WE LOVE THIS EPISODE!!! Going into the archive to rerelease one of our all time faves. Hope you enjoy this summer refreshment. Back with a brand new show next week.
In this episode of the 'What Sold Podcast,' hosts Brandon and Matt, also known as Rusty the Reseller, dive deep into the adventures of reselling. They explore Matt's travels and unique finds, including a vast collection of antique pocket watches, a Picasso enamel tile, and valuable Royal Copenhagen ceramics. The hosts emphasize the importance of building relationships with local estate sale organizers and provide insights into the world of reselling, discussing various strategies and sharing anecdotes. Highlights include Matt's extensive research and investment into rare items, tips on identifying valuable collectibles, and the benefits of maintaining integrity in business dealings.
00:00 Introduction and Rusty's Travel Style 02:01 Catching Crawdads and Childhood Memories 02:49 Exciting Updates and Teasers 06:01 High Karate Cologne Story 08:10 Estate Sale Gold and Big Purchases 17:23 A Bizarre Picasso Scene 17:53 Building Relationships for Business Success 18:36 The Value of Kindness in Business 19:51 Exciting Finds: Royal Copenhagen and Picasso 20:25 Pocket Watch Collection Showcase 23:31 Understanding Pocket Watch Value 30:55 The Business of Specialization 35:47 Final Thoughts and AdviceThe What Sold Podcast Subreddit
#pocketwatches #vintagepocketwatches #thomasrusselvintagepocketwatch #estatesales #goldpocketwatch #watches #watchlots #whatsoldpodcast #rustythereseller #whatsold #reselling #ebaystore
Rusty the reseller:
https://www.youtube.com/@RustyTheReseller What Sold: https://www.youtube.com/@whatsold Postcard Planet: https://www.youtube.com/@postcardplanet What Sold Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc513e2aPbloS20mTwuv8bAMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:36):
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast as always per usual.
I am Brandon.
This is Matt.
Some of you might know himas Rusty, the reseller.
Hello.
We were talking about Matt andhis kids and his travels and
his journeys and everything.
And I was like, I feel like Rusty,if Rusty went on a trip or a
vacation, it'd be like in a, it'dbe like in a convertible Malibu.
(01:00):
Oh, He would just roll down the highway.
I felt like Rusty would takea vacation out old route 66.
That's my feeling abouthow rusty would be.
He'd be like, Hey, they're cousins.
He'd just be driving downthe road and he'd rusty would
never take a main freeway ever.
No, that is true.
on backwards.
That is true.
Yeah.
He's he's gotta see what's out there.
(01:20):
That's where the deals are.
Not on the main track.
You gotta get off the main track.
No, he's not stopping at a Buc ee's.
Come on.
Get out of here with the Buc ee's.
He's I don't see the point of that.
They're trying to sell me stuff.
Yeah, he's I want to sell you things.
So exactly.
Exactly.
I always like to, when I thinkabout the show, I do like to
think about what Rusty would do.
So a lot of people say thatWWJD, what would Jesus do?
(01:41):
I always think to myself,what would Rusty do?
WWRD.
What would Rusty do inthis situation right here?
I think that you could.
Do pretty well in your life.
If you did that, maybe, but it mightbe like the antithesis of that.
It's what would he do?
Okay.
I'm going to avoid that.
I'm going to do the opposite of that.
He'd be like, he'd be one of those dudes.
It would be like catchingcatfish with his hands.
(02:01):
Oh, digging in holes this lastweek I was catching crawdads with
my hands and showing my kids.
We took a little pictures of the crowd.
Cause I listen, I'm a Missouri boy.
What do I do?
What do I do when I go?
I go down.
I in within the matter of fiveminutes, I'd caught a few crawdads.
I had skipped some rocks andI had found a water snake.
That's what you do inthe area I grew up in.
(02:22):
We would catch, we call them crawfish.
We didn't call it.
And it's funny that I lovethese little regional names like
crawdad, crayfish, crawfish.
We call them crawfish.
And we used to catch themtoo in the Russian river.
We call them crawdads because the dads arethe ones that are the easiest to catch.
All the female craw, fishare just better at hiding.
They're just out of the way.
(02:43):
It's the dads that are slow.
It's faster.
They go under the rock quicker.
It's fitting, right?
It's fitting.
All right, Matt, we would love, asalways, we had a teaser on our last
show about an update of what happened.
Yes, we did.
We can hold on to that.
We could talk about what sold it.
I'm going to leave this up.
(03:06):
As you guys all know, I'mexcited about this show.
If you listen to this show enough, youknow that I get very excited by the
reveal, because Matt never tells meanything, we talk about the substance
of the show, but we never talk about,he never says, I sold this week, because
he wants me to be flummoxed, and I amalways flummoxed, I'm like, you, what?
They paid you 200 for that?
You hit me, you did that to me.
(03:27):
Last episode, you hit me with all thesehard questions I had to somehow answer.
Oh, yeah.
Types of collectors.
Yeah, exactly.
I was like, what?
I don't know what that is.
You got two for three.
That's not bad.
Yeah, that's true.
It was guess.
I wish I was that good at guessing onstandardized tests when I was younger.
I would have I would havegone to a better school.
You would have been at Harvard.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm excited about this.
(03:47):
Okay.
I'm going to start off with acouple of updates for people who
have been following and have heardabout some other things we've done.
And then after that, I have someexciting news about some things I
purchased that I'm going to sell.
And this is not just a a boastingepisode, but I want to bring this up
to say to look out for certain thingsas well, so that you guys can know,
and also to say where I got them from,because that may, this may be the type
(04:08):
of place that you might want to target.
So to start off with, We had apainting that a listener had brought
to, we had connected and I longstory short, they were like, how do
I, I'm interested in maybe sellingthis, should I go through an auction?
Kind of like you do,what auction do you use?
They're local, somewhatlocal to where I live.
We connected in person after a phonecall and email correspondences.
(04:32):
It turned out that there was somesignificant damage to this piece that
I thought made it unlikely to sellit an auction unless it was repaired.
I offered to repair thatand she brought it to me.
So the stages of that are that the.
Porn parts of this oil painting fromlike probably the potentially late
1700s, but I'm thinking probablyearly 1800s needed to be glued.
(04:55):
So we had to glue that backdown onto the cam together.
So that's not open and torn.
Secondarily, I had to take some whitegesso and fill in so that I brought
up the surface to being even with therest of the surface of the painting
and let that was done before I lefton my trip to see my family last week.
(05:15):
Now I'm back.
And so tonight I'm going to startwith the most difficult part, which is
mixing oil paint to match the colorsof the piece and the brushstrokes.
And I'm hoping to get that finishedby this weekend, as far as the
initial, the painting of it.
And once that's dry, the oil paintis dry, then I can put varnish on it.
And when that's done, it's going backto her, or I'm hoping that I can then
(05:38):
move it on to an auction house for her.
So that's in process.
It's probably 60 percent completed.
And, but I have done the easiestparts, the hardest part is coming.
So Christina, if you'relistening, I'm working on it.
It's going to be donehere before too long.
And I'll let you know the only placewhere you can know the update of your work
being done on air, the what's old podcast.
(06:00):
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
The other thing is because I was on thistrip to see my family this last week, I
told my dad Hey dad, whatever happenedto that high karate cologne that you had?
Oh, so we talked about this and I couldnot have asked for a better answer.
So he laughed, we laughedabout it, joked about it.
And it turns out he sold it on eBay.
(06:21):
What he did, what I do.
So like I sell things primarily on eBay.
That's my full time job.
Granted I'm in my forties and Ifound this, I discovered this in
my parents bathroom when I wasprobably like 16 or 17 years old.
So this has been 30.
Years ago or something like that.
And he remembered we were laughingabout it and he goes, no I I just
(06:42):
decided it was like a half full bottle.
He sold on eBay and he's you know what?
I think I might, let me go look.
And my dad takes meticulousrecords of all kinds of things,
like work he does on his vehicles.
And if he sold the thing, he pullsout the thing he's looking through it.
Unfortunately, he couldn't actually find.
The date like when he sold it howmuch it was for because I think he
sold it so long ago It was beforehe was keeping records on this But
(07:03):
all that to say he did have it.
He did remember it He did sell it and hemade money on it Which I just thought was
great because that's if I had one today,that's exactly what I would do Oh my god.
No, not me, dude I would immediatelygo out and buy myself a kimono robe
that, that was one size too small.
I would splash on the highkarate and I would strut.
I would fully strut.
(07:23):
Sure, but that's what I would do.
Prepare photographs for the listing.
Put on the kimono, I'd be, there'dbe like a kick in midair as you
see this mist coming onto you.
Which is how you If you have a bottleof high karate that's unopened right
now, please email us at the show.
Good for you.
