HORROR STORIES

[trdking]

My Grampa gave me a drawer full of silver coins when I was 15. Over a hundred, dimes, quarters, 50 centers and dollars. Put them in a draw in my room. Years later when I went to look they were gone. My six year old brother had found the stash and spent it all on ice cream over the months at the local convenience store. He finally admitted it after 30 years.

My dad found an old Springfield musket in a coal bin in Wisconsin. Beautiful shape, with all the parts. I still have it, but after all the playing/damage, by 5 kids over decades, it may be worth $100 for someone to hang over their fireplace as decoration.

I bet that store owner rolled out the red carpet every time your brother came in!
If I had a nickel for everything I reduced to wall hanger status as a kid.....

 

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[GB1]

lets see i threw a seated dime i got in change into the woods when i was 6 i thought it was fake

 

[Junkironkid]

It seemed like he could do no wrong in 1967. I still remember where I was during many events that season; 8-18-67 I was in the center field bleachers with my little league team when Tony C was beaned by Jack Hamilton. Big Don Mincher hit two home runs in that game to center field for the Angels. When they clinched, I was fishing for smelt at Onset with the transistor radio on. You can't find smelt any longer, but we can still watch the Red Sox. My wife gets me the MLB tv single team subscription every year for my birthday. Hope you enjoyed this season!

Yes, we did all the same things with cards - bicycle spokes, flipping, etc.

. We use to tie balloons between the forks and spokes. I had a swhinn with the cheater slick out back with a shifter. Had lights on the front and rear. Riding through town was a blast. People would look thinking it was a Harley lol. Good times man simple times.

 

[trdking]

. We use to tie balloons between the forks and spokes. I had a swhinn with the cheater slick out back with a shifter. Had lights on the front and rear. Riding through town was a blast. People would look thinking it was a Harley lol. Good times man simple times.

Those schwinn Krates are worth grip of cash now too. I still have my original Orange Krate and have been offered 3500 for it. Not quite ready to part with it though. It has been around a very long while. I am a bit big for it however.

 

[Ammoman]

Egads You had one? You are correct The TA Ram air 3 698 produced is worth 62K rusty and 158K concourse. The TA ram air 4 brings 127 to 260K and had you had the convertible 8 produced i believe not 7 a whopping 650K rusty and 1.2 million concourse. Give me your address and I will send you a pillow to cry on
My first car is a 1950 Willys overland Jeepster. I still have it but it has not done nearly as well as yours. I should have picked better!

I had the Ram Air 3 with a 4 speed. Yes 8 convertibles. Last i heard (about 20 years ago) they could only account for 7. I wonder if the 8th was ever found? Anyhow, I used to get into lots of heated arguments with people who insisted the first year TA was in 1970.

 

[T.C.]

Fair enough question. No not related to Trump, actually quite the opposite. I grew up in the Barrios of South Side Whittier CA. The gangs fought in the streets. I wore hand me downs and thrift store clothes. We were blessed by the church feeding us once a week. My mom and Dad had 11 children. I am number 9. When there is no money and your only 2 choices are to join a gang or get out, most take the easy route. All of my friends that joined gangs are long long dead. I chose to get out. I mowed my first lawn when I was 5 years old then I started mowing her neighbor then the whole block. By 8 or 9 I was also washing windows. I saved all of my money and bought my first car when I was 14. I still have it. Mowing lawns got me the opportunity to get into neighbors garages. I started buying mowers and edgers and anything else I could get my hands on to fix and flip with a sign in my Dads front yard. Then came the Recycler ad paper and that expanded my reach to people to sell to. By the time I was 17 I was flipping volkswagons and camaros and of course shopped with a passion to feed my watch habit. Mind you, I was not yet wealthy and I wish I could have kept that Patek. But I did make a huge profit which got rolled into something else to grow the pot. I assure you, there are very few people in this world that are "born Lucky" and there is no such thing as "no way to get there" (unless you are born with a serious disability) I have to say, this statement you made brought back a flush of memories of all of my friends saying this very same thing. P.S. They all joined gangs. I went to work.
After thought: I need to express here that this was not meant in any way to offend anyone. This is the story of my life. I worked very hard to get where I am when I was born in the bleakest forecast you can imagine. Today as you probably can deduce from my pages, I want for nothing. If I had Trumps money or even a fraction of it. I could do so very much to help keep kids out of gangs. We as a collective interested group support Foster Childrens programs and fully support anti gang activities in our communities. We give what we can and actively raise money through charities to try and at least give a glimmer of hope to kids that are born with nothing. The only program that existed for me when I was growing up was a free lunch at the park in the summer.

I worked with a guy like you from Modesto. His big family were white migrant workers. He told me he used to buy old cars for $100 take 'em home and tune 'em up...sell 'em for $500. He is a survivor...much like you.

 

[trdking]

I worked with a guy like you from Modesto. His big family were white migrant workers. He told me he used to buy old cars for $100 take 'em home and tune 'em up...sell 'em for $500. He is a survivor...much like you.

I would scour the neighborhoods for old VW Bugs. Parts were cheap, I could pull a motor myself and swap pistons and barrels in a couple of hours. Put it at a busy intersection with a 4 sale and a phone number and they were gone fast! There was a great deal of money in flipping VWs back then. Broken they were 50 bucks and running they were a thousand. Seldom put over 150 dollars into one. The Camaros were almost the same story but required more dollars to rebuild. I got very good at assembling GM Small blocks and I could pull the block up to the machine shop a mile away in my red wagon before I was old enough to drive.

 

[T.C.]

You sound like you're Larry's brother. He retired a couple of years ago. He fabricated a rotisserie for a complete car. He's doing a ground up re-build on a '55 or '57 Studebaker. It's pretty cool how the rotisserie works...just rotate the whole car body to suit yourself.

