What is collectable? Is it something that triggers a memory of a certain time and place?
Or is it more than that? Do you see this Time magazine branded telephone? It feels like somewhere in the 1980′s, huh? Should I keep it? Should I put a price sticker on it and set it out in the shop?
If you answer yes to selling it, what price then? 3 dollars? How many months would you let it sit on a shelf before you gave up and threw it away? Or would you expect it to sell the first week?
Who on earth is dumb enough to open a junk store and try to answer these questions with every bit of junk that comes along? The task feels overwhelming right now and I’d like to get drunk and sleep under the counter.
Isn’t the idea behind the Junk Shop that bartering for the price is half the allure of buying from them? They put a price on something and I tell them what it is worth to me and we agree on a mutually benefical price. For that phone, with the alarm clock feature I would give you 2 bucks, but if you throw in that burlap sack I will give you 2.30….
Comment by al — January 31, 2012 @ 10:23 pm
Al, that phone is also a digital alarm clock. There’s no way I can let it go that cheap. The technology involved in dual function electronics is incredibly complex and therefore expensive. But come here Al. You’re a smart guy Al and I’m not gonna pull any punches. I like how you operate. You want the phone? You want the alarm clock, right Al? You want the burlap sack? It can be yours. Al, all you need to do is send me three payments of 2.30 each and the package is yours. Can I expect that from you Al?
Comment by Rolston — February 1, 2012 @ 9:14 am
In 75 more years that Time phone will be a coveted antique like equally useless blanket chests and powder horns made of ram skull…although the phone was mass produced and marketed. You can’t sell it for $5 because no one will pay $5 for it except a propmaster at Skywalker Ranch. (In fact, have you listed yourself as a prop house with production studios? All they want is an inventory that they can read and trust exists.) Useless 1950 Bakelite rotary office phones sell for $40 in vintage stores. Why? A cellphone costs $15 at Target. The Time phone is trapped in crevasse of time and deserves a Haiku as a tribute….
Time Sits on Jon’s Shelf
Collecting Hours and Tears
The Ringing Has Ceased
Comment by oggybleacher — February 1, 2012 @ 12:00 pm
Two thirty times three
Gets me an old sack and time
You’ll get three fifty.
Comment by al — February 2, 2012 @ 12:43 am