First of all, if youhave one, good for you.
(07:44):
You're in the top 1percent of cologne wearers.
If you're wearing cologne from the1980s, seventies or eighties high karate.
The only thing better would be cool water.
If you've had a bottle ofunopened cool water, then that
also might be worth getting.
But ah, So good.
It's it is the the Cadillac.
We're not going to go Mercedes Benzbecause I feel like high karate would
(08:04):
be the Cadillac of cheap cologne.
Yeah.
So good.
Oh, okay.
So I did the big reveal.
If people are listening and they'rewanting me to fess up on what I teased
in the last, Episode which if youhaven't heard it you stop right now
go back and listen to that episodeand then come now It's called a state
sale gold that episode of state.
(08:25):
So I think it's episode 34 I did andit's called that because I did purchase
some gold And I sold that and some otherthat I had for quite a bit of money.
I paid about 2200 for some goldjewelry from this particular person
that runs an estate sale locally.
I mixed in some of my othergold and I sold it for 7, 000.
So I made two or threegrand in profit off of that.
(08:46):
That was exciting, but as excitingas that sounds, it's not as exciting
as what I'm about to tell you.
Before I left, I discovered thisparticular individual in his estate.
He does it every two weeks.
He doesn't purchase things.
He works with people who haveestates and they work out, he does
the work, he sells it and they dosome sort of split on the profits.
(09:07):
That's how his business runs.
And I knew I was prepping toleave to go to where I grew up
to see my family for a week.
It just so happened that his estatesale was happening that week.
So I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm notgonna go because I'm not gonna be here.
But then I look at the photosand he starts popping up all
these photos of incrediblethings that he almost never has.
And I'm so frustrated by the fact thatI'm not going to be able to be there.
(09:33):
Cause this is the kind of thing I wouldhave been there an hour or two early.
I would have guaranteed thatI was the first person there.
So I call this guy because I knowI'm, we are on a first name basis.
I've been a loyal customer of his.
So I call him up and I say, Hey, I'mjust really calling to complain to you
about the fact that you have all thisawesome stuff and I can't buy any of it.
I was like, good luck and everything.
But if any of it's left, whenI get back, please let me know.
(09:54):
And he says why don't you comedown and just take a look at
some of it before you leave?
So I do, I go there and he says, whydon't you mark things that you might want?
And specifically, he had twoseparate collections of vintage
and antique pocket watches.
Yeah.
And I marked on several ones, therewere some that were solid gold,
there were some that were sterlingsilver, others that were, seemed to be
(10:15):
somewhat rare or valuable movements.
As well as some other things and I'mvery happy to report that when I returned
and went back to him, he had not onlymost of, if not all the ones that I had
marked that I wanted, but even othersand was going to sell them to me.
And so I spent prior, I'm not goingto say how much I spent because I
(10:37):
don't want it to be about that, butI will say that prior to yesterday,
the most I ever spent in one place atone time on item or items was 14, 000.
I spent more yesterday than that on thethings that I'm about to tell you about.
So it was a very large expense, butI think it's going to be worth it.
There were three primarythings that I purchased.
(10:58):
The first thing I purchased was alarge collection of pocket watches.
91 watches in total.
So holy cow.
Seven of them.
But wait, can I interruptyou really quick?
You may.
We know that lots of people thatare listening to the show are
doing this as a side hustle.
This is a full time reseller.
So you're probably not goingto be dropping 14 large to
(11:22):
buy pocket watches like this.
So don't think to yourself, Ohmy gosh, I can't possibly do this
business because Matt's out therespending tens of thousands of dollars.
There may be a time where you grow intoa business, but like anything else.
Things start small.
Maybe you find one pocket watchand you buy it and you sell it.
But anyway.
That's right.
And I'm glad you said that becauseI fully intended to and will still
(11:45):
give some little nuggets of advicehere for people who aren't going
to be doing things at this level.
But you might find a pocket watch ortwo and I want to talk about that.
So that's a piece of this that's coming,but I bought one 91 pocket watches.
They, I have several of them in almostlike briefcases that have these, like this
foam molded thing in there to hold them.
This was a serious collector who wasselling these and I'm not a collector, but
(12:08):
I'm going to pass these on to collectors.
It turned out that six ofthe pocket watches of these
91 are solid 14 karat gold.
One of them is solid 18 karat gold.
One of them is a sterling silver, whatthey call a Fusee, F U S E movement watch
that was made by a manufacturer that usedto make things for the Queen of England.
(12:32):
Some really cool things here.
And for those of you who want totake a look, a peek, we're going
to have these photos up and I'mactually going to show you a couple of
examples in a moment and discuss it.
So that was one set.
I also purchased a lot of 28 differentranging from saucers, plates, bowls,
and serving platters of a type ofceramic ware called Royal Copenhagen.
(12:56):
And I'm going to show an exampleand talk about it right now.
They look like this.
It's a white with blue floral kind ofdesign, almost like a blue cornflower type
of And on the back on the bottom, it hasthe markings and it says Royal Copenhagen.
So it's not hard to identify.
If you see something that's blue andfloral and white, and you turn it over
on on the underneath side of whereit's sitting, it should have that mark.
(13:19):
The story of this goes that whenI was there looking at the pocket
watches, I was like, I need to walkaround and see what else he's got.
I find this lot and they had40 on it for the whole lot.
28 pieces of Royal Copenhagen.
I know because about a month ago, Isold a single small saucer for 100 and
I had in that research, I had foundthat people had been selling lots of
(13:42):
10, 15, 20 pieces for somewhere between15 and 2, 500 for the whole group.
She had this list for 40.
And so I told this gentleman, I said,listen I'm not coming in here to tell
you that you're doing anything wrong.
You research it, you've beendoing this for over 30 years.
You're the master at this.
I just want you to know that I came acrossthis information recently and wanted to
(14:05):
give it to you in case that would changehow you would want to price this at all.
And, we had this conversation aboutonline prices versus what I can get here.
I want to move it.
I totally get it.
So we actually made this compromisewhere the woman said, how about this?
I'm going to raise it from 40 to 250.
If I sell it, we'll say, thank you.
(14:25):
Maybe we'll help you maybegive you a little bit of that
money back for helping us out.
If it doesn't sell, I'll sell itto you and you get back for 200.
I said, deal.
So I came back, it's all still there.
So I bought it.
And I'm very excited because I thinkI'm going to be making between 000
off of this lot of ceramic platesand bowls that I paid 200 for.
(14:47):
You just illuminated something too.
When you, for those of you that I'mlistening to show, no, very much no
Matt character, but your businessstrategy, a lot of people would listen
to that and say why would you tellher you could have made so much money?
You'd have to tell 40 bucks.
You should have just bought it 40.
Because ultimately you're notin this for the short run.
And if she found out that yousold all this or that it was out
(15:09):
there, she would feel cheated.
Now she looks at it and says, notonly did she not feel cheated.
She looked, you as an ally,which you are, it's not false.
This is really how you.
See things and feel about things,but there's something to be said
about building these relationships.
And if you're in the resellingbusiness or really any business, but
I think really reselling, if you'regoing back to people it takes a long
(15:33):
time to build a good reputation.
It takes a very short time to ruin one.
Yeah.
I love that you did that.
I think that's wise.
Because you look at it and say, Hey, if Icould make 20, I could have bought a 40.
I couldn't.
And that's the other thing.
I didn't even, it didn't matter tome because I was going to be gone.
You see what I'm saying?
She was the one who offeredthis, like whatever.
I was just saying, Hey, you, youoffer this place for me to buy
(15:55):
things and make money off of it.
It's good for me.
I'm a loyal customer andyou're making money off of me.
This has been a win relationshipfor as long as I've been coming.
And I don't owe them anything.
They don't owe me anything.
But when I see that, I just think , you'regoing to be essentially giving this away.
And if you do that, if you bump it up inprice and they, and it sells for more, you
made more money and you learn something.
(16:16):
I don't mind sharing someinformation because I'm constantly
trying to learn as well.
And it just worked.
It just worked out in this.
Circumstance that I was able to buyit, but that's not why I said it.
And I didn't expect that would,cause I was going to be gone.
I also ran the risk ofsomebody else buying it.
And she said, even when I came and got it,she was like, somebody came back the next
day and said, Hey, do you have those left?
And she said no, because shewas honoring what she told me.
(16:40):
It didn't sell that day.
So she pulled them andshe wasn't buying them.
Isn't that nice.
That really is a good story.
I like that.
That circumstance.
So that happened.
And also this didn'tsell and I purchased it.
It is a Picasso.
It is a enamel tile on copper.
It's like enamel on copper andit's mounted in this frame.
(17:02):
I paid 40 for it.
And it's a, it's an originalauthentic Picasso piece.
