Very expensive wrench on eBay

[mikeswrenches]

Anybody follow this one?  As one of the big spenders I was in until it went over $21.00:)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/360645525381?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Mike

[rusty]

Oh, comeon,  just a few dollars more?

Really was Pickel & Smith, how's that for a company name?

http://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?number=497138&typeCode=0

[Ken W.]

Everyone will be listing Pickel & Smith stuff now.

[rusty]

If I had a dozen in a box, they would be on ebay this very minute ;P

[scottg]

If I had a dozen in a box, they would be on ebay this very minute ;P

Naaa you wouldn't want to do that.
If I had a dozen I would drool them out one at a time and --very-- slow.

I have seen what happens too many times.
One time a guy found 6 amber 1/2gallon mason jars in a basement in Santa Rosa. These were a rare variant from Pa with a keystone in a circle on the front. Standard price then for the few known examples was running about a thousand dollars.
  He put them all up for sale at once.
  I got mine for $225.

  A friend of mine found 5 Bear Grass whiskey bottles. These are seriously rare, gold rush era, San Francisco whiskeys (1860's), and going about $3500 apiece at the time, if you could find one.
    And he found 5!!
  Like a smart man he kept his mouth totally glued shut. Didn't even tell me until it was all over!
  One by one, with enough time inbetween so as not to cause a panic, he sold them all.
2400 was the lowest he took. And for the last one.

One time me n Brad were yakking. There was a San Francisco bitters bottle that nobody wanted. The first ones were old, 1870's, but they kept making them all up until 1900, and the last ones were so very common. Not very many of the first ones but every bottle show had a couple out on the tables, it seemed.
Since nobody noticed or cared, they all got lumped together, the new and old,  as a common undesirable bottle. Any one you saw was 20 bucks tops, and no buyers at even that.

    So between the two of us, we determined to get the old ones whilst nobody was looking, and watch what happened.
I got a couple, and Brad who lives in the City, got 6. Then there were no more.
  What everybody assumed were dirt common bottles were actually very rare.
It was just that nobody wanted them.

The instant the ready supply was gone, people began to notice, and the price went ballistic.
When one of them sells now it goes on the cover of the auction catalog.

Collecting is an interesting hobby.
   yours Scott

[mikeswrenches]

I think, in the overall scheme of things, that I would just as soon have 20 or so not so rare ones than to have that much invested in one...unless I could "steal" it for little or nothing.  I know they are out there in a flea market somewhere.  I just hope I'm there when one shows up.

Mike

[oldtools]

Wow! look at the bids for other old tool sets?? selling on EBay can be profitable..

[Carl Wagner]

Scott is right. Timing is eeeeverything. Case in point. A year or so ago a CASADAY cutout come up on ebay. It took $2200 to buy it. Two weeks ago another come up and sold in the $1100 range. Its all about who wants it and when.