Car Boot Take II - careful what you wish for

My last car boot sale, back in early December 2009, was a highly profitable affair. I had 15 boxes of crap (I mean, high quality goods) to sell, including my life's collection of CDs, two socket sets, a genuine 1977 Donald Duck marionette puppet, boxes of books, heaps of tatty handbags and backpacks, roller blades and a pair of blue snorkelling fins, size 6.

I came home with 10 boxes filled with half of the CDs, most of the books, most of the handbags, the roller blades, the fins... and £165 in my pocket. So something must have sold.

And I was sure that I would have sold more if it hadn't completely pissed down with rain all day. It rained heavily from start to finish, bar one hour around lunchtime where it decided to give us a break with some light drizzle.

Before I moved house I went through the car boot boxes again, and gave several boxes full of naff items away to charity. I also sold the rest of my CDs as a job lot for £80, which is not to be sniffed at. My friend then gave me a couple of boxes of DVDs, some silk scarves and pashminas, and a box of travel books.

All I needed was a nice sunny day and a second car boot sale, and I would be quids in. Sure as eggs are eggs. And this weekend, that ideal opportunity arrived.

When my Dad and I set off for a local (and rather huge and promising) car boot sale, I had six boxes of high quality goods. They were bound to sell. The weather forecast was looking good. I was on to a winner.

5 hours later found me packing 5 boxes back in to the car, having made a total profit of £35.

Why? It was too bloody hot.

All of the punters had gone to the seaside, or were sitting under trees in their back gardens, lighting barbecues and drinking Pimms. Or burning to a crisp in the sun and getting trolleyed on cheap lager. Or whatever it is that people wearing "I'm drunk but your still ugly" T-shirts do when they are not at a car boot sale (my still ugly what, precisely? I am perplexed that they didn't seem to finish printing this garment...)

There were rows and rows of traders, all baking in the sun or selling from the relative shade of their car seats, occasionally meandering up to the nearby ice-cream van across earth that was too parched to dig a jumbo umbrella in to without dying from dehydration. The few people who had turned up to have a browse seemed to be far too wilted to reach in to their pockets for a little bit of small change, and far too limp to carry a DVD 100 metres back to the car.

I've seen more life in a beige rug, to be honest.

Later that evening, 4 of the boxes were dropped off at a local charity, to see if they would have any better luck. One of the boxes contains items that for reasons unknown to me, I am loathe to give away without just one more try at getting some cash for them.

It wasn't all bad, though. For one thing, I now have heaps of small change. For another, the roller blades, the spider catcher and the dust buster have finally gone. And I did put a smile on the faces of the people I pushed to reluctantly haggle with me, when I accepted the first offer they made. Oh, and best of all, I timed my visit to the ice-cream van perfectly - 5 minutes before he left - thus preventing the day from being a total disaster.

In any event, even a job with minimum wage is going to make me feel like a millionaire in comparison to what I brought home.

Yes, okay, I get the hint. If I want to earn money, I need to go out and get a bloody job....

Soggy Selling

Saturday was a beautiful day. Crisp and bright, a little bit cold, but dry. A perfect day for a Car Boot sale. Shame that the Car Boot was taking place on Sunday.

I arrived home from Shabbat and rang my friend, Hen Lady, who confirmed that she would be round later in the evening to load my boxes in to the car. I completed the preparations - counting out the float, creating a box with useful stationary: sellotape, pens, labels, scissors. I even laminated some little price lists for CDs, DVDs, books... and waited for her arrival at 8:30pm.

At 7:30pm it started to rain. Not a light drizzle, but cats and dogs. Just a shower I thought It will stop. It didn't. When Hen Lady parked her car outside the house, it was still belting down with rain. We packed the car with damp boxes, then drove to her house to squeeze whatever she had to sell in to the gaps that were left. The car was packed.

"Can you believe this frickin' rain?" she said.

"It will stop" I said. "I can see it now. We will wake up tomorrow and it will be bright and beautiful"

We checked the weather report for Sunday: light rain and sunny spells, followed by a little bit of heavy rain in the afternoon.

"It will be fine. The rain will pass us by" I said.

