"It's Been Two Years" - Part Five - "Antiques Store" - (B) - "The Front and The Back - (B) - "Money? Let's Go Find Some!"

"It's Been Two Years"

Part Five

"Antiques Store"

(B)

"The Front and The Back"

(B)

"Money?  Let's Go Find Some!"

            Continuing the ‘front and back’... pull back... of the bed curtains surrounding the aura and halo of ‘having’ an antiques store... to view just what and who is in that bed (?) and... continuing do that by ‘sticking to the money’... as opposed to considering the... “When I was under the porch finding the rusted-all-to-Hell pierced tin barn lantern” that was (the lantern itself) of no monetary value and that... that (I being under the porch) was, too... of no monetary value.  (This last should get a question mark; maybe my being under that porch WAS of ‘money value’?)  This whole under porch – barn lantern epic... did be, I recorded and claimed, a “wistfully lost in wonder of this ‘this is WONDERFUL’.”

            Anyway... I stick to antiques stores, their money, their ‘peoples’ and their money and... clamber over the fence of that to see if... for the antiques picker... there is a greener grass in the pasture of money than when an ‘antiques store’ is considered... ‘of money’.

            The best summary of THESE (this side of the fence; a back as opposed to a front) affairs... begins with reminding that rule one is ‘it is about the stuff’ and this... taken to heart by pickers... is the... they qualify that adage... by knowingly responding to this call... and the call of an ‘antiques store’... with THEIR OWN adage of... “Money?  Let’s go find some”.  Money... for an antiques picker... IS there for one to FIND. 

            Even under a porch finding a rusted ‘pierced tin barn lantern’?

            Yes; I did... after ‘loving it’ (the rusted relic)... sell it.

            TO BE FAIR on the greener green money trail from the antiques picker’s vantage, I begin at the END of a single item’s passage from ‘find’ to ‘sold’.  The very last of the trail is ‘paid’.  THAT is the departure of the picker from the ‘antiques store’... even if ‘paid’ requires the additional nuisance of stepping across the street to the... antiques shop owner’s BANK to... cash his (her) ‘the check’:  This is a THE RITUAL of ‘inconvenient truth’ for pickers.  Cashed... and this cash returned to the picker’s ...rubber banded money roll... is a moment of ‘start over’ to ‘do it again’.  I... travel the other way; backwards, in this front and back of the antiques store as... ‘worked’ by the antiques picker.

            To get the check the picker ‘offered’ ‘about the stuff’ antiques to the antiques store... management... for their consideration and purchase?

            ?

            NO.

            The picker was fully in ‘it’s gonna go’ (make the sale) mode WAY back up the land finger peninsula; way, way before he (her?); the antiques picker, started to ‘drive down there’... to sell.  Casually called ‘peddling’... this is actually an advanced... science... art... theatrical production... craft... skill... magician’s show... museum exhibit... verbose contrived banter surpassing long winded and... it works.  About ten items (stand alone antiques) make up a ‘sweep’ of picker peddling.  EACH is pitched using a ...no holds barred... ‘wicked varied’ number of presentations.  AT THIS MOMENT...going backwards... we are at the singular turning point when the antiques store states what of this... usually around an hour and a half... ‘pitched’ ‘load’ they... are... buying.  This is recorded and ‘totaled’ on a slip of paper in the picker’s shirt pocket.  Any... and often ALL of the ‘rejected’ ‘don’t want’ is THERE and then often ‘pitched again’ to see if ‘any more may be driven home’ (sold).  The picker is ‘tired’ from ‘pitching’ so these final sale jabs are weaker. 

The now nearing two hours long ‘pitch session’ was ‘all over the board’ ‘exhausting’.  EVERY ‘trick of the trade’ was used.  Many were set up before arrival to be ‘carried off’ as the picker peddled.  An example?  A modest ‘piece’ of antique furniture is ‘in the car’ to be shown.  THAT, in addition to selling that single piece of furniture... expands the picker’s ‘peddler’s store’ to the car where... the inconvenient truth has placed ‘more’ ‘to be discovered’ scattered about the car.  An example... for this is... the dashboard holds ‘in clutter’... several... ‘buy this?’ options to be “WHAT ABOUT THAT?” queried.  The picker could not have driven one block without ALL of that crud ‘falling’.  HOW... and why... did it ‘get there’; on that dashboard? 

The car, as picker’s store, is offset by ‘stuff’ being... in a razzle-dazzle format... ‘whisked’ hither and thither by the picker before the antiques store buyer.  In and out and around and about... the... all carefully, skillfully, knowingly MOVED ‘it’s about the stuff’ IS.  SOME makes absolute sense to the store... other items make no sense at all and have the ‘never seen one of those before’... quality.  Supporting VERBOSE banter... upon all the objects... all the time... while they are moving... hither and thither... never... stops.  ART LESSONS roll out the mouth of the picker like dry cereal being poured from a box.  BOWL after BOWL is filled and then MILK POURED UPON TOO without a request for “THAT”.  Customers in the store... should they be wandering about... scurry out of the peddler’s pathway but TOO... follow with inordinate interest this “SHOW”.  THEY may even... themselves... ‘show interest’ in a ‘something’ ‘being peddled’.  THAT ‘only helps’. 

