June 4, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of the What Sold podcast, Brandon and Matt, also known as their El Luchador tag team personas, El Lobo Blanco and El Rojo, discuss their latest sales and share humorous anecdotes. They kick off with Matt's sales of an antique Victorian-era hat pin with a gold tip and a collection of 1930s-1940s Mutoscope pin-up cards. They also cover items like vintage cobalt blue Bromo-Seltzer bottles, Chiniserie plates, and a Muppet Show 25th anniversary Kermit the Frog action figure. The episode takes a detour into surprising buyer moments, including a recent sale to filmmaker Kevin Smith. Additionally, they discuss the potential resale value of collectibles such as Betty Boop statues and the challenges and benefits of selling unique items. Join the hosts as they provide insights on the vintage resale market, share their personal collection stories, and even delve into Halloween-themed resale ideas.
00:00 Introduction and El Luchador Characters
02:00 Diving into Sales: Victorian Hat Pin
05:18 Vintage Pinup Cards and Creative Selling
08:46 Clown Phobia and Childhood Memories
14:34 Selling Vintage Matchbooks and Business Insights
17:01 Understanding the Reselling Business
18:26 The Art of Collecting and Selling Bottles
21:13 Exploring Chinoiserie and Its Value
23:33 Market Shifts and Collectible Trends
27:25 Celebrity Buyers and Unique Sales
30:59 The Ethics of Collecting Historical Items
31:58 Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts
The What Sold Podcast Subreddit
#victorianhatpins #preciousmetals #vintagetoys #actionfigures #kevinsmith #silentbob #mutoscope #mutoscopecards #whatsoldpodcast #rustythereseller #whatsold #reselling #ebaystore #sellingonebay
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, my El Luchador character is.
El Lobo.
El Lobo.
El Lobo Blanco, the white wolf.
I like to think of that as the white wolf.
I'm here with Mateo Brock.
That's me.
Who's El Luchador characteris El Rojo it'd be rusty,
(01:00):
whatever reseller is in Spanish.
And I do think we need to go on theroad as an El Luchador tag team.
Oh yeah.
You would always come in.
I would, cause I'm a bigger guy than you Iwould be wrestling the guy, get him down.
It looked good.
And then the opponent, like theydo, threw dirt, my eye, whatever.
And I'd be laying on my backand just about to pin me in.
And you'd come over the topalmost always with a chair and
(01:22):
just smash somebody with a chair.
In the spirit of Nacho Libre, I'dsay, I think we're ready to go pro.
Oh, yeah.
At this point.
Oh, absolutely.
There's no question that we're ready.
There's no better way to get betterat something than to compete against
people who are like top notch.
That's how you learn.
You don't compete against peoplewho are going to make you feel good
(01:42):
because they're worse than you.
Like you don't grow that way.
No, we're going on a real circuit.
We're going to get out there.
We're going to, of course, we dohave to go to Guadalajara to do this.
So we're going to have to shutthe show down, move to Mexico and
start our El Luchador career there.
To learn that language pretty darn quick.
That's right.
So I'm going to be in trouble.
So I was talking to someone recently,they're like, I hate it when people
(02:04):
spend 10 minutes talking aboutnonsense before they get into the show.
You know what?
Oh, let's get right into it.
We're going right to it, Matt.
We're not even going to mess around.
We're going right to work hereon the What's The Old Podcast.
Because we haven't really talked aboutwhat you've sold a lot of, and it's
the morphing of the show, but we'regoing to get into, because you sold
some interesting things this week.
You've been a mover and a shaker.
Every time I go out with you,I feel like a, an invasion of
(02:26):
Poland's about ready to happen.
There's just schemes and plansand things going on that I'm like,
wow, this guy is always thinking.
So we're going to start this weekwith what you sold and then reverse
it this week just to get, keep peoplefresh, keep them on their toes.
Sounds good.
So, Matt.
What did you sell this week?
I'm excited about this episode.
We've got some cool things to talk about.
(02:48):
I'll start off here.
One thing I sold is this.
This is an antique Victorianera hat pin and Hat pins can be
differentiated from stick pins.
Stick pins often wear more on theshirt or on the dress or things
and hat pins are as they indicate.
They refer hats, holding, stickinghats or sticking things to your hair
(03:11):
maybe done up in a bun or something.
This particular, and they cancome in all types all sizes.
This one is only aboutprobably five inches long.
But they can come as long as, a foot,12 inches, and everywhere in between.
They can be made of glass at theend, they can be made of just basic
metal, they can be gold filled,they can be sterling silver.
(03:32):
And then there's this one, and it'sinteresting, it's a very tiny head at
the very top of it, and it has somesort of synthetic, an early lucite or
something like that material, but ifyou turn it over and you use a jeweler's
loop, You'll see that it says 10k.
So the top of this isactually 10 karat solid gold.
(03:53):
Oh, it's very tiny probably onlyweighs half a gram or something.
So it's not like that's a lot ofmetal But it is somewhat valuable.
It's a precious metal and maybe somebodylikes the look of it There are people
who collect these they craft with them.
They do all kinds of things I gotthis in a lot of several at an
estate sale for very cheap AndI've sold some of them already.
I've got way more to sell.
(04:13):
I've already made my money back.
But this one sold for 40.
Oh, nice.
That's quite a mint for an old.
The pin itself, the metal part thatcomes down, that's just an alloy.
So the only part that's goldis this last little tip.
Wait a second before youmove on from that, Matt.
For those of people that are not watchingthe YouTube channel and to see it, it
(04:34):
looks like something that you would seesome sort of like a woman, she would pull
it out of her hat and she would stickyou with it on the tip would be poison.
It looks like that she would, you woulduse that as a, I know I often talk about
on the show that I'm a little morbid,but I do like to think of that as like
a James Bond character wearing that.
Oh, espionage.
This is a spice special here, weapon.
(04:55):
So long thin pin.
That's exactly right.
Now be careful not to poke yourself.
That'd be something that like, thepink panther or someone would, or
not yeah, but accidentally like,oh, no, it wouldn't be a poison.
It would be like a sleeping,just to knock you out.
Yeah, of course, of course, you'rein the vault, the bank vault and you
accidentally, the door shuts and thenyou accidentally poison yourself.
(05:17):
We can make a movie out of that.
Sure.
Another thing I sold isthis little collection.
There's only five in here, butI've got several different ones.
This harkens back to the 1930s, 1940s.
And what I have are fouror five of these cards.
And these are, they saymutoscope, a mutoscope card.
And this, but what they are they are.
(05:37):
Artistic images of women.
And this is like the pinup girl.
This is that pinup era whereyou've got, in one case you've
got, and they're all, very risque.
I mean, they're not nude but it'shighlighting just the beauty of women.
And so you've got a woman in onecase, she's holding a bow and arrow.
And another case she's got,she's pulling up the bottom of
her dress to expose her hose.
(05:58):
Another one, she's scantilyclad and she's bending over the
ironing board, that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah.
A lot of times people will collectthese because a lot of old oil and gas
or a lot of these old companies wouldcreate things like calendars or posters
or things with their company on it.
(06:18):
It's, it was advertising stuff and theywould utilize, I can't tell you how many
calendars or posters or things that hadthese pinup girls, very common artwork.
And so I have, several dozens of these.
I probably have 100 or 200 various ones.
I've got duplicates of a lot of them.
And so what I do with that when I haveduplicates is, I don't just throw up,
(06:39):
like, I've got 50 of this one card.
Because then it doesn'tseem very rare, does it?
What I do is I make small lotswhere I'll take one of these four or
five different ones, and then I'lldo one lot so you have a variety.
I'm more likely to sell themmore quickly that way, because
who needs 50 of the same thing?
But they might want a little variety,depending on what they're doing with it.
This little lot sold for 24.
(07:01):
I could see a person that doescrafts or wanted to create a
collage picture, because they'rereally cool, they're beautiful.
I could see that hanging up.
They are, yeah.
And you could do one frame.
Like a picture frame and have threeor four of these all together.
And that's not a bad idea, by theway, if you have things like this,
all kinds of stuff, old tobacco cards.
