast,so it doesn't matter listener if
you're a supporter of the currentadministration or if you are not,
or if you're somewhere in between.
(02:06):
By the way, there is an InBetween out.
There doesn't have to be one or the other.
Right.
That's true actually.
Right.
I'm concerned from what I'm seeing fromthe stock market, the chatter and what,
how people are reacting is fascinating to.
I think that the people who support theadministration, I'm hearing that they,
A lot of the rhetoric now is yeah, it'sbad, but this is just a short term thing.
(02:29):
Let it go past and longterm this will be good.
And I hope that's true.
I don't know.
Time will tell.
What I do know is that when themarkets get very, okay, first of all.
The way the market moves hasnothing to do with the actual
fundamentals of companies, right?
Just because a company is strong and hasgood outlook does not mean that their
(02:52):
stock price is always gonna be high.
The market is largely basedon sentiment of the investors.
And when there's uncertainty, whichthere is right now, and nobody
really knows what's gonna happen,when it's gonna happen and how it's
gonna play out, that leads to fear.
And then fear leads to.
These dramatic swings up and down in themarket when there's a lot of uncertainty.
(03:17):
People, not unlike what happens withyour body when you go to sleep or
when you're sick, as like certainparts of your body kind of stop.
They stop working on stuff that'snon-essential, and then they
start moving, the body moves totake care of the essential organs
and the rest, it's on pause.
(03:37):
The way that in historically, and I'mtalking about the Covid times and what
resulted from that is that people,they really became tight with their
spending because if they look at theirinvestments, if you're retired and
you're looking at your 401k and you'renervous, you don't know if that money's
gonna, if it's gonna bounce back or not.
(04:00):
If it's gonna, are we in a recession?
We can't know for sure.
Is this the beginning?
We don't know.
So people start saying to themselves,I need to hold on to what I have.
Discretionary spending needs to go down.
Now the reason I personally am concernedis that I sell primarily antiques and
collectibles, the things that I offerand sell, though they can be valuable
(04:22):
and there can be markets for that stuff.
They are not essential items, right?
They're the things that people buywhenever they have extra money and they
want to get gifts or they collect a thing.
That is one of the first things to dropoff is buying things that you don't need.
And so it concerns me because ofthe types of things that I have
invested in that I have that I sell.
(04:43):
This month has been very bad, andusually March and into April is better.
Then February is usually really bad.
And it was Flip Flo this year.
February was just fine.
This month has been, I don'twanna say abysmal, but it's been
worse than a typical month for me.
Mm-hmm.
Now why why is that?
(05:04):
I think it has a lot to do withthe market, as you mentioned.
Mm-hmm.
So now the flip side of thatis I am concerned about the
types of things that I have.
I'm not though concerned aboutthe idea of reselling things or
the aftermarket world because thisis the other edge of the blade.
The.
Edge is that people, when they want tospend less money, they're gonna start
(05:27):
looking for good quality used items, andthey're gonna start spending more money
in marketplaces that have those typesof things rather than buying brand new
stuff because it's cheaper for thosepeople out there who have clothing or
stuff that all people use and need.
Now would be a good time to startputting that stuff out there.
(05:49):
It's stuff that you can have around thehouse, so just start with what you have.
That way you don't have to spend any moneyand just start putting stuff out there.
It's not a difficult to do.
Starting up accounts on a lot ofthese platforms like Etsy or eBay or,
they're not difficult to start up.
Nobody has to do it full-time like I do.
But I'm a little concerned becauseI'm only able to do this full-time.
(06:11):
Because I'm able to make enough money topay my bills, but if things shift in the
market where I can no longer do that,then I'm gonna have a decision to make.
Mm-hmm.
Do I shift away from this or do Ifind different types of items to sell?
Or am I willing for a period of timeto take much less profit than I would
(06:32):
normally expect on things simplyto sell them and to bring money in?
So there's a lot of things to consider.
There's also the other side of thatwith the Warren Buffet approach.
To this whole thing is that WarrenB Buffett buys when the market
is bad and sells, he doesn't.
Mm-hmm.
He buy, he makes, he's made hismoney in basically being able to buy
up stuff that people are afraid of.
(06:52):
So when the market drops, I guarantee you,if Warren Buffett's out there scooping up.
When you're a multi-billionaire.
Mm-hmm.
And if you're smart, you alwayshold, you always have a pretty
strong cash position because youdon't know like anyone else does.
You don't know when themarket's gonna tank.
Mm-hmm.
And so they spread out their investments.
They have stuff in all kinds of thingsthat are low risk, but also low return.
(07:15):
And that is how they hedge wheneverthey're more risky investments.
Drop.
But then when you have a strongcash position, when everything
gets really bad, you buy back in.
And not only do you cover yourlosses, but then you know you're
gonna be stronger in the future.
And so it's true.
When you have money, you can make money.
I'm wondering about those folksthat are out there that are, say
(07:36):
they're retired, maybe they have alittle bit of discretionary income.
This would be the time to shop.
This would be the time to go out andsee if you can get some of that stuff
that normally would cost a whole lotmore, but because people are nervous
or like you said they're willingto take less because of the market.
This would be the time to go out and buythat stuff that you can hang onto it for
a couple years, could be really valuable.
(07:58):
So I just a thought No, absolutely.
That's correct.
That's absolutely true.
If you're in a position to do that willprobably, you'll probably come out on top.
But you have to have that money.
Mm-hmm.
And you have to know you don't needit back within a certain period
of time and a place to store it.
Because what you're doing is essentiallyin, you're doing an investment,
(08:19):
it's speculative to a degree.
'cause you don't know what themarket's gonna be like in the future.
But you can use educated guesses.
For sure.
The stuff that we've talked abouton this show about what things sell.
When the market is good we prettymuch know what's gonna sell and what's
not gonna sell, or that's, that'sthe whole basis of this show, right?
Mm-hmm.
The what Sold podcast.
So I'm curious then, if we're in this,what are you doing differently now?
(08:45):
That, and again, it's so new, wejust don't know at this point.
I think that's part of thereason why people are so nervous.
'cause everybody's like,wait, is this for real?
Is this really gonna happenor is this just a ploy?
I suspect a lot of supportersare probably saying, oh, it's
just a ploy to get a better deal.
I think what makes me nervous about itis there's a lot of really smart people
(09:06):
out there in finance that are nervous.
Lot of people that are way, way, way moreconnected to the markets than any of us
are that are starting to say we need todo something or we're in big trouble.
That's what makes me nervous a little bit.
I don't know if that nervousnessis what's behind that?
Is it, are they nervous for thecountry at large and other people,
(09:27):
or are they just nervous abouttheir own personal investments
and if they're gonna lose money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And the other thing, and again, I don'twant to, I don't want to delve too much
into the political realm, but I am notas stressed, aside from my own job,
which I'm not that stressed becauseI just, my sort of belief system.
Maybe this is drawingon my spiritual beliefs.
(09:48):
I believe that my family and I are goingto be okay regardless of what happens.
I'm not, I think we have strong supportsin our lives, and I'm not that concerned.
I'm more concerned for when I seethings that seem like other people
or people group or marginalizedand minority groups are starting
to be affected in negative ways.
(10:08):
That's what bothers me the most.
I'm not really thinking about.
You know the business as much.
Now, coming back full circle a littlebit to what you mentioned a moment ago
is you started to ask, what am I doing?
And I'm doing two things right now totry to, as an adjustment, hopefully,
that I can continue to bring in revenue.
(10:29):
One thing is, and we've talkedabout this on the show previously,
delisting items from eBay andthen selling the similar item.
It copies, it, puts it back in.
I was doing that aboutonce a week for of my.
eBay stores that I have thousandsof items on in each one, so mm-hmm.
You can do 200 at a time.
I might be do somewhere between fourand 600 in each store once a week.
(10:52):
Drop 'em, relist them, okay.
Or sell this, sell the similar item.
Now I'm doing that aboutevery other day, so, wow.
I'm pulling out as many as Ican and I'm selling somewhere.
I'm putting them back in, sothey're at the top of the queue.
And I'm periodically throwing upon auction items that have been
(11:13):
there for months and months orover a year that haven't sold.
I'm dropping the price andI'm putting it on auction.
I wanna move that stuff, Iwant to get it outta here.
It's taken up space, clearly notthat desirable because it's been
available to the, to everyonefor a year and hasn't sold.
So either I'm asking too much or themarket on that is cooled or whatever else.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm trying to get somesteady income coming by always
(11:34):
having a combination of auction.
And buy it nows.
But the main thing I've been doingis I've been pulling out things that,
again, have sat here, haven't sold.
They have value, but I've gotthem up listed individually.
I'm pulling them out, I'm goinginto eBay and I'm completely
delisting and deleting them.
(11:55):
We're talking thousands of items.
Like this morning, I sortedabout 4,000 postcards.
Yikes.
And these are all ones that I had in smallgroups or individually listed anywhere
from like 20 bucks, 10 bucks to 20 bucks,all the way down to maybe $8 a piece.
I've gone through and now I'm going tosell them in lots, in, in smaller, lots of
(12:17):
maybe 500 at a time I pulled, I separatedall the real picture postcards or real
photo postcards out of the other stack.
I'm gonna do lots of just PPCsbecause those have a pretty
strong base of collectors and Ithink I'll get some good money.
Am I gonna make less on this stuffthan if I just left it there over
the course of the next few years?
(12:38):
Absolutely.
But because I don't knowwhat's gonna happen.
I'm gonna get that money now.
I'm gonna get some money in,now I'm gonna hold some back.
I'm gonna invest somewhere in thecompany and I'm, I'm gonna pay my bills.
I know that if things in two, threemonths time calm down, I can go out
(12:58):
and buy a lot of 4,000 postcards.
No problem.
I can re-list those and it's fine.
They're out there.
There's billions and billions ofpostcards, but the ones I have
that haven't sold maybe theydon't have standalone value.
I'm gonna put 'em in a lot.
I'm gonna sell 'em.
Gonna get maybe 30%.
Of what I could have got off ofthem, but that 30% now makes me
(13:19):
feel good because it's gonna get methrough these months of uncertainty.
When I know, or I'm already seeingthat my store sales are down, I'm just
having to basically reprice things.
It's no different than doing flash salesor things and stores, when they're,
when they have low months, they'regonna give you everything in the store
is 20% off, and I could do that too.
They've got ways of oncertain items or large scale.
(13:43):
In your store that you canput percentages or sales.
I haven't done that yet, but I'm.
I'm not above doing that, if it,if things start getting worse.
So here we are.
It's Monday we or it's Tuesday,we had major stock drops.
The market dropped significantlyThursday, Friday, and again on Monday.
It's up today.
(14:03):
But it's dropped somewhere.
I don't know whatpercentage, $6 trillion lost.
But like an overall s and pdrop, yeah, it's something
like 10% or more has dropped.
I know that the market cap betweenThursday and Friday was the largest loss
in market cap value in recorded history.
So this is worse than C times this isworth than the 1929 stock market crash.
(14:24):
The value of that stuff dropped.
It has nothing to do again with thevalue of these actual companies.
It has to do with, I'm afraid andI need to sell and get my money
back 'cause I don't know if it'sgonna be there if I leave it.
That kind of thing.
And the thing that saved us from nothaving another stock mark crash is the
fact that there are systems in placethat like, so, so FDIC guaranteeing
(14:46):
your investments and everything, and.
Not to get too deep into the weeds,but there used to be a thing called a
margin call where if somebody had, youcould buy stocks on margin, basically
on a, on credit if you'll, yes.
And we don't have that anymore.
