A Word About Chatteling
 

Here's a true story. Yesterday my son picked up 20,000 baseball cards for $100. Our mechanic had the cards sitting on a shelf in his office and he wanted the space. He told my son he could have the cards for $100. My son looked at the cards and they were in plastic cases or in binders in notebooks.

My mechanic got them from a tenant who used them to pay rent btw.

We were going through them last night and found multiple cards worth anywhere from $100 to $1800 each. The rest were worth anywhere from 50 cents to $7.50 each with a bunch worth nothing (as you'd expect).

He took them to a card dealer he knows and the guy's reaction was, Wow, I don't have enough cash on hand to pay you. Of course that could be a ploy by the card shop owner but I don't think so since we verified the merchandises's worth.

My son was told to call this guy back this Monday. He wanted time to talk with his partner and formulate an offer.

I got long winded only because I thought the background was interesting and showed you never know where a chatteling opportunity will rear its beautiful head. As a side note, our mechanic also said he has a storage locker full of fishing gear he will sell us for $1000.

By way of coincidence we have a friend who deals in fishing gear. He told us he will buy all the fishing gear we have. Once we go and see what our mechanic has we may just turn $1000 into who knows how much.

I guess I just wrote 2 words about chatteling. But, hey, always keep looking and always keep asking. You see, it took my son a little over 2 years to get the mechanic to sell him those cards.

Since I'm banging on let me tell you what the mechanic does as a side business. He buys trailers, almost always in trailer parks, and rents them. He almost never pays over 10K for a trailer and rents them for enough money to get his 10K back in 18 months to 2 years. This includes lot rent so he has nothing out of pocket. Yes, there are people who pay rent and would rather live in a trailer than a house. Go figure but it is a sub culture on its own level.

If anything happens to the trailer like fire, wind damage, water damage, etc., he simply hauls it away gets what he can from insurance and/or salvage and replaces it with another trailer and repeats the process.

God/Allah bless chatteling.

Thanks Tom... an amazing story!
 

Thanks Tom for that story (and the others too)...!

That's really fantastic for your son. What a windfall!

That's the kind of thing you read about happening to other people... It must be amazing for it to happen to your son!

The thing is, if he wasn't out there looking for deals... He probably wouldn't have come across it. You have to be out there and looking, for these things to happen!

As Benjamin Franklin once said...

"Diligence is the mother of good luck."

Your three stories show that there's still good money to be made out there, if you understand what you're doing!

Best wishes,

Dien

Re: Thanks Tom... an amazing story!
 

Thanks for the nice words Dien. I wrote the piece before he took 4 cards to a local card shop. He walked out with $380. If my math is right, that's a $280 profit.

He was going through them last night and found a card worth 4K or at least that's what the card shop guy told him it was worth. It does seem like he fell into a bucket of **** and came out smelling like a rose.

That's what I call a haul:D :D :D