Storage Locker, Auction Finds?

[Lost&Found]

yes carol it was a copy, wondered how long it would take someone to notice the greek coin.

i went to the emergency roon, didnt even get a aspirin. but they gave me a sling for my arm.......basic and timley care. anyways, my doctor calls me two days later. say i also have a fractured neck......im in so much pain. i will see a surgeon today.

Sorry to hear about your arm and neck. I've worked in and around ERs for the past 35 years. It's not uncommon for a callback. The worst time to go is in July, new interns and residents who can be clueless. Hopefully, you won't need surgery and once the swelling goes down the pain will diminish. Good luck.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Cry Of The Eagle: History And Legends Of The Cherokee Indians And Their Buried Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[LaDigger]

Love the thread! I just had a few comments on staged lockers or the thought of staged lockers. The first one was the comment about not buying a locker if the lock is not cut off in front of you. In my area this never happens so you wouldn't be buying any lockers in this area. If you drive through a storage facility and see a locker that has two locks on the door you know that tenant is behind on rent. The majority of storage owners will cut the original lock days prior to the sell and some will even advertise parts of the contents. I hear so many people who thinks this means the units have been gone through or the storage facility owners have taken the good stuff out. This is not true and here is the reason why and an example. Last weekend I attended an auction which had 41 units advertised in the legal section of the paper but by the time of the sale only 8 units went up for auction. It is not uncommon to see owners paying off there units 5 minutes before a sell. Does anyone think that a storage facility owner would risk being sued over a $100 or even a $1000 dollar item? With this being said there are staged units and tricks they use to keep a locker.

I search public records for the legal notices of auctions I attend, they will show the names and units to be auctioned off and this is why. If a facility lists 10 units in their legal notice and when you get there they say they also have these 3 more that came up, beware! This is a common practice and these are staged lockers. There are also storage owners who move more expensive stuff to the front which is also a way of staging a locker. With all this being said most storage facility owners are not taking the time to go through all of the lockers they have coming up for sale and are not taking out all the good stuff. What you need to watch

 

[Ryans Rust]

The main auction company I deal with, gets their % of the sale. The storage facility gets the money owed to them and the balance is given to the tenant. Any unclaimed money is given to the county/state. Or so they tell me...

Locks are not cut off in front of the auctions I go to as well. Never seen one cut off.

Staged lockers around here are called managers specials. Luckily they tell you they are items left in units, donated etc.

Speaking of people paying the last minute...I've had 3 that I won but were paid for before the auction was over. Of course they were really good and inexpensive too!

 

[bill from lachine]

Folks,

Here's a storage locker story from a cab driver I met.

A buddy of his went to an army surplus auction and there was a mystery crate for sale he managed to get it for $250 delivered.

When he opened it up lo and behold there were 6 Indian motor cycle WW11 era still in the factory grease.

Turns out they were ordered just before the end of the war and were never used.

He sold 4 of them for $10,000 each and kept 2 for himself....not a bad payback for the money.

Regards + HH

Bill

 

[Carl995]

Love the thread! I just had a few comments on staged lockers or the thought of staged lockers. The first one was the comment about not buying a locker if the lock is not cut off in front of you. In my area this never happens so you wouldn't be buying any lockers in this area. If you drive through a storage facility and see a locker that has two locks on the door you know that tenant is behind on rent. The majority of storage owners will cut the original lock days prior to the sell and some will even advertise parts of the contents. I hear so many people who thinks this means the units have been gone through or the storage facility owners have taken the good stuff out. This is not true and here is the reason why and an example. Last weekend I attended an auction which had 41 units advertised in the legal section of the paper but by the time of the sale only 8 units went up for auction. It is not uncommon to see owners paying off there units 5 minutes before a sell. Does anyone think that a storage facility owner would risk being sued over a $100 or even a $1000 dollar item? With this being said there are staged units and tricks they use to keep a locker.