And that's a big deal.
No, the other thing is it hasn'thappened, but they also have.
This sort of mechanism where if thingsdrop too fast, a certain percentage,
(15:08):
they will completely shut down the stockmarket for at least 15 minutes at a time.
They were very close todoing that on Friday.
I read, I, yeah, I don't know howclose, but we are in uncertain
times in many ways, and that'swhy we keep doing the show.
That's part of it, to help peoplethrough this, to help people figure
out how to economically survive this.
Transitioning, I guess you will.
(15:28):
We had a lot of comments this week.
Okay.
We had a lot of comments onYouTube for what's interesting.
Not a lot of comments on the show, butit's the same show they're just commenting
on, it's very interesting to me.
We had some comments on thePiera Dura, the Oh, okay.
Strong rock.
Yes.
And one person said that malachiteis not a metal, and it's very
(15:49):
hard to work with and talk.
Yeah.
I didn't say that.
Malachite.
I don't believe that.
I said malachite was a metal.
It's a mineral.
So did you see that?
I didn't see the question.
No.
It's green.
It's a mineral that you can, and it'sused in jewelry among other things.
But yeah, I think it's 'causeit's brittle and that's why
it's difficult to work with.
Yeah.
So somebody was saying it'svery difficult to wear.
They weren't criticizing.
Sure.
They were just makinga comment about that.
(16:09):
And the one thing that I thought wasinteresting is they, that the same
person said that the Pietro doersare not selling that well on eBay.
And I was like, oh, Idon't know about that.
But he said.
I don't know, three or4% are actually selling.
So what do you thinkthat looks like and mean?
Oh, I think it's becausethey're all overpriced.
(16:30):
Oh.
I think they're all justreally high, like a little now.
Now granted a lot of the jewelry is set.
Like broaches and things areset in 14, 18 carat gold.
Mm-hmm.
Well, the part of the pricing of thatis not just the item itself, it's
the fact that there's a very preciousmetal encapsulating that piece.
The ones that don't haveany precious metals on them.
(16:51):
They're generally cheaper and the smallerones are cheaper, but people whoever
the group is that's selling on thereclearly are not needing the money out
of them quickly because I'm not seeing alot of change in the pricing structure.
They're not lowering it quickly over time.
Mm-hmm.
I'll see ones that have80 watchers or something.
Do you know how long it takes foran item to have 80 different people?
(17:12):
I don't know what percentageof people who look at an item.
Like a piera item is gonna watch itto see how much it sells for because
they're considering buying it.
But what it tells me is that nobody isde-listing that because it's been up long
enough to accumulate that many watchers.
Mm. Also, if there's 80 people who areinterested in watching it but aren't
buying it, then are they really, is itreally that sought after or are they just
(17:36):
saying, huh, let's see if this one sells.
'cause I have one that's similar.
Got it.
And if it sells, then I'llknow how to price mine.
In general, I thinkthat they're overpriced.
I think that's the reason why.
It doesn't mean that they're not valuable,but I think, if you have a broach and
they want $500, if they dropped it downto three 50, it would probably sell.
(17:56):
Gotcha.
Now, I don't know how much theyinvested in it, so maybe they can't.
Maybe they bought it at a timewhen the market was even hotter.
They spent more moneyand now they're stuck.
Because if they sell it forlower, then they lose money.
I don't know the situation but yes,and I haven't looked on Etsy or some
of these other platforms recently toknow how the prices there compare.
But if you look at that as a, asjust like a genre and you see that
(18:19):
across the board, the values arein the hundreds, almost always.
That's a pretty valuable type of jewelry.
It's interesting because Ithink that's the problem with
value valuation on anything.
Is that we saw house, the housingmarket is the perfect example of that.
People say, oh, I bought my house.
It's worth X. It could be worth X orit could be worth Y. It just depends
(18:42):
on, like right now, a lot of peopleare, the insurance rates are high.
A lot of people are nervous, so they're,so the housing market is slowed down.
Mm-hmm.
We live in an area where people,it's very desirable to live here.
People want to buy nice homes.
Mm-hmm.
And so the market's been really hot fora long time and it's really slowed down.
And the reason is becausethat's what happens.
(19:03):
That's why I love listeningto you talk about.
The Piera Dora, if you havetime, you could price it at $500.
If you don't price it at ahundred and it will sell.
Mm-hmm.
It's like anything else.
If you wanna sell your house, dropthe price and you'll sell your house.
Exactly.
It's just a matter ofhow you're looking at it.
Yeah, I think, yeah.
I think we nailed it.
Just it has to do with whatpeople are, 'cause people can ask.
(19:26):
Anything that they want, as right?
The real value is what the average ofwhat is actually selling comes out to be.
That's generally what the valueis there, and it's a range.
It's a scale of.
It's the bell curve.
So I think though, if you're lookingat stuff that have gold or silver
on it, that's skewing the values onthere because it's not, people are
(19:47):
thinking how much does it weigh?
And they're trying to guesstimate,okay, is that three grams of gold?
Is that five grams of gold?
Okay, what's gold?
What's 18 ki per spot for 18 today?
And that's what thevalue is of that piece.
And they're doing that calculation.
It's because there's so many people outthere that, that buy metals to scrap.
Nowadays and they don't care aboutPiera Dura, they're gonna snap
(20:08):
that thing out and throw it Right.
And break it in pieces.
Throw it in the trash andsend that off to the refinery.
500 years old, they don't care.
Yeah, exactly.
We're gonna try to keep itout of those people's hands.
Yeah.
Because some of the stuff,historical, it's work of art.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolute.
Hey, we did get some home remediesthrown at us this week too, Matt.
Oh.
People were very concerned of Oh yeah.
I just see the honey, the local honey.
Yes.
(20:29):
People were very concernedabout your allergies.
Said, you know, oh, I appreci.
Hey, thank you people.
Listen, I've heard that as well.
All I can say is that my parentswere onto my severe allergy issues
from a very young age and tried.
Literally everything with me.
And almost nothing has ever helped togive you an, I think I've talked about
(20:51):
this, but to give you an idea, I've hadmultiple multi-year injection treatments
to treat me for my allergies becausewhen you go to that they stick you like
a hundred times in your back in it.
Oh, the photo of my back.
You couldn't even see individualspots where they had pricked me.
It was just my entire back lookedlike I had the worst sunburn.
(21:12):
You're just allergic toeverything and swollen.
I'm all, I'm not allergicto dogs or cockroaches.
Oh.
But those are the only two things.
Every kind of tree, every kindof grass, ever smoke, dander,
basically the air we breathe.
My body rejects.
So, so what you're saying is youshould live in a desert climate
(21:33):
with just cockroaches and dogs.
We joked in a volcano underthe ocean or in outer space.
If I can manage it, I could havea reprieve from my allergies.
Ah, that just sounds horrible.
I'm sorry.
I have allergies too, but I don'thave 'em that bad to try the honey
remedy though, because I'm like,oh, that kind of makes sense.
You need to get your local honey.
And we only buy local.... Aremedies aside, if you're wanting
(21:56):
some sort of alternative tojust process sugars and things.
Use honey, put honey in your coffeeinstead of sugar or whatever else.
I think it's good if it'sOh, I love me some honey.
Yeah.
Bees are super importantto to our environment.
So we're beekeepers here.
I have a bee license plate.
We love our bees.
Oh, great.
We're absolutely we havea little bee garden out.
Ah, we just love our bees.
The bees are the best.
(22:17):
Yeah.
But thank you for the concern and,this is obviously, we're just joking.
I'm not meaning to put down thatsuggestion that is nice and and I should
try it again because I haven't done Sure.
You never open up.
Maybe we'll heal the bees could heal you.
Hey, so we did have another questionthat I thought was interesting.
I was like, oh, that's a reallygood que We probably have like 20
of these questions lately, and thisis just the one that struck me was
(22:38):
what percentage of con, what's thepercentage of consignment typically?
Like when you do a consignmentsale, I know you've got another
customer that you're selling for.
Oh, what do I, what are they getting?
Like how do we figure that out?
Yeah.
I take less than I should is the firstanswer, but it depends on my assessment
of the value of the items when I see them.
(22:59):
If the items are going to befairly valuable, then I tell
them, Hey, if I sell this on eBay,eBay's gonna take around 13%.
Plus the payment pro processingis gonna be 2.9% or whatever.
It's, so after that percentage, if theremainder is the whole, we're looking at
that as the 100% of what the net profitwas from the sale or the net gain from
(23:23):
the sale, then I'll take 30% and they take70% if they're quite valuable, if they're
not as valuable, it's a 60 40 split.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
So that's how I do it.
That makes sense, because youwant to make some money from
it, or it's not worth doing.
Correct.
And I also, at least for now, I'vebeen taking the, I've been shouldering
(23:43):
the tax burden of the entire sale.
So when I say I take 30% or 40%,you've gotta cut off the percentage
that I will end up owing in taxes.
So I'm not actuallyeven earning that much.
I'm earning less than that
dollars.
On a piece of gold jewelry andafter fees, I end up with 200 and
(24:09):
some dollars, $280 or something.
That's all right with me.
Mm-hmm.
That took me five minutes right tolist, to photograph and list that.
However, if the stuff I'm sellingis 20 bucks here, 30 bucks there, do
you know how many of those items haveto sell and how much time it takes
me before I make 280 actual dollars.
So that's why my percentage is higher,because it's gonna take more work.
(24:32):
It's, both in the getting listedand in the fulfilling of it.
And so I have to decide how much ismy time worth, because if it's, if they
just have 20 or $30 items, I just assume.
Pass entirely and just be, I knowthat I can go out and find items that
I'm gonna make more on than that.
Right.
And I make a hundred percent ofwhatever the project, wait a second.
(24:53):
So just a little pushback on that.
Now I agree with what you're saying.
Mm-hmm.
But is it possible for you to, in thenegotiation, and I know that these
are probably a lot of people, butsaying just that thing is like, look,
this is not worth it to me, simplybecause it will take a lot of time.
So the only way it's gonna be worthto me, it's like an 80 20 split.
I take 80, you get 20.
Because if somebody's justtrying to get rid of stuff.
(25:13):
Yeah, I've never done it.
I've ever, 50 50 is thehighest I've ever done.
I've never, suggested thatI take more than Right.
But if you're gonna say, I'm gonna takea hard pass on this thing, you would
say, I would say to the person, look,I'm gonna take a pass on this and it's
really has to do with the amount oftime and work it's gonna be in there.
The only way I could take this project on.
(25:34):
Is if it was an 80 20 and leaveit in their court if they, yeah.
Well, you know what?
So far every person that has reached outto me that I've gone and met with and
offered to sell things for, we've come.
I've thought that it was worth it,and we came to an agreement without
me ever having to say, I'll pass.
I'm sure it'll come at some point,and especially if I get more people
(25:55):
and then I'm just, part of it islike I just, I've already got lots
of work to do and it would be monthsdown the road or whatever else.
I don't love, I've encountered thison the other side of that before.
I don't love the move where a personbasically quotes me an outrageous price
on something rather than just saying,for example, I took a, an instrument and
(26:15):
to get work done a few months back andinstead of saying, Hey, I'm really busy.
This is a lot of work.
It's really tricky.
It would be, it's gonna take a long time.
Instead, he just quoted me like.
Three times, right.
What it really should be,it's a contractor's move.
It's the if you're gonna pay me aridiculous amount of money, I'll do it.
Sure.
But I don't, I'm personally notleft with a real good taste in
my mouth when a person does.
(26:35):
I would much rather them just behonest and say, Hey listen man,
I'll do it, but we're looking at sixmonths down the road and I'm gonna
have to charge quite a bit more.