(07:22):
All kinds of things that haveinteresting old images on them.
They're vintage.
If you have a hard time selling themindividually, just go out to a thrift
store and find a picture frame forthree bucks or something and stick
those in, don't use glue because ofa person wants to pull them out, but
find a way to affix them in that andthen the person gets a work of art that
they can immediately put on the wall.
(07:43):
They don't have to do anything with it.
I imagine that being up in some hepcat insan francisco's hate district with a lava
lamp in the corner And he's got that upand he's playing some really funky jazz.
That's the image I see of that Absolutely,or how many times have you been out
to a just any type of a business?
It could be a restaurant or somethingand they've just got all kinds of
(08:05):
knickknacks and things all over thewall and they're just going for a
particular vibe or a particular lookso if this is like a Fifties' diner.
It stands to reason you're going tohave all of this vintage or stylized
stuff from that era up on the wall.
So maybe that's why aperson is getting it.
They're just trying to decoratesomething, but there's all kinds of
reasons why a person would want that.
Again, I like paper ephemera becauseoftentimes people overlook it.
(08:29):
They don't want to mess with it.
They don't think it has value butthere's all kinds of things that are
made of paper or cardboard or thingsthat can bring really good values.
So wait a second before, beforeyou go on, I just want to keep
interjecting all show long.
So you're caught.
Please do.
I'm just keeping it.
It doesn't bother me at all.
Hey the so did I ever mentionthe clown lady to you?
(08:50):
The clown lady.
So I have.
No, but tread lightly becausethere are some people out there
who have issues with clowns.
I have issues with clowns for sure.
I had a friend in college and heinvited me, it was like in the
summer, say come over by my houseand he was living in Portland.
And so I stopped by.
And it was his parents house, itwas, we're in college and I go
in there and his house is filled.
(09:12):
And I mean, filled, probably in thethousands of clowns, like clown figurines,
clown pictures, clown, every kind ofclown thing you could possibly imagine
had been collected in that South.
And the reason I bring that up is as areseller, now that is my worst nightmare.
I still get the sweatswhen I think about it.
That's the scene of a horror movie.
Does he also rent that stuff out?
(09:34):
By the way, there are people who,I know someone through a friend,
a close friend, that they buy andsell things, but they somehow got
a connection at some point with.
Either one production movie productioncompany or something, and they will
allow a movie place to rent vintageitems from them for props and sets in
(10:00):
TV or movie productions that they do.
So they'll pay them not to buy it, butto use it for a period of time, and
then they get it back, which is awesomebecause then they're making money in the
meantime before they actually sell it.
It sounds like this personshould should curb the clown.
The clown market with regard to that.
But if you went into a place likethat, in all seriousness, if you went
into a house like that and you saw itwas all clowns, I know somebody that
(10:22):
collects Pelicans and they're beautiful.
And there's like figurinesand painting stuff.
As a reseller, would you look at thatand say, I see a lot of value here,
or you're like, I'm going to run.
There are very few things that Iwill not research or we'll say,
I'm just not interested in that.
And even though I don'tpersonally care for clowns.
In fact, when I was a child, I grew up.
(10:43):
I was very young.
So I'm from Southwest Missouri originally.
And when I was very young, Ilived in a town called Carthage.
And we lived in thislittle, I want to go back.
If not where Tom Sawyerwas written, Carthage.
Oh, possibly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cause Mark Twain is from Missouri.
He's from the St. Louisarea, I think, but.
I, we lived in this little house andat one period of time, and I don't
(11:03):
remember, I think maybe initially theyset up my bedroom to be up the stairs
and there was just one room up there.
My bedroom was up there.
And for some reason, I don'tknow where they got it.
If this was my mom's.
And maybe they'll tell me if they hearthis, but they had this clown and it
sat like this clown doll and it satup there and when I'd go upstairs, I
would, from the moment I got up andcross, I'd take a look at it and I never
(11:26):
kept my, cause I didn't trust it, tokeep your eyes on that thing and you
know how your mind plays tricks on you.
It seemed like it was movingor its eyes were blinking and
it's just, it was terrifying.
It's my worst nightmare.
It is.
Yeah.
And it, you know, I was justa kid and I had imagination.
I'm pretty sure at some point,I just come, I don't know if I
complained about the doll beingthere or if I even touched on that.
I might've just been like,I really like being up here.
(11:47):
Can I be downstairs?
Can I please not be near the clown?
And maybe I'm remembering thewhole series incorrectly, but I'm
not not remembering that I wasscared to death of that thing.
And by, by clown standards, it probablywas a pretty benign looking thing.
It probably wasn't that bad.
Yeah, but I come across old things.
All this.
In fact, I'm looking at it right here.
(12:09):
Give me one second.
I'm going to pull it down.
I want to show.
Sure.
Oh, yeah.
This is what we call a segue,a cutaway in the biz, where
Matt's picking up something.
He's wandering around in the studio.
So this is not a clown.
However, I'm going to start it like this.
Oh, no.
Do the slow review.
Here you go.
Yes.
(12:31):
It's just an old.
This is probably a 1930s.
Oh, doll head.
And it's actually made out of plastic, butit has those glassy eyes that when they
lay back, they close like they're asleep.
And then when you turn it up and I wasthinking of the day I, it would be cool.
I say cool.
It would be more terrifying if I createdsome sort of machine that you could push
(12:52):
a button or it was worth whatever andit could always be in this down position
like laid back and if you did somethingit would slowly raise the head up and
look at you, and then slowly go back down.
There's like that Airbnb or one of thoseVRBO commercials where they put the little
kid in the rented room and it's got likeall the stuff on the wall for like murder.
And listen, from theperspective of being creative.
(13:14):
Okay.
So this doll is withoutthe body and it's creepy.
Even look at, if I hold it up, like one ofthe eyes is stuck in the wrong position.
So if you're at all scared of dolls,don't watch the YouTube video because
you'll have nightmares because ofthis one, but here like in creative.
If I don't sell this, if I try tosell it and it gets close to August,
September, If I went ahead and createdsomething that made this doll head
pop up, that is prime for Halloween.
(13:36):
Somebody puts that on their, it's likea motion sensor thing, and then when the
kids come up on the deck to, or whatever,on the porch, it triggers this thing and
up pops this little, creepy doll head.
People would pay big money for that.
They would pay big money for that.
But see, that's just about being creative,and you, sometimes you have to, Put your
thinking cap on and say, okay, what'sthe way to maximize the value of this?
(13:57):
I, we should do an entire show onthings I've done like that in the
past where I was able to pull out somevalue that was not apparent or obvious.
I've always been afraid of clowns becausewhen I was a kid, my uncle took me to
the circus and then a clown killed him.
I don't know why, but it's, that'sa Jack, that's a Jack handy.
(14:18):
I don't know why where he'slike, I've always been afraid
of clowns and I'm not sure why.
Maybe it's because my dad took me to thecircus one day and a clown killed him.
I'm not sure.
It could be that.
Enough of the clown nonsense.
What do you have next, Matt?
Yeah.
Let's talk about another thing I saw.
This one right here is a thisis a container from 1983.
(14:39):
It's a silver, just a paper containerthat holds a dozen vintage matchbook,
like little matchbooks, where it's silver.
It says 25, it's 1958 to 1983, the25th anniversary of RC, and I'll
pull it up, It says inside RCA andit has all the matches, which by
the way, if you're ever going to,well, I'll get to that in a moment.
(15:00):
Remind me to talk about shipping these.
Sure.
But this thing, I bought a large lot of,and this is not RCA, like RCA sound music,
like the little dog by the Victrola thing.
Yeah, right.
This is RCA Astro Electronics.
So there was an electronics company,Astrophysics and Electronics.
(15:21):
And I bought a bunch ofpromotional marketing materials
that they had produced.
So ink pens, little key chains, and thesematchbooks, all kinds of little stuff
like pencils and things for very cheap.
One large lot.
I think I paid 30 bucks for it.
And I've had this stuff for three yearsand I'm still slowly selling it over time.