This is coming two weeks after Ipurchased a, an authentic Salvador Dali
etching at an estate sale among others,when a lot that people didn't know.
So I'm getting some big namesin here lately, and that's
pretty, pretty exciting.
I don't know if I'm going tosell this personally or if I'm
(17:22):
going to send it to auction yet.
But what it is it's a bizarre scene,but it's like a man dressed up almost
like a circus performer or a clown, notexactly a clown, but he's got a hat on
and it's this red garment and a courtjester and he's sitting on like a seat
and there's a little kid sitting by him.
It's bizarre because it's Picasso.
Okay, but really a cool piece.
So I was able to buy this and thosedishes and all of these pocket watches
(17:46):
when I came back and I would not have hadthe ability to do any of those things.
Had I not been a loyal returningcustomer who took the time to get
to know this individual to haveconversations, I wouldn't have had the
opportunity to buy that gold jewelrythat we spoke about in a couple of
episodes ago from the same person.
And after all this is said anddone, I gave him an enormous check
(18:10):
yesterday, the largest check I'veever paid to one person for anything.
Listen, two and a half years ago, I waspaying about, spending about 20, 000 to
24, 000 a year annually on inventory.
And I've spent more than that in thelast 30 days this year, because, as
things grow and I, and opportunitiescome along and if I do a good enough
(18:31):
job of saving stuff, so I can investwhen these big opportunities come along,
then I have the chance to do that.
And that's not for everybody.
And it doesn't have to be a big thinglike this thing, same thing can happen
to you in on a very small scale, ifyou do what Brandon alluded to, which
is that you just be a kind person,you'd be a person of integrity.
You don't just be in it formaking money off of somebody.
(18:53):
These are people, he's running a job andtrying to make money for his family and
take care of himself, just like I am.
He's just doing it in a slightly differentway and somehow, because of what we do,
our paths cross and this can be mutuallybeneficial, but not only has it been good
for me in the past, good for me today.
But after I gave him thischeck, he said, Hey, listen,
Come back in a couple of weeks.
I'm going to have somemore jewelry for you.
(19:15):
After that, I've gotsome more pocket watches.
And so he goes, and he even said withthe pocket watches, he goes, when they
come in next time, I'm calling youfirst, I'm not even putting them out.
I'm just calling you.
Wow.
Awesome.
I don't know if I'll be able to buy them.
I just spent a ton of money.
I got to make some of thisback, but that's awesome.
I've developed now.
I have a relationship where someone'sI'm on the top of a list now.
Rusty, he's calling Rusty.
(19:35):
Yeah.
And he's keeping an eye out forthat thing that he knows it's a
mutually beneficial relationship.
So ultimately.
Exactly.
Being kind, it doesn't cost you anything.
And take, time.
Time.
Time.
That's it.
It costs you time.
That's it.
So that's exciting.
Look for Royal Copenhagen stuff becauseit sells for really good amounts of money.
(19:56):
Look up Royal Copenhagen blueor blue and white in eBay.
Look at sold listings.
You'll see that.
If you've ever heard of Picasso orSalvador Dali, you'll know that if you
come across an original of anythingof theirs, it's going to have value.
You just need to know what it isso that you don't spend too much.
Don't get super excited and, Oh, 500.
You're like, Oh, howis this only worth 300?
You'd still need to do your research.
(20:17):
And there's a lot of fakes andforgeries of the masters and people
who are very well known and successful.
So be careful of that.
I'm just going to hold up and talk again.
I'll show these photos on thevideo version, but this is just
one of the little trays of pocketwatches, which came from this lot.
And you can't quite see it real well.
I'll hold it.
You will be able to see it on theFacebook page So take a look there.
(20:38):
We will yes This is one ofthe solid gold pocket watches.
It's very ornately carved Ithas a star in the center of it.
It would what?
It would be considered what they call adouble hunter case because it is etched on
both sides or front and back and the side.
You open it up.
It has a face that hasthree horses heads on them.
(21:00):
Almost like this is like a KentuckyDerby, nod or something like that.
Beautiful piece.
It's quite large, quite heavy.
This I don't know exactly yet,but I believe that this particular
walk because of the movement,because of the weight of the gold.
Is worth somewherebetween three and 5, 000.
(21:21):
Wow.
This one pocket watch.
That's crazy.
It's very possible that of the goldwatches that I have, I'm going to make
70 percent of my money back and thenstill have 85 more watches to sell.
I, again, I'm home with my sonthis week, so I don't have it.
I'm fulfilling tons of orders of thingsthat sold while I was gone on my trip.
But I'm excited.
(21:41):
Here's another one of the gold ones.
This is a smaller one.
It has almost like a tri color on it.
It's got yellow, greenish yellow.
It's floral.
So the first one I showed you was anElgin, which if you've come across pocket
watches, that's a pretty common brand.
This one is a Waltham, but look atthe face is a beautiful, it's made
of porcelain and it's got this soft,like baby blue color on the face
(22:06):
and a chronograph on the bottom.
This is a smaller size and I believethat all of the, I think that all of
the pocket watches that I purchasedwere are made sometime between 1860s
and the 1930s.
That's a big range.
But there is one, which I'll hold upnow, and it has actually like a leather
(22:28):
and sterling silver fob on it, and atthe end of it, it has the key that you
used to turn and crank it, but this isthe one that this one actually opens
up, if you pop this the case on the top,there's a little button, you can open
it up, you pull the top, and then, Oh!
The watch itself actually comes out of it.
(22:49):
And there's a spot on the backwhere you use the key to crank it.
But this is probably older than thisis probably the oldest one I have.
This is probably from the 1830s,1840s, possibly earlier than that.
I've not found the exact one yet.
But it's just amazing.
It's by a maker called Thomas Russell,which this is the one that made stuff.
(23:11):
Are they still in business today?
Or the company that made things.
I don't actually know.
I don't actually know.
I need to look and see a lot of, Ithink that some of these ones like.
Elgin and Waltham in Illinois, someof those may still be making pieces,
but they were very successful inthe late 1800s up through the 20s.
Some really beautiful pieces.
(23:31):
And that's one of the things I loveabout pocket watches is because they're
just, they're like works of art.
Like such sm and I also, of these 91pocket watches, Probably 80 percent of
them are working, are in working order.
You crank, you twist them andyou move them a little bit and
they start ticking and they'rekeeping time 100, 150 years later.
What was the name of the Thomas watch?
What was that called?
(23:53):
It was Thomas Russell, R U S E L L.
Oh, that's funny.
I have a college buddy whosename is Thomas Russell.
Maybe he's named after the pocket watches.
Yeah.
Is he a long, the long lost ora long, a grandson of a great.
Perhaps he is.
I don't know.
I'll have to ask him.
So I want to tell a story as you'relooking at this really fast is that
(24:15):
one of these pocket, two of thesepocket watches that I found just in my
cursory, investigation as I got them.
I discovered that one of them.
That wasn't marked as such is 18 karatsolid gold and one's 14 karat gold.
So if you're looking at pocketwatches, you need to open up the back.
Some of them you push, you useyour thumbnail and you pop open
the back and you can look atwhat's written on the case.
Others you have to actually unscrew,but on the case oftentimes if it's made
(24:39):
of solid gold it'll say 10k, 14k, 18k.
In some cases it'll just havethe number with a circle or a
square or a diamond around it.
If it has a scale on it as a symbol,then that typically means it's
gold filled, so it's not solid.
It has a gold layer.
It also will say if it's a gold filledpiece, a certain number of years, or it'll
(25:00):
say the word warranted or guaranteed,warranted the scale or saying it might
say gold filled but it will say 10 years.
20 years, 25 years, and the numberof years is important because
the higher the number of years,the more gold content is on it.
The idea being you can wear this on youand in your pocket and pull it out in
(25:22):
and out for 25 years before you're goingto start seeing the gold layer wearing
through to the base metal 10 years meansit's a thinner layer of gold in 10 years.
Time of use.
You're going to start tonotice that gold layer.
Being worn off because gold isit's a soft metal unless mix
it with another hard metal.
By the way, the Thomas Russellwatch company is no longer out of
(25:45):
Liverpool, England is no longer.
It doesn't appear tobe still in existence.
So they're not still making them,although there is a huge market
for Thomas Russell watches.
And by the way, people, they ain't cheap.
So if you find a Thomas Russellpocket watch, you're going to You
may want to think about keep hangingon to it and try and sell it.
(26:06):
Yes.
This is a deep dive.
Some pocket watches have really cruddy,not like really cheap cases, but the
movement happens to be very valuablebecause it's rare or something.
Others can have solid gold casesand a really cheap movement in it.
That's not as common, but it can happen.
So the value of a pocket watchoftentimes is a combination of
what does the case look like?
(26:27):
What is the case made out of?