'cause frankly, I don'treally want to do it.
And here's why.
It's super technical.
It's gonna take a lot of time.
Then let me and then just say like,I don't know, if you're willing
to do that, I guess fine, butat least we have a conversation.
(26:56):
Yeah.
Not pretend that's what itwould be no matter what.
'cause I know it wouldn't be thatexpensive, but yes, there's a time
when I may have to start playinghardball a little bit and who knows?
One of the potential silver liningsfor me if the market continues to get
worse is that there may be more and morepeople like this that want my assistance.
Yeah.
People start selling stuff.
(27:17):
Yeah, exactly.
Interesting.
Quick update on the bed.
I bought, I talked about it and Ithink the last show of the show before
whatever we purchased this very, the bed.
The bed from the bedfrom hell, from Tiffany.
Tiffany and company bed or whateverit was the ridiculously overpriced
bed that I went down to thisguides, massive mansion, whatever.
Okay.
So it's a Facebook marketplace thing.
(27:38):
I had to make two trips becauseit wouldn't fit in my truck.
It's massive.
It's a huge.
Loft bed.
It's really beautiful.
I get it home, I start to put it together,missing pieces and bolts and things.
I'm like, what the, this was theFacebook market situation, dude.
And that's the thing I was thinking about.
As much as we'd like to bemoan eBay to adegree, and I think it's a fair criticism
(28:02):
of eBay, but the fact is, I could havejust, if it was eBay, I could have said,
Hey dude, you didn't gimme the parts.
I'm gonna send this.
I want my money back, or whatever.
I know it just was so,I finally made it work.
But the guy was like,it was all he could do.
Just even answer the, I'm like,Hey man, you sent me a bed without
some really important pieces.
(28:22):
Ah, I'm sorry man.
That ah, it's what it is.
Stinks.
I fell for it.
That stinks book.
I didn't fall for it, Matt, butsomeone in my family fell for it.
But hey, you know what?
Okay, fair enough.
Move on.
I just wanted to point that out.
We're not gonna talk about her.
She knows who she is, maybe,but she doesn't listen.
So whatever we could just be,we could be right out there.
Anyway, Matt, we're talkingabout what we sold this week.
(28:43):
I know we've been talkingabout the market and lots of
other things and answering Yep.
Questions.
But what'd you sell this week?
Transitioning into that,
we're gonna be talking about, we're.
Sold.
I'm gonna hold it up.
It is a pretty large, we're talkingeight or Oh my hear it citrine,
(29:05):
which is like an orangeish, yellowishcolor Citrine is actually a type
of quartz it's a quartz site.
It's this interesting soft orangecolor, but this ring is interesting.
It's very small.
First of all, it can, can'teven go up past halfway up.
My pinky finger.
It's probably a size three tofour, so super small, but, and you
can't exactly probably see it realwell, but it's like an oval ring.
(29:29):
Around the edge of it all the wayaround that main stone is in this
elaborate enamel paint job, an artdeco look, so lots of straight lines.
This design, it's got green and black.
It's a white gold, a 10 caratwhite gold filigree ring.
But the prongs, which are actuallysuperficial prompts, because this is
(29:51):
set in a round bezel, so it's a roundbezel that's actually holding the
stone in place, but it also has these.
It's just for looks.
These four prongs and the prongsare in yellow gold, so it's 14 karat
yellow gold, superficial prongs, enamelpaint on 10 karat white filigree gold.
So it's a unique ring.
(30:12):
This sold for $225.
Wow.
I don't know if it is actually fromthe twenties, like a genuine art
deco piece or if this is a revivalpiece that was made in the same type
of design, but it looks the part.
So somebody liked the look of that,I doubt they're buying it to wear,
or maybe they're gonna have it sized.
(30:32):
Which is when you're sizing orwhen you a ask someone go to
a jewel to have a ring size.
If you're sizing it up, they cut the bandat the very bottom, which would be at
the bottom part of your finger, and thenthey get the whatever, same carrot and
color of gold, and they cut off a littlepiece that's roughly the same width.
Then they solder it togetherand then they buff it out.
(30:53):
A lot of times if you buy a ringand you look on the inside, look at
the bottom part, whether it has astone or not, look at the bottom.
And if you see, usually there's remnantsunless they've done a really good job.
Because most people don't care'cause it's on the inside.
It's touching their finger.
No one's gonna see it, butyou'll be able to tell.
If they're sizing it down, they cut it.
Not exactly in the center, but they'llcut a little to the left, a little to
(31:16):
the right on the bottom, and they'lljust remove that piece, bend it back
down, solder it, and then they'll putit on a metal mandrel so that they get,
get it back to a perfectly round shape.
There's just a little somethingfor you there in the G world.
No, I was, it was funnywhen you said that.
I was thinking about howdo they resize rings.
I was like, I have giant, giantmeat paws as my daughter calls them.
So for every ring I've everhad, I've had to get a you
(31:38):
what do use size 25 ring band?
I don't know, but I do know Ihave some of the biggest hands
of, I just have massive hand.
It's a interesting thing and they.
Serial killer hands in a way.
Let's hope not, Matt.
Ok.
I have been working on my fanwith tinted windows, but yeah.
Yeah.
This is a family show, Matt.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Here's another thing that I sold.
(31:59):
This is a, oh, my statue.
It is sitting on a round woodenbase and it is a sculpture.
A woman, it's like a fantasy look.
It's a woman who's wearing a bluedress with kind of different colors.
It's tight fitting.
It's a yesteryear design.
Al, not exactly Victorian,but like the twenties almost.
(32:19):
Yeah.
Twenties, something like that.
And then the way that it's got, likethis big swooping almost looks like from
a distance, like a crescent moon shape.
And at the top is a star andshe's just holding onto it.
She's got a hair beret with a star in it.
But this is by an artistnamed Giuseppe Armani.
And this.
(32:42):
One is called Comet.
So he has a variousones that he's created.
This is probably one of thosethings where you sketch out an idea
and then you bring that to lifethrough, through the sculpture.
It's in good condition.
There's no flaws.
It is signed.
It is stamped.
It's from 1998 and it's a limitededition piece that's numbered, not
unlike a print would be numbered.
(33:03):
Mm-hmm.
Usually there's a N and then anothernumber, and the second number is
the number total that were made.
And the first number is what this number,what number this particular one is.
So in this case, this isnumber 3,425 out of 5,000.
If you're ever looking at printsor works of art that are numbered.
(33:25):
You should know that the collectability ofones that are the lowest number possible.
So if it's a one out of 50 or a one outof a thousand, that's likely gonna be
the most valuable one of all of thembecause it was the very first one.
And I think that with things likesculptures like this, that this
was essentially poured into a mold.
(33:45):
This type, I believe, poured into a mold.
And then painted andglazed after the fact.
But I think the idea of the numberingsystem came from when people did
etchings or engravings where theywere like block print pieces of art,
meaning it was carved into or itwas yeah, into co, a copper plate
originally or some kind of metal plate.
(34:06):
Or then later on some kind of likelinoleum block or something, or wood.
And then you roll on inkand you press it down on a.
The way that these are created,particularly etchings that are in
plastic or in metal, the more youdo it, there's damage essentially
to it every time you press it.
So if you imagine like theselittle burrs that you're
(34:28):
scratching into a plate mm-hmm.
They're gonna be most able to acceptthe ink and these grooves and on the
burrs and things for the first few.
So it stands to reason that the firstone's gonna be the clearest to the best.
Ah, okay.
Copy of it, whereassubsequent ones are worse.
Now, metal plates, you can dothousands typically on those, but
(34:50):
they have more contemporary onesmade outta plastic and stuff.
And those, 2050 or less because it'sa softer medium, the plastic is softer
and it can get damaged with fewer uses.
So there you go Again, wentdown the rabbit hole on that
one, but this sold for $240.
Oh cow.
I had it up for more than that.
(35:11):
I am selling this for one ofthe people I'm consigning for.
They inherited from their appearance oftheirs and they had something like 12 of
them varying sizes all by the same artist.
I tried it first to sell them all togetherbecause man, I didn't wanna have to go
through the work of doing all of themindividually, but it wouldn't sell.
So I did end up having to do that, andsince I've done that, I've sold about.
(35:33):
Four of them in the last week and a half.
So I'm hoping that if that pacecontinues, I'll have them all sold by.
It's really cool.
It's a really cool item.
I love the art piece.
It is definitely this kind,like I said, it's this flowy.
It's got definitely art nouveau feelto it because it's curvy and flowing
and it's fewer decorator that it couldbe look like tchotchke if it was just
surrounded by a lot of other tchotchke.
(35:54):
Oh, of course.
But if it was like up on ashelf by itself, it's just
really a beautiful piece.
It could standalone.
Exactly.
It's a standalone piece as well.
Yeah, it could be either.
I agree with that.
So that was a fun thing to sell.
The next thing I'm gonna showyou was a surprise this morning.
I woke up to find that it sold lastnight, and it is a vintage Gibson guitar.
(36:14):
Oh, this is a 19 on, hold it backso you can see the size of the body.
It's a, what they wouldcall a tobacco burst.
So it's a very dark onthe edges of the top.
And it gets lighter as it goestowards the middle of the top
by the bridge in the strings.
This is a 1958 Gibson LG twothree quarter, so what that means?
(36:38):
58. So it's a vintage piece.
Gibson highly respected, perhaps themost respected or one of the most
collected brands of musical instruments.
The LG two is a model that was createdI think that they made them maybe
even as early as the thirties, butit may have started in the forties.
(37:00):
And they have different models,LGS ones, twos, and threes.
They were smaller bodiedinstruments typically, and they
were more for women and students.
Originally, so that was their targetmarket because they're easier to
hold and play their smaller body.
This one being is an unusual bird.
There weren't a ton of these.
It's a three quarter instrument.
So unlike the other LG models orL double Os that are smaller body,
(37:25):
almost getting down to parlor sizeguitars, this is actually three
quarter size of a typical guitar.
So it's a very small body and it's a.
It would actually be fine for a child.
Mm-hmm.
Or someone smaller to play.
The nut width is reallynarrow, so it's hard to play.
(37:45):
Sounds really good finger style.
All that to say, sold it for $1,850.
I have had it for a couple of months.
I got a pretty, I'm not, I didn'tmake a ton of money on this.
Maybe three or 400 bucks.
Not a big deal, but I saw it locally.
I could put my hands on it.
I'd never had one before.
I knew I could make a little bit.
You gotta play a quarter twoon it so we can hear the, oh,
(38:07):
it's not gonna sound well here.
I don't know if you can hear it.
I'll just drum.
It's not even in tune very well, honestly.
It's yeah, it's got a nice sound to it andI don't know I hope that the person buying
it realizes that is a three quarter size.
If they've done theirresearch, they'll know.
These are fairly collectible becausethey, you don't see 'em a whole lot.
(38:28):
In fact, at any given timeyou're only gonna find one,
maybe two for sale on eBay.
Whereas if you just look up Remingtonpocket knife, there are thousands.
For example, you put threequarter, you put the size on
the thing on the listing I did.
It's important to have that because thatdenotes that there is a size difference
because there is a regular LG two.
(38:49):
In fact, I have a 1947.
Gibson LG two is one ofmy own personal guitars.
It's a small body, but it is largerthan this and it isn't full size guitar.
So I was happy to sell thatbecause and I'm gonna spend just
a moment to show you another one.
This came in last week.
(39:09):
It is also a Gibson guitar, butthis is a very special guitar.
What I'm holding up right now is a 1931.