(15:44):
And I'm selling enough of it thatit didn't make sense for me to
package what was remaining in it.
Back up and sell us a lot like I'm justletting it ride because I have long since
made all of my money So this right heresold for 14 and I honestly don't remember
how much I paid for all of it I can'timagine I would have paid more than 20 or
30 dollars for it But this one item thatI sold could have represented roughly 50
(16:05):
percent of my investment and I've soldMaybe 40 or 50 things out of that lot.
I probably have 50 to 100 things leftAnd these are the great kinds of things.
This is why I love to buy lots ofstuff because you can sell two or
three things from a lot or five thingsfrom a lot, make your money back.
Then there's no sweat.
You just stick that if you're okay, ifyou have the storage for it, that stuff
(16:27):
becomes the underpinning of your business.
It's not selling for a lot of money,but over time, you're going to have
those big sales from time to time.
But most days you'rereally just having these.
15, 20, 30 sales.
And yeah, I've been doing this fulltime for a while and I've sold items
for multiples of thousands of dollars apiece, but the majority of my business
is stuff that's 20 or 30 bucks.
(16:48):
If I were to go on eBay and run theanalytics, it would say that my average
sale price of an item was like 180.
But that's misleading because that isskewed by that 8, 000 guitar that I sold.
You know what I mean?
Most of them are in the 20 to 30 range.
So those listening.
Don't ever feel like you hearsomething that I bought or sold and
you're like, yeah, this is great.
(17:08):
But I'm just not, wheream I going to find that?
Most of the stuff I find is the same kindof things you can find in your community.
It's just that I'm doing it full timeand I work so much on this that I've just
accumulated more things than you have.
That's all.
That's the only difference.
And I've been doing it long enough that Imaybe I'm more skilled at and knowing how
to research things, but that just takesmore videos, more knowledge and a little
(17:33):
bit of experience and you'll be there too.
Yeah.
And it's that patience to understandingthat businesses, it's not, most
stuff isn't going to happen overnightthat you're going to have to spend
some time that you've got this.
And like you said, you don't evenknow how much you put into it and
you bought it three years ago,but it's still bringing value.
Abolutely, and most people are like that.
The only exception to that would be ifYou've maybe done it part time for a long
(17:55):
time and saved up a bunch of money, oryou decided you want to do this and you
had money or you got a loan and then youbought an entire antique store at once.
Then you end up with a lot of stuff veryquickly, but I don't recommend that.
I recommend you slowly do it.
And ideally you focus on a categoryor two of things that you personally
are interested in because that's goingto keep you motivated to research.
(18:15):
You already like it.
I love research.
Art.
And I love music.
So I'm really interested in buyingguitars because I play guitar.
Right.
I recommend people do that.
Another thing that's just sold isthis little baggie and I'll just
hold it up, but it's full of, it'sgot a half a dozen, six of these
tiny little cobalt blue bottles.
They're probably four inchestall and maybe two inches wide.
(18:39):
And they say Bromo seltzerEmerson drug company.
In Baltimore, Maryland.
So these were little seltzerbottles and they're cool.
They're cobalt blue.
And even with the age and some ofthe stuff that was inside, there's
this little iridescent look to them.
Really kind of cool.
These sold for 30.
(19:00):
This is actually somethingI'm selling for someone else.
They sat for a while.
I had to slowly lower the priceover time, which is what I do.
I price it high, hoping somebody bites.
If not, then I slowly lower it overtime until I hit that sweet spot.
And a collectible by old bottles havedepending on what they are, can have
really large collectability old Cokebottles, particularly, or ones made
(19:21):
by maybe match manufacturing plantsthat didn't exist for very long.
So there was just a limited numberof things that they produced.
That's a rabbit hole it's a rabbithole like vinyl records, like you
can just fall in, and if you don'tgrab onto something, you're gonna
keep falling, it just keeps going.
But there's a whole YouTube, if you likethe treasure hunting thing, there's an
(19:42):
entire YouTube, there's a YouTube worldout there of people who just go around and
find where old, Buildings used to be andor where old dumps are or were and they
just dig pits and they're digging downto get to the bottom because it stands to
reason that the oldest items will be atthe very bottom when it started, right?
(20:03):
And they piled it on and they digdown and you'll get these videos where
people are 10 feet in the ground.
And you're thinking at any moment,this could just cave in and bury them.
I'm not kidding, and then they pull outthis bottle and they've, who knows how
many hours they've been digging this pit.
How long does it take to build orto dig out a pit that's five feet
wide in diameter and eight feet,10 feet deep, like a long time.
(20:26):
And it's not like these peopleare bracing the walls and doing
it like, they're just digging.
That's true.
And then they pull out this one bottleand they're like, This is a 2, 000 bottle.
Okay.
So it made sense to spend fivehours digging this hole, right?
But you don't know, you don't knowwhat you're going to find, but in
those things, sometimes you find coins,jewelry, there's all kinds of stuff.
You can find an old in fact.
(20:47):
If anyone's interested, the most recentRusty video that came out was where
I found an old dump that was exposedby Hurricane Helene near a river.
It cut out this area, and I'mwalking along the bank, and
there were just bottles stickingout of the side of the bank.
It was really exciting.
I didn't find anything terriblyvaluable, but it was cool, and I did
find several like soda bottles andthings like that that were intact.
(21:08):
Go check that out at the Rustythe Reseller YouTube channel, that
most recent video if you want.
All right, another thingI sold here is this plate.
And it is a fairly large plate, butif you'll notice the motif around it,
it's, this is a white plate that hasa floral design, but then dragons.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's pretty.
By all appearances, it itlooks like an Asian plate.
(21:32):
But if you turn it over, there is a stampon the back, and the stamp says Booths.
It has a crown over the top, whichanytime you see a crown, not always, it
could mean Russia, it could mean England.
Transcribed In this case,it says made in England.
It has a partial maker mark on it.
But you know what this is, what do youcall Asian or Chinese artifacts that
(21:52):
were created in Europe instead of Asia?
Chineserie.
Exactly.
You want to tell the listenersa little bit about that?
Yeah, it's an actuallysuper interesting art form.
I actually really like it.
Many Europeans who had never been toAsia, as they called it in that day, the
Orient, the region, the Oriental region.
And so they did these stylizedpictures so people would come back
(22:13):
from Asia and they would talk aboutthe dragons and whatever, but they
had never actually seen or been there.
So they created this stylizedform of art around Asian culture,
and it was called Chiniserie.
It was mostly in France, butit was also, I think it went
all over Europe in a sense.
So when you find that.
By the way, that is, I know, I thinkit was in the, what is it, late 1800s?
(22:35):
I could be wrong, but Sure.
It wouldn't surprise you to knowthat if France picked up on something
that, that people liked thatEngland, I mean France and England
they just they hate each other.
Oh, they hate each other.
They've been competing.
So for so long, now they love each other.
Do they love each other now?
I think they're back to loving each other.
Okay.
Well, it's a love, hate relationship.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
It's like a bad breakup.
Bad high school breakup.
(22:56):
It's never ending.
But Chiniserie is really cool.
I've always wanted to have a Chiniserie,a real authentic Chiniserie piece.
And they could be very, very expensive.
Just so you know.
They can be.
They can be quite expensive.
And so the listeners outthere know, this could be.
Plates and things, it could bevases, it could be little figurines,
like there's a variety of things,it could even be furniture, like
(23:17):
they made little coffee tables andvarious things out of that as well.
So you can keep a look out for that,but that piece sold for 28, not a ton,
but there were a bunch produced, itwas mass produced, just like Chinese
export pieces were mass produced.
And talking about, we've talked aboutin the past that there's just changes.
(23:37):
And honestly, this year in the last, Iwould say 12 months, 10 to 12 months,
we've seen a pretty big shift in themarkets and people are keeping their
fingers on the pulse more than normal now.
Cause they're like, well,what's going to happen is.
Are the stocks going to drop?
Are they going to go up?
And I've seen definitebuyer sentiment change.
I'm still having roughly a small decreasein the number of items that are sold.