What is the age and type of movement,who made it and is it working or
does it need service or repair?
So there's actually a lotof different variables here.
You just definitely need to do yourresearch, but there's an, and I
think I mentioned this on a previousepisode, but you can go on and
look up pocket watch serial numberor pocket watch identification.
(26:48):
And there is a site.
That all you have to do is put the maker.
So let's say I have one that's an Illinoispocket watch and I opened the back and
I can see the movement and I can seethe five or six or seven digit number.
That's the serial number.
I just put in, this is Illinois.
This is the number and it spits out allthe information you need other than price.
It tells you when it was made, theproduction number, the size of the
(27:11):
movement, the type of movement.
The number of jewels inthe movement, all of that.
And so you're armed nowwith that information.
Who keeps that website up?
I don't know, but I would imagine anindividual or group of avid pocket
watch enthusiasts or collectors.
So it's really awesometo have that resource.
(27:31):
Yeah.
I wish I had a lot of money to buy thatwatch to, to, I was, I, when I wore
my old fashioned suit, my spats, mypocket watch with my gold chain coming
out of it and my monocle and my stick,I would have to add one more element
to make this all worthwhile, Matt, doyou know what that element would be?
All I was gonna say is you'regonna have several stick pins.
(27:53):
Let's be honest.
Not just one but you're gonnabe adorned with stick pins.
I would have a silver tipped,silver handled cane to go along
with it and the hand cane.
Okay.
I have one that's on an umbrellaif you need that, but we could
fashion that onto a cane.
I would like the thing to be, the, I don'tknow what the name of the turn on the cane
is, where it's like a, almost like a grip.
(28:14):
Like a a saw grip, if you will.
But I would have that aslike a dragon or something.
It would be something very ornate.
And it needs to be a swordconcealed within the cane.
Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
With what's the point of having the cane?
If there's not a swordconcealed within the cane.
Yes.
Good point.
Yeah, exactly.
So this is exciting.
(28:34):
I have a lot of work.
This is going to, this collectionis going to take me, if I sell
them individually, several months.
Wow.
So if you can't float large amounts ofmoney, for large amounts of time, and I
don't even know if I can, but we're goingto find out, but what I would actually
love to do would be to go through.
I need to spend the time andadequately research these.
(28:55):
I need to know what allthe cases are made up.
I need to know how to describe them.
I need to know the size of them.
I need to know if they work or not.
And I need to have an inventory ofeverything that I have and photographs.
Once I get that, which will probably takeme a month, because it's going to take
me some time, but once I'm, once I havethat spreadsheet, what I'd love to do
is go to one of these buying, selling,Facebook groups of antique and vintage
(29:19):
pocket watch collectors, where they'renot just, it's, some of it is, I'm showing
it just to brag of what I've got, someof it is Hey, I don't know what this is.
Can you tell me what it is?
Can you tell me what you think it's worth?
Where would be the best place to sell it?
And then some people are,they know exactly what it is.
They just want to sell it.
So they're posing it there.
Hey, if you want more information,send me a private message and we can,
(29:40):
I can tell you what it is and what I'mwanting for it and we can negotiate.
The advantage of doing that is numberone, I think it would be awesome to get
this entire collection in the hands of onecollector that came from one collector.
It'd be really cool tonot, they spent time.
How many hands have these all 91 ofthese pocket watches gone through?
Over the course of 150 years to end up inmy basement at my house, of all places,
(30:06):
and it would be neat to pass that on, butif I could find one person and they could,
we could do a private sale, guess what?
I saved that 13 and a halfpercent that I would lose to eBay.
Now, if we're talking a five figuresale, that's 13 and a half percent
is a lot of money, a lot of money.
And that really eats into mypotential profit off of buying
(30:27):
such a large collection.
So if it's just a PayPal payment ora series of PayPal payments where
there's no transaction fee for me.
Then that could be really good.
Or I could even post them personally andjust say, Hey, like I'll meet someone.
If you want to see them privately,we're going to go meet in the
parking lot of the police stationlocally so that it leads to that.
Number one, if anybody out thereis looking for pocket watches.
(30:49):
We're typically not a showthat sells stuff, but if you're
interested, email us and let us know.
I happen to have a couple here.
The other part of that's, that Ifind very interesting, and it's very
typical of a lot of businesses, butnot to say that you're going to become
a narrow focused pocket watch dealer.
Sure.
But as time goes along, youtend to develop specialties.
(31:12):
And this could be the specialtyarea for the Matt Brock industries.
What I'm saying, this is for manyof you starting out, Hey man, you're
selling anything you could sell.
But as time goes along, youmight say, Hey, you know what?
I'm really good at identifyingand selling vintage toys.
Yeah.
That's where I'm going to make the mostmoney and it's the best use of my time.
(31:34):
Yeah.
So I think all of us that startbusinesses, we tend to blanket it
and say, what's going to stick.
It's really fun that you found this.
I wouldn't, if I was anybody out there,I wouldn't look past any of these things.
I would probably think to myself, Hey,is there a possibility I could do this?
Again, and maybe I need to find five orsix estate sale people out there that
are finding these pocket watches andthen you become the pocket watch king of
(31:56):
North America, I think there are a lotof advantages to refining as much as you
possibly can, what you buy and sell whenyou're just starting out and you don't
know a lot about a lot of categories.
It actually makes more sense to do, tojust try to do research on everything,
get what you can, and make money on it.
Because you don't have theexpertise yet, you need to learn.
(32:18):
And also, you're going to findways to make money on all kinds
of things, and this is what I did.
But as you learn about stuff, and you seewhat things are readily accessible, what
you can get your hands on time and timeagain, what you're interested in, what's
not boring to you, And if you can refine,let's say you have an eBay store where
you're only selling one category of item,then you, the advantage to that is that
(32:40):
people will start following your storeand you'll get repeat customers because
they know that when they come to yourstore they're not having to wade through a
bunch of junk that they don't care about.
I say junk.
Right.
Items that someone elsecares about but not them.
It's very easy for them to look throughand see the things and know that they
will have interest at least marginallyon everything that you're offering.
I'm doing that now.
My eBay stores are morphing over timeto where one's going to be just jewelry.
(33:03):
So when people come, if you wantjewelry, fine or costume jewelry,
that's the store you go to.
Other ones are going to bethings like paper ephemera and
some other antique items, yada.
I think that's a really good word.
There are a lot ofadvantages come with that.
You just oftentimes can't start thatway unless you are an enthusiast of a
particular thing already and outside ofselling, you already know a lot about it.
(33:24):
Maybe you collect it and you're like,okay, maybe I'll, I already, I've
already put all this knowledge to gooduse for my own personal enjoyment.
Now I can turn this into sort of,reorient yourself in a business way.
And I think there's probablya lot of people out there
that have those hidden skills.
That they don't realize that they've,they're hobbyists or they're enthusiasts
and all of a sudden you realize,Hey, you could take a lot of that.
(33:46):
The reason I got into podcastingand audio engineering is because
I just thought it was really cool.
And I just started messing aroundwith it and 10 years ago or so.
And then over time, you'relike, Hey, this would be really
cool to do this for a living.
And so the point being is that ifthere's something that you're doing,
everything out there has value.
Just, you've got to knowwhere to look for it.
(34:06):
That's right.
And you're good at it.
You got a great voice for it.
You got a great, you know whatyou're doing, man, on this podcast.
If you want to start a podcast,email, email us tons of time.
He's got tons of time of whatwe call in the biz over my skis.
But I, this, I will sayhonestly, is a labor of love.
As many of out there, Mattand I are personal friends and
(34:28):
I just love doing this show.
I.
There are many shows that I produce thatI'm it's cool, but not what I'm into.
This is fascinating to me every week.
I cannot wait.
By the way, this is the best show ever.
I say that every week, but thefact that you went out and spent
lots of money on pocket watches.
It to me, it's I can livevicariously through you,
(34:49):
Matt, that you went out there.
Not everybody loves it.
I don't know if my wife loves it.
I'm pretty sure she does not love it.
I was going to say there was probablya few gulps along the line, but hey,
you've proven that you could do this.
If I had tried to do this two or threeyears ago, we would have had, I'd
have been on the couch, but I thinkshe trusts my judgment enough now.
Because I make, I ammaking a living at it.
(35:10):
I'm making the better livingthan any other previous career.
It's not that I'm without faults.
Not that I don't make mistakes.
I got to find a way I got tofind a way to make this work.
You have anything else,Matt, before we head out?
That was awesome, by the way.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, of course.
Guys, look for these things.
It's small.
You don't have to spend loads of money.
You can find these in small doses.
(35:31):
And, get your foot wet, do your research.
I did a lot of researchjust with what I had seen.