L one flat top guitar.
So the L one flat top guitar was madebetween 1930 and 1931, and by flat, I
(39:30):
say flat top because they made otherL one instruments, but those, the
top was bowed out, so it was convex.
It had a floating bridgelike a violin does.
So instead of it being glued down andattached, it sits upright and usually
the strings are attached to a metaltailpiece at the lower bout, and then
(39:51):
they come and hang over the bridge.
The reason that's important is thatthe style of music on those, you
really can't play those real hard.
You feel like you haveto be careful with them.
That was made, a lot of people did jazzmusic on them or finger style stuff.
But rare instrument because theydon't know exactly, but they estimate
that between only 1,012 hundredof this model were ever made.
(40:15):
Now 19 30, 19 31, this was a 31over the last 95, 96, however many
years ago that this was made, ifonly a thousand or 1200 were made.
A large number of those have been.
Completely have completely fallen apart.
People drop 'em, snap theheadstock off of them.
Something breaks on it and they pitch it.
(40:38):
Work has been done on them,original parts are replaced.
All of those things devalue them.
A big deal at certain periodsof time was to refinish guitar,
so sand off the original finish.
That can take anywhere from 40 to like70% of the value of the instrument away
from it if you refinish an instrument.
So anyone out there who's thinkingabout refinishing a vintage instrument
(40:58):
don't because you're gonna awayhalf of its value by doing that.
This has all original components.
It plays well.
It has had a lot of cracksrepaired, but even with that, this
is about a six to $7,000 guitar.
Wow.
And I traded a Martin oh 18from the mid sixties, plus a
(41:20):
little bit of cash to get this.
I'm very happy.
This is something I'll enjoyplaying, but we'll be an investment.
It is for sale, because ifsomebody's gonna say, yeah,
I'll give you seven grand.
Yeah.
Sure.
Right.
I'll probably part with it.
Because again, even though there aresome things I love and I want to use
I'm not attached to things really.
Right.
It's just, it's a thing.
It's a fun thing.
(41:41):
You name that guitar and give ita soul, is what you're saying.
Correct.
It's not like King's Lucille.
Not yet.
No.
But the other thing that's really specialabout this guitar is that if you've
ever heard of Robert Johnson, of course,he's considered sort of the king of the
Delta Blues who lived in the twenties.
He died in, I think, like nine madedeal with Devil, I believe Matt.
Yes.
At the ripe age of 27.
(42:02):
So the, as the story goes, he was walkingdown a road and he at a crossroads, he
met the devil and he sold his soul tothe devil in order to play the guitar.
Better than any other person.
He was a heavy influence on EricClapton, rolling Stones, sled
Zeppelin and so on for his blues work.
But he unfortunately died at a reallyyoung age, even though he died at 27.
(42:25):
He was married twice.
And his first wife in the firstyear died and the baby, she was
pregnant, died in childbirth as well.
So it was very sad.
And then.
They aren't a hundred percent sure,but they believe that his, he died
from drinking whiskey that someone hadpoisoned because he was at some place
playing music and I think he was maybepaying some attention to a lady or
(42:50):
someone who's, they believe that maybehis, that woman's boyfriend or husband
or someone got upset and poisoned him.
So this was his guitar.
There are only two known photographs.
Wait, that's his actual guitar.
No.
This is the same model, right?
He had a 19 there are only twophotographs that we know to exist of him.
One, he's sitting in astudio holding an instrument.
(43:10):
The other one, he's in a photo booth,which is another reason why I love this
'cause I'm a photo booth enthusiast.
He's holding a guitar in both one ofthose photos, he's holding the same
chord, like with his fingers, even thoughit's in different places on the guitar.
But he had a 1921 L one.
So this model is infamous for, or isvery well known for being a guitar.
(43:32):
Historians don't necessarilybelieve that he owned this guitar.
They think that it was given to him asa prop to use in that studio he played a
Kalamazoo and he played a Stella guitar.
We don't have to get into all that.
I love it, but I kidding.
Guitar enthusiast.
They're like, tell me more, dude.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He does amazing stuff that'sblues is the sort of early
origins of blues as we know it.
(43:54):
So I was excited to get that guitar.
It's a rare, it's highlycollectible for collectors.
This is one of the things I can play onand it will continue to go up in value.
And so at some point intime I could sell it.
If I decide I wanna sell it and payfor one of my kids a year of college,
then I can do that, so it's niceto have So some fun guitar stuff.
(44:14):
And I have another one coming in todaythat I have to do some repair work on.
So I'll have to show you thaton an future episode, and we'll
talk about what I'm gonna do.
Have you ever heard of thecurse of the 20 sevens?
Oh yeah.
With like rockers and things.
A lot of people between27 and 29, a lot of them.
Yeah.
All these people that die at 27 years old.
Gram Parson.
Yeah.
Kurt Cobain.
(44:34):
The list is like 50 people long.
It's crazy.
Jim Morrison.
Yeah.
All these people that died.
Jim Morrison for some,the guy from Blame Mellon.
There's a lot of 27 years old.
I don't, I'm glad I made it past there.
Yeah.
Janice Joplin.
Jan Janis Joplin.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So the I don't have it in myhand, but another gold ring sold.
I sold a lot of gold lately becauseas we've discussed recently, gold
(44:57):
and silver have been really high.
Now, I've seen silver drop down recently,but gold has, it's dropped a little
bit, but it is still the highest it'sbeen in like the last eight or 10 years.
So again, if you have gold thatyou don't wear or don't care about,
it's a good time to sell becauseyou're gonna get good values.
Especially if you're worried becauseof what the stock market's doing.
But I just encourageyou not to look at it.
(45:17):
Don't get scared and sell, becausewhen you do that, Berkshire Hathaway
is gonna laugh at you and then buyit up and then they're gonna make
money and you're gonna lose it.
So don't do that.
I haven't sold this yet, butI'll show you one more thing.
This came in as sign the piece.
We have our dukes of hazard trash can.
Oh, that's so great.
And it's featuring you, you essentiallyhave the Confederate flag as a backdrop.
(45:41):
You have all the character not all,but several of the main characters and
the quintessential the General Lee.
The General Lee here, theorange car with the number 10,
and in midway, no number one.
The number one.
Come on.
Number one.
Sorry, I'm looking at it through my thecamera in reverse here in the camera.
This is, it's a remake.
This is not from that original time.
It's not, but it, and it isn't, you cansee like the metal is, it's not rusted.
(46:05):
It's never been used.
So it will sell well because it's unused.
But this was probably, I don'tknow, maybe it was original.
Was that in 1980s?
It was the late seventies, eighties.
Yeah.
So me.
It's possible.
This is, I haven't actually even donethe research a little on the Boss
Hog on there, Dukes, but that's fun.
I love getting in interesting stuffthat I can relate to because it
(46:26):
was in the era of when I was a kid.
That's fun.
But I did make a new connection, a ratherthrough word of mouth, with someone
else that I'm currently selling for.
I was connected withanother family and went out.
Yesterday and collected a large numberof things to sell on their behalf.
And I will be going back multipletimes over the next few weeks.
(46:50):
But one thing I just wanted toshow, I don't think I'll be able
to sell it, or if I do it willhave to be privately or locally.
I'm gonna back up just to showit, but what I'm gonna be holding
is a Samurai sword and the.
Are entirely composed ofcarved figures out of ivory.
(47:12):
Oh, so I'm gonna back up and show this.
Can't sell that.
Here we are.
The blade, as you can see is rusted.
It's old.
It's still sharp.
The handle.
And you can, I'll put it up closer.
You can see that there are, Iturned it the other direction, but
there are carved figures of peopleholding things all the way around.
So this is composed of brass.
(47:36):
Then the steel of themetal of the blade itself.
And then the rest of it is carved ivory.
And we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 separatepanels that are oval in shape and have
been glued together with these rings.
So really cool historical.
But as you mentioned, the problem is thatillegal unless you have a piece, has been.
(48:03):
Verified that it was produced prior toI around the turn of the century, and
you have provenance, like you can provethat it was not harvested illegally,
which I'm not gonna be able to do.
Now.
I will say that the other ones like thisthat are out there, it's pretty well
known that this was produced in aroundthe late 18 hundreds, like around 1880s
(48:26):
to 1890s after the Maji restoration.
There you go.
Yeah.
Because what happened was in1868, United States went in
and said, history teacher here.
open your doors to us.
And they banned the new government,banned the Samurai so that they wouldn't
wear, allow them to, if you guys sawthe movie, it was the Last Samurai.
Mm-hmm.
They made them cut their topnotch and itwas a big deal because Samurai culture
(48:47):
had run Japan for about 800 years.
So the fact that was produced post.
In 1868 is pretty interesting.
I think that it was made, I don'tthink that it's made as a usable sort.
I think it's more ceremonial.
Mm-hmm.
And I also believe it was likely produced.
As an intentional export, so probablyan export to Europe or the United States
(49:09):
because there was, as with the, and allthat stuff, there were revival periods
where people were very interested inChinese or Japanese culture and their
artwork and various stuff, and theyrealized that and they said, Hey,
like we're missing an opportunity.
We need to start producing a lot ofstuff for these people in these other
countries that are interested in our.
(49:30):
In the things that we have.
I think that's what it was for, I don'tknow how it got into the hands of this
family, but much like a lot of thingslike this, it's just been sitting
in a closet or in a box for decades,'cause what do you do with it other
than just have it set out for display?
And and I don't think that they did.
So this came in.
I'm gonna have to go back and tell'em, unless I can find a private
buyer, this is not gonna qualify assomething I can sell for you online.
(49:52):
Because law, that's cool.
I would buy that.
Very, I can't buy it because it'sivory and I don't wanna break
international law, but I love the,I of course it's not a Hans shoe.
Hans shoe would be the most famousof all the Samurai swords, there were
different makers like anything else.
And they were, the samurai swordwas, they're just incredible.
They were as tools, but as asweapons obviously, but also as
art pieces, there's a lot to them.
(50:13):
Yeah.
Alright, listen Matt, that I thought wewere gonna do about a half an hour today.
We've almost gone an hour.
So that's typical of us.
But I, this has been my favoriteshow I think we've ever done.
I just.
Every little piece of thiswas historical and I loved it.
So yeah, some cool history stuff.
Hey, remember people, we need youto tell your friends about us.
We want to continue to grow.
(50:34):
We really appreciate yourcomments and everything you say.
Your concern for Max'shealth is always appreciated.
Yeah, and that's what'sreally important here.
But remember to follow,like, and subscribe.
We got a lot of followers,a lot of likers now.
And people that are hittingthat click subscribe button.
We appreciate that.
We look forward to coming backwith a brand new show next week.
We both have some spring breaks comingup, but we're still gonna do a show
(50:58):
that will pop up during spring break.
So if you're going on spring breakwith your family, have a great time.
Otherwise, we'll see youin a couple of weeks.
Anything left to say, Matt?
Just don't be, we're all cousins.
We're all in this together, so don't betoo afraid we're gonna get through it.
Amen to that.
Alright, people talk soon.
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast.
I am Brandon.
This is Matt.
He is the machete of merchants,the man, the Master of Mayhem.
Wait a second.
That makes it sound like I'mjust tearing through people.
You kind of are tearing through thewhat sold world, that's for sure.
I had no idea when I started this,how many people were out there.
(00:59):
Involved in this business.
I always assume.
I was like, oh, that's, it's interesting.
He's a reseller.
We know.
No, you're an aftermarket merchant.
Yes.
And it's interesting because rightnow, if anybody's been paying attention
and Oh man, maybe some of you have.
