Who else? Bad buying experiences?

[clovis97]

Over the years, I have advertised that I buy toy trains, and haven't had much luck.

Sure, I've bought a few things from time to time, but have not found anything stellar so far.

Most of the calls are from people who think they have a very valuable train set in their attic, but in reality, they have common stuff in poor condition. Most of it is in rough shape, isn't old, and was entry level stuff, even when purchased new. There are some outstanding train sets and collections still tucked away in closets and attics, but I haven't had any calls for anything super clean.

The really funny thing is that I've tried to screen the caller for condition, brand, amount, etc. No sense wasting anyone's time right?

Nearly every call I can recollect, the buyer had "tons of this stuff" and it is "really nice condition" and "it hasn't been played with in a long time." In reality, when we meet at McDonald's, it has always been a different story.

What was supposed to be an old Lionel O set in mint condition is actually a box of mismatched Marx junk, or better yet, a super cheap HO set that has been stored in a wet basement for 36 years. I tell ya, I could share some stories!!!!

You guys certainly can relate, can't you?

How many of you have followed up on a lead for "solid gold jewelry", just to find out it is brass plated junk?

How many of you went to look at "old antiques that my dad collected," to find out they had a water bed from 1981?

How many of you have gone to buy a collection "that my mom kept for 65 years", later to learn they have three boxes of Corningware
dishes from 1979?

Let's hear the stories!!!

 

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[Beachkid23]

Worst one I have had lately is I pass out card at a yard sale and the lady says she has some old coins! But she's too busy to get them out at the moment and she will call me later in the afternoon to come look at them. Okay sounds good to me so I leave. Later that evening I get a phone call I found the coins can you come out look at them! Sure I'll be there in 30 min... Took $300 not knowing what to expect. Get to her house and no answer. Ring the door bell, call her phone... Nothing.

I leave all ticked off, two days later I hear back from her, sorry I fell asleep! Can you come back out... Hmm, ok! I go... Stupid, she pulls out her coins. I swear she went to the bank and asked for $10 in miscellaneous change. The oldest coin was a 1981 penny. So i offer. $2! She comes out with oh, well someone else was looking for coins too! I have to call them back! Blah!!

* a week later go to another house. Look at a collection of coins, offer the lady $250 for all. This is a Friday morn. She says let me get your number, I'll call you if you have the highest offer..... ? Huh? Are you ebay? I give her my number. On Monday she calls. You had the highest offer! Come and get them! Great.... Swell... I put it off Til the following Friday and went and got them. So it wasn't too bad.

* local guy calls. Wants to sell his dads millitary collection of badges, patches and all. Says they are ww2. I really don't want them but he said some are silver, some may be ww1. Or.... When I get there they are the same patches I earned in cub scouts 25 yrs ago!

* hi, can you come look at my collection? I spent a lot of money on these and need a quick $100-150! You can do that right? It's a huge collection! Please I just need to pay my electric bill. How much can you give me sir! Me: sorry, I don't buy beanie babies....

* one guy I was buying from for months calls and he has 10 antique wooden ship models. Says they are in excellent condition. Drive 20 minutes to his house. They are all the same, little sticker says made in china. Turns out he was out if booze and wanted $40 for them. Lol!

Then this weekend I buy 4 gold rings. Although I made a deal on all 5. The 5th was Awsome 14k and ruby. I go in the house and the wife wants to see what I bought. She goes nuts when she sees that ring. Screaming and yelling at her husband. Made it super awkward for about 20 min. I gave it back and got $100 back. Then spent $40 more on some other stuff. Her and her husband were going nuts over this ring. Like crazy psycho fighting!!! It was kinda scary.

 

[wotdlois]

"* local guy calls. Wants to sell his dads millitary collection of badges, patches and all. Says they are ww2. I really don't want them but he said some are silver, some may be ww1. Or.... When I get there they are the same patches I earned in cub scouts 25 yrs ago! " This had me laughing. Everyone thinks their stuff is worth millions when in reality they have no clue what they have and just end up wasting peoples time like the posters above. I was contemplating putting an ad up but after hearing these stories not so sure if its even worth the hassle. If you had to give a percentage of the actual worth while calls what would it be?

 

[Tallone]

Half the garage sales on Craigslist are described as "HUGE!" when, in reality, they have a couple of tables of busted up toys and some bins of kid's clothes.

I don't do what you guys are doing as far as having people contact me to come look at their stuff but I did run into a really weird situation a couple of years ago. Somebody posted an ad for a garage sale with no pictures or details, just a phone number to call to arrange a time to come see their stuff. I called and found out the place was way out in the country. There are a bunch of old farm houses in the area so I thought this might be a gold mine. I arranged to go out there the next morning before work. When I got there I was greeted by a middle aged woman who took me into the house and introduced me to her elderly father who was clearly not in particularly good health. The lady said her father would show me around. She hopped in her car and left me alone with the old guy. That seemed like a foolish thing to do but I didn't have any ill intentions so I didn't think much of it.

So the old guy takes me out the back door and walks me SLOWLY (this guy is OLD and not very stable on his feet) around in the fields he used to farm showing me a few pieces of rusted out farm equipment he wants to get rid of. After about 20 minutes doing that, I tell the guy I don't have much more time and that I'm really not interested in big old pieces of farm equipment. I noticed there were a couple of sheds on the property so I asked him if there was anything in there he was interested in selling. He said yes. On the way to the sheds he goes into a rant about how his low life son-in-law has stolen all his good stuff and if he ever shows up again he's going to blast him with his shotgun. Now I'm getting a little nervous.

