Dien....I just HAD to jump in here and toss in a few comments I believe can help people.

My wife has been collecting Early American Antiques all her life. Our home is filled with some of the rarest pieces of 200 and 300 yr old furniture that is usually only seen in New England where they were created by master craftsmen.

One of the many advantages of living here in the Pacific Northwest and knowing a lot about New England antiques is...we have an advantage...when it comes to buying and selling these items.

For example; last weekend we were at an Estate Auction where children were selling off their parents stuff.

These folks moved here from back East many years ago....so they had a lot of stuff my wife and I were knowledgeable about.

And...sure enough...one of the first items up for sale was a Pine Dresser. Now...this piece had some damage to the finish but it could be repaired and refinished (which my wife is a master at)...to look as good as new.

Now...when the auctioneer (who didn't know beans about Early American stuff) held up this piece (which we estimated to be made about 1820 with HAND-MADE SQUARE NAILS and DOVE-TAILED DRAWERS and CHAMFERED BOTTOMS to the drawers)...he said, "OK...what am I bid for this old dresser, which has a lot of damage?"

My wife waits until the bidding gets going, then jumps in and gets the item. We got this piece for $60. When fixed up it is worth around $1200. So, if we sell it for $600 we have still made a return of 10 times our investment.

Now...this doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough that my wife makes a pretty good buck...has fun...gets to meet lots of people who enjoy the same things and gets to restore antiques which she really loves.

The more paint stripping, glueing, sawing, clamping, nailing, varnishing she can do...the better she feels.

She now only sells from our garage and storage unit and has some items on consignment at local shops. And...every 2 months of so she'll have a garage sale.

Over the years, especially when we used to live near Aspen we've known MANY people who started from scratch and built up their biz till they had a pretty sizeable inventory and income.

I always tell people starting out in the Antigues biz...buy GOOD stuff! Don't fool around with cheap stuff. When you buy GOOD stuff that is in a higher price range...you start appealing to people "with money". And, once you have "affluent" people as your clientele you reach your goals much faster.

Why fool around with cheap stuff? You will only draw "cheap" people who will always want to spend $100 or less. We decided long ago to get relatively expensive stuff and sell to "people who can afford it".

Many, many times...we went to an auction...brought back 15 or 20 items...fixed them up and sold them for AT LEAST twice what we paid. In fact, that's been our rule...if we don't think we can double our money we go to a certain point and drop out.

It always amazes me when people at auctions see my wife or I bidding on an item...and they drop out. Maybe because they figure we are "dealers" and will keep bidding till we get the item. If they would only use their noggin they would understand that because we ARE "Dealers" we do NOT keep the stuff for ourselves but...resell it.

And...if we are buying to resell...we MUST be planning on selling the items for MORE than we paid...therefore we will NOT pay "retail" for an item...but a price where we can "make a profit".

Go to an "Estate" or "Antique" auction and watch what goes on...see what items sell for and who buys them. It's fun.

A "quick" education on antique furniture;
Feel under table tops and bottoms of drawers for "chamfered" or "beveled" planeing on the edges. Look for square nails...WIDE boards...UNEVEN DoveTails (even dovetails are machine made)...you are looking for signs of HAND MADE. Those are the items worth money.

Get a copy of Schroeder's and Kovel's and Warman's Price Guides.

And remember this;
Furniture in this country was made in the Pine forests of New England 300 yrs ago. Pine because it's soft wood and could be easily hand worked. There was also a lot of Cherry and Mahogany wood used by masters.

Then, around 1900...most of the furniture making went to the Oak forests of Michigan and MACHINES were used to mass produce furniture.

So...don't let an auctioneer tell you the piece he's trying to sell you is a 120 yr old piece of OAK. Oak was NOT made into furniture till the 1900's. I've seen many people pay BIG bucks for "Oak" and find out later it wasn't worth HALF what they paid for it.

It used to be so much fun at the Saturday morning garage and yard sales in Aspen. We would get such terrific deals.

What used to happen (maybe still does) was men who were raised back east and had collected fine New England furniture...divorced their wives and married young "Ski-Bunnies". The Ski-Bunnies didn't know an antique from a dish rag...and, when they'd divorce the guy...THEY would get to keep the antiques and...instead of having the stuff appraised and taking TIME to sell the stuff, these gals would run an ad in the Aspen Times...and put ridiculous prices on things....just to get rid of it.

I'll never forget this one "bimbo" (excuse me folks...this one WAS a Bimbo)...she had a huge collection of sterling silver stuff. A Sterling Silver tea set worth (at that time, about $5,000) she had priced at $50...a HUGE collection of Bennington and Norton pottery (rare old brown pitchers, bowls and jugs that my wife happens to collect)..."Rebecca At The Well" pitchers priced at $5 (worth $1500),,,etc.

Man o Man did we make a HAUL. And this was done at 7 am because I talked the gal into letting us in, even though her ad said "9am NO early birds (which only kept my competitors away)

So...ya wanna make some SERIOUS money in chattel? Get into Antiques! Make it worth your while AND have a lot of fun at the same time.

We still do.

Thanks for reading....Don Alm

> What are some FAST ways to make money?

> ONE way is buying and selling chattel. The
> chatteler's "Bible" is Gordon
> Alexander's chattel report. I don't sell it,
> but you can get a copy from one of the
> contacts listed at
> www.sowpub.com/chattelreport .

> I do chattel every now and then.... I found
> it usually takes me about one to two weeks
> between buying something and selling it. Of
> course, you can do several at the same time.
> The whole key is knowing what's in demand,
> and what you can get for it. When you know
> that, then you know WHAT to buy and HOW MUCH
> to pay, so you can sell it at a profit.
> (Gordon shows you the details in his
> report....)

> Another way I've come across to make
> relatively FAST profits is following Bill
> Myers' examples of his relatively quick
> projects.... I'm still studying these, and
> will be doing some of my own in the very
> near future. For example, I've identified a
> book I can put together (from public domain
> sources) probably in about a week to sell --
> but I'm comparing it to other options first.

> Don Alm has a number of projects which seem
> pretty fast too! His recent posts here show
> the mind of a MASTER entrepreneur....

> I know other ways of making SLOWER profits,
> but this is about profits you can make
> FAST....

> Anyone else know other techniques how to
> make fast profits? Where the time between
> starting the project and starting to see the
> money roll in is (at most) a few weeks?

> - Dien Rice




Some of My Unique money-makers