We're in crazy times, brother.
We're in crazy times.
Forget the politics.
Yes, just the simple economics of it all.
(01:21):
It is nutty bug.
So we have, what do theysay when you get lemons?
Make lemonade.
This is the time to be a aftermarketmerchant because if these tariffs go
through the prices of everything is gonnago up, and that means that the secondary
market is going to be as valuable, ifnot more valuable and it's ever been.
(01:44):
What do you think about that, Matt?
The tariffs not, what do youthink about the but about as far
as a reseller, I. I am concerned
this is not a political podcast,so it doesn't matter listener if
you're a supporter of the currentadministration or if you are not,
or if you're somewhere in between.
(02:06):
By the way, there is an InBetween out.
There doesn't have to be one or the other.
Right.
That's true actually.
Right.
I'm concerned from what I'm seeing fromthe stock market, the chatter and what,
how people are reacting is fascinating to.
I think that the people who support theadministration, I'm hearing that they,
A lot of the rhetoric now is yeah, it'sbad, but this is just a short term thing.
(02:29):
Let it go past and longterm this will be good.
And I hope that's true.
I don't know.
Time will tell.
What I do know is that when themarkets get very, okay, first of all.
The way the market moves hasnothing to do with the actual
fundamentals of companies, right?
Just because a company is strong and hasgood outlook does not mean that their
(02:52):
stock price is always gonna be high.
The market is largely basedon sentiment of the investors.
And when there's uncertainty, whichthere is right now, and nobody
really knows what's gonna happen,when it's gonna happen and how it's
gonna play out, that leads to fear.
And then fear leads to.
These dramatic swings up and down in themarket when there's a lot of uncertainty.
(03:17):
People, not unlike what happens withyour body when you go to sleep or
when you're sick, as like certainparts of your body kind of stop.
They stop working on stuff that'snon-essential, and then they
start moving, the body moves totake care of the essential organs
and the rest, it's on pause.
(03:37):
The way that in historically, and I'mtalking about the Covid times and what
resulted from that is that people,they really became tight with their
spending because if they look at theirinvestments, if you're retired and
you're looking at your 401k and you'renervous, you don't know if that money's
gonna, if it's gonna bounce back or not.
(04:00):
If it's gonna, are we in a recession?
We can't know for sure.
Is this the beginning?
We don't know.
So people start saying to themselves,I need to hold on to what I have.
Discretionary spending needs to go down.
Now the reason I personally am concernedis that I sell primarily antiques and
collectibles, the things that I offerand sell, though they can be valuable
(04:22):
and there can be markets for that stuff.
They are not essential items, right?
They're the things that people buywhenever they have extra money and they
want to get gifts or they collect a thing.
That is one of the first things to dropoff is buying things that you don't need.
And so it concerns me because ofthe types of things that I have
invested in that I have that I sell.
(04:43):
This month has been very bad, andusually March and into April is better.
Then February is usually really bad.
And it was Flip Flo this year.
February was just fine.
This month has been, I don'twanna say abysmal, but it's been
worse than a typical month for me.
Mm-hmm.
Now why why is that?
(05:04):
I think it has a lot to do withthe market, as you mentioned.
Mm-hmm.
So now the flip side of thatis I am concerned about the
types of things that I have.
I'm not though concerned aboutthe idea of reselling things or
the aftermarket world because thisis the other edge of the blade.
The.
Edge is that people, when they want tospend less money, they're gonna start
(05:27):
looking for good quality used items, andthey're gonna start spending more money
in marketplaces that have those typesof things rather than buying brand new
stuff because it's cheaper for thosepeople out there who have clothing or
stuff that all people use and need.
Now would be a good time to startputting that stuff out there.
(05:49):
It's stuff that you can have around thehouse, so just start with what you have.
That way you don't have to spend any moneyand just start putting stuff out there.
It's not a difficult to do.
Starting up accounts on a lot ofthese platforms like Etsy or eBay or,
they're not difficult to start up.
Nobody has to do it full-time like I do.
But I'm a little concerned becauseI'm only able to do this full-time.
(06:11):
Because I'm able to make enough money topay my bills, but if things shift in the
market where I can no longer do that,then I'm gonna have a decision to make.
Mm-hmm.
Do I shift away from this or do Ifind different types of items to sell?
Or am I willing for a period of timeto take much less profit than I would
(06:32):
normally expect on things simplyto sell them and to bring money in?
So there's a lot of things to consider.
There's also the other side of thatwith the Warren Buffet approach.
To this whole thing is that WarrenB Buffett buys when the market
is bad and sells, he doesn't.
Mm-hmm.
He buy, he makes, he's made hismoney in basically being able to buy
up stuff that people are afraid of.
(06:52):
So when the market drops, I guarantee you,if Warren Buffett's out there scooping up.
When you're a multi-billionaire.
Mm-hmm.
And if you're smart, you alwayshold, you always have a pretty
strong cash position because youdon't know like anyone else does.
You don't know when themarket's gonna tank.
Mm-hmm.
And so they spread out their investments.
They have stuff in all kinds of thingsthat are low risk, but also low return.
(07:15):
And that is how they hedge wheneverthey're more risky investments.
Drop.
But then when you have a strongcash position, when everything
gets really bad, you buy back in.
And not only do you cover yourlosses, but then you know you're
gonna be stronger in the future.
And so it's true.
When you have money, you can make money.
I'm wondering about those folksthat are out there that are, say
(07:36):
they're retired, maybe they have alittle bit of discretionary income.
This would be the time to shop.
This would be the time to go out andsee if you can get some of that stuff
that normally would cost a whole lotmore, but because people are nervous
or like you said they're willingto take less because of the market.
This would be the time to go out and buythat stuff that you can hang onto it for
a couple years, could be really valuable.
(07:58):
So I just a thought No, absolutely.
That's correct.
That's absolutely true.
If you're in a position to do that willprobably, you'll probably come out on top.
But you have to have that money.
Mm-hmm.
And you have to know you don't needit back within a certain period
of time and a place to store it.
Because what you're doing is essentiallyin, you're doing an investment,
(08:19):
it's speculative to a degree.
'cause you don't know what themarket's gonna be like in the future.
But you can use educated guesses.
For sure.
The stuff that we've talked abouton this show about what things sell.
When the market is good we prettymuch know what's gonna sell and what's
not gonna sell, or that's, that'sthe whole basis of this show, right?
Mm-hmm.
The what Sold podcast.
So I'm curious then, if we're in this,what are you doing differently now?
(08:45):
That, and again, it's so new, wejust don't know at this point.
I think that's part of thereason why people are so nervous.
'cause everybody's like,wait, is this for real?
Is this really gonna happenor is this just a ploy?
I suspect a lot of supportersare probably saying, oh, it's
just a ploy to get a better deal.
I think what makes me nervous about itis there's a lot of really smart people
(09:06):
out there in finance that are nervous.
Lot of people that are way, way, way moreconnected to the markets than any of us
are that are starting to say we need todo something or we're in big trouble.
That's what makes me nervous a little bit.
I don't know if that nervousnessis what's behind that?
Is it, are they nervous for thecountry at large and other people,
(09:27):
or are they just nervous abouttheir own personal investments
and if they're gonna lose money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And the other thing, and again, I don'twant to, I don't want to delve too much
into the political realm, but I am notas stressed, aside from my own job,
which I'm not that stressed becauseI just, my sort of belief system.
Maybe this is drawingon my spiritual beliefs.
(09:48):
I believe that my family and I are goingto be okay regardless of what happens.
I'm not, I think we have strong supportsin our lives, and I'm not that concerned.
I'm more concerned for when I seethings that seem like other people
or people group or marginalizedand minority groups are starting
to be affected in negative ways.
(10:08):
That's what bothers me the most.
I'm not really thinking about.
You know the business as much.
Now, coming back full circle a littlebit to what you mentioned a moment ago
is you started to ask, what am I doing?
And I'm doing two things right now totry to, as an adjustment, hopefully,
that I can continue to bring in revenue.
(10:29):
One thing is, and we've talkedabout this on the show previously,
delisting items from eBay andthen selling the similar item.
It copies, it, puts it back in.
I was doing that aboutonce a week for of my.
eBay stores that I have thousandsof items on in each one, so mm-hmm.
You can do 200 at a time.
I might be do somewhere between fourand 600 in each store once a week.
(10:52):
Drop 'em, relist them, okay.
Or sell this, sell the similar item.
Now I'm doing that aboutevery other day, so, wow.
I'm pulling out as many as Ican and I'm selling somewhere.
I'm putting them back in, sothey're at the top of the queue.
And I'm periodically throwing upon auction items that have been
(11:13):
there for months and months orover a year that haven't sold.
I'm dropping the price andI'm putting it on auction.
I wanna move that stuff, Iwant to get it outta here.
It's taken up space, clearly notthat desirable because it's been
available to the, to everyonefor a year and hasn't sold.
So either I'm asking too much or themarket on that is cooled or whatever else.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm trying to get somesteady income coming by always
(11:34):
having a combination of auction.
And buy it nows.
But the main thing I've been doingis I've been pulling out things that,
again, have sat here, haven't sold.
They have value, but I've gotthem up listed individually.
I'm pulling them out, I'm goinginto eBay and I'm completely
delisting and deleting them.
(11:55):
We're talking thousands of items.
Like this morning, I sortedabout 4,000 postcards.
Yikes.
And these are all ones that I had in smallgroups or individually listed anywhere
from like 20 bucks, 10 bucks to 20 bucks,all the way down to maybe $8 a piece.
I've gone through and now I'm going tosell them in lots, in, in smaller, lots of
(12:17):
maybe 500 at a time I pulled, I separatedall the real picture postcards or real
photo postcards out of the other stack.
I'm gonna do lots of just PPCsbecause those have a pretty
strong base of collectors and Ithink I'll get some good money.
Am I gonna make less on this stuffthan if I just left it there over
the course of the next few years?
(12:38):
Absolutely.
But because I don't knowwhat's gonna happen.
I'm gonna get that money now.
I'm gonna get some money in,now I'm gonna hold some back.
I'm gonna invest somewhere in thecompany and I'm, I'm gonna pay my bills.
I know that if things in two, threemonths time calm down, I can go out
(12:58):
and buy a lot of 4,000 postcards.
No problem.
I can re-list those and it's fine.
They're out there.
There's billions and billions ofpostcards, but the ones I have
that haven't sold maybe theydon't have standalone value.
I'm gonna put 'em in a lot.
I'm gonna sell 'em.
Gonna get maybe 30%.
Of what I could have got off ofthem, but that 30% now makes me
(13:19):
feel good because it's gonna get methrough these months of uncertainty.
When I know, or I'm already seeingthat my store sales are down, I'm just
having to basically reprice things.
It's no different than doing flash salesor things and stores, when they're,
when they have low months, they'regonna give you everything in the store
is 20% off, and I could do that too.
They've got ways of oncertain items or large scale.
(13:43):
In your store that you canput percentages or sales.
I haven't done that yet, but I'm.
I'm not above doing that, if it,if things start getting worse.
So here we are.
It's Monday we or it's Tuesday,we had major stock drops.
The market dropped significantlyThursday, Friday, and again on Monday.
It's up today.
(14:03):
But it's dropped somewhere.
I don't know whatpercentage, $6 trillion lost.
But like an overall s and pdrop, yeah, it's something
like 10% or more has dropped.
I know that the market cap betweenThursday and Friday was the largest loss
in market cap value in recorded history.
So this is worse than C times this isworth than the 1929 stock market crash.
(14:24):
The value of that stuff dropped.