(24:00):
But I'm noticing is that the value of theitems that they're buying is much less.
So they're not buying as manyexpensive or more costly things.
They're spending money.
On less costly things.
But what I was going to say is thatup until the last year, Chinese
export pieces, again, becausethey were pretty mass produced,
didn't bring a whole lot of money.
But I was even, I've heard twice in thelast week and just chatting up people
(24:22):
at thrift stores or antique storesthat I've been going to source at, that
they're having a hard time keeping a holdof furniture right now, Asian pieces.
And that includes, Chinese exporterexport pieces and then Betty Boop.
I don't know what that's about, butBetty Boop stuff is really hot right now.
You're kidding.
No, did I ever send you thepicture of the my stylist?
(24:44):
My hair stylist?
No.
Yeah, the fabulous Becky.
She has this Becky Boop.
Yeah, she has a five foottall Betty Boop statue.
Oh, that thing is I have, I'veasked her, I'm like, why don't you,
she's like, ah, I really like it.
It's cool.
I might sell it someday.
How much would something like that go?
Did you say five feet tall?
It's like a. Like a personin the corner of Betty Boop.
(25:07):
I don't know how large, but or howvaluable it would be because I've
not really researched this stuff,but just just jumping on eBay here
real fast, here's one statue that.
Looks like it's only two feet talland they're wanting 500 for it.
And they've got 60 watchers.
Oh yeah.
I honestly think this would gofor well over a thousand dollars.
It's really cool.
(25:27):
I would like to own it.
I think it's a really, it's just sucha cool, almost art deco piece, but it's
better, she's holding like a serving tray.
So you could put like a little artpiece on top of the serving tray.
It's very cool.
Here's one right here.
I'm looking at a couple.
Here's one that's three feet tallthat they're asking 2, 500 for.
Okay.
Here's one.
It says large Betty Boop, aluminum statue.
(25:48):
She's in a red outfit with a hat andshe's holding one hands on the hip
and the other is holding up a thing.
1, 500. Yeah, so you're not wrong.
That can be quite valuable.
Wow.
I'm gonna have to talk to miss beckyabout her betty boops It's time to
move it talk about having an investmentpiece if it's something you enjoy and
that's what art is so great about artI've got art all around me in this
office You can't see because you'rejust looking at the inventory behind if
(26:09):
you're watching the video, but in frontof me I have Anything from newer pieces
to stuff from the 1700s on the wall.
And I do art restoration and thingsas well as a hobby, but I just love
it because you know what, this, I getsatisfaction, I get enjoyment out of
seeing it, but then anytime I needthe money, I have an asset I can sell.
Yeah, and over time, it stands toreason that generally speaking,
(26:32):
it's going to increase in valuebecause it will be older and older
and I'm keeping it's in a climatecontrolled area, so it should be okay.
That's awesome.
Yeah, so last one I'll showand talk about today is this.
We talked about, wedid Simpsons last time.
Now we have Kermit the Frog.
This is a sealed Kermit the Frogaction figure by Toy Fair and what
(26:53):
we've got here, it features Kermit.
In a black tuxedo with a top hat, andhe has a Muppet Show 25 year anniversary
large handheld movie camera here thathe's standing by and this is, it's a
Muppet Show 25 year thing, but it'sa sealed thing, it was made in, let's
see if I can see the year, 2002.
(27:14):
Jim Henson, the Muppetsguy, this sold for $24.
I don't know how much thissold for back then, probably
about half that, 10, 12 bucks.
But somebody's collecting these.
Oh, by the way, did I mention, I don'tknow if I said this to you personally
or not, or if I even mentioned on here,Did I tell you that about a month ago?
(27:34):
I sold an action figure toKevin Smith, the actor and No!
What?
Yeah.
Yeah.
From Bob?
Silent Bob.
Otherwise known as Silent Bob.
He's also a director.
He's an avid comic book collector.
So what happened was, I had this.
This was a Rocky and Bullwinkle.
The old action figure set.
(27:54):
It did not feature Rocky and Bull Winkle.
It featured the bad guy,the husband and wife.
What were their names?
I can't remember.
Oh, yeah, Boris and Natasha.
Yeah, Boris.
Boris and Natasha.
So it was Boris and Natasha.
So when this thing pops up, and I'm doingthe fulfillment, and it says Kevin Smith.
How many people are namedKevin Smith in the world?
(28:15):
Like there's probably a lot ofpeople named Kevin Smith, right?
But just on the off chance Isaw that it was a California.
It was like an LA area or somethinglike that address So I thought hmm
So I got on Google and I search KevinSmith and I search the address and
up pops up His multi million dollarhome that is currently for sale.
(28:38):
And then I thought, Oh my goodness.
So I get on there and I look around andsure enough, it is the Kevin Smith that
bought my, this action figure for me.
And don't think I didn't considersending this cat a private
message, being like, I'm a fan.
I would have, Hey, I,we've got this podcast.
I've got this YouTube channel.
(28:59):
If you want to say, thisis gonna become a thing.
So if you want to be able to tellyour friends, Hey, you were onto
these guys before they ever became athing, you should feel free to get on.
And when I didn't, I didn't send anything.
You know what though?
I gotta say heaven, if you're listening.
He's listening.
Let's be honest, the kind of thingthough, that, how fun would that be?
(29:20):
To be a collector like that.
And do a show where you talked about thepieces you collected and why you did it.
I'm pretty sure he has like a TVshow where at least, or some sort of
production that probably he produces.
I'm not sure, but where he talks aboutcomics, or at least at one time did.
Talks about his comic collection.
I didn't know he collected actionfigures, but it's that's just a
one the comics is just a gatewaydrug to the action figures, right?
(29:44):
They're in that same world.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that he wouldbe not at all the guy that would you know?
Style and everything he does fitsthat yeah And I mean I could you
know I could go back if I wanted toand just get on there and say hey
man I could start stalking this guy.
I'm not going to Kevin you're welcome,but, like, and subscribe, my man, if it's
all the same, yeah, absolutely join it.
(30:05):
And if you want action figures,send us on a search for them.
We'll find some good stuff.
Oh yeah.
Oh, I got more.
I got more, man.
In fact, I'll give you a personaltour of the the warehouse if you want.
Oh, that's so good.
But anyways, but that's cool.
As far as I know, that's the first,somewhat, semi famous or semi well known,
I say semi, no he's known, he's wellknown, person that has purchased from
(30:27):
me online, though there could have beenothers in the past, but I know, I have
sold things to museums, I have sold thingsto collectors, I have sold things to
people who have written collection booksand or are known as the authority on a
particular collectible, have purchasedthings from me, and because they, I've had
conversations with them about it I've evenhad places I've museums and places reach
(30:52):
out to me asking if I would be willing todonate items as part of their collection.
So that's cool.
All that stuff's interesting.
And we talked about before, if you havesomething that say fits in a category
that you're not willing to sell, or itdoesn't have to be that, but especially
that, and like, I've got some Nazi andor Holocaust related items that I'm not
about to sell, probably not even legal tosell, but I would in no way would I want
(31:16):
to somehow make money off of that item.
But.
I went to the Holocaust Museum inD. C. there and it ruined my day.
Yeah, the Tower of Shoesdefinitely ruins it.
That's one of those youdo later in the day.
But it was very important that I went.
And when I think my kids are at anage I'm going to be taking them.
(31:37):
But the point is that would be thekind of place that I'd say, Hey,
people need to know this happened.
They need to never forget.
If things are good for education, theyAnd they are good for us to learn from
the past so that we can be better people.
Then I think that that wouldbe an awesome thing to donate.
So all that to say, that was just acool aside that made me think of that
because of the the action figure there.
(31:58):
Okay.
So that's the end of that piece,but I have probably 30 things on the
floor here that I need to package up.
I've got others.
I just tried to get a variety of stuff.
Fulfillment, baby fulfillment.
It's never ending.
Fulfillment, it's my leastfavorite part of the business.
And the downside is the moreyou grow, the more you sell.
Yeah.
The more of thefulfillment you have to do.