We left the house at 6:30 am - the ground was wet but the skies were clear. Perfect.

I would so love to tell the story of how the sun shone and everything sold - my dream car boot day - but ten minutes outside of our destination it started to rain again. And again, not drizzle, but more belting rain. How lucky we were that the sale took place in the covered market, but still we had to get the boxes from the car to the table, in the driving rain. Oh, did I say rain? No it wasn't all rain - at one point the skies started throwing down hail.

And then there were the other traders, hands in the boxes before we had a chance to unpack them, asking prices, trying to get bargains to sell on their own stalls. I had so many boxes that there was not enough room to fit everything on the table and not enough space to think with the other traders hanging around. I did my best to keep my patience, I really did, but found my temper getting shorter and shorter, until my politeness disappeared completely. I stopped asking for people to move out of the way and barged through with my elbows out instead. 'Excuse me' swiftly turned in to "Get out of the fucking waaayyyy" muttered through clenched teeth.

And then everything went quiet, except for the rain. By the time that the table was in some kind of order, the traders had disappeared.

It didn't rain all day. And when the sun made a feeble attempt to shine, it brought the regular market visitors out for a browse.

There were plenty of time wasters - interested in an item, but not interested in paying anything for it, no matter how low the price went. One girl haggled down two items to £1.50 and then grabbed something else to be included 'as part of the set'. Whatever. Take it if you are that desperate. Hen Lady very nearly lost her temper with a woman interested in two beautiful silk pashminas. After 10 minutes of hard sell and haggling, where the price came down from £3.50 for the pair, to £2, the woman shook her head and walked away.

Halfway through the day I spoke to a couple of regular car booters on the stall opposite - a wily fifty something and her 70+ year old friend - a sweet little old lady perched on her stool drinking soup.

"I just can't understand some of these people" I said "They just don't want to pay anything for anything"

"You get to know the time-wasters" Fifty-something said "They are here every week. Have you told anyone to fuck off yet?"

I laughed "No, not yet"

"She has" she said, pointing to the dear sweet old lady to her left.

"I did!" confirmed the kind granny "Not this week - yet - but sometimes they need to be told!"

Well, I'll be.

The rain stayed away until it was time to rebox what was left and pack it in to the car, at which point the soggy boxes were given another lashing, ready to be sitting in damp piles on my living room carpet. I started out with 15 boxes, I finished with 10.

Despite only clearing a third of my stock, I still managed to make £165. Not bad for under 5 hours work. I learned what will sell, and what people want to pay. I learned that some things are hard to drop in price when they have 20 years of emotional value, but that their real price is what people are prepared to pay on the day.

But most importantly, I've learned that once something is gone, it isn't missed, no matter how much or how little was paid for it. I think I'm learning to let go.

Short sighted misgivings

A couple of weeks ago I went for my six month contact lens check up and discovered (via the green circles being clearer than the red ones) that the lenses I had were slightly too strong.

I left the opticians with a new prescription and less eye strain.

Yesterday I continued with the task of pricing up my items for Sunday's car boot sale and happened across a box of jewellery. Hmm... I wonder what the gold clown pendant is worth?

Searching on eBay, I found similar items selling for a minimum of £40, put the necklace to one side and decided to do a quick check to see what other gold items I had that I didn't want. I found two potential candidates: a small round pendant with a Capricorn zodiac sign on it (curious why my Dad ever bought this for me, considering I am a Gemini and have never expressed a preference for goats) and a gold sweetheart necklace set with an emerald. These have got to be worth something, surely?

I could see a hallmark on the clown and the goat, but nothing on the heart although there was a small tab attached to the chain with writing on it. Perhaps this was the hallmark. It's a pretty little pendant and it looks 9ct gold.

The only problem was, with my new perfect long-vision lenses, I couldn't focus on the hallmarks. I strained, I moved the objects closer and further away, looked from different angles, moved in to the light, blinked, looked at them sideways, held them up to the sun... I even resorted to attempting a close up photo that could be enlarged on the computer. Unfortunately the camera couldn't focus that close up either. I tried to figure out the writing on the tab of the heart pendant - is that a 3? and a 7? and maybe a 5? *blink blink* Can't tell.