It has nothing to do again with thevalue of these actual companies.
It has to do with, I'm afraid andI need to sell and get my money
back 'cause I don't know if it'sgonna be there if I leave it.
That kind of thing.
And the thing that saved us from nothaving another stock mark crash is the
fact that there are systems in placethat like, so, so FDIC guaranteeing
(14:46):
your investments and everything, and.
Not to get too deep into the weeds,but there used to be a thing called a
margin call where if somebody had, youcould buy stocks on margin, basically
on a, on credit if you'll, yes.
And we don't have that anymore.
And that's a big deal.
No, the other thing is it hasn'thappened, but they also have.
This sort of mechanism where if thingsdrop too fast, a certain percentage,
(15:08):
they will completely shut down the stockmarket for at least 15 minutes at a time.
They were very close todoing that on Friday.
I read, I, yeah, I don't know howclose, but we are in uncertain
times in many ways, and that'swhy we keep doing the show.
That's part of it, to help peoplethrough this, to help people figure
out how to economically survive this.
Transitioning, I guess you will.
(15:28):
We had a lot of comments this week.
Okay.
We had a lot of comments onYouTube for what's interesting.
Not a lot of comments on the show, butit's the same show they're just commenting
on, it's very interesting to me.
We had some comments on thePiera Dura, the Oh, okay.
Strong rock.
Yes.
And one person said that malachiteis not a metal, and it's very
(15:49):
hard to work with and talk.
Yeah.
I didn't say that.
Malachite.
I don't believe that.
I said malachite was a metal.
It's a mineral.
So did you see that?
I didn't see the question.
No.
It's green.
It's a mineral that you can, and it'sused in jewelry among other things.
But yeah, I think it's 'causeit's brittle and that's why
it's difficult to work with.
Yeah.
So somebody was saying it'svery difficult to wear.
They weren't criticizing.
Sure.
They were just makinga comment about that.
(16:09):
And the one thing that I thought wasinteresting is they, that the same
person said that the Pietro doersare not selling that well on eBay.
And I was like, oh, Idon't know about that.
But he said.
I don't know, three or4% are actually selling.
So what do you thinkthat looks like and mean?
Oh, I think it's becausethey're all overpriced.
(16:30):
Oh.
I think they're all justreally high, like a little now.
Now granted a lot of the jewelry is set.
Like broaches and things areset in 14, 18 carat gold.
Mm-hmm.
Well, the part of the pricing of thatis not just the item itself, it's
the fact that there's a very preciousmetal encapsulating that piece.
The ones that don't haveany precious metals on them.
(16:51):
They're generally cheaper and the smallerones are cheaper, but people whoever
the group is that's selling on thereclearly are not needing the money out
of them quickly because I'm not seeing alot of change in the pricing structure.
They're not lowering it quickly over time.
Mm-hmm.
I'll see ones that have80 watchers or something.
Do you know how long it takes foran item to have 80 different people?
(17:12):
I don't know what percentageof people who look at an item.
Like a piera item is gonna watch itto see how much it sells for because
they're considering buying it.
But what it tells me is that nobody isde-listing that because it's been up long
enough to accumulate that many watchers.
Mm. Also, if there's 80 people who areinterested in watching it but aren't
buying it, then are they really, is itreally that sought after or are they just
(17:36):
saying, huh, let's see if this one sells.
'cause I have one that's similar.
Got it.
And if it sells, then I'llknow how to price mine.
In general, I thinkthat they're overpriced.
I think that's the reason why.
It doesn't mean that they're not valuable,but I think, if you have a broach and
they want $500, if they dropped it downto three 50, it would probably sell.
(17:56):
Gotcha.
Now, I don't know how much theyinvested in it, so maybe they can't.
Maybe they bought it at a timewhen the market was even hotter.
They spent more moneyand now they're stuck.
Because if they sell it forlower, then they lose money.
I don't know the situation but yes,and I haven't looked on Etsy or some
of these other platforms recently toknow how the prices there compare.
But if you look at that as a, asjust like a genre and you see that
(18:19):
across the board, the values arein the hundreds, almost always.
That's a pretty valuable type of jewelry.
It's interesting because Ithink that's the problem with
value valuation on anything.
Is that we saw house, the housingmarket is the perfect example of that.
People say, oh, I bought my house.
It's worth X. It could be worth X orit could be worth Y. It just depends
(18:42):
on, like right now, a lot of peopleare, the insurance rates are high.
A lot of people are nervous, so they're,so the housing market is slowed down.
Mm-hmm.
We live in an area where people,it's very desirable to live here.
People want to buy nice homes.
Mm-hmm.
And so the market's been really hot fora long time and it's really slowed down.
And the reason is becausethat's what happens.
(19:03):
That's why I love listeningto you talk about.
The Piera Dora, if you havetime, you could price it at $500.
If you don't price it at ahundred and it will sell.
Mm-hmm.
It's like anything else.
If you wanna sell your house, dropthe price and you'll sell your house.
Exactly.
It's just a matter ofhow you're looking at it.
Yeah, I think, yeah.
I think we nailed it.
Just it has to do with whatpeople are, 'cause people can ask.
(19:26):
Anything that they want, as right?
The real value is what the average ofwhat is actually selling comes out to be.
That's generally what the valueis there, and it's a range.
It's a scale of.
It's the bell curve.
So I think though, if you're lookingat stuff that have gold or silver
on it, that's skewing the values onthere because it's not, people are
(19:47):
thinking how much does it weigh?
And they're trying to guesstimate,okay, is that three grams of gold?
Is that five grams of gold?
Okay, what's gold?
What's 18 ki per spot for 18 today?
And that's what thevalue is of that piece.
And they're doing that calculation.
It's because there's so many people outthere that, that buy metals to scrap.
Nowadays and they don't care aboutPiera Dura, they're gonna snap
(20:08):
that thing out and throw it Right.
And break it in pieces.
Throw it in the trash andsend that off to the refinery.
500 years old, they don't care.
Yeah, exactly.
We're gonna try to keep itout of those people's hands.
Yeah.
Because some of the stuff,historical, it's work of art.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolute.
Hey, we did get some home remediesthrown at us this week too, Matt.
Oh.
People were very concerned of Oh yeah.
I just see the honey, the local honey.
Yes.
(20:29):
People were very concernedabout your allergies.
Said, you know, oh, I appreci.
Hey, thank you people.
Listen, I've heard that as well.
All I can say is that my parentswere onto my severe allergy issues
from a very young age and tried.
Literally everything with me.
And almost nothing has ever helped togive you an, I think I've talked about
(20:51):
this, but to give you an idea, I've hadmultiple multi-year injection treatments
to treat me for my allergies becausewhen you go to that they stick you like
a hundred times in your back in it.
Oh, the photo of my back.
You couldn't even see individualspots where they had pricked me.
It was just my entire back lookedlike I had the worst sunburn.
(21:12):
You're just allergic toeverything and swollen.
I'm all, I'm not allergicto dogs or cockroaches.
Oh.
But those are the only two things.
Every kind of tree, every kindof grass, ever smoke, dander,
basically the air we breathe.
My body rejects.
So, so what you're saying is youshould live in a desert climate
(21:33):
with just cockroaches and dogs.
We joked in a volcano underthe ocean or in outer space.
If I can manage it, I could havea reprieve from my allergies.
Ah, that just sounds horrible.
I'm sorry.
I have allergies too, but I don'thave 'em that bad to try the honey
remedy though, because I'm like,oh, that kind of makes sense.
You need to get your local honey.
And we only buy local.... Aremedies aside, if you're wanting
(21:56):
some sort of alternative tojust process sugars and things.
Use honey, put honey in your coffeeinstead of sugar or whatever else.
I think it's good if it'sOh, I love me some honey.
Yeah.
Bees are super importantto to our environment.
So we're beekeepers here.
I have a bee license plate.
We love our bees.
Oh, great.
We're absolutely we havea little bee garden out.
Ah, we just love our bees.
The bees are the best.
(22:17):
Yeah.
But thank you for the concern and,this is obviously, we're just joking.
I'm not meaning to put down thatsuggestion that is nice and and I should
try it again because I haven't done Sure.
You never open up.
Maybe we'll heal the bees could heal you.
Hey, so we did have another questionthat I thought was interesting.
I was like, oh, that's a reallygood que We probably have like 20
of these questions lately, and thisis just the one that struck me was
(22:38):
what percentage of con, what's thepercentage of consignment typically?
Like when you do a consignmentsale, I know you've got another
customer that you're selling for.
Oh, what do I, what are they getting?
Like how do we figure that out?
Yeah.
I take less than I should is the firstanswer, but it depends on my assessment
of the value of the items when I see them.
(22:59):
If the items are going to befairly valuable, then I tell
them, Hey, if I sell this on eBay,eBay's gonna take around 13%.
Plus the payment pro processingis gonna be 2.9% or whatever.
It's, so after that percentage, if theremainder is the whole, we're looking at
that as the 100% of what the net profitwas from the sale or the net gain from
(23:23):
the sale, then I'll take 30% and they take70% if they're quite valuable, if they're
not as valuable, it's a 60 40 split.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
So that's how I do it.
That makes sense, because youwant to make some money from
it, or it's not worth doing.
Correct.
And I also, at least for now, I'vebeen taking the, I've been shouldering
(23:43):
the tax burden of the entire sale.
So when I say I take 30% or 40%,you've gotta cut off the percentage
that I will end up owing in taxes.
So I'm not actuallyeven earning that much.
I'm earning less than that
dollars.
On a piece of gold jewelry andafter fees, I end up with 200 and
(24:09):
some dollars, $280 or something.
That's all right with me.
Mm-hmm.
That took me five minutes right tolist, to photograph and list that.
However, if the stuff I'm sellingis 20 bucks here, 30 bucks there, do
you know how many of those items haveto sell and how much time it takes
me before I make 280 actual dollars.
So that's why my percentage is higher,because it's gonna take more work.
(24:32):
It's, both in the getting listedand in the fulfilling of it.
And so I have to decide how much ismy time worth, because if it's, if they
just have 20 or $30 items, I just assume.
Pass entirely and just be, I knowthat I can go out and find items that
I'm gonna make more on than that.
Right.
And I make a hundred percent ofwhatever the project, wait a second.
(24:53):
So just a little pushback on that.
Now I agree with what you're saying.
Mm-hmm.
But is it possible for you to, in thenegotiation, and I know that these
are probably a lot of people, butsaying just that thing is like, look,
this is not worth it to me, simplybecause it will take a lot of time.
So the only way it's gonna be worthto me, it's like an 80 20 split.
I take 80, you get 20.
Because if somebody's justtrying to get rid of stuff.
(25:13):
Yeah, I've never done it.
I've ever, 50 50 is thehighest I've ever done.
I've never, suggested thatI take more than Right.
But if you're gonna say, I'm gonna takea hard pass on this thing, you would
say, I would say to the person, look,I'm gonna take a pass on this and it's
really has to do with the amount oftime and work it's gonna be in there.
The only way I could take this project on.
(25:34):
Is if it was an 80 20 and leaveit in their court if they, yeah.
Well, you know what?
So far every person that has reached outto me that I've gone and met with and
offered to sell things for, we've come.
I've thought that it was worth it,and we came to an agreement without
me ever having to say, I'll pass.
I'm sure it'll come at some point,and especially if I get more people
(25:55):
and then I'm just, part of it islike I just, I've already got lots
of work to do and it would be monthsdown the road or whatever else.
I don't love, I've encountered thison the other side of that before.
