21 Nov
2014
21 Nov
'14
9:58 a.m.
On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Al Kossow wrote:
On 11/21/14 7:21 AM, David Schmidt wrote:
Was that /after/ they tried selling items piecemeal with all those eBay
accounts they created? IMO those guys were -way- over their heads with the
ill-gotten gear they took from Sellam. Greed plan and simple, from the
landlord's imagined riches to the to the scrap company he convinced to
take take it on. I for one hope that particular scrapper lost their ass
once the final numbers rolled around.
if the scrapper teamed up with a curator, a lot
of money could be made,
and a lot of valuable stuff could be saved from actually being
scrapped. Shame.
And from my dealing with scrappers for decades, as Will said, they won't
waste their time with the small-time collectors that hang out here. If
you aren't talking thousands of dollars, and big lots, you don't play.
Anything less is chump change that they may put some flunky on trying to
sell on eBay. Witness what happened with Sellam's collection for the
past two years. They screwed around with it trying to find someone to
buy the whole thing, spent six months with truckloads at the DeAnza flea
market, then dumped the rest. What I'm seeing more of now is just collectors
selling between each
other, with prices slowly ratcheting up on desirable pieces, and most of
the rest getting scrapped.
Collectors by and large just don't have room to take on large lots of
gear. I've taken on a few large hauls over the years that were pretty much
my limit as far as volume goes (all of it good stuff too). Even now I'm
still nowhere near done going though that gear.