There was nothing left to do except take my lenses out and study the hallmarks without them.

The clown pendant was 9 carat gold, with a chunky chain also 9ct gold.

The goat pendant had a hallmark of 333, which after a quick Internet investigation turns out to be German 8 carat gold (never heard of it). This is the lowest quality gold, but better than a poke in the eye with a plastic carrot.

And the writing on the tab of the heart pendant? Avon. Priceless.

Better Hair Day.....

..... bad nose day ("I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too....")

I'm now thinking of going with e's suggestion of wearing a hat - except that I am about as good with hats as I am with hair and am not sure I can get away with this one day to day - the net gets in the way of my nose.

Today I had a few pleasant surprises. I've been trying to price up my items for the car boot sale on Sunday and decided to search eBay to find the prices and popularity of items online.

Socket sets do not appear to sell very well, although when they do, they appear to go for a reasonable price. Not that this helps, because I am not sure that the 'reasonable price' on eBay is one that will be paid by someone browsing at a car boot sale. If I am going to price my 'quality second-hand merchandise' (a.k.a. "tat") beforehand, then it needs to be a price which will not scare away the potential buyers who are too shy to haggle. But then I don't want to drop too low either. Perhaps if I get more than one interested party, I can ask them to write their best bid on a scrap of paper, with their email address and drop it in a tin.

So, what else can I search for...? Roller-blades - plenty of them on eBay, none of them selling. Mark them up at a token price.

Next! Heavy duty 4-socket extension cable reel. Cheapest price on eBay for exactly the same product = £15. Mark up for £10.

Next! See whether any of my Queen Vinyl albums are worth more than the proposed 75p car boot sale market price. Oo, hello. Freddie Mercury and Monserrat Caballe Barcelona Album, selling a couple of times in the last week or so for £20. Rare, apparently. Queen 'Hammer To Fall' 12" single - lots of them listed, but with a red cover, whereas mine has a photo cover. Curious. Oo, hello again. Here we go - rare limited edition with photo cover, one copy still in auction with two bidders, current bid £21.

I appear to have at least £100 worth of Queen vinyl which I was about to sell for £6. Plus £80 worth of Queen music score books, and the Complete Works box set worth around £80 (depending on the online competition). Well, who knew?

For years I have put up with the screwed up faces of friends, accompanying the words "Eurgh, you don't like Queen do you?"

What's the saying? Oh, yes. She who laughs last, laughs longest. Magic.

Wrappers and Refunds

After some heavy Internet research yesterday, I had a few surprises.

The first was that the World Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft wasn't listed at £268. It was £168.

The second was that there were a couple of other first editions for sale for around £40.

The third was that when I double checked, mine was not a first edition (1981) but a 1985 edition reprinted in 1987. My love of fast aircraft (check out the F4 Phantom! Oo I do love a nice Harrier!) went on for much longer than I thought.

So the book is heading to the car boot sale and maybe an enthusiastic war veteran will shell out (shell out - geddit?) a tenner.

If I did sell my soul to the Devil for this, I'm sorry, but I want a refund.

I then started to research the value of my collection of Queen (the band, not the Monarch) books and received another surprise. One of them is fairly rare and worth at least £38.

I lost sleep last night whilst my monkey mind tried to work through the logistics of moving in such a short space of time, what possessions I would be left with and the possibility of finding a large unfurnished room available for the price that I wanted.

After Shabbat today, I went to lunch with a girl from Mexico, smoke streaming out of my ears from the worn out logistical cogs in my head. "It's just feels too hard" I lamented "I just don't see how it can happen"

This girl is in her early twenties but she is just so wise. I feel very old and stupid by comparison. Oh, and did I mention that she is beautiful but totally sweet and adorable too? Don't you just hate it when that happens?

She passed on a message that her teacher in Mexico used to repeat. Every good thing that comes to us is concealed in a challenge. Think of it as a gift in a wrapper. We cannot see the gift until we work through the wrappers. The bigger the fulfilment, the more wrappers there are to remove - the more challenges there are to face.

So if ever you feel as though there are too many challenges and that you will never achieve your goal... keep working at it, because the gift is going to be huge.