I don't love the move where a personbasically quotes me an outrageous price
on something rather than just saying,for example, I took a, an instrument and
(26:15):
to get work done a few months back andinstead of saying, Hey, I'm really busy.
This is a lot of work.
It's really tricky.
It would be, it's gonna take a long time.
Instead, he just quoted me like.
Three times, right.
What it really should be,it's a contractor's move.
It's the if you're gonna pay me aridiculous amount of money, I'll do it.
Sure.
But I don't, I'm personally notleft with a real good taste in
my mouth when a person does.
(26:35):
I would much rather them just behonest and say, Hey listen man,
I'll do it, but we're looking at sixmonths down the road and I'm gonna
have to charge quite a bit more.
'cause frankly, I don'treally want to do it.
And here's why.
It's super technical.
It's gonna take a lot of time.
Then let me and then just say like,I don't know, if you're willing
to do that, I guess fine, butat least we have a conversation.
(26:56):
Yeah.
Not pretend that's what itwould be no matter what.
'cause I know it wouldn't be thatexpensive, but yes, there's a time
when I may have to start playinghardball a little bit and who knows?
One of the potential silver liningsfor me if the market continues to get
worse is that there may be more and morepeople like this that want my assistance.
Yeah.
People start selling stuff.
(27:17):
Yeah, exactly.
Interesting.
Quick update on the bed.
I bought, I talked about it and Ithink the last show of the show before
whatever we purchased this very, the bed.
The bed from the bedfrom hell, from Tiffany.
Tiffany and company bed or whateverit was the ridiculously overpriced
bed that I went down to thisguides, massive mansion, whatever.
Okay.
So it's a Facebook marketplace thing.
(27:38):
I had to make two trips becauseit wouldn't fit in my truck.
It's massive.
It's a huge.
Loft bed.
It's really beautiful.
I get it home, I start to put it together,missing pieces and bolts and things.
I'm like, what the, this was theFacebook market situation, dude.
And that's the thing I was thinking about.
As much as we'd like to bemoan eBay to adegree, and I think it's a fair criticism
(28:02):
of eBay, but the fact is, I could havejust, if it was eBay, I could have said,
Hey dude, you didn't gimme the parts.
I'm gonna send this.
I want my money back, or whatever.
I know it just was so,I finally made it work.
But the guy was like,it was all he could do.
Just even answer the, I'm like,Hey man, you sent me a bed without
some really important pieces.
(28:22):
Ah, I'm sorry man.
That ah, it's what it is.
Stinks.
I fell for it.
That stinks book.
I didn't fall for it, Matt, butsomeone in my family fell for it.
But hey, you know what?
Okay, fair enough.
Move on.
I just wanted to point that out.
We're not gonna talk about her.
She knows who she is, maybe,but she doesn't listen.
So whatever we could just be,we could be right out there.
Anyway, Matt, we're talkingabout what we sold this week.
(28:43):
I know we've been talkingabout the market and lots of
other things and answering Yep.
Questions.
But what'd you sell this week?
Transitioning into that,
we're gonna be talking about, we're.
Sold.
I'm gonna hold it up.
It is a pretty large, we're talkingeight or Oh my hear it citrine,
(29:05):
which is like an orangeish, yellowishcolor Citrine is actually a type
of quartz it's a quartz site.
It's this interesting soft orangecolor, but this ring is interesting.
It's very small.
First of all, it can, can'teven go up past halfway up.
My pinky finger.
It's probably a size three tofour, so super small, but, and you
can't exactly probably see it realwell, but it's like an oval ring.
(29:29):
Around the edge of it all the wayaround that main stone is in this
elaborate enamel paint job, an artdeco look, so lots of straight lines.
This design, it's got green and black.
It's a white gold, a 10 caratwhite gold filigree ring.
But the prongs, which are actuallysuperficial prompts, because this is
(29:51):
set in a round bezel, so it's a roundbezel that's actually holding the
stone in place, but it also has these.
It's just for looks.
These four prongs and the prongsare in yellow gold, so it's 14 karat
yellow gold, superficial prongs, enamelpaint on 10 karat white filigree gold.
So it's a unique ring.
(30:12):
This sold for $225.
Wow.
I don't know if it is actually fromthe twenties, like a genuine art
deco piece or if this is a revivalpiece that was made in the same type
of design, but it looks the part.
So somebody liked the look of that,I doubt they're buying it to wear,
or maybe they're gonna have it sized.
(30:32):
Which is when you're sizing orwhen you a ask someone go to
a jewel to have a ring size.
If you're sizing it up, they cut the bandat the very bottom, which would be at
the bottom part of your finger, and thenthey get the whatever, same carrot and
color of gold, and they cut off a littlepiece that's roughly the same width.
Then they solder it togetherand then they buff it out.
(30:53):
A lot of times if you buy a ringand you look on the inside, look at
the bottom part, whether it has astone or not, look at the bottom.
And if you see, usually there's remnantsunless they've done a really good job.
Because most people don't care'cause it's on the inside.
It's touching their finger.
No one's gonna see it, butyou'll be able to tell.
If they're sizing it down, they cut it.
Not exactly in the center, but they'llcut a little to the left, a little to
(31:16):
the right on the bottom, and they'lljust remove that piece, bend it back
down, solder it, and then they'll putit on a metal mandrel so that they get,
get it back to a perfectly round shape.
There's just a little somethingfor you there in the G world.
No, I was, it was funnywhen you said that.
I was thinking about howdo they resize rings.
I was like, I have giant, giantmeat paws as my daughter calls them.
So for every ring I've everhad, I've had to get a you
(31:38):
what do use size 25 ring band?
I don't know, but I do know Ihave some of the biggest hands
of, I just have massive hand.
It's a interesting thing and they.
Serial killer hands in a way.
Let's hope not, Matt.
Ok.
I have been working on my fanwith tinted windows, but yeah.
Yeah.
This is a family show, Matt.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Here's another thing that I sold.
(31:59):
This is a, oh, my statue.
It is sitting on a round woodenbase and it is a sculpture.
A woman, it's like a fantasy look.
It's a woman who's wearing a bluedress with kind of different colors.
It's tight fitting.
It's a yesteryear design.
Al, not exactly Victorian,but like the twenties almost.
(32:19):
Yeah.
Twenties, something like that.
And then the way that it's got, likethis big swooping almost looks like from
a distance, like a crescent moon shape.
And at the top is a star andshe's just holding onto it.
She's got a hair beret with a star in it.
But this is by an artistnamed Giuseppe Armani.
And this.
(32:42):
One is called Comet.
So he has a variousones that he's created.
This is probably one of thosethings where you sketch out an idea
and then you bring that to lifethrough, through the sculpture.
It's in good condition.
There's no flaws.
It is signed.
It is stamped.
It's from 1998 and it's a limitededition piece that's numbered, not
unlike a print would be numbered.
(33:03):
Mm-hmm.
Usually there's a N and then anothernumber, and the second number is
the number total that were made.
And the first number is what this number,what number this particular one is.
So in this case, this isnumber 3,425 out of 5,000.
If you're ever looking at printsor works of art that are numbered.
(33:25):
You should know that the collectability ofones that are the lowest number possible.
So if it's a one out of 50 or a one outof a thousand, that's likely gonna be
the most valuable one of all of thembecause it was the very first one.
And I think that with things likesculptures like this, that this
was essentially poured into a mold.
(33:45):
This type, I believe, poured into a mold.
And then painted andglazed after the fact.
But I think the idea of the numberingsystem came from when people did
etchings or engravings where theywere like block print pieces of art,
meaning it was carved into or itwas yeah, into co, a copper plate
originally or some kind of metal plate.
(34:06):
Or then later on some kind of likelinoleum block or something, or wood.
And then you roll on inkand you press it down on a.
The way that these are created,particularly etchings that are in
plastic or in metal, the more youdo it, there's damage essentially
to it every time you press it.
So if you imagine like theselittle burrs that you're
(34:28):
scratching into a plate mm-hmm.
They're gonna be most able to acceptthe ink and these grooves and on the
burrs and things for the first few.
So it stands to reason that the firstone's gonna be the clearest to the best.
Ah, okay.
Copy of it, whereassubsequent ones are worse.
Now, metal plates, you can dothousands typically on those, but
(34:50):
they have more contemporary onesmade outta plastic and stuff.
And those, 2050 or less because it'sa softer medium, the plastic is softer
and it can get damaged with fewer uses.
So there you go Again, wentdown the rabbit hole on that
one, but this sold for $240.
Oh cow.
I had it up for more than that.
(35:11):
I am selling this for one ofthe people I'm consigning for.
They inherited from their appearance oftheirs and they had something like 12 of
them varying sizes all by the same artist.
I tried it first to sell them all togetherbecause man, I didn't wanna have to go
through the work of doing all of themindividually, but it wouldn't sell.
So I did end up having to do that, andsince I've done that, I've sold about.
(35:33):
Four of them in the last week and a half.
So I'm hoping that if that pacecontinues, I'll have them all sold by.
It's really cool.
It's a really cool item.
I love the art piece.
It is definitely this kind,like I said, it's this flowy.
It's got definitely art nouveau feelto it because it's curvy and flowing
and it's fewer decorator that it couldbe look like tchotchke if it was just
surrounded by a lot of other tchotchke.
(35:54):
Oh, of course.
But if it was like up on ashelf by itself, it's just
really a beautiful piece.
It could standalone.
Exactly.
It's a standalone piece as well.
Yeah, it could be either.
I agree with that.
So that was a fun thing to sell.
The next thing I'm gonna showyou was a surprise this morning.
I woke up to find that it sold lastnight, and it is a vintage Gibson guitar.
(36:14):
Oh, this is a 19 on, hold it backso you can see the size of the body.
It's a, what they wouldcall a tobacco burst.
So it's a very dark onthe edges of the top.
And it gets lighter as it goestowards the middle of the top
by the bridge in the strings.
This is a 1958 Gibson LG twothree quarter, so what that means?
(36:38):
58. So it's a vintage piece.
Gibson highly respected, perhaps themost respected or one of the most
collected brands of musical instruments.
The LG two is a model that was createdI think that they made them maybe
even as early as the thirties, butit may have started in the forties.
(37:00):
And they have different models,LGS ones, twos, and threes.
They were smaller bodiedinstruments typically, and they
were more for women and students.
Originally, so that was their targetmarket because they're easier to
hold and play their smaller body.
This one being is an unusual bird.
There weren't a ton of these.
It's a three quarter instrument.
So unlike the other LG models orL double Os that are smaller body,
(37:25):
almost getting down to parlor sizeguitars, this is actually three
quarter size of a typical guitar.
So it's a very small body and it's a.
It would actually be fine for a child.
Mm-hmm.
Or someone smaller to play.
The nut width is reallynarrow, so it's hard to play.
(37:45):
Sounds really good finger style.
All that to say, sold it for $1,850.
I have had it for a couple of months.
I got a pretty, I'm not, I didn'tmake a ton of money on this.
Maybe three or 400 bucks.
Not a big deal, but I saw it locally.
I could put my hands on it.
I'd never had one before.
I knew I could make a little bit.
You gotta play a quarter twoon it so we can hear the, oh,
(38:07):
it's not gonna sound well here.
I don't know if you can hear it.
I'll just drum.
It's not even in tune very well, honestly.
It's yeah, it's got a nice sound to it andI don't know I hope that the person buying
it realizes that is a three quarter size.
If they've done theirresearch, they'll know.
These are fairly collectible becausethey, you don't see 'em a whole lot.
(38:28):
In fact, at any given timeyou're only gonna find one,
maybe two for sale on eBay.
Whereas if you just look up Remingtonpocket knife, there are thousands.