He did everything growing up...picked cotton and fruit. Worked for a guy building swimming pools, was a helluva maintenance man wherever he worked. All he had was a high school diploma and attended the school of "hard knocks." He's quite a guy.

 

[pulltabfelix]

My dad gave me a coffee can stuffed full of old silver coins from the 1800 he had saved. My ex-wife some how got her hands on them during the split up. Knowing her she probably just spent them. UGH!!!!

 

[pulltabfelix]

Bought 50 shares of Facebook stock at $42.00 a share when they had their IPO in 2012. Scottrade waited 4 days before they placed it in my account. By then it was already down to $35.00 a share. Sold it a few months later for $20 a share, taking a $1,100 loss on it. Those 50 shares are currently worth $8,875.00, by the way...

the stock market is a real B***h.

 

[Red James Cash]

The stock market is rigged.

 

[L.C. BAKER]

Lots of Red Line Hotwheels cars......



P.S. My mom was pretty scary with a piece of that track in her hand too!

 

[Sidevalve45]

What you're looking at is a 1908 Indian V twin motorcycle engine I stumbled on by chance. I was out for a motorcycle ride and saw a beautiful Model a Ford coupe for sale and I turned around to have a look. After talking with the owner about the car my standard procedure is to mention I'm into old motorcycles because you might get a lead in something. Boy did I! The guy knew it was worth some cabbage and was asking $10,000 for it and I thought it probably was worth more than that. I couldn't convince my wife and I was not confident enough to pay out that much cash. I passed the tip onto another motosicko friend who paid the ten grand. He took it to Big antique MC swap meet and Mike Wolfe from American Pickers bought it for $20,000. He's got a 1908 Indian but with the single cylinder engine. He's putting the twin in it. Actual production figures are not known but the estimate is 200 v twins were built that year and 1907 was the first year of the twin. Think about...This thing survived 110 years and two world war scrap drives. How many could possibly be left! By the way the carb is on upside down and the intake is backwards. I lost sleep over that one for weeks.

 

[Sidevalve45]

The story above is true. I'd swear on my grandmother's grave.

 

[trdking]

You sound like you're Larry's brother. He retired a couple of years ago. He fabricated a rotisserie for a complete car. He's doing a ground up re-build on a '55 or '57 Studebaker. It's pretty cool how the rotisserie works...just rotate the whole car body to suit yourself.

He did everything growing up...picked cotton and fruit. Worked for a guy building swimming pools, was a helluva maintenance man wherever he worked. All he had was a high school diploma and attended the school of "hard knocks." He's quite a guy.

There were very few things I wouldn't do to make a buck. And yes what you are thinking is what I would not do.

 

[trdking]

Lots of Red Line Hotwheels cars......



P.S. My mom was pretty scary with a piece of that track in her hand too!

That orange track would send us runnin!!

 

[trdking]

View attachment 1655759 The story above is true. I'd swear on my grandmother's grave.

Pictures do not leave any room for doubt. That is one HECK of a rare engine you have in your hands. Im drooling. I bought a 41 indian chief twin for 50 bucks when I was 13. My dad was so mad when I pushed it home that I promised he would never see it again. I deep 6ed it in the back shed so deep that I didn't find it until I was 23.( I moved out of my parents house at 17) Sold it for 13K and that was too cheap!

 

[trdking]

The stock market is rigged.

My watch collection has done much better than the market for sure

 

[mdj]

View attachment 1655752 What you're looking at is a 1908 Indian V twin motorcycle engine I stumbled on by chance. I was out for a motorcycle ride and saw a beautiful Model a Ford coupe for sale and I turned around to have a look. After talking with the owner about the car my standard procedure is to mention I'm into old motorcycles because you might get a lead in something. Boy did I! The guy knew it was worth some cabbage and was asking $10,000 for it and I thought it probably was worth more than that. I couldn't convince my wife and I was not confident enough to pay out that much cash. I passed the tip onto another motosicko friend who paid the ten grand. He took it to Big antique MC swap meet and Mike Wolfe from American Pickers bought it for $20,000. He's got a 1908 Indian but with the single cylinder engine. He's putting the twin in it. Actual production figures are not known but the estimate is 200 v twins were built that year and 1907 was the first year of the twin. Think about...This thing survived 110 years and two world war scrap drives. How many could possibly be left! By the way the carb is on upside down and the intake is backwards. I lost sleep over that one for weeks.

He doubled his money! And I hear those guys are worth millions, Mike and Frank. This thread seems to be about success stories too!

 

[sandchip]

Sidevalve, I'm glad somebody posted a picture of something to go with their story. I would think that somebody would've taken pictures of some of the great cars that have come and gone through the years. Never had much in the way of rides growing up, so I like seeing what everybody else had. These were stolen one night off the wall of my shop 2 or 3 years ago. They represented about 25 years of looking. 99% sure of who did it, but on the positive side, it was a wake-up call to put my arrowhead collection in a gun safe instead of naively thinking I could share it with the customers that come through my place. Fortunately, the maggot had not been in my place for a couple of years because I had straightened up things and put a frame of much nicer artifacts on each of the other 3 walls. He went straight to the spot in the dark where these were, missing the good stuff.



When I was a kid, I liked arrowheads but didn't really know where to look. On her way to the post office, Mama ran into a couple of little girls who showed her an arrowhead they found while wading in a local creek. She bought it from them for 35 cents and gave it to me. It was what I know now to be a Savannah River type, about 3" long, perfect, and glossy chert about the color of watered down milk. I was showing it to my former brother-in-law, a great guy who I still think the world of who dropped it as he was handing it back to me, breaking off a good portion of the tip. Not the worst thing that could happen in the big picture, but we do learn as we go through life.