Strategically, the picker has brought the most suitable sale items ‘in first’ while ‘wrapping’ each ‘obviously of interest’ object with a tag along of ‘other’ offerings... with these ‘pitched’ with great but knowing AND subtle skill.  All of this... is done very fast... even though it takes ‘forever’.  Suddenly ‘done’, the pitch show... ends with a last object ‘remember I have’ and then... ‘they buy’.

BEFORE (back before) the pitch show... the picker ‘arrives’.  THAT is not ‘just done’ but is carefully ...without being seen... reviewed and checked to assure a ‘good moment’ and ‘no distractions’.  Hutton, as recorded in the post “Hutton Loots Cransmore Part One”, veers off from a pitch when he sees the owners outside the store with a town agent ... discussing the problem of the recent graffiti tag painted on the side of the antiques store.  NOT a ‘good moment’, Hutton left the area without being seen and... sold that ‘load’ to me.  ‘Arrival of the picker’... IS ...a very carefully considered stage show of itself.  Coming through ...the open antiques store’s front door... carrying a pretty good grade... ‘eye catcher’ antique... a “THEY BUY THESE” object... is the usual ‘opener’.  For example... a... ‘they HAVE one of these for sale (and like it)... in their store right NOW... but here found with... the picker’s careful and knowingly chosen entry specimen to be BOTH... ‘better than theirs’ AND... substantially ‘cheaper’ than theirs... does ‘the (entrance of the picker) trick’ ...very well.  The picker has three things going; better, cheaper and... ‘they know what it is’.  The pitch ROLLS RAPIDLY onward from there... WITH that first hand held prop... actually ‘getting lost in the shuffle ‘until the end’ “OH DID YOU WANT THIS TOO?”.

Do not think (feel) for a second that ANY of this is not FULLY choreographed.  OH do not DARE believe this is innocent.  NO one would ever get to the glow of numbers such as “did you know” ‘seventy-seven thousand’ “DOLLARS” without... all of the kits and caboodles deployed with ALL the antiquarian picker’s graces (tricks) in the universes (note plural).

A small additional note before I step further back.  Costuming.  The picker is always well dressed.  Neat, clean, traditional upper middle class Wasp attire that is, most of the time... making he (she?) ‘the best dressed of the group’ at the antiques store.  The owner may wear a sportsman’s vest, blue jeans, ball cap and... Mrs. may... as she feels and... the customers tote... their fashionable tote bags but the... picker... is always... professionally... ‘acceptable PLUS’.  At the very least, this makes the picker ‘ok to have’ ‘in the store’ but quickly elevates the picker to being ‘safe to use’ by the store owners to ‘talk to anyone

About antiques.

This is very serious.  No picker with dirty blue jeans dragging over dirty sneakers with a trucker wallet chain dangling amidst facial hair, ‘ink’ and logo shirts... AND displaying the lacking of the knowledge of the uses of a bar of soap....:  Nope... “doesn’t happen”.  When I am working, people say ‘Thank you Sir” to me ...all the time.

            Back further I go... to ‘before’ the ‘drive down there’.  Here at...this before... the picker’s peddle load is ‘put together’.  The load’s ‘anchor’ is denoted.  That is the ...carefully considered ‘maybe TODAY’ is a good day... generally more expensive... and therefore more desirable... so therefore ...marketable... BETTER as an object (antique).  No ‘all eggs in one basket’, this item is ‘flanked’ by two or three ‘approaches that’.  Dollar wise one should notice the ‘value’ of the ‘load’ has... already ‘rose’.  At a thousand a day... for seventy-seven days... out of three hundred and sixty-five days... is not the seventy-seven thousand dollars ‘this year’ sales... suddenly a bit... more ‘able to do this’?  Shortened to crude warfare; if Hutton loots Cransmore on one day... for one kay and drives off with that cost bases to... ‘picker peddles’ that  number ‘rolled in his head’ as he ‘drives there’... to... an opening offer of ‘all’ for twenty-five hundred... one should see that as actual dollar counting goes... ‘they add up’.  In seven days... twenty five hundred... at the end of each day... is... seventeen PLUS thousand  dollars... ‘rolling over’ ‘on the books’.  And it is more complacent than that.

            The simple picker’s formula is:  IF... one sells two hundred and fifty items in one year for a one hundred dollar profit on each of those items... how much money does one make?  One makes, before ‘cost of doing business’ expenses... and these are minor... twenty-five thousand dollars.  “Do you think you can do that?”.

            It is harder to do than one would... think.  For success I recommend “feel”:  Do you FEEL you can do that?

            Soooo... one has three or four ‘cap’ items selected ‘now’ and... that leaves seven or eight to go.... soooo... a picker does NOT trivialize THAT but is, in fact, absolutely VERY shrewd in the ‘those’ choices.  VERY shrewd for those choices are where ‘the money is’.  Remember:  “Money?  Let’s go FIND SOME!”