I search public records for the legal notices of auctions I attend, they will show the names and units to be auctioned off and this is why. If a facility lists 10 units in their legal notice and when you get there they say they also have these 3 more that came up, beware! This is a common practice and these are staged lockers. There are also storage owners who move more expensive stuff to the front which is also a way of staging a locker. With all this being said most storage facility owners are not taking the time to go through all of the lockers they have coming up for sale and are not taking out all the good stuff. What you need to watch

LaDigger your right on the money!!
It doesn't matter if they cut the locks off or not.
There's actually one place here they actually cut the locks off in front of everyone.
The lock they're cutting off the manager put on a few days prior after he took what he wanted. It's a new $3. lock.
The regular buyers don't even go to that location, all newbies.

(LaDigger) 10 units in their legal notice and when you get there they say they also have these 3 more that came up, beware! This is a common practice and these are staged lockers.................................................... That is absolutely correct here as well!!

I use to check the papers as well, If I had the time I would research the people & what they do for a living.
Helps me determine if I want it or not without even looking at the unit!!

 

[Oregon Viking]

That's fantastic!!! a 63 Jazzmaster!! I bought my son the Kurt Cobain Signature Jag new!!
I never found in a locker anything that great!!
Here's a early 60's les paul Japanese copy that was trashed & I totally rebuilt it.
Loved it & played the hell out of it till the upper fretboard started wearing off.
My SRV hat!! Miss that guy!!

View attachment 1206533

Some of these are locker finds........
Some I don't have anymore, I was up to over 30 (not shown) & my wife got tired of the cases all over the place ( I don't blame her).
This isn't all of them, my son got a few & I sold a lot of the expensive ones.


View attachment 1206535

Sweet! The Charvel, the Ibanez. What is the RR (V) Black and white Bengal striped? Hockey stick head....I can't read it.
The sunburst les Paul...it looks like it says Carvin?

 

[Carl995]

Folks,

Here's a storage locker story from a cab driver I met.

A buddy of his went to an army surplus auction and there was a mystery crate for sale he managed to get it for $250 delivered.

When he opened it up lo and behold there were 6 Indian motor cycle WW11 era still in the factory grease.

Turns out they were ordered just before the end of the war and were never used.

He sold 4 of them for $10,000 each and kept 2 for himself....not a bad payback for the money.

Regards + HH

Bill

I would have died if I didn't buy that crate!!!

At a storage facility, 3rd floor, they opened a 5X15, 2 guitars, 2 smaller old amps, lots of boxes & a crate 8' high by 3' wide by 8' deep!!!!!
& I'm thinking---------> Marshall stacks in that crate!!!! That's it,,,,,,,,,,,i'm buying it!!!

And I have been buying units all morning, I wasn't sure If I had enough money left!!!

I finally got it for $1300. after paying I zoomed back to see whats in the crate!!! After about 50 drywall screws (1 corner)
I pulled back the corner & I couldn't see anything.....go back to my truck, got my flashlight....I am totally excited at this point!!!
Pull the corner back, shine the light..........I still can't figure what is in there!!

Went home to get the trailer & my wife to help me.....................so were back, loaded everything but the crate..........brought a 2 & a 4 wheeled dollies to the 3rd floor.
I had to move the crate back & fourth to get it thru the locker door.......put it on a flat 4 wheel dolly & started rolling it..........5 feet later there is a cooler vent!!!.. Take it off the dolly.....shove it thru on the floor........back on the dolly......off to the elevator.....at the elevator, take it off the dolly & shove it in the elevator (still not knowing whats in it!). Get it outside, take a hundred more screws off.............It's a new custom made wood art container with slots & it has been sent here via Air Freight from New York!!! & it was full, Abstract ART!!!
I got all of it to the auction house & it started raining so were all in a panic to get it in the building. It took about 10 guys!!

And this was on auction day!!! Bidders were going lets see the art!!!
Auction house owner put a sign on it "art will be available for viewing next week".
Bidders said no way & started taking the end cap off & they proceeded to slide the huge canvases out of the crate, leaning them against the wall.
There were over 20 pieces.
Next week: The huge abstract art did ok, The boxes were full of large art books & they averaged $125 per stack of 8 books(which paid for the locker).

