I guessed from the thread title it’s something called American Pickers, though I admit I’ve never heard of it. I assumed the rest from context.
Quasi, remember when you asked us to speak up when you’re getting a mite “off”? I think this was one of those nights. I hope you’re feeling better today. 
Basically, what you’re upset with is the entire notion of retail sales. Retail is always more. When I ran a retail store, 100% markup (that is, double what we paid for it) was pretty standard. I’d get product in for $10 a bottle, and it was priced at $20 on the shelf. And I’m sure the guy I got my product from was either producing it or buying it for half what I paid him. Yes, I spent a lot of time trying to work my way up the “food chain” of retail, buying from my supplier’s supplier - but then you get into volume issues. I didn’t have $1000 to buy a minimum order of 200 bottles of WonderStuff from my supplier’s supplier, nor storage space to put it. I instead chose to pay $200 for 20 bottles. More per bottle, but a check I could afford to write. So in effect, I’m paying the middleman to store the stuff for me until I can stock it in my store. You as the consumer are paying me to have it on the shelf when you need it, because you don’t want to pay $200 to store 20 bottles of it at home (if you did, then you should order from MY supplier, not me!)
The retailer does the work, pays the light bills and the staff and sets the prices accordingly. Yes, $400 sounds like a lot of profit on one item. But it’s in the same 100% increase range as the retail goods I was dealing in (nutritional and herbal supplements, mostly). I just had lots of low priced items and he has a fewer number of high priced items.
This whole thread is the exact reason why we have to be so careful about make sure customers don’t accidentally see bills when they in our back room at the store.
You’ll hear a customer say “You paid seven dollar for that and your charging me $11…gasp…I’ll give you $7.50” but if the gas/electric bill for $2000 from last month is laying right next to it…it’s funny how no one ever sees that one.
So those guys turned a $450 profit on a sign. Now go learn the difference between gross profit and net profit. What does it cost them to drive all over the country? What’s the mortgage on their shops (that have three, right)? How much do they pay their employees? How much is their insurance (building, health, car)? How much does it cost to heat the place? How much is tax on all their properties? etc etc etc etc Then think about how much of that $450 they’re actually putting in their pockets. I’d be willing to bet it’s probably closer to $50-$150 split between them.
If the sign is worth $850 to you, what difference does it make what he paid for it?
You are aware that every item in any store was purchased by the store for less than the sale price?
The Wife and I like this show, but we think they are not making enough profit. We buy and resell small things, such as books and knick-knacks, and we like to sell at about four or five times what we pay.
For a while, I resold items on eBay that I found at yard sales or whatever, and I routinely sold them for 4-5x what I paid for them. If someone thought I was ripping them off, they were welcome to spend their weekends going to every yard sale in central Ohio just to find that one model kit for a 1977 VW Beetle for $5. Or they can just pay me $20 for it on eBay. And I don’t see how this situation would change even if they knew exactly what I paid for it. Same thing with this sign.
Let me tell you about it from the other side. I have a lathe in the garage…love it to DEATH. It makes things from raw lumps of crappy scrap metal.
In the past, I’ve bought scrap aluminum for $1 a pound (I do that about once ever two years, I don’t know what it runs now.)
Lets just say I run across a part that is simple enough for little old non-CNC me to make. Lets day it weighs 1/4 lb, and lets say it takes 3 hours for me to make it.
.25*$13 hours (my hourly rate = free)
Hey! That part cost me a quarter to build!
But only because, for my purposes, my time is free, so is my tooling.
Now lets say I want to make ten of them and sell them for money…the magic of a Lathe is that processes can be productionized…I can may ten of these items in 5 hours.
.25*$1*10 items * 5 hours * ???
What should my hourly rate be? $10 an hour? $50 an hour? $150 an hour?
I can tell you, my portion of my billable rate in my professional field of work is close to $150 an hour.
If I used that, We’re looking at $752.50 or $75 a piece.
You’d never pay it, and I’d never be able to sell it…and at that rate, I couldn’t live off it because I’ve only worked 10 hours over the course of a year.
Lets say I consider it funding my hobby, ignore what I make M-F, and I sell them for $20. Hey $200 for a Saturday’s work! My lathe cost $3000
Now, a Chinese manufacturer, who does this each day, every day, sees my little doodad and thinks it’s worth stealing. They have CNC machines that they try to run as close to 7x24x365 as possible because they cost $250,000 a piece. It can poop one out, literally, every 2 minutes.
He sells 150,000 of them, for $7.50 a piece, and makes a dollar profit on each one, even after including shipping from China. His investment cost is $975,000 and he grosses $1.125 million to do so. and he made all of them in 1.5 years. He netted $100,000 profit a year…On that single item even HE isn’t getting rich off it.
