Biggest treasure hunt in the world is ending

[dejapooh]

Am sitting in the Sochi airport awaiting my flight to Moscow. My treasure hunt is mostly over, but now and the someone walks by with a bit of glitt around their neck. I've traveled half way around the world to get olympic pins. I've sold enough to pay my trip and almost make up my paycheck. I trade for pins then sell them on eBay. It's beef a long month, but with my son by my side, we've had a great time, gotten great pins, sold 10 tons, and eaten really awful food. Consistently the worst food in the coastal cluster. We went to a bunch of events, including curling, women's hockey, and ski jumping up in the mountains. We even went to closing ceremonies. I traded a guard a pin for a box of programs (sold 10 at $9.95 and 20 at $14.95 so far). Will post more about the trip when I get back.

 

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[billn1956]

Realy looking forward to reading more.Glad you had fun with your son..HH

 

[jerseyben]

WOW! Cant wait to hear about this!

 

[JustinNH]

I am very jealous! I had my DVR going round the clock recording everything while I was watching and skipping commercials-- crazy lazy two weeks... haha

I keep all olympic things I find at thrift stores. Atlanta shot glass, London swimming 4 pin set, frisbee, fleece jacket... so far in the last month or so.

 

[diggummup]

Glad to hear your trip has been a success. Looking forward to your posts when you return.

 

[Inkstainz]

Sounds like a great time

 

[dejapooh]

These were my 13th Olympics and I have it pretty well set up now. I usually bring about 10,000 pins with me when I go to the Olympics. I bought 750,000 in early 2000 for about $.03 each. my partners and I broke them into small groups of about 8,000 and sold them to other collectors for $1000 a lot. you want more pins, you get a lower price (one guy bought 55,000 for $6000). Once we sold $30,000 worth, we split up the remaining pins (which were the best of the lot), and went home with about 100,000 each. Anyhow, I still have enough for 4 or 5 Olympics in my garage... Anyhow, I trade these pins with Athletes, media people, VIPS of the sponsors and suppliers, coaches, volunteers who get them, and other spectators. Most of them get a bag of pins when they get to the games. For example, if you were an invited guest of NBC, you spent several million dollars on Advertising on the network, and they take you along and give you and your guest a bag of about 40 pins of 10 different designs. You are sitting there with 10 of this and 2 of that (time 2), I trade with you, and now you have a couple cool older pins, and 9 of this and 1 of that. Great all around deal. I take those and ebay them. During the games (with all of the free advertising thanks to NBC), they go for $10 to $350 each (yep, I had several that cost me 1 or 2 pins go for over $300). My goal is to pay my way (and my guests, this time just my son), pay my helpers (someone to list the pins on ebay, and a shipping company to ship them out), and cover my lost salary. Anything beyond that is gravy (looks like there will be some gravy this year, even with this being the most expensive games of my life). Right now it is looking like I have several hundred pins left (prices drop after the games as people stop watching the games and stop wanting the pins and as more people come home and find the time to list more and more pins themselves), I should be able to milk them for another $5000 to $10,000.

My son and I were able to go to several events (without a ticket you are unable to get into the Olympic Park, where the venues are), so I bought the cheapest tickets for each day of the Olympics except for opening ceremonies. We hit a LOT of curling, women's hockey (USA Women beat the Swiss like they were Neutral!), sky jumping, speed skating, and so on. I have a lot of friends who do the same thing, and they all know I trade pins for tickets, so we were offered $250 tickets to short track speed skating, $200 speed skating, and so on. I did buy closing ceremonies to help a friend out. He had extra tickets and let me pay $300 a month for 6 months. It was worth it. The closing Ceremonies are FAR FAR better than the opening, and I got about $2000 worth of stuff to sell ). It's hard to plan the trip (housing this time was a real issue. I rarely pay more than $50 per person per night, this time I had to double to budget! Anyhow, my son and I had a great time (he is 13, and getting him to spend ANY time with me is great, for him to spend a month with me was beyond that). He is looking forward to Rio (as am I), but he is not sure he wants to miss that much school. My thinking, if he can see how HARD it is to work for money, get some himself, build a bit of entrepreneurial spirit, and street smarts on making a quick buck, the lost time in History is more than worth it (and now, he is really looking forward to going back to school). Anyhow, between this and the standard garage selling, he is thinking about what kind of work he wants to go in to. What kind of business could HE run... PAY THOSE TAXES... WOO HOO!