 

[Simon1]

"Quote Originally Posted by jeff-gordon"
"after the shows started I watched the paper here, thought about going just to see.
they are all during working hours! guess I'll have to wait till I retire or get hired as a high paid mod like Jeffofpa"

My son is an Administrator as well as Webmaster for a MAJOR automotive forum and will vouch that the "Mods" receive VERY little pay, with HIGH levels of stress. These guys and gals do it for the interests they have in their hobbies as well as for the interesting people they interact with. Most probably have a second job,( or are retired ). Being a "Mod" would be interesting position, but not one for everyone. You must have PATIENCE - PATIENCE - and then more PATIENCE, and then you have the "Ban" button at your disposal.

No dis-respect jeff-gordon as I am sure you were being funny. "Mods" don't get enough credit for "babysitting" all of us and especially with such a huge age span. ( Heck, I even had one of my posts removed by them, but then again, I knew better.

 

[Simon1]

I use to go to Insurance Company Auto auctions as well as the Storage locker auctions 10 - 15 years ago when you could make some decent money. I stopped after it reached the point that soooooooooooooooo many of the bidders were so stupid that they were actually bidding against themselves and driving the prices up. The auctioneers did not care because the more the auto or locker sold for, the higher their commission and so they would not step in to advise the bidder that the item he could have got at $ 350.00 ended up at $ 800.00 because he was bidding against himself.

 

[Carl995]

Around here one company opens the units and parts out the contents until the debt is paid off. All the X-Mas together etc. It's great if you are only looking for certain items and don't want to deal with all the trash. Too time consuming for me. But we went once and scored this beauty. Paid $80. Wish I still had it. Sadly I had to sell it as it was before I had a store and I already had a Superman telephone booth and many other neat things overflowing my garage.

I've had a few of those games thru time when I owned Flipper City & Action Games, Arcade & pinball repair & retail stores.
Those monitors are built really good & last a long time,
but there's 1 capacitor that goes bad after time & it takes a half hour just to get to it to change a 10 cent part!!
The Playchoice 10 & punch Out machines had 2 of these monitors!!

 

[Carl995]

Sweet! The Charvel, the Ibanez. What is the RR (V) Black and white Bengal striped? Hockey stick head....I can't read it.
The sunburst les Paul...it looks like it says Carvin?

The zebra striped V guitar is an Arbor, I still have it somewhere, I haven't fixed it up yet.
The Charvel Jackson Surfcaster is a keeper, my son wants it when I'm gone!!
The Ibanez I had the body custom painted by a air brush painter that paints custom bikes.


View attachment 1207074
Kustom painted.


View attachment 1207076

View attachment 1207077

View attachment 1207078
This was a trashed out guitar I rebuilt. I liked it so much I wore out the fretboard.

 

[Carl995]

OK, back to storage......

2nd floor they opened a 3X3 small locker,
it had a few boxes, on top was a Amiga computer, Clarinet case & a Mandolin. Just look like a bunch of old stuff.
I bought it for $35.

Went back to load it the next day........A few cases of really old larger 16" recording records (bigger than LP's) from Les Paul Studios & Velvet Records.
Original recordings of Redd Harper, Bob Carlton & Wally Wiley!! Recording contracts,
photos for the sheet music & the original pads with the lyrics from the 1940's!!
Really cool old music stuff!!
Also there was a paper poster "The Doors".
Doors poster sold for $124. on eBay.


View attachment 1207080

View attachment 1207081

View attachment 1207082

View attachment 1207083

View attachment 1207084

View attachment 1207085

View attachment 1207086

View attachment 1207087

View attachment 1207088

View attachment 1207089

 

[Carl995]

Next?

 

[Carl995]

I use to go to Insurance Company Auto auctions as well as the Storage locker auctions 10 - 15 years ago when you could make some decent money. I stopped after it reached the point that soooooooooooooooo many of the bidders were so stupid that they were actually bidding against themselves and driving the prices up. The auctioneers did not care because the more the auto or locker sold for, the higher their commission and so they would not step in to advise the bidder that the item he could have got at $ 350.00 ended up at $ 800.00 because he was bidding against himself.

You could tell how the auctioneers were doing here by their upgrading to a nicer car every month!!!