We finally get to the sheds. The first one is piled high with worthless junk (broken furniture, old motor parts, etc.). We move on to the next shed. This one is also packed with stuff. It's so full you can't even set foot on the floor. Mostly junk in there too but I notice, way at the back, a whole bunch of old butter churns (the jar type with the paddles and a crank on top). Those things sell for around $40 each so I ask him how much he wants for them. He says he wants $250 each! Then the old guy says, "Let me show them to you" and he wades into this giant pile of stuff trying to climb over things to get to the back. Now I'm freaking out. I'm having visions of this guy falling and breaking a hip or having a heart attack or something. I thank him for his time, tell him I'm not interested in the churns, and boogie on out of there.

 

[Beachkid23]

"* local guy calls. Wants to sell his dads millitary collection of badges, patches and all. Says they are ww2. I really don't want them but he said some are silver, some may be ww1. Or.... When I get there they are the same patches I earned in cub scouts 25 yrs ago! " This had me laughing. Everyone thinks their stuff is worth millions when in reality they have no clue what they have and just end up wasting peoples time like the posters above. I was contemplating putting an ad up but after hearing these stories not so sure if its even worth the hassle. If you had to give a percentage of the actual worth while calls what would it be?

It's totally worth advertising to buy. If you get to their house that's just the beginning. And the first step. If they say they have this and ends up being worthless you're already in their house that gives you a Birdseye view of what they have in their display cases or on the shelves, on their mantles, on top of the cabinets. There have been several houses I've been to where their stuff that they called me on his junk but very few houses I walked away from empty-handed. Well hey I'm sorry the stuff isn't really anything I'm looking for at the moment however do you have any.... You name it coins,guns,jewelry, fishing Lewers, antique stuff, trains! The list goes on and on and on. Most of the time they were looking to sell something anyways and make some money. So if you don't take what they have first ask for something else and I will hey you know what I might have one of those they were thinking about it. I can tell you every house I go to I ask if they have something else and they go oh you know what maybe I do! hang on let me go look! There you go you end up with something better than what you went for anyways!

A good example: the guy who called on the World War II stuff , only to have Boy Scout junk. 5 months prior, I asked him if he had any silver coins or old coins. He said no but he had these things from the Franklin mint and he didn't know what they were ..... How about 5 books of 10 bars each 2-4 oz sterling silver. $900 worth of silver! Paid $600 and left.

 

[blindbug]

When I look up garage / yard sales on craigslist, I tend to avoid or leave-for-last any descriptions that say "antique" or "collectible" or a number of other words. These people (in my area at least) seem to always have the most outlandish prices on items and in some of the poorest conditions. I went to a sale where there were 'collectibles' and came across a mini train set marked $125... box looked great. Opened it up and it was missing (3) of the (5) cars, (2) of the tracks were snapped and the electric conductor piece was missing. Went to another sale with 'antiques' in the description, and there was maybe 10 items marked less than $50. When I see $75 marked on a 1980's space heater marked as an 'antique heater' I just turn around and get back in the car.

 

[dejapooh]

I hate sales where they print out an ebay sheet to hang on any decent item... FOR SALE ON EBAY for $150, I'll take $140, you can make $10 if you buy this and sell it. I see those pretty often. As soon as I see the Ebay paper, I walk to my car and leave.

I was at a garage sale once, and I picked up something I could sell for $20... not bad, if I can buy it for $2. They want $4, I offer $2, the counter at $3. Just as I am about to repeat my offer of $2 (being the most I would pay), some old bat steps up, "If he doesn't buy it for three, I'll buy it for $4." I asked her where she learned her manners, interrupting a conversation in which she had no business.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

I got some trains! Great trains, antiqueded and old, too.
I thought RJC did trains , also.

No really, I don't think they're worth much, and I been meaning to ask ya'll about them. I'm pretty sure they'd qualify to list on etsy, 20+ yrs old. I'd hafta clean them up and the boxes are beat to he// and back, I can't show the boxes, I don't think, lol. They did have the cellophane in the front, that disintegrated a decade ago, lol.
I did search them on ebay yrs back, I thought I saw prices like $4 or $6. I thought, naw, they can sit in the closet for that.
Ya'll want to buy some trains? LAWL! (yeah, just pm me on the side, sshhh)
I got tracks, too man.








I used to keep stuffs in a closed retail space, run CL ads. Folks would see pics, call, I'd hafta go meet them. I'd have paintings retail for hundreds, thousands, they'd offer $40.00.
But, I'd wind up selling holiday decorations and doggie stuffs to them, for way more than........ go figure?

 

[clovis97]

Thanks for all of the replies!

Here are a few of my experiences:

A guy called, and said he had a "really old Lionel set, with the original boxes, and everything else." I asked about how old it was, and he replied "It belonged to my dad, and he was 88 when he died." Of course, I was thinking it might be a pre-war set, so I was excited. I bugged the guy about the numbers on the engine and the cars, but got the typical "It's at home right now, so I can't give you the numbers."

After jacking around with the guy, who kept insisting that we meet in the local park (weird!), we met at a public place. He pulled out his 'antique' train set, which was from the early 1980's, and was one of the cheapest sets that Lionel ever made!

One of my other stories: A guy called one day, and was really talking big about "a train set I have." After listening to this guy rave on about this box of trains, he said it was a Marx set, "and I'll take the first $100 that gets here." That guy was such a pompous jerk that I literally laughed LOUDLY at him when he said that. After I got done laughing, he sheepishly asked if that was too much, and I told him that I wouldn't give $100 for five boxes of that cheap crap, and hung up the phone.