For example, you put threequarter, you put the size on
the thing on the listing I did.
It's important to have that because thatdenotes that there is a size difference
because there is a regular LG two.
(38:49):
In fact, I have a 1947.
Gibson LG two is one ofmy own personal guitars.
It's a small body, but it is largerthan this and it isn't full size guitar.
So I was happy to sell thatbecause and I'm gonna spend just
a moment to show you another one.
This came in last week.
(39:09):
It is also a Gibson guitar, butthis is a very special guitar.
What I'm holding up right now is a 1931.
L one flat top guitar.
So the L one flat top guitar was madebetween 1930 and 1931, and by flat, I
(39:30):
say flat top because they made otherL one instruments, but those, the
top was bowed out, so it was convex.
It had a floating bridgelike a violin does.
So instead of it being glued down andattached, it sits upright and usually
the strings are attached to a metaltailpiece at the lower bout, and then
(39:51):
they come and hang over the bridge.
The reason that's important is thatthe style of music on those, you
really can't play those real hard.
You feel like you haveto be careful with them.
That was made, a lot of people did jazzmusic on them or finger style stuff.
But rare instrument because theydon't know exactly, but they estimate
that between only 1,012 hundredof this model were ever made.
(40:15):
Now 19 30, 19 31, this was a 31over the last 95, 96, however many
years ago that this was made, ifonly a thousand or 1200 were made.
A large number of those have been.
Completely have completely fallen apart.
People drop 'em, snap theheadstock off of them.
Something breaks on it and they pitch it.
(40:38):
Work has been done on them,original parts are replaced.
All of those things devalue them.
A big deal at certain periodsof time was to refinish guitar,
so sand off the original finish.
That can take anywhere from 40 to like70% of the value of the instrument away
from it if you refinish an instrument.
So anyone out there who's thinkingabout refinishing a vintage instrument
(40:58):
don't because you're gonna awayhalf of its value by doing that.
This has all original components.
It plays well.
It has had a lot of cracksrepaired, but even with that, this
is about a six to $7,000 guitar.
Wow.
And I traded a Martin oh 18from the mid sixties, plus a
(41:20):
little bit of cash to get this.
I'm very happy.
This is something I'll enjoyplaying, but we'll be an investment.
It is for sale, because ifsomebody's gonna say, yeah,
I'll give you seven grand.
Yeah.
Sure.
Right.
I'll probably part with it.
Because again, even though there aresome things I love and I want to use
I'm not attached to things really.
Right.
It's just, it's a thing.
It's a fun thing.
(41:41):
You name that guitar and give ita soul, is what you're saying.
Correct.
It's not like King's Lucille.
Not yet.
No.
But the other thing that's really specialabout this guitar is that if you've
ever heard of Robert Johnson, of course,he's considered sort of the king of the
Delta Blues who lived in the twenties.
He died in, I think, like nine madedeal with Devil, I believe Matt.
Yes.
At the ripe age of 27.
(42:02):
So the, as the story goes, he was walkingdown a road and he at a crossroads, he
met the devil and he sold his soul tothe devil in order to play the guitar.
Better than any other person.
He was a heavy influence on EricClapton, rolling Stones, sled
Zeppelin and so on for his blues work.
But he unfortunately died at a reallyyoung age, even though he died at 27.
(42:25):
He was married twice.
And his first wife in the firstyear died and the baby, she was
pregnant, died in childbirth as well.
So it was very sad.
And then.
They aren't a hundred percent sure,but they believe that his, he died
from drinking whiskey that someone hadpoisoned because he was at some place
playing music and I think he was maybepaying some attention to a lady or
(42:50):
someone who's, they believe that maybehis, that woman's boyfriend or husband
or someone got upset and poisoned him.
So this was his guitar.
There are only two known photographs.
Wait, that's his actual guitar.
No.
This is the same model, right?
He had a 19 there are only twophotographs that we know to exist of him.
One, he's sitting in astudio holding an instrument.
(43:10):
The other one, he's in a photo booth,which is another reason why I love this
'cause I'm a photo booth enthusiast.
He's holding a guitar in both one ofthose photos, he's holding the same
chord, like with his fingers, even thoughit's in different places on the guitar.
But he had a 1921 L one.
So this model is infamous for, or isvery well known for being a guitar.
(43:32):
Historians don't necessarilybelieve that he owned this guitar.
They think that it was given to him asa prop to use in that studio he played a
Kalamazoo and he played a Stella guitar.
We don't have to get into all that.
I love it, but I kidding.
Guitar enthusiast.
They're like, tell me more, dude.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He does amazing stuff that'sblues is the sort of early
origins of blues as we know it.
(43:54):
So I was excited to get that guitar.
It's a rare, it's highlycollectible for collectors.
This is one of the things I can play onand it will continue to go up in value.
And so at some point intime I could sell it.
If I decide I wanna sell it and payfor one of my kids a year of college,
then I can do that, so it's niceto have So some fun guitar stuff.
(44:14):
And I have another one coming in todaythat I have to do some repair work on.
So I'll have to show you thaton an future episode, and we'll
talk about what I'm gonna do.
Have you ever heard of thecurse of the 20 sevens?
Oh yeah.
With like rockers and things.
A lot of people between27 and 29, a lot of them.
Yeah.
All these people that die at 27 years old.
Gram Parson.
Yeah.
Kurt Cobain.
(44:34):
The list is like 50 people long.
It's crazy.
Jim Morrison.
Yeah.
All these people that died.
Jim Morrison for some,the guy from Blame Mellon.
There's a lot of 27 years old.
I don't, I'm glad I made it past there.
Yeah.
Janice Joplin.
Jan Janis Joplin.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So the I don't have it in myhand, but another gold ring sold.
I sold a lot of gold lately becauseas we've discussed recently, gold
(44:57):
and silver have been really high.
Now, I've seen silver drop down recently,but gold has, it's dropped a little
bit, but it is still the highest it'sbeen in like the last eight or 10 years.
So again, if you have gold thatyou don't wear or don't care about,
it's a good time to sell becauseyou're gonna get good values.
Especially if you're worried becauseof what the stock market's doing.
But I just encourageyou not to look at it.
(45:17):
Don't get scared and sell, becausewhen you do that, Berkshire Hathaway
is gonna laugh at you and then buyit up and then they're gonna make
money and you're gonna lose it.
So don't do that.
I haven't sold this yet, butI'll show you one more thing.
This came in as sign the piece.
We have our dukes of hazard trash can.
Oh, that's so great.
And it's featuring you, you essentiallyhave the Confederate flag as a backdrop.
(45:41):
You have all the character not all,but several of the main characters and
the quintessential the General Lee.
The General Lee here, theorange car with the number 10,
and in midway, no number one.
The number one.
Come on.
Number one.
Sorry, I'm looking at it through my thecamera in reverse here in the camera.
This is, it's a remake.
This is not from that original time.
It's not, but it, and it isn't, you cansee like the metal is, it's not rusted.
(46:05):
It's never been used.
So it will sell well because it's unused.
But this was probably, I don'tknow, maybe it was original.
Was that in 1980s?
It was the late seventies, eighties.
Yeah.
So me.
It's possible.
This is, I haven't actually even donethe research a little on the Boss
Hog on there, Dukes, but that's fun.
I love getting in interesting stuffthat I can relate to because it
(46:26):
was in the era of when I was a kid.
That's fun.
But I did make a new connection, a ratherthrough word of mouth, with someone
else that I'm currently selling for.
I was connected withanother family and went out.
Yesterday and collected a large numberof things to sell on their behalf.
And I will be going back multipletimes over the next few weeks.
(46:50):
But one thing I just wanted toshow, I don't think I'll be able
to sell it, or if I do it willhave to be privately or locally.
I'm gonna back up just to showit, but what I'm gonna be holding
is a Samurai sword and the.
Are entirely composed ofcarved figures out of ivory.
(47:12):
Oh, so I'm gonna back up and show this.
Can't sell that.
Here we are.
The blade, as you can see is rusted.
It's old.
It's still sharp.
The handle.
And you can, I'll put it up closer.
You can see that there are, Iturned it the other direction, but
there are carved figures of peopleholding things all the way around.
So this is composed of brass.
(47:36):
Then the steel of themetal of the blade itself.
And then the rest of it is carved ivory.
And we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 separatepanels that are oval in shape and have
been glued together with these rings.
So really cool historical.
But as you mentioned, the problem is thatillegal unless you have a piece, has been.
(48:03):
Verified that it was produced prior toI around the turn of the century, and
you have provenance, like you can provethat it was not harvested illegally,
which I'm not gonna be able to do.
Now.
I will say that the other ones like thisthat are out there, it's pretty well
known that this was produced in aroundthe late 18 hundreds, like around 1880s
(48:26):
to 1890s after the Maji restoration.
There you go.
Yeah.
Because what happened was in1868, United States went in
and said, history teacher here.
open your doors to us.
And they banned the new government,banned the Samurai so that they wouldn't
wear, allow them to, if you guys sawthe movie, it was the Last Samurai.
Mm-hmm.
They made them cut their topnotch and itwas a big deal because Samurai culture
(48:47):
had run Japan for about 800 years.
So the fact that was produced post.
In 1868 is pretty interesting.
I think that it was made, I don'tthink that it's made as a usable sort.
I think it's more ceremonial.
Mm-hmm.
And I also believe it was likely produced.
As an intentional export, so probablyan export to Europe or the United States
(49:09):
because there was, as with the, and allthat stuff, there were revival periods
where people were very interested inChinese or Japanese culture and their
artwork and various stuff, and theyrealized that and they said, Hey,
like we're missing an opportunity.
We need to start producing a lot ofstuff for these people in these other
countries that are interested in our.
(49:30):
In the things that we have.
I think that's what it was for, I don'tknow how it got into the hands of this
family, but much like a lot of thingslike this, it's just been sitting
in a closet or in a box for decades,'cause what do you do with it other
than just have it set out for display?
And and I don't think that they did.
So this came in.
I'm gonna have to go back and tell'em, unless I can find a private
buyer, this is not gonna qualify assomething I can sell for you online.
(49:52):
Because law, that's cool.
I would buy that.
Very, I can't buy it because it'sivory and I don't wanna break
international law, but I love the,I of course it's not a Hans shoe.
Hans shoe would be the most famousof all the Samurai swords, there were
different makers like anything else.
And they were, the samurai swordwas, they're just incredible.
They were as tools, but as asweapons obviously, but also as
art pieces, there's a lot to them.
(50:13):
Yeah.
Alright, listen Matt, that I thought wewere gonna do about a half an hour today.
We've almost gone an hour.
So that's typical of us.
But I, this has been my favoriteshow I think we've ever done.
I just.
Every little piece of thiswas historical and I loved it.
So yeah, some cool history stuff.
Hey, remember people, we need youto tell your friends about us.
We want to continue to grow.
(50:34):
We really appreciate yourcomments and everything you say.
Your concern for Max'shealth is always appreciated.
Yeah, and that's what'sreally important here.
But remember to follow,like, and subscribe.
We got a lot of followers,a lot of likers now.
And people that are hittingthat click subscribe button.
We appreciate that.
We look forward to coming backwith a brand new show next week.
We both have some spring breaks comingup, but we're still gonna do a show
(50:58):
that will pop up during spring break.
So if you're going on spring breakwith your family, have a great time.
Otherwise, we'll see youin a couple of weeks.
Anything left to say, Matt?
Just don't be, we're all cousins.
We're all in this together, so don't betoo afraid we're gonna get through it.
Amen to that.
Alright, people talk soon.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!