It was a cold day in early December during the holiday season and very few people were out on the storage auction trail. I was getting units for one third of what they went for just a month prior and often less. This was my stock up time, tax season was around the corner and I knew that I would be hard pressed to get a decent unit for any price during that time, This practice of over buying saved my sweet sweaty ass a year earlier so I went in with gusto racking up the units, it was only Wednesday and I had bought 25 storage auction units already! It is better to have too much stuff than not enough in this business!
One of the biggest hopes of any storage auction buyer is to get a great unit at a great price that makes a substantial profit, for many that hope is wrapped up in the expectations of getting a small unit they can move on their own and not get too dirty. In other words a pipe dream. Some of my best money making units have looked like sin beat up after a long night of drinking from the door. In this business ugly can be very pretty on the profit tip!
This unit was no exception, we were downtown at a Shurghard storage facility ( now Public Storage) and there was only 3 of us and the property manager was eager to get the auction over, he was heading out of town and once we were done his vacation would start. This was a sealed or silent bid storage auction the kind of auction format I hate. So many things can go wrong with sealed bids! The first units were small and crappy and bidders one and two bought them for $5 and $10 bids. I never even pulled my bid sheets out, I was looking for big packed units. I was well stocked with the stuff they were buying. So I let them have those units with no fuss.
We head to the basement level and things turned interesting. We are on unit 5 or 6 and as soon as the door goes up, the fascinating horrible begins. There was a six foot Grecian statue with the head missing ( I found the head later) and several smaller statues on the floor shattered, mixed in with what appeared to be construction debris,wood, pipes, saw dust and paper. I knew a work shop when I saw one, when you have a work shop you often have tools, nice tools that make nice money!
Bidders one and two just kept looking and looking over the broken crap you could see everything else was hidden or boxed up. Experience had taught me this was a good unit amidst the trash I saw dollar signs. I correctly sized up the unit as a 10 x 10 and it was packed and I was not risk adverse so I started filling out my bid sheet, then bidders one and two pulled out there bid sheets. I suppose I was a little too damn excited!
WTF?
I thought they were not interested but my interest stroked their interest. In a case like this you need to have a strategy or you can lose the unit. I made an exaggerated effort as if I was writing a small number to see what they would do, while holding my bid. The smaller one quickly scribbled his bid and handed it in, by his hand movement he wrote two digits down, ( Sucka!) bidder two took more time and he went back to the unit to look it over once more. He then wrote his bid down, five digits! I knew this fool did not bid a grand but he went higher than he did all day. I took a moment went back to the unit and $135.76 popped in my head, so I added $10 dollars to that bid wrote it down and turned in my sheet. The manager fumbled around for a quick second and then called my name “ Glendon it yours!” I had to know what was the back up bid
“ How much did I over pay?”
“Not much the second highest bid was $138.06”
“the third bid was $75 and we have one more unit and I up out of here!”
bidder two shrugged his shoulders and I pulled the door down and locked up my unit with a smug sense of satisfaction . I have over payed as much as $300 dollars on a sealed bid, which sucks! We all went to the last unit which was just a sofa and some end table which I also got for $10 bid the other bidders were not feeling the furniture. We all went back to the office to settle up. I had my van and it was empty I thought I would get a start on this unit since there was so much trash to be sorted ( yes sorted I have found very valuable stuff in trash, rings, coins you will be amazed at how people handle expensive items.
Since my unit was on the basement level it was going to take 4 to 5 times as long to clean out as a drive up unit. I got my gloves, broom and heavy duty trash bags and went to the my lovely unit. As soon as I open the door it looked like far more stuff than I remembered! Good and bad, it is good more stuff to sell , bad you got to move it! I immediately got on the floor going trough the papers, and stuff within 30 minutes I had 5 full trash bags! I went up to the dock and noticed that the manager had left, so to the dumpster I went! A empty unlocked dumpster is better than gold some days! 5 problems solved in 5 seconds, as I chucked the bags into the bin. There was a lot of room left if I needed it.
Back at my unit, things started getting “gooder” now that all of the trash was gone I had room to operate, found my dude’s head and several smaller intact statutes. The previous owner of this unit was an gay interior designer. If you have watched my videos you know gay guys have the best stuff!!! There were several accent pieces, wall hanging and small Persian rugs in the unit the money was stacking as I was packing! I could not wait to get this stuff on ebay! I loaded up my van and went back to the bat cave and dropped it all in my garage called my partner and said we got a good one.
I headed back to the rest of the unit and as I was driving I was wondering how I was going to move Brutus, he was heavy as hell. After I got back and load a few move boxes I hit gold, there were several Robert Mapplethrope prints agains the wall. I took four years of commercial art as they called it back in the day and actually knew who this guy was! A very controversial figure in the art world and some of his prints have sold for well over a hundred thousand dollars! ( all of mine were reproductions) if you never seen his work allow me to give you a word of caution before you Google him, if you are a prude just leave it alone! Some of his work water lily is amazing and some of it will leave you with your mouth open! You have more than likely seen his work, you just did not know the photographer behind he work. He was a very intriguing character!
One thing about gay guys poor or rich they will all have some porn, this guy had 3 large boxes of gay porn ( which is not hard to get rid of) dvds, magazines a pervs treasure trove. I had several gay customers so that was easily $200-$300 and damn never double my money on that stuff alone! Mr Interior Designer had a very good eye and much of what he had in the unit would sell for between $30-$100 and there was a lot of stuff.
The Robert Mapplethorpe stuff never made it to ebay, one of the guys that bought the porn turned me on to a friend of his who had just started collecting art he bought it all for $3k! More than what I would have gotten on ebay and with far less hassle! I was very apprehensive about putting the statues on ebay, which lead me to sell all of the small ones locally and Brutus went for $950 and the guys who bought him came to pick him up, yes people will travel for a deal!
Not much of a story on the designer mostly invoices, business cards it is unclear why he lost his unit but he made it a very Merry Christmas for me!
If you are looking to get in the storage auction/resale game check out my books, they will save you far less than it will cost you!!
If Boxes Could Talk My Life As A Storage Auction Addict © Glendon Cameron
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