I was thinking today, how I got in this business. Was it chance or just my time to do something different and intriguing? You never know what fate has in store for you. I have been a long time ebayer since 2001 and in the beginning my partner and I only sold new items. Over time we got over stocked with non selling items.

During one business meeting I thought we should have a garage sale to get rid of the excess inventory that was taking up valuable space and our money was locked into the inventory until it sold. Over the next few weeks, we set up for the sale at my partner’s house; I even ordered a book online about garage sales.

The weekend of the sale came and went; we were eighteen hundred dollars richer for our efforts, far exceeding our expectations of three to four hundred dollars. Thus, I became hooked and began looking for items to buy and resale.

I had always known about storage unit auctions, just did not know the nuts and bolts of the business. Did a little research and found a few sales.

Let’s say I was unprepared for the type of people you see at the auctions. Did you ever watch the movie Deliverance? Take the characters from the movie and make some older and a few younger and that was the crowd at my first auction. I cannot say what you will see around the rest of the US, but here in Georgia that was the norm.

Things were not looking well for me, if this is the kind of people who come to auctions, the stuff can’t be that good. So I was a little shy about buying anything, this went on for a few weeks. Then I just started buying units. Nothing courage, no reward, was my new found thought process.

The first unit I bought was quite good, it cost me fifty dollars, I got several new Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and six pair of brand new Nikes out of it for myself and sold the rest for a nice profit of two hundred and fifty dollars. The second storage unit I bought was a heap of junk that I paid one hundred and eighty five dollars for it and another twenty five to through it away.

Later on I found these prices were high, being new is like being initiated into a fraternity, there is a hazing period that can cost you a lot of money. The regulars were trying to run me off! This went on for months, no one really talks to you and the people are quite insular and paranoid. Three months later I found out why.

On a beautiful sunny yet mild day I was in Conyers at a little hole in the wall storage facility, the place was old, but clean. It was a sealed bid auction or silent auction. On these types of auctions, you write your bid down and turn it in to the auctioneer or district manager.

Whoever writes down the highest bid wins, there were a few decent ones to bid on, I bid on four and I was way off, sometimes by half!

Then we can to a unit that had a safe in it, really old rickety roll top desk, which fell apart after I moved it, a set on antique metal bed rails, a few boxes and not much else. I wrote down a bid for a dollar. I figured it was a lark and I would be out bid again.

The manager called my name and everyone started laughing, “you just paid a dollar to haul off their junk” one of the deliverance people declared with a more than a hint of glee in his voice. It was not that much stuff and shoot it was only a dollar.

We went to a few more units and I was once again out bid, there is a certain art to bidding in the sealed bid format, it took me a moment to master it, this was not the moment as my lack of success painfully highlighted.

After settling up, I went to my newest purchase and said what the hell, let’s do this. I got all of the stuff loaded rather quickly, except for the safe. I did not know something that small could weigh that much. I had to go to the rental office and borrow an appliance dolly to move it to the van.

I found a sheet of ply wood to create a ramp and I got it in the van, I took it to our office and promptly begin trying to break into it. I never broke into a safe before. In the beginning it was fun, you know men like tearing stuff up!

I used a sledge hammer, tried to drill it, broke off the dial and tried to move the tumblers, I was successful in knocking out the hinges, and however the safe would not open. All of the locking bolts where still in place. Three hours after I started the safe was still locked and little more worn than when I started.

My next bright idea was to wedge it open with some rail road spikes I got out of a storage unit, as time goes on you will be amazed at how much stuff that you need that will come out of a unit. I started to gain some traction and I saw a small open near the spike. I promptly inserted another spike, and another unit I exposed a bolt and pried it out, about an hour later I finally got the safe open. There was a layer of concrete between the inner and outer steel walls of the safe.

While I was doing this my business partner was laughing her ass off, every now then she would come to the back and check on my progress. During one these trips to laugh at me, I was pulling stuff out, when I showed her the vintage diamond necklace she almost fell out. A beautiful piece with one 3 carat diamond pendant with smaller diamonds and rubies in an 18k white gold setting it weighed quite a bit!

Several gold and diamond rings, a old Rolex stainless steel watch , a gold Omega watch, a roll or Morgan Silver Dollars , Walking Liberty Dollars, silver coins, a ton of Kennedy half dollars, gold coins, a Ruger Pistol, Colt 45 Revolver, 9MM Berretta, Pearl handle derringer I thought this was cool as hell! Silver Certificates, old leases this guy was a developer.

But it was the jewelry that made this by special, once I found the right channels to sell it, it took some research, the pawn shop guy was like I will give you ten thousand dollars right here and now for all of it, guns included. I thought for a moment, I was tempted, ten grand in cash is mighty enticing. If a pawn shop is willing to give me ten it got to be worth thirty to forty thousand.

I held out and took my time to sell it. Total take on a dollar invested , seven hours of hard labor was $62,000 the jewelry accounted for $49,000, the coins came up to $8000 and the guns and other items ( pens, collectibles, silver) made up the difference. So this is why the regulars will try to run you off, if you do it long enough and buy enough units you will hit a good lick!

Glendon Cameron 08/9/09