Turning 'old stuff' into new income

Piney and She Who Must Be Obeyed were having a ball!

It started 30 years ago when they "retired" and turned their private school for gifted children over to equally gifted other teachers. Bored, they soon found other serendipitous things to do, but just recently, they had found in Tampa, Florida, a unique big collector and antique shop that leased a booth of fair dimensions on a monthly basis.

That meant that the 5 by 15 foot booth had to be filled every 30 days with…? Weeell, with old stuff! Piney and She were old hands at finding antiques and the like, but Tampa was a new environment for this activity. Soon, through the combined 157 years of experience, they prevailed and they followed a now happy and fun regime:

They risked $2.39 for a gallon of gasoline and in their big van drove slowly through the delightful middle-class leafy and ancient and gorgeous streets of one of the oldest towns in America, Tampa. They were looking for garage sale signs and, as it was Saturday, the signs abounded. It was also necessary to have a few dollars in cash, and they were successful, after an hour or two, getting a few pieces of good china cheap and a small antique chair.

Then, they went to several auctions and could locate larger antiques.

For instance, the Salvation Army had an auction five days a week early in the day and sometimes a large basket of "junk" could be bought for $5.

Another incredible source was that the high number of house moves in the big city prompted house-leavers in a hurry to dump (sometime valuable!) piles of stuff in front of their house for free or small dollar prices.

After a fun and exhausting day, the old couple had enough "stuff" to fill their new booth, and they next tagged, cleaned and priced it all. It would be transferred from their winter home to the booth Feb. 1, and hopefully, a new income would start. Newt, the old American way of business is alive in spite of what you say!

A writer, Bill Cobbs divides his time between Florida and Southwest Virginia.