So it is an interesting tippingpoint for anyone in any business
(32:20):
where when you get to a certain pointwhere you can't a one person job,
just, it's just that weird tippingpoint where you almost have to hire
people, which is a good thing to have.
But then on the flip side,you've got to pay somebody.
So it's just like this constant calculuson what works and what doesn't work.
Absolutely.
Let me say this, Matt,as we leave here today.
(32:42):
Okay.
Remember to like, follow and subscribe,write us a review, do all that stuff.
But remember people, we will be backwith a brand new show next week,
whether this is a two parter or not.
I don't know.
Once I start editing and I, there'sjust so much in this, I almost feel
like it's just overload for folks.
So we might do it into a two weekshow, but we appreciate you listening.
We're grateful that you're part of thisjourney with us and we look forward
(33:05):
to being back with you next week.
Have a good week.
Have a good week.
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast.
I am Brandon, my El Luchador character is.
El Lobo.
El Lobo.
El Lobo Blanco, the white wolf.
I like to think of that as the white wolf.
I'm here with Mateo Brock.
That's me.
Who's El Luchador characteris El Rojo it'd be rusty,
(01:00):
whatever reseller is in Spanish.
And I do think we need to go on theroad as an El Luchador tag team.
Oh yeah.
You would always come in.
I would, cause I'm a bigger guy than you Iwould be wrestling the guy, get him down.
It looked good.
And then the opponent, like theydo, threw dirt, my eye, whatever.
And I'd be laying on my backand just about to pin me in.
And you'd come over the topalmost always with a chair and
(01:22):
just smash somebody with a chair.
In the spirit of Nacho Libre, I'dsay, I think we're ready to go pro.
Oh, yeah.
At this point.
Oh, absolutely.
There's no question that we're ready.
There's no better way to get betterat something than to compete against
people who are like top notch.
That's how you learn.
You don't compete against peoplewho are going to make you feel good
(01:42):
because they're worse than you.
Like you don't grow that way.
No, we're going on a real circuit.
We're going to get out there.
We're going to, of course, we dohave to go to Guadalajara to do this.
So we're going to have to shutthe show down, move to Mexico and
start our El Luchador career there.
To learn that language pretty darn quick.
That's right.
So I'm going to be in trouble.
So I was talking to someone recently,they're like, I hate it when people
(02:04):
spend 10 minutes talking aboutnonsense before they get into the show.
You know what?
Oh, let's get right into it.
We're going right to it, Matt.
We're not even going to mess around.
We're going right to work hereon the What's The Old Podcast.
Because we haven't really talked aboutwhat you've sold a lot of, and it's
the morphing of the show, but we'regoing to get into, because you sold
some interesting things this week.
You've been a mover and a shaker.
Every time I go out with you,I feel like a, an invasion of
(02:26):
Poland's about ready to happen.
There's just schemes and plansand things going on that I'm like,
wow, this guy is always thinking.
So we're going to start this weekwith what you sold and then reverse
it this week just to get, keep peoplefresh, keep them on their toes.
Sounds good.
So, Matt.
What did you sell this week?
I'm excited about this episode.
We've got some cool things to talk about.
(02:48):
I'll start off here.
One thing I sold is this.
This is an antique Victorianera hat pin and Hat pins can be
differentiated from stick pins.
Stick pins often wear more on theshirt or on the dress or things
and hat pins are as they indicate.
They refer hats, holding, stickinghats or sticking things to your hair
(03:11):
maybe done up in a bun or something.
This particular, and they cancome in all types all sizes.
This one is only aboutprobably five inches long.
But they can come as long as, a foot,12 inches, and everywhere in between.
They can be made of glass at theend, they can be made of just basic
metal, they can be gold filled,they can be sterling silver.
(03:32):
And then there's this one, and it'sinteresting, it's a very tiny head at
the very top of it, and it has somesort of synthetic, an early lucite or
something like that material, but ifyou turn it over and you use a jeweler's
loop, You'll see that it says 10k.
So the top of this isactually 10 karat solid gold.
(03:53):
Oh, it's very tiny probably onlyweighs half a gram or something.
So it's not like that's a lot ofmetal But it is somewhat valuable.
It's a precious metal and maybe somebodylikes the look of it There are people
who collect these they craft with them.
They do all kinds of things I gotthis in a lot of several at an
estate sale for very cheap AndI've sold some of them already.
I've got way more to sell.
(04:13):
I've already made my money back.
But this one sold for 40.
Oh, nice.
That's quite a mint for an old.
The pin itself, the metal part thatcomes down, that's just an alloy.
So the only part that's goldis this last little tip.
Wait a second before youmove on from that, Matt.
For those of people that are not watchingthe YouTube channel and to see it, it
(04:34):
looks like something that you would seesome sort of like a woman, she would pull
it out of her hat and she would stickyou with it on the tip would be poison.
It looks like that she would, you woulduse that as a, I know I often talk about
on the show that I'm a little morbid,but I do like to think of that as like
a James Bond character wearing that.
Oh, espionage.
This is a spice special here, weapon.
(04:55):
So long thin pin.
That's exactly right.
Now be careful not to poke yourself.
That'd be something that like, thepink panther or someone would, or
not yeah, but accidentally like,oh, no, it wouldn't be a poison.
It would be like a sleeping,just to knock you out.
Yeah, of course, of course, you'rein the vault, the bank vault and you
accidentally, the door shuts and thenyou accidentally poison yourself.
(05:17):
We can make a movie out of that.
Sure.
Another thing I sold isthis little collection.
There's only five in here, butI've got several different ones.
This harkens back to the 1930s, 1940s.
And what I have are fouror five of these cards.
And these are, they saymutoscope, a mutoscope card.
And this, but what they are they are.
(05:37):
Artistic images of women.
And this is like the pinup girl.
This is that pinup era whereyou've got, in one case you've
got, and they're all, very risque.
I mean, they're not nude but it'shighlighting just the beauty of women.
And so you've got a woman in onecase, she's holding a bow and arrow.
And another case she's got,she's pulling up the bottom of
her dress to expose her hose.
(05:58):
Another one, she's scantilyclad and she's bending over the
ironing board, that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah.
A lot of times people will collectthese because a lot of old oil and gas
or a lot of these old companies wouldcreate things like calendars or posters
or things with their company on it.
(06:18):
It's, it was advertising stuff and theywould utilize, I can't tell you how many
calendars or posters or things that hadthese pinup girls, very common artwork.
And so I have, several dozens of these.
I probably have 100 or 200 various ones.
I've got duplicates of a lot of them.
And so what I do with that when I haveduplicates is, I don't just throw up,
(06:39):
like, I've got 50 of this one card.
Because then it doesn'tseem very rare, does it?
What I do is I make small lotswhere I'll take one of these four or
five different ones, and then I'lldo one lot so you have a variety.
I'm more likely to sell themmore quickly that way, because
who needs 50 of the same thing?
But they might want a little variety,depending on what they're doing with it.
This little lot sold for 24.
(07:01):
I could see a person that doescrafts or wanted to create a
collage picture, because they'rereally cool, they're beautiful.
I could see that hanging up.
They are, yeah.
And you could do one frame.
Like a picture frame and have threeor four of these all together.
And that's not a bad idea, by theway, if you have things like this,
all kinds of stuff, old tobacco cards.
(07:22):
All kinds of things that haveinteresting old images on them.
They're vintage.
If you have a hard time selling themindividually, just go out to a thrift
store and find a picture frame forthree bucks or something and stick
those in, don't use glue because ofa person wants to pull them out, but
find a way to affix them in that andthen the person gets a work of art that
they can immediately put on the wall.
(07:43):
They don't have to do anything with it.
I imagine that being up in some hepcat insan francisco's hate district with a lava
lamp in the corner And he's got that upand he's playing some really funky jazz.
That's the image I see of that Absolutely,or how many times have you been out
to a just any type of a business?
It could be a restaurant or somethingand they've just got all kinds of
(08:05):
knickknacks and things all over thewall and they're just going for a
particular vibe or a particular lookso if this is like a Fifties' diner.