I had the advantage of looking atall this stuff in person, holding it
in my hand, taking pictures, doingresearch between that and a week later,
I came and bought them, so this wasnot an impulse buy, I highly recommend
that you do some research on things.
But sometimes when, this is anotherreason to hold some money back because
(35:52):
you never know when a big, reallyjuicy opportunity might present itself.
And I think that the main takeawayyou should get, listener, is
this happened not because I wasscamming Facebook and I found it.
It was because I had put in the time tohave a relationship with a person locally.
And that is what led tothis opportunity for me.
So be kind to the people around you.
(36:14):
Don't view it as a quick money deal.
Don't haggle people down and leavethem with a bad taste in their mouth.
If you want to keep doing this,your best bet is to make friends.
With your peers andpeople in your community.
Absolutely.
Great.
Good word.
All right, folks, thatis all the time we have.
We'll be back with a brand newshow next week, but otherwise
we will see you guys soon.
(36:34):
Have a great week.
Take care.
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast as always per usual.
I am Brandon.
This is Matt.
Some of you might know himas Rusty, the reseller.
Hello.
We were talking about Matt andhis kids and his travels and
his journeys and everything.
And I was like, I feel like Rusty,if Rusty went on a trip or a
vacation, it'd be like in a, it'dbe like in a convertible Malibu.
(01:00):
Oh, He would just roll down the highway.
I felt like Rusty would takea vacation out old route 66.
That's my feeling abouthow rusty would be.
He'd be like, Hey, they're cousins.
He'd just be driving downthe road and he'd rusty would
never take a main freeway ever.
No, that is true.
on backwards.
That is true.
Yeah.
He's he's gotta see what's out there.
(01:20):
That's where the deals are.
Not on the main track.
You gotta get off the main track.
No, he's not stopping at a Buc ee's.
Come on.
Get out of here with the Buc ee's.
He's I don't see the point of that.
They're trying to sell me stuff.
Yeah, he's I want to sell you things.
So exactly.
Exactly.
I always like to, when I thinkabout the show, I do like to
think about what Rusty would do.
So a lot of people say thatWWJD, what would Jesus do?
(01:41):
I always think to myself,what would Rusty do?
WWRD.
What would Rusty do inthis situation right here?
I think that you could.
Do pretty well in your life.
If you did that, maybe, but it mightbe like the antithesis of that.
It's what would he do?
Okay.
I'm going to avoid that.
I'm going to do the opposite of that.
He'd be like, he'd be one of those dudes.
It would be like catchingcatfish with his hands.
(02:01):
Oh, digging in holes this lastweek I was catching crawdads with
my hands and showing my kids.
We took a little pictures of the crowd.
Cause I listen, I'm a Missouri boy.
What do I do?
What do I do when I go?
I go down.
I in within the matter of fiveminutes, I'd caught a few crawdads.
I had skipped some rocks andI had found a water snake.
That's what you do inthe area I grew up in.
(02:22):
We would catch, we call them crawfish.
We didn't call it.
And it's funny that I lovethese little regional names like
crawdad, crayfish, crawfish.
We call them crawfish.
And we used to catch themtoo in the Russian river.
We call them crawdads because the dads arethe ones that are the easiest to catch.
All the female craw, fishare just better at hiding.
They're just out of the way.
(02:43):
It's the dads that are slow.
It's faster.
They go under the rock quicker.
It's fitting, right?
It's fitting.
All right, Matt, we would love, asalways, we had a teaser on our last
show about an update of what happened.
Yes, we did.
We can hold on to that.
We could talk about what sold it.
I'm going to leave this up.
(03:06):
As you guys all know, I'mexcited about this show.
If you listen to this show enough, youknow that I get very excited by the
reveal, because Matt never tells meanything, we talk about the substance
of the show, but we never talk about,he never says, I sold this week, because
he wants me to be flummoxed, and I amalways flummoxed, I'm like, you, what?
They paid you 200 for that?
You hit me, you did that to me.
(03:27):
Last episode, you hit me with all thesehard questions I had to somehow answer.
Oh, yeah.
Types of collectors.
Yeah, exactly.
I was like, what?
I don't know what that is.
You got two for three.
That's not bad.
Yeah, that's true.
It was guess.
I wish I was that good at guessing onstandardized tests when I was younger.
I would have I would havegone to a better school.
You would have been at Harvard.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm excited about this.
(03:47):
Okay.
I'm going to start off with acouple of updates for people who
have been following and have heardabout some other things we've done.
And then after that, I have someexciting news about some things I
purchased that I'm going to sell.
And this is not just a a boastingepisode, but I want to bring this up
to say to look out for certain thingsas well, so that you guys can know,
and also to say where I got them from,because that may, this may be the type
(04:08):
of place that you might want to target.
So to start off with, We had apainting that a listener had brought
to, we had connected and I longstory short, they were like, how do
I, I'm interested in maybe sellingthis, should I go through an auction?
Kind of like you do,what auction do you use?
They're local, somewhatlocal to where I live.
We connected in person after a phonecall and email correspondences.
(04:32):
It turned out that there was somesignificant damage to this piece that
I thought made it unlikely to sellit an auction unless it was repaired.
I offered to repair thatand she brought it to me.
So the stages of that are that the.
Porn parts of this oil painting fromlike probably the potentially late
1700s, but I'm thinking probablyearly 1800s needed to be glued.
(04:55):
So we had to glue that backdown onto the cam together.
So that's not open and torn.
Secondarily, I had to take some whitegesso and fill in so that I brought
up the surface to being even with therest of the surface of the painting
and let that was done before I lefton my trip to see my family last week.
(05:15):
Now I'm back.
And so tonight I'm going to startwith the most difficult part, which is
mixing oil paint to match the colorsof the piece and the brushstrokes.
And I'm hoping to get that finishedby this weekend, as far as the
initial, the painting of it.
And once that's dry, the oil paintis dry, then I can put varnish on it.
And when that's done, it's going backto her, or I'm hoping that I can then
(05:38):
move it on to an auction house for her.
So that's in process.
It's probably 60 percent completed.
And, but I have done the easiestparts, the hardest part is coming.
So Christina, if you'relistening, I'm working on it.
It's going to be donehere before too long.
And I'll let you know the only placewhere you can know the update of your work
being done on air, the what's old podcast.
(06:00):
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
The other thing is because I was on thistrip to see my family this last week, I
told my dad Hey dad, whatever happenedto that high karate cologne that you had?
Oh, so we talked about this and I couldnot have asked for a better answer.
So he laughed, we laughedabout it, joked about it.
And it turns out he sold it on eBay.
(06:21):
What he did, what I do.
So like I sell things primarily on eBay.
That's my full time job.
Granted I'm in my forties and Ifound this, I discovered this in
my parents bathroom when I wasprobably like 16 or 17 years old.
So this has been 30.
Years ago or something like that.
And he remembered we were laughingabout it and he goes, no I I just
(06:42):
decided it was like a half full bottle.
He sold on eBay and he's you know what?
I think I might, let me go look.
And my dad takes meticulousrecords of all kinds of things,
like work he does on his vehicles.
And if he sold the thing, he pullsout the thing he's looking through it.
Unfortunately, he couldn't actually find.
The date like when he sold it howmuch it was for because I think he
sold it so long ago It was beforehe was keeping records on this But
(07:03):
all that to say he did have it.
He did remember it He did sell it and hemade money on it Which I just thought was
great because that's if I had one today,that's exactly what I would do Oh my god.
No, not me, dude I would immediatelygo out and buy myself a kimono robe
that, that was one size too small.
I would splash on the highkarate and I would strut.
I would fully strut.
(07:23):
Sure, but that's what I would do.
Prepare photographs for the listing.
Put on the kimono, I'd be, there'dbe like a kick in midair as you
see this mist coming onto you.
Which is how you If you have a bottleof high karate that's unopened right
now, please email us at the show.
Good for you.
First of all, if youhave one, good for you.
(07:44):
You're in the top 1percent of cologne wearers.
If you're wearing cologne from the1980s, seventies or eighties high karate.
The only thing better would be cool water.
If you've had a bottle ofunopened cool water, then that
also might be worth getting.
But ah, So good.
It's it is the the Cadillac.
We're not going to go Mercedes Benzbecause I feel like high karate would
(08:04):
be the Cadillac of cheap cologne.
Yeah.
So good.
Oh, okay.
So I did the big reveal.
If people are listening and they'rewanting me to fess up on what I teased
in the last, Episode which if youhaven't heard it you stop right now
go back and listen to that episodeand then come now It's called a state
sale gold that episode of state.
(08:25):
So I think it's episode 34 I did andit's called that because I did purchase
some gold And I sold that and some otherthat I had for quite a bit of money.
I paid about 2200 for some goldjewelry from this particular person
that runs an estate sale locally.