You’re talking about one sign. It’s value is that it’s unique, a survivor, and has a history. What’s it’s value? Well, back is 19Humpty-Umph it probably cost $25 to purchase…lets adjust it for inflation…say it cost $300 2012 dollars to make. Holy Hell! $850 for a $300 sign!!!
No, $850 for a surviving sign, that would take you 80 years to reproduce just like the one you’re looking at…and it’s the standout item of value in a mountain of worthless crap.
They’re paying the farmer $450 for storage, you’re paying Pickers $400 as a finding fee
TL: DR - The economics of manufacture is wierd.
This should be the default form for this from now on. I’ll give you $850 for it.
Can someone explain to me what exactly this sign is? Whaty type of sign? Why is it worth $850, or even $400?
^What everyone above said.^
…not to mention, the guy they paid $400 to for the sign, he most likely either picked it out of a trash pile for nothing, or bought it from somewhere 50 years ago for $5.
These are generally old porcelain signs; pictures and article about them here. If you mouse over the pictures on the right, it will show you the actual eBay bid on those items. As you can see, some of them are very pricey, depending on size, age, and subject.
American Pickers seem to like old oil & gas company signs especially, perhaps because of their love of autos and motorcycles.
They are worth something because of the rarity and demand, pretty much like anything that people are collecting.
Hmm…
In a few instances, I consider it just business.
Who knows how much time passed between pay dirt. From discovery to buyer, and all the waiting and searching in between.
A couple personal anecdotes…
I bought a sound board I payed $800 for.
I go to trade it in for a different object, at the place I bought it from.
They offer me $100 credit, knowing dam well they can sell this thing for $600.
I say [middlefinger]…I’d rather keep it rather than being ripped off.
I bought a Keyboard Brain for $800, it got stolen, I found one later on the net for $200.
I guess it depends on what side of the deal your on.
All in all…
To have a business model based strictly on ripping people off is just dookie. :rolleyes:
No store goes on TV advertising how much money they spent getting their wares. If they did, there would definitely be a lot of people who would object. I find it odd that you guys think Quasi is so unusual in this type of thinking.
I seriously doubt anyone is on the lookout for this exact sign. Some guy was willing to sell it for $400–chances are that there are other people out there that would do this, too. And they might use something like eBay who don’t mark things up so dadblasted much.
Then again, I really don’t know the spending habits of people who actually have $850 or even $400 to spend on something that isn’t necessary.
Quasi, I understand what you’re asking, I think. Why would someone buy the sign for double the price when they’ve actually seen that particular show and know how much had been paid, right?
Well, all I can assume is they are either willing to eat the cost difference because they don’t want all the inherent difficulties involved or it’s just worth it to them at any price. Of course, there’s probably plenty of people that would pass it up because they’ve seen the show and know how much they paid, yet aren’t willing to spend that much extra.
So I’m with you. If I was looking for that particular sign and had seen the show, I couldn’t justify that much of an increase. But I’m a cheap bastard anyway, so there ya go.
A related point I’m curious about: Surely some of the people who’ve sold items to the American Pickers guys eventually watch the show to see themselves on it. Do they feel ripped off knowing that the AP guys offered them a low-ball price and then resold the item for way more money?
For that matter, do the AP guys run into folks who watch the show and say, “Wa’al now, I’ve seen how you boys operate on that there tee-vee program, so if yer offerin’ me $75 for this here sign, it must be worth five hunnert”?
I don’t know that I have ever yet seen the Pickers actually sell an item for what they say they are going to ask for it in their stores. Their selling makes dull television, I guess - the story is their finding cool shit in vermin-infested barns.
I doubt it. Maybe moreso the latter, but, honestly, I doubt it either way. These guys didn’t invent the antique memorobilia industry. They’ve been doing it a long time.
The people they’re buying from are, broadly speaking, folks who know they’re not going to get top dollar for their stuff but also know that money in hand is better than nothing. This is also probably part of why they seem to buy in “lots” frequently. I’ve only seen a few eps of Pickers, but there seems to be a lot of “I’ll give you $500 for everything in this room.”
The buyers are, broadly speaking, collectors who know they’re paying for somebody to find stuff.
If I was an antique collector, I wouldn’t be surprised to pay a 100% markup at all.
I did see one ep where they bought an old sign ( a Ford sign, I think) for about $500 and sold it on the same trip to a guy with a car restoration place (IIRC) for $800. It wasn’t the profit they’d anticipated, but it freed up space in the van and it was a guaranteed sale.
Mike Wolf has said that people have asked why he will refuse something when they’re only a dollar or two apart, and he said that’s where the profit is. They aren’t pretending to be in business for any reason except to make money.
My mother was an antique dealer and would stop and ask to pick old barns (although not like Mike and Frank), so I understand how much work goes into the business.
StG
clean up on Aisle 5