It stands to reason you're going tohave all of this vintage or stylized
stuff from that era up on the wall.
So maybe that's why aperson is getting it.
They're just trying to decoratesomething, but there's all kinds of
reasons why a person would want that.
Again, I like paper ephemera becauseoftentimes people overlook it.
(08:29):
They don't want to mess with it.
They don't think it has value butthere's all kinds of things that are
made of paper or cardboard or thingsthat can bring really good values.
So wait a second before, beforeyou go on, I just want to keep
interjecting all show long.
So you're caught.
Please do.
I'm just keeping it.
It doesn't bother me at all.
Hey the so did I ever mentionthe clown lady to you?
(08:50):
The clown lady.
So I have.
No, but tread lightly becausethere are some people out there
who have issues with clowns.
I have issues with clowns for sure.
I had a friend in college and heinvited me, it was like in the
summer, say come over by my houseand he was living in Portland.
And so I stopped by.
And it was his parents house, itwas, we're in college and I go
in there and his house is filled.
(09:12):
And I mean, filled, probably in thethousands of clowns, like clown figurines,
clown pictures, clown, every kind ofclown thing you could possibly imagine
had been collected in that South.
And the reason I bring that up is as areseller, now that is my worst nightmare.
I still get the sweatswhen I think about it.
That's the scene of a horror movie.
Does he also rent that stuff out?
(09:34):
By the way, there are people who,I know someone through a friend,
a close friend, that they buy andsell things, but they somehow got
a connection at some point with.
Either one production movie productioncompany or something, and they will
allow a movie place to rent vintageitems from them for props and sets in
(10:00):
TV or movie productions that they do.
So they'll pay them not to buy it, butto use it for a period of time, and
then they get it back, which is awesomebecause then they're making money in the
meantime before they actually sell it.
It sounds like this personshould should curb the clown.
The clown market with regard to that.
But if you went into a place likethat, in all seriousness, if you went
into a house like that and you saw itwas all clowns, I know somebody that
(10:22):
collects Pelicans and they're beautiful.
And there's like figurinesand painting stuff.
As a reseller, would you look at thatand say, I see a lot of value here,
or you're like, I'm going to run.
There are very few things that Iwill not research or we'll say,
I'm just not interested in that.
And even though I don'tpersonally care for clowns.
In fact, when I was a child, I grew up.
(10:43):
I was very young.
So I'm from Southwest Missouri originally.
And when I was very young, Ilived in a town called Carthage.
And we lived in thislittle, I want to go back.
If not where Tom Sawyerwas written, Carthage.
Oh, possibly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cause Mark Twain is from Missouri.
He's from the St. Louisarea, I think, but.
I, we lived in this little house andat one period of time, and I don't
(11:03):
remember, I think maybe initially theyset up my bedroom to be up the stairs
and there was just one room up there.
My bedroom was up there.
And for some reason, I don'tknow where they got it.
If this was my mom's.
And maybe they'll tell me if they hearthis, but they had this clown and it
sat like this clown doll and it satup there and when I'd go upstairs, I
would, from the moment I got up andcross, I'd take a look at it and I never
(11:26):
kept my, cause I didn't trust it, tokeep your eyes on that thing and you
know how your mind plays tricks on you.
It seemed like it was movingor its eyes were blinking and
it's just, it was terrifying.
It's my worst nightmare.
It is.
Yeah.
And it, you know, I was justa kid and I had imagination.
I'm pretty sure at some point,I just come, I don't know if I
complained about the doll beingthere or if I even touched on that.
I might've just been like,I really like being up here.
(11:47):
Can I be downstairs?
Can I please not be near the clown?
And maybe I'm remembering thewhole series incorrectly, but I'm
not not remembering that I wasscared to death of that thing.
And by, by clown standards, it probablywas a pretty benign looking thing.
It probably wasn't that bad.
Yeah, but I come across old things.
All this.
In fact, I'm looking at it right here.
(12:09):
Give me one second.
I'm going to pull it down.
I want to show.
Sure.
Oh, yeah.
This is what we call a segue,a cutaway in the biz, where
Matt's picking up something.
He's wandering around in the studio.
So this is not a clown.
However, I'm going to start it like this.
Oh, no.
Do the slow review.
Here you go.
Yes.
(12:31):
It's just an old.
This is probably a 1930s.
Oh, doll head.
And it's actually made out of plastic, butit has those glassy eyes that when they
lay back, they close like they're asleep.
And then when you turn it up and I wasthinking of the day I, it would be cool.
I say cool.
It would be more terrifying if I createdsome sort of machine that you could push
(12:52):
a button or it was worth whatever andit could always be in this down position
like laid back and if you did somethingit would slowly raise the head up and
look at you, and then slowly go back down.
There's like that Airbnb or one of thoseVRBO commercials where they put the little
kid in the rented room and it's got likeall the stuff on the wall for like murder.
And listen, from theperspective of being creative.
(13:14):
Okay.
So this doll is withoutthe body and it's creepy.
Even look at, if I hold it up, like one ofthe eyes is stuck in the wrong position.
So if you're at all scared of dolls,don't watch the YouTube video because
you'll have nightmares because ofthis one, but here like in creative.
If I don't sell this, if I try tosell it and it gets close to August,
September, If I went ahead and createdsomething that made this doll head
pop up, that is prime for Halloween.
(13:36):
Somebody puts that on their, it's likea motion sensor thing, and then when the
kids come up on the deck to, or whatever,on the porch, it triggers this thing and
up pops this little, creepy doll head.
People would pay big money for that.
They would pay big money for that.
But see, that's just about being creative,and you, sometimes you have to, Put your
thinking cap on and say, okay, what'sthe way to maximize the value of this?
(13:57):
I, we should do an entire show onthings I've done like that in the
past where I was able to pull out somevalue that was not apparent or obvious.
I've always been afraid of clowns becausewhen I was a kid, my uncle took me to
the circus and then a clown killed him.
I don't know why, but it's, that'sa Jack, that's a Jack handy.
(14:18):
I don't know why where he'slike, I've always been afraid
of clowns and I'm not sure why.
Maybe it's because my dad took me to thecircus one day and a clown killed him.
I'm not sure.
It could be that.
Enough of the clown nonsense.
What do you have next, Matt?
Yeah.
Let's talk about another thing I saw.
This one right here is a thisis a container from 1983.
(14:39):
It's a silver, just a paper containerthat holds a dozen vintage matchbook,
like little matchbooks, where it's silver.
It says 25, it's 1958 to 1983, the25th anniversary of RC, and I'll
pull it up, It says inside RCA andit has all the matches, which by
the way, if you're ever going to,well, I'll get to that in a moment.
(15:00):
Remind me to talk about shipping these.
Sure.
But this thing, I bought a large lot of,and this is not RCA, like RCA sound music,
like the little dog by the Victrola thing.
Yeah, right.
This is RCA Astro Electronics.
So there was an electronics company,Astrophysics and Electronics.
(15:21):
And I bought a bunch ofpromotional marketing materials
that they had produced.
So ink pens, little key chains, and thesematchbooks, all kinds of little stuff
like pencils and things for very cheap.
One large lot.
I think I paid 30 bucks for it.
And I've had this stuff for three yearsand I'm still slowly selling it over time.
(15:44):
And I'm selling enough of it thatit didn't make sense for me to
package what was remaining in it.
Back up and sell us a lot like I'm justletting it ride because I have long since
made all of my money So this right heresold for 14 and I honestly don't remember
how much I paid for all of it I can'timagine I would have paid more than 20 or
30 dollars for it But this one item thatI sold could have represented roughly 50
(16:05):
percent of my investment and I've soldMaybe 40 or 50 things out of that lot.
I probably have 50 to 100 things leftAnd these are the great kinds of things.
This is why I love to buy lots ofstuff because you can sell two or
three things from a lot or five thingsfrom a lot, make your money back.
Then there's no sweat.
You just stick that if you're okay, ifyou have the storage for it, that stuff
(16:27):
becomes the underpinning of your business.
It's not selling for a lot of money,but over time, you're going to have
those big sales from time to time.