I mixed in some of my othergold and I sold it for 7, 000.
So I made two or threegrand in profit off of that.
(08:46):
That was exciting, but as excitingas that sounds, it's not as exciting
as what I'm about to tell you.
Before I left, I discovered thisparticular individual in his estate.
He does it every two weeks.
He doesn't purchase things.
He works with people who haveestates and they work out, he does
the work, he sells it and they dosome sort of split on the profits.
(09:07):
That's how his business runs.
And I knew I was prepping toleave to go to where I grew up
to see my family for a week.
It just so happened that his estatesale was happening that week.
So I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm notgonna go because I'm not gonna be here.
But then I look at the photosand he starts popping up all
these photos of incrediblethings that he almost never has.
And I'm so frustrated by the fact thatI'm not going to be able to be there.
(09:33):
Cause this is the kind of thing I wouldhave been there an hour or two early.
I would have guaranteed thatI was the first person there.
So I call this guy because I knowI'm, we are on a first name basis.
I've been a loyal customer of his.
So I call him up and I say, Hey, I'mjust really calling to complain to you
about the fact that you have all thisawesome stuff and I can't buy any of it.
I was like, good luck and everything.
But if any of it's left, whenI get back, please let me know.
(09:54):
And he says why don't you comedown and just take a look at
some of it before you leave?
So I do, I go there and he says, whydon't you mark things that you might want?
And specifically, he had twoseparate collections of vintage
and antique pocket watches.
Yeah.
And I marked on several ones, therewere some that were solid gold,
there were some that were sterlingsilver, others that were, seemed to be
(10:15):
somewhat rare or valuable movements.
As well as some other things and I'mvery happy to report that when I returned
and went back to him, he had not onlymost of, if not all the ones that I had
marked that I wanted, but even othersand was going to sell them to me.
And so I spent prior, I'm not goingto say how much I spent because I
(10:37):
don't want it to be about that, butI will say that prior to yesterday,
the most I ever spent in one place atone time on item or items was 14, 000.
I spent more yesterday than that on thethings that I'm about to tell you about.
So it was a very large expense, butI think it's going to be worth it.
There were three primarythings that I purchased.
(10:58):
The first thing I purchased was alarge collection of pocket watches.
91 watches in total.
So holy cow.
Seven of them.
But wait, can I interruptyou really quick?
You may.
We know that lots of people thatare listening to the show are
doing this as a side hustle.
This is a full time reseller.
So you're probably not goingto be dropping 14 large to
(11:22):
buy pocket watches like this.
So don't think to yourself, Ohmy gosh, I can't possibly do this
business because Matt's out therespending tens of thousands of dollars.
There may be a time where you grow intoa business, but like anything else.
Things start small.
Maybe you find one pocket watchand you buy it and you sell it.
But anyway.
That's right.
And I'm glad you said that becauseI fully intended to and will still
(11:45):
give some little nuggets of advicehere for people who aren't going
to be doing things at this level.
But you might find a pocket watch ortwo and I want to talk about that.
So that's a piece of this that's coming,but I bought one 91 pocket watches.
They, I have several of them in almostlike briefcases that have these, like this
foam molded thing in there to hold them.
This was a serious collector who wasselling these and I'm not a collector, but
(12:08):
I'm going to pass these on to collectors.
It turned out that six ofthe pocket watches of these
91 are solid 14 karat gold.
One of them is solid 18 karat gold.
One of them is a sterling silver, whatthey call a Fusee, F U S E movement watch
that was made by a manufacturer that usedto make things for the Queen of England.
(12:32):
Some really cool things here.
And for those of you who want totake a look, a peek, we're going
to have these photos up and I'mactually going to show you a couple of
examples in a moment and discuss it.
So that was one set.
I also purchased a lot of 28 differentranging from saucers, plates, bowls,
and serving platters of a type ofceramic ware called Royal Copenhagen.
(12:56):
And I'm going to show an exampleand talk about it right now.
They look like this.
It's a white with blue floral kind ofdesign, almost like a blue cornflower type
of And on the back on the bottom, it hasthe markings and it says Royal Copenhagen.
So it's not hard to identify.
If you see something that's blue andfloral and white, and you turn it over
on on the underneath side of whereit's sitting, it should have that mark.
(13:19):
The story of this goes that whenI was there looking at the pocket
watches, I was like, I need to walkaround and see what else he's got.
I find this lot and they had40 on it for the whole lot.
28 pieces of Royal Copenhagen.
I know because about a month ago, Isold a single small saucer for 100 and
I had in that research, I had foundthat people had been selling lots of
(13:42):
10, 15, 20 pieces for somewhere between15 and 2, 500 for the whole group.
She had this list for 40.
And so I told this gentleman, I said,listen I'm not coming in here to tell
you that you're doing anything wrong.
You research it, you've beendoing this for over 30 years.
You're the master at this.
I just want you to know that I came acrossthis information recently and wanted to
(14:05):
give it to you in case that would changehow you would want to price this at all.
And, we had this conversation aboutonline prices versus what I can get here.
I want to move it.
I totally get it.
So we actually made this compromisewhere the woman said, how about this?
I'm going to raise it from 40 to 250.
If I sell it, we'll say, thank you.
(14:25):
Maybe we'll help you maybegive you a little bit of that
money back for helping us out.
If it doesn't sell, I'll sell itto you and you get back for 200.
I said, deal.
So I came back, it's all still there.
So I bought it.
And I'm very excited because I thinkI'm going to be making between 000
off of this lot of ceramic platesand bowls that I paid 200 for.
(14:47):
You just illuminated something too.
When you, for those of you that I'mlistening to show, no, very much no
Matt character, but your businessstrategy, a lot of people would listen
to that and say why would you tellher you could have made so much money?
You'd have to tell 40 bucks.
You should have just bought it 40.
Because ultimately you're notin this for the short run.
And if she found out that yousold all this or that it was out
(15:09):
there, she would feel cheated.
Now she looks at it and says, notonly did she not feel cheated.
She looked, you as an ally,which you are, it's not false.
This is really how you.
See things and feel about things,but there's something to be said
about building these relationships.
And if you're in the resellingbusiness or really any business, but
I think really reselling, if you'regoing back to people it takes a long
(15:33):
time to build a good reputation.
It takes a very short time to ruin one.
Yeah.
I love that you did that.
I think that's wise.
Because you look at it and say, Hey, if Icould make 20, I could have bought a 40.
I couldn't.
And that's the other thing.
I didn't even, it didn't matter tome because I was going to be gone.
You see what I'm saying?
She was the one who offeredthis, like whatever.
I was just saying, Hey, you, youoffer this place for me to buy
(15:55):
things and make money off of it.
It's good for me.
I'm a loyal customer andyou're making money off of me.
This has been a win relationshipfor as long as I've been coming.
And I don't owe them anything.
They don't owe me anything.
But when I see that, I just think , you'regoing to be essentially giving this away.
And if you do that, if you bump it up inprice and they, and it sells for more, you
made more money and you learn something.
(16:16):
I don't mind sharing someinformation because I'm constantly
trying to learn as well.
And it just worked.
It just worked out in this.
Circumstance that I was able to buyit, but that's not why I said it.
And I didn't expect that would,cause I was going to be gone.
I also ran the risk ofsomebody else buying it.
And she said, even when I came and got it,she was like, somebody came back the next
day and said, Hey, do you have those left?
And she said no, because shewas honoring what she told me.
(16:40):
It didn't sell that day.
So she pulled them andshe wasn't buying them.
Isn't that nice.
That really is a good story.
I like that.
That circumstance.
So that happened.
And also this didn'tsell and I purchased it.
It is a Picasso.
It is a enamel tile on copper.
It's like enamel on copper andit's mounted in this frame.
(17:02):
I paid 40 for it.
And it's a, it's an originalauthentic Picasso piece.
This is coming two weeks after Ipurchased a, an authentic Salvador Dali
etching at an estate sale among others,when a lot that people didn't know.
So I'm getting some big namesin here lately, and that's
pretty, pretty exciting.
I don't know if I'm going tosell this personally or if I'm
(17:22):
going to send it to auction yet.
But what it is it's a bizarre scene,but it's like a man dressed up almost
like a circus performer or a clown, notexactly a clown, but he's got a hat on
and it's this red garment and a courtjester and he's sitting on like a seat
and there's a little kid sitting by him.
It's bizarre because it's Picasso.
Okay, but really a cool piece.
So I was able to buy this and thosedishes and all of these pocket watches
(17:46):
when I came back and I would not have hadthe ability to do any of those things.
Had I not been a loyal returningcustomer who took the time to get
to know this individual to haveconversations, I wouldn't have had the
opportunity to buy that gold jewelrythat we spoke about in a couple of
episodes ago from the same person.
