I was tying up a few loose ends today and I came across this sparkling little gem. A storage auction hound in NYC came upon a local college basketball star’s jerseys and awards etc when Syracuse was the business. From the beginning it looks great right? Well known person, lots of nice collectibles, who would not want this unit? Not me! I avoided these units like the plague! The storage facility will hype them up and the crowd will hype them up. This was a 8 x 10 that went almost for 5K, let me say that again 8 x 10 that went for 5K you can’t tell me someone did not leak information, this unit was not even in Kueth Duany’s name!
Word to the wise when someone is telling you there is great stuff in a unit, be assured that they are telling everyone the same thing to promote a bidding war. Remember this is a battle and all is fair in love and war! Keep your wits about yourself in these situations I know this may sound strange , but I was never fond of collectibles they are hard to sell and you spend a grip buying the unit so much in fact you frequently end up just keeping the stuff! Because it is so nice right? No, it is a Jedi Mind Trick You play on yourself to prevent facing the truth of you got caught up and over payed for the unit!
I remember once being in Alpharetta for an auction. As soon as I signed in the property manager told me that the unit of an former Atlanta Hawk was one of the units going to be sold today, she even told me the unit number. How fucking nice was that! Immediately my ” Spidy ” sense went off she was so nice, so on point so full of shit! I initially fell for the okey doke when we got to the unit which was not that spectacular from the door and there were( 3) 1992 style big screen televisions at the door and a very nice Formula 1 style go cart and some very old furniture not much else. But this was a former Atlanta Hawk so it had to be good! Snow Ball and Jacky Chan both quickly sunk their teeth into the unit and my $1600 dollar bid was outpaced within seconds. I shook my head and woke up out of the okey doke and just looked the madness. There were only 3 bidders at this auction and the unit went for $4300 and it was a 10 x 10, Snoball got it and promptly lost $3000.00 which means if I got it for my highest bid of $1600 I would have lost $300!
The collectibles market is a very volatile and fragile and a little kooky I have bought several units with either one piece of memorabilia or a shit load of collectibles and I can easily recall the ones that were easy to sell, most were not or I felt what I got was not enough. I learned early on to not fall in love with collectibles. If you get them cheap great, but to go really hard after then is usually a mistake. I wish Steven well but I having a feeling I know how this is going to turn out. Read the article below and tell me what you think.—>
Buying Harlem storage bin nets Jersey guy collection of gear from former Syracuse star Kueth Duany
Paging Kueth Duany, former Syracuse University basketball star, you can pick up many of the items from your sports past in North Bergen, N.J.
Come again?
Let’s backtrack. Steven Monetti, 39, and his wife, Valerie, are veterans of an arcane but increasingly popular “profession” where individuals purchase storage lockers and units at auctions when the items in those storage spaces go unclaimed by the original owners, or the owners just don’t have the dough to keeping paying for them. Monetti then sells the items on eBay or through other similar mediums, hoping to make a profit. Both the A&E channel (“Storage Wars”) and Spike TV (“Auction Hunters”) have programs devoted to the diehards who spend their time combing through junk in search of the Wonka golden ticket.
When Monetti recently bought a unit in Harlem, much to his surprise, he uncovered what he thinks may be a one-way meal ticket to riches – or at least his next utility bill.
“What caught my eye, it looked like a collector basketball in this 8 x 10 unit,” says Monetti. There was more than just that Syracuse vs. Kansas commemorative basketball from the ‘Cuse’s 2003 NCAA title year among the stash.
Monetti appears to be the owner of Duany’s entire basketball history, an itinerant career that went from Syracuse championship to the NBDL Fayetteville Patriots to Finland, Germany, a brief stint with the ABA Buffalo Silverbacks and finally Indonesia.
Monetti has Duany’s No. 13 Orange game jerseys, when he played alongside current Knick Carmelo Anthony, Duany’s Big East Sportsman of the Year plaque, sneakers, commemorative basketballs and photographs of Duany with former New York governor George Pataki, to name a few of the items. The Sudan-born Duany is a U.S. citizen, but according to his Twitter account, he currently is back in his homeland.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff since I’ve been doing this, and a lot of it is junk. But never anything like this,” says Monetti. ‘Tis NOT the season to give, however, and Monetti will eschew the good samaritan route of turning over the items in a goodwill gesture to instead try and cash in on his find.
After first contacting the athletic department at Duany’s alma mater, to see if Syracuse was interested in buying the items, Monetti was turned down and also got no luck with Duany’s forwarding address. Monetti says a friend of his was able to track down an email address for Duany’s wife – he would not elaborate, but Duany does have a Facebook account in addition his Twitter handle – and after one exchange, Monetti says the Duanys indicated they are eager to reclaim the trove.
And they’re willing to pay.
“I want to get at least what I paid for the (storage) room, which is $4,800.00,” says Monetti. “But (Duany’s wife) said she could help me meet celebrities, or go to some games.”
Monetti says Duany’s wife also gave up the culprit in the storage faux pas: Duany’s sister, Nok, who played for Georgetown. Apparently Nok left the items in the Harlem space and forgot them.
“This is what you try to do in this business,” says Monetti, who adds that he is not a big-time sports memorabilia collector. “This is a rarity to find something like this. Maybe this will wake people up, so they don’t forget about stuff they have in storage.”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
vulture and a parasite — give the jerseys to Duany
give Duany the National Championship jersey — do the right thing. With the big smile on his face unlikely he will do the right thing. Money leper
Wait.. why should he give him these items? Syracuse fans sound like crybabies here, and I’m sure they wouldn’t be giving the jerseys back if they were of a Duke star like Corey Magette and it was a different situation. They are now Monetti’s property and were legally purchased in a storage auction. Duany and his sister got free educations I’m sure($100,000) a piece at Georgetown and Syracuse to play sports so obviously his family isn’t hurting for money, and his sister just happened to put all that stuff in storage and forget about it… If she had the money to forget about having a storage unit then if they want their items back which were purchased they should pay for them. It’s perfectly fair to resell them their stuff at the price Monetti paid for the unit, in fact he would be extremely generous to resell them these items he worked to acquire for the price he fairly paid, for all his extra effort he should tack on another thousand dollars at least because he’s done them a favor by notifying them of these finds.
$5k for any auction is very high. Someone had to be leaking out some info to gain some extra cash.