But most days you'rereally just having these.
15, 20, 30 sales.
And yeah, I've been doing this fulltime for a while and I've sold items
for multiples of thousands of dollars apiece, but the majority of my business
is stuff that's 20 or 30 bucks.
(16:48):
If I were to go on eBay and run theanalytics, it would say that my average
sale price of an item was like 180.
But that's misleading because that isskewed by that 8, 000 guitar that I sold.
You know what I mean?
Most of them are in the 20 to 30 range.
So those listening.
Don't ever feel like you hearsomething that I bought or sold and
you're like, yeah, this is great.
(17:08):
But I'm just not, wheream I going to find that?
Most of the stuff I find is the same kindof things you can find in your community.
It's just that I'm doing it full timeand I work so much on this that I've just
accumulated more things than you have.
That's all.
That's the only difference.
And I've been doing it long enough that Imaybe I'm more skilled at and knowing how
to research things, but that just takesmore videos, more knowledge and a little
(17:33):
bit of experience and you'll be there too.
Yeah.
And it's that patience to understandingthat businesses, it's not, most
stuff isn't going to happen overnightthat you're going to have to spend
some time that you've got this.
And like you said, you don't evenknow how much you put into it and
you bought it three years ago,but it's still bringing value.
Abolutely, and most people are like that.
The only exception to that would be ifYou've maybe done it part time for a long
(17:55):
time and saved up a bunch of money, oryou decided you want to do this and you
had money or you got a loan and then youbought an entire antique store at once.
Then you end up with a lot of stuff veryquickly, but I don't recommend that.
I recommend you slowly do it.
And ideally you focus on a categoryor two of things that you personally
are interested in because that's goingto keep you motivated to research.
(18:15):
You already like it.
I love research.
Art.
And I love music.
So I'm really interested in buyingguitars because I play guitar.
Right.
I recommend people do that.
Another thing that's just sold isthis little baggie and I'll just
hold it up, but it's full of, it'sgot a half a dozen, six of these
tiny little cobalt blue bottles.
They're probably four inchestall and maybe two inches wide.
(18:39):
And they say Bromo seltzerEmerson drug company.
In Baltimore, Maryland.
So these were little seltzerbottles and they're cool.
They're cobalt blue.
And even with the age and some ofthe stuff that was inside, there's
this little iridescent look to them.
Really kind of cool.
These sold for 30.
(19:00):
This is actually somethingI'm selling for someone else.
They sat for a while.
I had to slowly lower the priceover time, which is what I do.
I price it high, hoping somebody bites.
If not, then I slowly lower it overtime until I hit that sweet spot.
And a collectible by old bottles havedepending on what they are, can have
really large collectability old Cokebottles, particularly, or ones made
(19:21):
by maybe match manufacturing plantsthat didn't exist for very long.
So there was just a limited numberof things that they produced.
That's a rabbit hole it's a rabbithole like vinyl records, like you
can just fall in, and if you don'tgrab onto something, you're gonna
keep falling, it just keeps going.
But there's a whole YouTube, if you likethe treasure hunting thing, there's an
(19:42):
entire YouTube, there's a YouTube worldout there of people who just go around and
find where old, Buildings used to be andor where old dumps are or were and they
just dig pits and they're digging downto get to the bottom because it stands to
reason that the oldest items will be atthe very bottom when it started, right?
(20:03):
And they piled it on and they digdown and you'll get these videos where
people are 10 feet in the ground.
And you're thinking at any moment,this could just cave in and bury them.
I'm not kidding, and then they pull outthis bottle and they've, who knows how
many hours they've been digging this pit.
How long does it take to build orto dig out a pit that's five feet
wide in diameter and eight feet,10 feet deep, like a long time.
(20:26):
And it's not like these peopleare bracing the walls and doing
it like, they're just digging.
That's true.
And then they pull out this one bottleand they're like, This is a 2, 000 bottle.
Okay.
So it made sense to spend fivehours digging this hole, right?
But you don't know, you don't knowwhat you're going to find, but in
those things, sometimes you find coins,jewelry, there's all kinds of stuff.
You can find an old in fact.
(20:47):
If anyone's interested, the most recentRusty video that came out was where
I found an old dump that was exposedby Hurricane Helene near a river.
It cut out this area, and I'mwalking along the bank, and
there were just bottles stickingout of the side of the bank.
It was really exciting.
I didn't find anything terriblyvaluable, but it was cool, and I did
find several like soda bottles andthings like that that were intact.
(21:08):
Go check that out at the Rustythe Reseller YouTube channel, that
most recent video if you want.
All right, another thingI sold here is this plate.
And it is a fairly large plate, butif you'll notice the motif around it,
it's, this is a white plate that hasa floral design, but then dragons.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's pretty.
By all appearances, it itlooks like an Asian plate.
(21:32):
But if you turn it over, there is a stampon the back, and the stamp says Booths.
It has a crown over the top, whichanytime you see a crown, not always, it
could mean Russia, it could mean England.
Transcribed In this case,it says made in England.
It has a partial maker mark on it.
But you know what this is, what do youcall Asian or Chinese artifacts that
(21:52):
were created in Europe instead of Asia?
Chineserie.
Exactly.
You want to tell the listenersa little bit about that?
Yeah, it's an actuallysuper interesting art form.
I actually really like it.
Many Europeans who had never been toAsia, as they called it in that day, the
Orient, the region, the Oriental region.
And so they did these stylizedpictures so people would come back
(22:13):
from Asia and they would talk aboutthe dragons and whatever, but they
had never actually seen or been there.
So they created this stylizedform of art around Asian culture,
and it was called Chiniserie.
It was mostly in France, butit was also, I think it went
all over Europe in a sense.
So when you find that.
By the way, that is, I know, I thinkit was in the, what is it, late 1800s?
(22:35):
I could be wrong, but Sure.
It wouldn't surprise you to knowthat if France picked up on something
that, that people liked thatEngland, I mean France and England
they just they hate each other.
Oh, they hate each other.
They've been competing.
So for so long, now they love each other.
Do they love each other now?
I think they're back to loving each other.
Okay.
Well, it's a love, hate relationship.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
It's like a bad breakup.
Bad high school breakup.
(22:56):
It's never ending.
But Chiniserie is really cool.
I've always wanted to have a Chiniserie,a real authentic Chiniserie piece.
And they could be very, very expensive.
Just so you know.
They can be.
They can be quite expensive.
And so the listeners outthere know, this could be.
Plates and things, it could bevases, it could be little figurines,
like there's a variety of things,it could even be furniture, like
(23:17):
they made little coffee tables andvarious things out of that as well.
So you can keep a look out for that,but that piece sold for 28, not a ton,
but there were a bunch produced, itwas mass produced, just like Chinese
export pieces were mass produced.
And talking about, we've talked aboutin the past that there's just changes.
(23:37):
And honestly, this year in the last, Iwould say 12 months, 10 to 12 months,
we've seen a pretty big shift in themarkets and people are keeping their
fingers on the pulse more than normal now.
Cause they're like, well,what's going to happen is.
Are the stocks going to drop?
Are they going to go up?
And I've seen definitebuyer sentiment change.
I'm still having roughly a small decreasein the number of items that are sold.
(24:00):
But I'm noticing is that the value of theitems that they're buying is much less.
So they're not buying as manyexpensive or more costly things.
They're spending money.
On less costly things.
But what I was going to say is thatup until the last year, Chinese
export pieces, again, becausethey were pretty mass produced,
didn't bring a whole lot of money.
But I was even, I've heard twice in thelast week and just chatting up people
(24:22):
at thrift stores or antique storesthat I've been going to source at, that
they're having a hard time keeping a holdof furniture right now, Asian pieces.
And that includes, Chinese exporterexport pieces and then Betty Boop.
I don't know what that's about, butBetty Boop stuff is really hot right now.
You're kidding.
No, did I ever send you thepicture of the my stylist?
(24:44):
My hair stylist?
No.
Yeah, the fabulous Becky.
She has this Becky Boop.
