Hardy Antiques - One of those days

One of those days

There's a meme (is that too old-fashioned a phrase?) doing the rounds on Twitter and Facebook along the lines of "I find it, clean it, research it, mend it, insure it, collect it....etc"...it goes on a bit, but ends up "...and you want me to take how much?!" It came to mind today because I had a one of 'those' days today. And because I don't get much time to actually go to auctions anymore, shopkeeping being very time consuming, 'those' go a bit like this:
Monday and Tuesday are my main buying days. And I don't get all of them either. Usually two per month are taken up with other commitments, so they are precious. And important to the following weeks trade. That can mean much of the weekend is trawling through auction lists and on-line catalogues. Boy can these vary. Some include pictures of every single lot, some include pictures of barely half (even some who are auctioning on-line can be less than complete in the picture dept). Some give detailed lot descriptions, some give less than a line, barely a word or two. Anyway, after a few hours over the weekend whittling things down I had two auctions left to choose between today. One meant turning left, the other turning right. I could not do both. One was brand new never been, t'other I've been to before a couple or more times and with some success. It just so happens this is the, erm, least detailed 'catalogue' of them all. Minimal text and few photos.
But that's the one I chose. We (the reluctant Mrs H and I) got up early, rushed down a healthy smoothie then destroyed its goodness with a bracingly strong coffee and turned left out of the gate, as it were. More than an hour and a bit later we were trekking round looking for parking. It started to drizzle as I paid for the all day ticket (ker-ching). We arrived an hour before auction time: good chance to view, and bought a catalogue (ker-ching).
Every time the till rings - ker-ching - this is coming out of the profits I have to make. And you want to offer me how much?!
My bad. It was a disappointing display.
One of the hardest things to do, even as a professional, is simply to say there is nothing for me today and walk away.There are always things to buy and probably make a small profit on. But I need more than that. I have a plan and I need to stick to it, not waste precious budget on items that aren't really in the plan. I need this shop to make me a living.
I looked despondently around. The chances of my having the right day free when this auction is actually on are few and far between. But where were the exciting examples of ...well that would be telling... you'll have come to the shop to see those. If I ever find any. But there are days like this. You have to be tough with yourself and determine cold-heartedly if there is something there that you would be prepared to wait around all day for. Something that excites you and makes your heart beat that little bit faster. Not the things that you see that could be sellers, if you got them cheap enough. Plan. Always remember the plan. Stick to the plan. And if there is nothing that works, then walk away. Leave the eBay lots and the things that are not what you are looking for to the dealers who really want them and to the numerous hobbyists that are (another blog in the making).
So home we came. Empty handed and five or six gallons of diesel (ker-blooming-ching) lighter. Somehow that money has to be recouped.
Which is why, when someone came into the shop the other day and offer me £80 for an item competitively priced at something more than £300 he got "how much?!" in response. And that was restrained, I can tell you.

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09/05/2016 Posted by Paul Hardy Tags: bampton, devon, antiques

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