And after all this is said anddone, I gave him an enormous check
(18:10):
yesterday, the largest check I'veever paid to one person for anything.
Listen, two and a half years ago, I waspaying about, spending about 20, 000 to
24, 000 a year annually on inventory.
And I've spent more than that in thelast 30 days this year, because, as
things grow and I, and opportunitiescome along and if I do a good enough
(18:31):
job of saving stuff, so I can investwhen these big opportunities come along,
then I have the chance to do that.
And that's not for everybody.
And it doesn't have to be a big thinglike this thing, same thing can happen
to you in on a very small scale, ifyou do what Brandon alluded to, which
is that you just be a kind person,you'd be a person of integrity.
You don't just be in it formaking money off of somebody.
(18:53):
These are people, he's running a job andtrying to make money for his family and
take care of himself, just like I am.
He's just doing it in a slightly differentway and somehow, because of what we do,
our paths cross and this can be mutuallybeneficial, but not only has it been good
for me in the past, good for me today.
But after I gave him thischeck, he said, Hey, listen,
Come back in a couple of weeks.
I'm going to have somemore jewelry for you.
(19:15):
After that, I've gotsome more pocket watches.
And so he goes, and he even said withthe pocket watches, he goes, when they
come in next time, I'm calling youfirst, I'm not even putting them out.
I'm just calling you.
Wow.
Awesome.
I don't know if I'll be able to buy them.
I just spent a ton of money.
I got to make some of thisback, but that's awesome.
I've developed now.
I have a relationship where someone'sI'm on the top of a list now.
Rusty, he's calling Rusty.
(19:35):
Yeah.
And he's keeping an eye out forthat thing that he knows it's a
mutually beneficial relationship.
So ultimately.
Exactly.
Being kind, it doesn't cost you anything.
And take, time.
Time.
Time.
That's it.
It costs you time.
That's it.
So that's exciting.
Look for Royal Copenhagen stuff becauseit sells for really good amounts of money.
(19:56):
Look up Royal Copenhagen blueor blue and white in eBay.
Look at sold listings.
You'll see that.
If you've ever heard of Picasso orSalvador Dali, you'll know that if you
come across an original of anythingof theirs, it's going to have value.
You just need to know what it isso that you don't spend too much.
Don't get super excited and, Oh, 500.
You're like, Oh, howis this only worth 300?
You'd still need to do your research.
(20:17):
And there's a lot of fakes andforgeries of the masters and people
who are very well known and successful.
So be careful of that.
I'm just going to hold up and talk again.
I'll show these photos on thevideo version, but this is just
one of the little trays of pocketwatches, which came from this lot.
And you can't quite see it real well.
I'll hold it.
You will be able to see it on theFacebook page So take a look there.
(20:38):
We will yes This is one ofthe solid gold pocket watches.
It's very ornately carved Ithas a star in the center of it.
It would what?
It would be considered what they call adouble hunter case because it is etched on
both sides or front and back and the side.
You open it up.
It has a face that hasthree horses heads on them.
(21:00):
Almost like this is like a KentuckyDerby, nod or something like that.
Beautiful piece.
It's quite large, quite heavy.
This I don't know exactly yet,but I believe that this particular
walk because of the movement,because of the weight of the gold.
Is worth somewherebetween three and 5, 000.
(21:21):
Wow.
This one pocket watch.
That's crazy.
It's very possible that of the goldwatches that I have, I'm going to make
70 percent of my money back and thenstill have 85 more watches to sell.
I, again, I'm home with my sonthis week, so I don't have it.
I'm fulfilling tons of orders of thingsthat sold while I was gone on my trip.
But I'm excited.
(21:41):
Here's another one of the gold ones.
This is a smaller one.
It has almost like a tri color on it.
It's got yellow, greenish yellow.
It's floral.
So the first one I showed you was anElgin, which if you've come across pocket
watches, that's a pretty common brand.
This one is a Waltham, but look atthe face is a beautiful, it's made
of porcelain and it's got this soft,like baby blue color on the face
(22:06):
and a chronograph on the bottom.
This is a smaller size and I believethat all of the, I think that all of
the pocket watches that I purchasedwere are made sometime between 1860s
and the 1930s.
That's a big range.
But there is one, which I'll hold upnow, and it has actually like a leather
(22:28):
and sterling silver fob on it, and atthe end of it, it has the key that you
used to turn and crank it, but this isthe one that this one actually opens
up, if you pop this the case on the top,there's a little button, you can open
it up, you pull the top, and then, Oh!
The watch itself actually comes out of it.
(22:49):
And there's a spot on the backwhere you use the key to crank it.
But this is probably older than thisis probably the oldest one I have.
This is probably from the 1830s,1840s, possibly earlier than that.
I've not found the exact one yet.
But it's just amazing.
It's by a maker called Thomas Russell,which this is the one that made stuff.
(23:11):
Are they still in business today?
Or the company that made things.
I don't actually know.
I don't actually know.
I need to look and see a lot of, Ithink that some of these ones like.
Elgin and Waltham in Illinois, someof those may still be making pieces,
but they were very successful inthe late 1800s up through the 20s.
Some really beautiful pieces.
(23:31):
And that's one of the things I loveabout pocket watches is because they're
just, they're like works of art.
Like such sm and I also, of these 91pocket watches, Probably 80 percent of
them are working, are in working order.
You crank, you twist them andyou move them a little bit and
they start ticking and they'rekeeping time 100, 150 years later.
What was the name of the Thomas watch?
What was that called?
(23:53):
It was Thomas Russell, R U S E L L.
Oh, that's funny.
I have a college buddy whosename is Thomas Russell.
Maybe he's named after the pocket watches.
Yeah.
Is he a long, the long lost ora long, a grandson of a great.
Perhaps he is.
I don't know.
I'll have to ask him.
So I want to tell a story as you'relooking at this really fast is that
(24:15):
one of these pocket, two of thesepocket watches that I found just in my
cursory, investigation as I got them.
I discovered that one of them.
That wasn't marked as such is 18 karatsolid gold and one's 14 karat gold.
So if you're looking at pocketwatches, you need to open up the back.
Some of them you push, you useyour thumbnail and you pop open
the back and you can look atwhat's written on the case.
Others you have to actually unscrew,but on the case oftentimes if it's made
(24:39):
of solid gold it'll say 10k, 14k, 18k.
In some cases it'll just havethe number with a circle or a
square or a diamond around it.
If it has a scale on it as a symbol,then that typically means it's
gold filled, so it's not solid.
It has a gold layer.
It also will say if it's a gold filledpiece, a certain number of years, or it'll
(25:00):
say the word warranted or guaranteed,warranted the scale or saying it might
say gold filled but it will say 10 years.
20 years, 25 years, and the numberof years is important because
the higher the number of years,the more gold content is on it.
The idea being you can wear this on youand in your pocket and pull it out in
(25:22):
and out for 25 years before you're goingto start seeing the gold layer wearing
through to the base metal 10 years meansit's a thinner layer of gold in 10 years.
Time of use.
You're going to start tonotice that gold layer.
Being worn off because gold isit's a soft metal unless mix
it with another hard metal.
By the way, the Thomas Russellwatch company is no longer out of
(25:45):
Liverpool, England is no longer.
It doesn't appear tobe still in existence.
So they're not still making them,although there is a huge market
for Thomas Russell watches.
And by the way, people, they ain't cheap.
So if you find a Thomas Russellpocket watch, you're going to You
may want to think about keep hangingon to it and try and sell it.
(26:06):
Yes.
This is a deep dive.
Some pocket watches have really cruddy,not like really cheap cases, but the
movement happens to be very valuablebecause it's rare or something.
Others can have solid gold casesand a really cheap movement in it.
That's not as common, but it can happen.
So the value of a pocket watchoftentimes is a combination of
what does the case look like?
(26:27):
What is the case made out of?
What is the age and type of movement,who made it and is it working or
does it need service or repair?
So there's actually a lotof different variables here.
You just definitely need to do yourresearch, but there's an, and I
think I mentioned this on a previousepisode, but you can go on and
look up pocket watch serial numberor pocket watch identification.
(26:48):
And there is a site.
That all you have to do is put the maker.
So let's say I have one that's an Illinoispocket watch and I opened the back and
I can see the movement and I can seethe five or six or seven digit number.
That's the serial number.
I just put in, this is Illinois.
This is the number and it spits out allthe information you need other than price.
It tells you when it was made, theproduction number, the size of the
(27:11):
movement, the type of movement.
The number of jewels inthe movement, all of that.
And so you're armed nowwith that information.
Who keeps that website up?
I don't know, but I would imagine anindividual or group of avid pocket
watch enthusiasts or collectors.
So it's really awesometo have that resource.
(27:31):
Yeah.
