Tallone
Hero Member
Yesterday I saw a Craigslist ad for an "estate sale preview" to be held that day. The writeup and the pics didn't look like a professionally run estate sale. It was a little out of the way but I had a little extra time at lunch so I went by. I was right, this wasn't a professional estate sale. Far from it. A lady had a cleaning crew in the house and was there to supervise them but was letting buyers come in and look around while she was there. My first impression was that this was a complete waste of time. The owner was a smoker and the place reeked of stale smoke. And they had a cat. And they had apparently never heard of a vacuum cleaner. In other words, the place was disgusting. The house had been mostly emptied out and I didn't see anything I was remotely interested in. Then I went into the garage and found...
A gun cleaning kit in a nice metal case.
A Cold Steel Recon Tanto knife. Looks like it has never been used. I researched knives a few months back when I was shopping for a folding knife with a locking blade. I finally settled on a Cold Steel knife because they have a reputation for great quality. This is a REALLY nice knife and I almost missed it because it was buried in a pile of old cell phone car chargers and other junk.
A Bushnell rifle scope. I wish it were a Nikon or some other higher quality piece but it is in great shape.
A large kit of hand tools in both metric and English sizes. These are made by Task Force which is, I think, the Lowe's house brand. Wish they were Snap On but they appear to be brand new. A similar set sells at Lowe's these days for about $80.
And, a Marshall MXL microphone with a 15' Monster cable. I took a flyer on this because I don't know if it works but it appears to be in great shape.
I paid a total of $85 for all of this stuff. I can probably get nearly that much (maybe a little more) for the knife alone. That is assuming I don't keep it for myself. The rifle scope and the wrench set should fetch around $50 each. If the microphone works, it should bring about $50 also. I'm not sure about the gun kit. I need to look into that.
Oh, I almost forgot... the two that got away. After I bought the stuff above I took one more run through the house just in case I overlooked something. The back bedroom closet was full of boxes from electronic gear and camera stuff, etc. All those boxes were empty but on a shelf behind some empty boxes I found two small lock boxes. These were the kind with a handle on top you can carry with one hand. They were both locked. They were also very heavy and when I picked them up, I could hear things rattling inside. I went and found the lady running the sale and asked her about them. She didn't know what I was talking about so I showed her and asked her if she had the keys. She didn't. I offered her $100 for them sight unseen. For a moment I thought she was going to go for it or at least make a counter offer but then she said she should probably hold on to them until she can get a look inside. RATS! I'm still fantasizing about what was in those boxes. Guns? Gold coins? I'll never know....
A gun cleaning kit in a nice metal case.
A Cold Steel Recon Tanto knife. Looks like it has never been used. I researched knives a few months back when I was shopping for a folding knife with a locking blade. I finally settled on a Cold Steel knife because they have a reputation for great quality. This is a REALLY nice knife and I almost missed it because it was buried in a pile of old cell phone car chargers and other junk.
A Bushnell rifle scope. I wish it were a Nikon or some other higher quality piece but it is in great shape.
A large kit of hand tools in both metric and English sizes. These are made by Task Force which is, I think, the Lowe's house brand. Wish they were Snap On but they appear to be brand new. A similar set sells at Lowe's these days for about $80.
And, a Marshall MXL microphone with a 15' Monster cable. I took a flyer on this because I don't know if it works but it appears to be in great shape.
I paid a total of $85 for all of this stuff. I can probably get nearly that much (maybe a little more) for the knife alone. That is assuming I don't keep it for myself. The rifle scope and the wrench set should fetch around $50 each. If the microphone works, it should bring about $50 also. I'm not sure about the gun kit. I need to look into that.
Oh, I almost forgot... the two that got away. After I bought the stuff above I took one more run through the house just in case I overlooked something. The back bedroom closet was full of boxes from electronic gear and camera stuff, etc. All those boxes were empty but on a shelf behind some empty boxes I found two small lock boxes. These were the kind with a handle on top you can carry with one hand. They were both locked. They were also very heavy and when I picked them up, I could hear things rattling inside. I went and found the lady running the sale and asked her about them. She didn't know what I was talking about so I showed her and asked her if she had the keys. She didn't. I offered her $100 for them sight unseen. For a moment I thought she was going to go for it or at least make a counter offer but then she said she should probably hold on to them until she can get a look inside. RATS! I'm still fantasizing about what was in those boxes. Guns? Gold coins? I'll never know....