 

[LaDigger]

Since my post was too long about staged lockers I didn't get to finish what to watch for. I see several lockers that have been searched or gone through by the tenant. This usually happens when someone knows they might not be able to pay their rent next month so they go in and take what they think is most valuable. Signs of this are open boxes and strew clothes.

I will start posting some of my finds but please note they don't compare to Carol's! In Louisiana the holy grail's are any gold and guns! I don't keep a lot of pictures but here are some of the better finds from recent lockers.

 

[bill from lachine]

Folks,

Here's a true story to add the pot....over the years I've collected coins and postage stamps on and off.

About 10 years ago I went to a local auction house to do a first hand inspection of some upcoming box lots of stamps.

There was a huge consignment of about 200 box lots from an old time stamp dealer and they were responsible to liquidate the inventory as he was shutting down his operation due to health issues.

For those who know a bid about the inner workings of auction houses generally the box lots and collections get cherry picked first of better items before
being auctioned and these items get auctioned separately or go poof into the auction houses inventory depending on how honest they are....in this case they just didn't have the resources to do a proper inspection.

In any event most of the material was sorted out by country and placed in envelopes and cataloged and priced.

One of the boxes had quite a lot of stamps from smaller countries a lot who currently don't exists or have changed names....such as North Borneo, Sarawak, Zanzibar, etc.....I decided to put in my maximum bid ahead of the auction on this particular lot.

Including the auction house markup I seem to recall I paid approx $275 for the large box lot.....it turns out that the catalogue price was about 20 years out of date and the contents easily priced out at $10,000 at the current price.

Considering we sold the material piece meal over the years at 1/3 catalogue I did pretty good for the effort.....in hindsight I probably should have bit on 6 or more box lots at the time.

Regards + HH

Bill

 

[TwoYewts]

Great stories Carrol. Back to the original post that started this thread, I would agree with you and would love to see a separate sub-topic on this forum for Storage Treasures or Storage Hunting, etc. I've dabbled a little bit in it myself when time allows and when units are not going for way over the value you will make back on them. I unfortunately don't have any great finds stories yet; but, would love a separate sub-topic to post to when I do!

 

[Hitndahed]

I bought & sold unclaimed storage for 10 years till the TV shows came on, I'm an auctioneer.
I have plenty of finds to show.
Just seeing if there's any interest in a forum thread of its own?

==============================================

Seems you just did Carrol,,,

Get any good swag? I have always wondered the actual ratio of "good to bad" when doing this kind of hunting.
What have your experiences been?
I would guarantee though if you aren't in a "wealthy" area the pickins would be slim eh?

Hit

 

[Carl995]

Since my post was too long about staged lockers I didn't get to finish what to watch for. I see several lockers that have been searched or gone through by the tenant. This usually happens when someone knows they might not be able to pay their rent next month so they go in and take what they think is most valuable. Signs of this are open boxes and strew clothes.

I will start posting some of my finds but please note they don't compare to Carol's! In Louisiana the holy grail's are any gold and guns! I don't keep a lot of pictures but here are some of the better finds from recent lockers.View attachment 1207125

Thats cool !! I like the old coin op machines. Cool find!!

 

[Rawhide]

seeing auctioneer helpers and the owner out bid you on some lockers is a little of a ball buster, but i know what i need to make money. i lost a few items i was unhappy about. newbies get a schooling when they realize there is a deposit and they have to take the items home and look at them. then the lowballers start, did i mention you have to move the items or forfeit a locker deposit........i give it two days to sell them i take it to the dump. i used to keep trash bags and a broom and dust pan with me. i have never lost a locker deposit. i enjoy the auctions but there will never be a 10 locker day for me ever again. one of the reasons for a lock being cut before a auction is your state laws require guns or illegal items to be turned into the police. also some folks will store stuff like gasoline and its a safety issue. i like to buy a box from a pieced locker, if the box has the smell of money, i buy all i can. but each locker is different, like the guy who left the lock off his locker and it was used as a trash locker. i giggle when i see folks bid on those. the newbies are worth the show, you cant make this stuff up. if you really are gonna buy a locker, look at the neighborhood first, you will get a idea of what you should pay.