I wish I had a lot of money to buy thatwatch to, to, I was, I, when I wore
my old fashioned suit, my spats, mypocket watch with my gold chain coming
out of it and my monocle and my stick,I would have to add one more element
to make this all worthwhile, Matt, doyou know what that element would be?
All I was gonna say is you'regonna have several stick pins.
(27:53):
Let's be honest.
Not just one but you're gonnabe adorned with stick pins.
I would have a silver tipped,silver handled cane to go along
with it and the hand cane.
Okay.
I have one that's on an umbrellaif you need that, but we could
fashion that onto a cane.
I would like the thing to be, the, I don'tknow what the name of the turn on the cane
is, where it's like a, almost like a grip.
(28:14):
Like a a saw grip, if you will.
But I would have that aslike a dragon or something.
It would be something very ornate.
And it needs to be a swordconcealed within the cane.
Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
With what's the point of having the cane?
If there's not a swordconcealed within the cane.
Yes.
Good point.
Yeah, exactly.
So this is exciting.
(28:34):
I have a lot of work.
This is going to, this collectionis going to take me, if I sell
them individually, several months.
Wow.
So if you can't float large amounts ofmoney, for large amounts of time, and I
don't even know if I can, but we're goingto find out, but what I would actually
love to do would be to go through.
I need to spend the time andadequately research these.
(28:55):
I need to know what allthe cases are made up.
I need to know how to describe them.
I need to know the size of them.
I need to know if they work or not.
And I need to have an inventory ofeverything that I have and photographs.
Once I get that, which will probably takeme a month, because it's going to take
me some time, but once I'm, once I havethat spreadsheet, what I'd love to do
is go to one of these buying, selling,Facebook groups of antique and vintage
(29:19):
pocket watch collectors, where they'renot just, it's, some of it is, I'm showing
it just to brag of what I've got, someof it is Hey, I don't know what this is.
Can you tell me what it is?
Can you tell me what you think it's worth?
Where would be the best place to sell it?
And then some people are,they know exactly what it is.
They just want to sell it.
So they're posing it there.
Hey, if you want more information,send me a private message and we can,
(29:40):
I can tell you what it is and what I'mwanting for it and we can negotiate.
The advantage of doing that is numberone, I think it would be awesome to get
this entire collection in the hands of onecollector that came from one collector.
It'd be really cool tonot, they spent time.
How many hands have these all 91 ofthese pocket watches gone through?
Over the course of 150 years to end up inmy basement at my house, of all places,
(30:06):
and it would be neat to pass that on, butif I could find one person and they could,
we could do a private sale, guess what?
I saved that 13 and a halfpercent that I would lose to eBay.
Now, if we're talking a five figuresale, that's 13 and a half percent
is a lot of money, a lot of money.
And that really eats into mypotential profit off of buying
(30:27):
such a large collection.
So if it's just a PayPal payment ora series of PayPal payments where
there's no transaction fee for me.
Then that could be really good.
Or I could even post them personally andjust say, Hey, like I'll meet someone.
If you want to see them privately,we're going to go meet in the
parking lot of the police stationlocally so that it leads to that.
Number one, if anybody out thereis looking for pocket watches.
(30:49):
We're typically not a showthat sells stuff, but if you're
interested, email us and let us know.
I happen to have a couple here.
The other part of that's, that Ifind very interesting, and it's very
typical of a lot of businesses, butnot to say that you're going to become
a narrow focused pocket watch dealer.
Sure.
But as time goes along, youtend to develop specialties.
(31:12):
And this could be the specialtyarea for the Matt Brock industries.
What I'm saying, this is for manyof you starting out, Hey man, you're
selling anything you could sell.
But as time goes along, youmight say, Hey, you know what?
I'm really good at identifyingand selling vintage toys.
Yeah.
That's where I'm going to make the mostmoney and it's the best use of my time.
(31:34):
Yeah.
So I think all of us that startbusinesses, we tend to blanket it
and say, what's going to stick.
It's really fun that you found this.
I wouldn't, if I was anybody out there,I wouldn't look past any of these things.
I would probably think to myself, Hey,is there a possibility I could do this?
Again, and maybe I need to find five orsix estate sale people out there that
are finding these pocket watches andthen you become the pocket watch king of
(31:56):
North America, I think there are a lotof advantages to refining as much as you
possibly can, what you buy and sell whenyou're just starting out and you don't
know a lot about a lot of categories.
It actually makes more sense to do, tojust try to do research on everything,
get what you can, and make money on it.
Because you don't have theexpertise yet, you need to learn.
(32:18):
And also, you're going to findways to make money on all kinds
of things, and this is what I did.
But as you learn about stuff, and you seewhat things are readily accessible, what
you can get your hands on time and timeagain, what you're interested in, what's
not boring to you, And if you can refine,let's say you have an eBay store where
you're only selling one category of item,then you, the advantage to that is that
(32:40):
people will start following your storeand you'll get repeat customers because
they know that when they come to yourstore they're not having to wade through a
bunch of junk that they don't care about.
I say junk.
Right.
Items that someone elsecares about but not them.
It's very easy for them to look throughand see the things and know that they
will have interest at least marginallyon everything that you're offering.
I'm doing that now.
My eBay stores are morphing over timeto where one's going to be just jewelry.
(33:03):
So when people come, if you wantjewelry, fine or costume jewelry,
that's the store you go to.
Other ones are going to bethings like paper ephemera and
some other antique items, yada.
I think that's a really good word.
There are a lot ofadvantages come with that.
You just oftentimes can't start thatway unless you are an enthusiast of a
particular thing already and outside ofselling, you already know a lot about it.
(33:24):
Maybe you collect it and you're like,okay, maybe I'll, I already, I've
already put all this knowledge to gooduse for my own personal enjoyment.
Now I can turn this into sort of,reorient yourself in a business way.
And I think there's probablya lot of people out there
that have those hidden skills.
That they don't realize that they've,they're hobbyists or they're enthusiasts
and all of a sudden you realize,Hey, you could take a lot of that.
(33:46):
The reason I got into podcastingand audio engineering is because
I just thought it was really cool.
And I just started messing aroundwith it and 10 years ago or so.
And then over time, you'relike, Hey, this would be really
cool to do this for a living.
And so the point being is that ifthere's something that you're doing,
everything out there has value.
Just, you've got to knowwhere to look for it.
(34:06):
That's right.
And you're good at it.
You got a great voice for it.
You got a great, you know whatyou're doing, man, on this podcast.
If you want to start a podcast,email, email us tons of time.
He's got tons of time of whatwe call in the biz over my skis.
But I, this, I will sayhonestly, is a labor of love.
As many of out there, Mattand I are personal friends and
(34:28):
I just love doing this show.
I.
There are many shows that I produce thatI'm it's cool, but not what I'm into.
This is fascinating to me every week.
I cannot wait.
By the way, this is the best show ever.
I say that every week, but thefact that you went out and spent
lots of money on pocket watches.
It to me, it's I can livevicariously through you,
(34:49):
Matt, that you went out there.
Not everybody loves it.
I don't know if my wife loves it.
I'm pretty sure she does not love it.
I was going to say there was probablya few gulps along the line, but hey,
you've proven that you could do this.
If I had tried to do this two or threeyears ago, we would have had, I'd
have been on the couch, but I thinkshe trusts my judgment enough now.
Because I make, I ammaking a living at it.
(35:10):
I'm making the better livingthan any other previous career.
It's not that I'm without faults.
Not that I don't make mistakes.
I got to find a way I got tofind a way to make this work.
You have anything else,Matt, before we head out?
That was awesome, by the way.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, of course.
Guys, look for these things.
It's small.
You don't have to spend loads of money.
You can find these in small doses.
(35:31):
And, get your foot wet, do your research.
I did a lot of researchjust with what I had seen.
I had the advantage of looking atall this stuff in person, holding it
in my hand, taking pictures, doingresearch between that and a week later,
I came and bought them, so this wasnot an impulse buy, I highly recommend
that you do some research on things.
But sometimes when, this is anotherreason to hold some money back because
(35:52):
you never know when a big, reallyjuicy opportunity might present itself.
And I think that the main takeawayyou should get, listener, is
this happened not because I wasscamming Facebook and I found it.
It was because I had put in the time tohave a relationship with a person locally.
And that is what led tothis opportunity for me.
So be kind to the people around you.
(36:14):
Don't view it as a quick money deal.
Don't haggle people down and leavethem with a bad taste in their mouth.
If you want to keep doing this,your best bet is to make friends.
With your peers andpeople in your community.
Absolutely.
Great.
Good word.
All right, folks, thatis all the time we have.
We'll be back with a brand newshow next week, but otherwise
we will see you guys soon.
(36:34):
Have a great week.
Take care.
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