More to come... I think.

Overall it is a great adventure (without these small adventures, I would hate my life. With them, I really enjoy my work and my time between them, planning, setting up, so on).

 

[jerseyben]

That is an inspiration and you rock!

 

[JustinNH]

Awesome, thanks for the read. Still jealous though... haha

 

[releventchair]

Nations have long exchanged pins at Olympics. A pin you spotted on someones hat and the following barter and exchange with a language thats universal as speech often not understood is the foundation of pin trading. That people are willing to buy them after the Olmpics, well theres a demand and a market that can easily be met."I trade for pins then sell them on e-Bay"
Congrats on your entrepreneurial spirit a midst the Olympic spirit.

 

[Inkstainz]

That's awesome

 

[diggummup]

Good times!

 

[OldSowBreath]

A damn fine read! "...beat the Swiss like they were Neutral" Classic.

Now, entertain us with some good stories about the food!

 

[dejapooh]

A damn fine read! "...beat the Swiss like they were Neutral" Classic.

Now, entertain us with some good stories about the food!

Nightmares are made of such requests... Recipes to follow...

Imagine if you will, paste. Flour and water paste, Thickly laid and partially dried. Top with red paint, Ground up red kibbles, and topped with plasti-cheese. If you want your ham and cheese pizza warm, they will Zap if for you to raise the temperature to that famous "French Food" Temperature, "Chambre (room)." 2 slices of this mess were $9... (It never ceased to amaze me that you could put something in a microwave and have it come out colder then when it was put in... Then again, I hear they are using Lasers to super cool solids (Optical Refrigeration: Researchers Achieve Milestone in Laser Cooling), so there you go.

Take a gravel sized small, half rotted potato, bake until half baked, cut in half and set aside (in freezer). Slice mushroom thinly, Rip ham bits into unrecognizable pieces. Mix in undiluted cream of mushroom soup. Place under your arm to warm it. Put a tea spoon of mix on each potato and serve (read as "throw at customer"), $8

Take a long slender tube of rubber, wrap in condom, warm, place on bun shaped foam rubber, add ketchup (well, I thought it was ketchup, the letters had a k looking thingy, there was a backwards y and a spider-looking thingy that apparently is supposed to make your mouth create the sound of an auto accident with the lips pressed tightly together. Either way, it was red, translucent, and vaguely ketchuppy. This "Hot Dog" would feed a family of six. It was no larger than any served here, but rather no one could stand to take a second bite. $9

On the desert side, I don't think you are supposed to use Cheddar when making Cheesecake. $6
Brown wax with the name HELSHEYS on it, $5

Bad Bad Bad food. So bad you had to hit it on the nose with a rolled up newspaper...

 

[dejapooh]

Nations have long exchanged pins at Olympics. A pin you spotted on someones hat and the following barter and exchange with a language thats universal as speech often not understood is the foundation of pin trading. That people are willing to buy them after the Olmpics, well theres a demand and a market that can easily be met."I trade for pins then sell them on e-Bay"
Congrats on your entrepreneurial spirit a midst the Olympic spirit.

I started as a collector, selling the surplus to pay for the trip. I became a dealer when I started to think about what I would have to do to pay for College for the kids. currently, I am selling my collection piece by piece. I have also bought a rather large collection and I am selling that too. Many of the pieces match up, so I can do Second Chance Offers on many of the items.

 

[OldSowBreath]

"Brown wax with the name HELSHEYS on it, $5". I live for stories like these. Compared to what you had, Solzhenitsyn's description of the food in the gulags makes it seem worthy of a Michelin star!

 

[dejapooh]

"Brown wax with the name HELSHEYS on it, $5". I live for stories like these. Compared to what you had, Solzhenitsyn's description of the food in the gulags makes it seem worthy of a Michelin star!

If you are talking about the tire company, I would rather eat the tires.