Yeah, she has a five foottall Betty Boop statue.
Oh, that thing is I have, I'veasked her, I'm like, why don't you,
she's like, ah, I really like it.
It's cool.
I might sell it someday.
How much would something like that go?
Did you say five feet tall?
It's like a. Like a personin the corner of Betty Boop.
(25:07):
I don't know how large, but or howvaluable it would be because I've
not really researched this stuff,but just just jumping on eBay here
real fast, here's one statue that.
Looks like it's only two feet talland they're wanting 500 for it.
And they've got 60 watchers.
Oh yeah.
I honestly think this would gofor well over a thousand dollars.
It's really cool.
(25:27):
I would like to own it.
I think it's a really, it's just sucha cool, almost art deco piece, but it's
better, she's holding like a serving tray.
So you could put like a little artpiece on top of the serving tray.
It's very cool.
Here's one right here.
I'm looking at a couple.
Here's one that's three feet tallthat they're asking 2, 500 for.
Okay.
Here's one.
It says large Betty Boop, aluminum statue.
(25:48):
She's in a red outfit with a hat andshe's holding one hands on the hip
and the other is holding up a thing.
1, 500. Yeah, so you're not wrong.
That can be quite valuable.
Wow.
I'm gonna have to talk to miss beckyabout her betty boops It's time to
move it talk about having an investmentpiece if it's something you enjoy and
that's what art is so great about artI've got art all around me in this
office You can't see because you'rejust looking at the inventory behind if
(26:09):
you're watching the video, but in frontof me I have Anything from newer pieces
to stuff from the 1700s on the wall.
And I do art restoration and thingsas well as a hobby, but I just love
it because you know what, this, I getsatisfaction, I get enjoyment out of
seeing it, but then anytime I needthe money, I have an asset I can sell.
Yeah, and over time, it stands toreason that generally speaking,
(26:32):
it's going to increase in valuebecause it will be older and older
and I'm keeping it's in a climatecontrolled area, so it should be okay.
That's awesome.
Yeah, so last one I'll showand talk about today is this.
We talked about, wedid Simpsons last time.
Now we have Kermit the Frog.
This is a sealed Kermit the Frogaction figure by Toy Fair and what
(26:53):
we've got here, it features Kermit.
In a black tuxedo with a top hat, andhe has a Muppet Show 25 year anniversary
large handheld movie camera here thathe's standing by and this is, it's a
Muppet Show 25 year thing, but it'sa sealed thing, it was made in, let's
see if I can see the year, 2002.
(27:14):
Jim Henson, the Muppetsguy, this sold for $24.
I don't know how much thissold for back then, probably
about half that, 10, 12 bucks.
But somebody's collecting these.
Oh, by the way, did I mention, I don'tknow if I said this to you personally
or not, or if I even mentioned on here,Did I tell you that about a month ago?
(27:34):
I sold an action figure toKevin Smith, the actor and No!
What?
Yeah.
Yeah.
From Bob?
Silent Bob.
Otherwise known as Silent Bob.
He's also a director.
He's an avid comic book collector.
So what happened was, I had this.
This was a Rocky and Bullwinkle.
The old action figure set.
(27:54):
It did not feature Rocky and Bull Winkle.
It featured the bad guy,the husband and wife.
What were their names?
I can't remember.
Oh, yeah, Boris and Natasha.
Yeah, Boris.
Boris and Natasha.
So it was Boris and Natasha.
So when this thing pops up, and I'm doingthe fulfillment, and it says Kevin Smith.
How many people are namedKevin Smith in the world?
(28:15):
Like there's probably a lot ofpeople named Kevin Smith, right?
But just on the off chance Isaw that it was a California.
It was like an LA area or somethinglike that address So I thought hmm
So I got on Google and I search KevinSmith and I search the address and
up pops up His multi million dollarhome that is currently for sale.
(28:38):
And then I thought, Oh my goodness.
So I get on there and I look around andsure enough, it is the Kevin Smith that
bought my, this action figure for me.
And don't think I didn't considersending this cat a private
message, being like, I'm a fan.
I would have, Hey, I,we've got this podcast.
I've got this YouTube channel.
(28:59):
If you want to say, thisis gonna become a thing.
So if you want to be able to tellyour friends, Hey, you were onto
these guys before they ever became athing, you should feel free to get on.
And when I didn't, I didn't send anything.
You know what though?
I gotta say heaven, if you're listening.
He's listening.
Let's be honest, the kind of thingthough, that, how fun would that be?
(29:20):
To be a collector like that.
And do a show where you talked about thepieces you collected and why you did it.
I'm pretty sure he has like a TVshow where at least, or some sort of
production that probably he produces.
I'm not sure, but where he talks aboutcomics, or at least at one time did.
Talks about his comic collection.
I didn't know he collected actionfigures, but it's that's just a
one the comics is just a gatewaydrug to the action figures, right?
(29:44):
They're in that same world.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that he wouldbe not at all the guy that would you know?
Style and everything he does fitsthat yeah And I mean I could you
know I could go back if I wanted toand just get on there and say hey
man I could start stalking this guy.
I'm not going to Kevin you're welcome,but, like, and subscribe, my man, if it's
all the same, yeah, absolutely join it.
(30:05):
And if you want action figures,send us on a search for them.
We'll find some good stuff.
Oh yeah.
Oh, I got more.
I got more, man.
In fact, I'll give you a personaltour of the the warehouse if you want.
Oh, that's so good.
But anyways, but that's cool.
As far as I know, that's the first,somewhat, semi famous or semi well known,
I say semi, no he's known, he's wellknown, person that has purchased from
(30:27):
me online, though there could have beenothers in the past, but I know, I have
sold things to museums, I have sold thingsto collectors, I have sold things to
people who have written collection booksand or are known as the authority on a
particular collectible, have purchasedthings from me, and because they, I've had
conversations with them about it I've evenhad places I've museums and places reach
(30:52):
out to me asking if I would be willing todonate items as part of their collection.
So that's cool.
All that stuff's interesting.
And we talked about before, if you havesomething that say fits in a category
that you're not willing to sell, or itdoesn't have to be that, but especially
that, and like, I've got some Nazi andor Holocaust related items that I'm not
about to sell, probably not even legal tosell, but I would in no way would I want
(31:16):
to somehow make money off of that item.
But.
I went to the Holocaust Museum inD. C. there and it ruined my day.
Yeah, the Tower of Shoesdefinitely ruins it.
That's one of those youdo later in the day.
But it was very important that I went.
And when I think my kids are at anage I'm going to be taking them.
(31:37):
But the point is that would be thekind of place that I'd say, Hey,
people need to know this happened.
They need to never forget.
If things are good for education, theyAnd they are good for us to learn from
the past so that we can be better people.
Then I think that that wouldbe an awesome thing to donate.
So all that to say, that was just acool aside that made me think of that
because of the the action figure there.
(31:58):
Okay.
So that's the end of that piece,but I have probably 30 things on the
floor here that I need to package up.
I've got others.
I just tried to get a variety of stuff.
Fulfillment, baby fulfillment.
It's never ending.
Fulfillment, it's my leastfavorite part of the business.
And the downside is the moreyou grow, the more you sell.
Yeah.
The more of thefulfillment you have to do.
So it is an interesting tippingpoint for anyone in any business
(32:20):
where when you get to a certain pointwhere you can't a one person job,
just, it's just that weird tippingpoint where you almost have to hire
people, which is a good thing to have.
But then on the flip side,you've got to pay somebody.
So it's just like this constant calculuson what works and what doesn't work.
Absolutely.
Let me say this, Matt,as we leave here today.
(32:42):
Okay.
Remember to like, follow and subscribe,write us a review, do all that stuff.
But remember people, we will be backwith a brand new show next week,
whether this is a two parter or not.
I don't know.
Once I start editing and I, there'sjust so much in this, I almost feel
like it's just overload for folks.
So we might do it into a two weekshow, but we appreciate you listening.
We're grateful that you're part of thisjourney with us and we look forward
(33:05):
to being back with you next week.
Have a good week.
Have a good week.
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