Does Anyone Have Pickers Looking For Items For Them?

Would they expect retail prices out of the items they find or is there the possibility of finding a win/win scenario where they make some money but you still score a good deal?

 

Hi,
I used to have 7 or 8 pickers that called on me. They always made money and I would make some also. One of my favorites were a couple from South Carolina. They brought me a sofa and a desk. Wanted three hundred dollars for the pair. I gave them a thousand, they were very happy and so was I when I sold the sofa and desk. Sofa brought 2 grand and the desk 5 grand. Both were signed Roycroft. Pickers today are more savvy and with phones they way they are want too much for me to make a sale.
greg

 

No, but once I found something for a friend of mine to sell and we talked (not seriously) about my possibly continuing to do that! It was a low-priced item. I paid about $1.25 and my friend sold it for about $25. My friend gave me most of the profit, as an encouragement. This was only a couple of years ago. We never did get a system going.

 

I have a number of people who have asked me to look for specific items for them when i hit the sales. They usually give me a ballpark price to shoot for, and if I have questions I text with pictures. Picked up quite a few things that way and make a bit of $'s for my time. Not a bad little sideline.

 

Little sidelines like above definitely still happen, but as Greg mentioned, anyone with a phone can now do the work themselves and make full profit so I think it is less common than it once was.

Sometimes I will bring an unsold Ebay item over to the consignment store, so in a way I'm sort of a "picker" for them, you could say.

 

I buy odds and ends for people I know will like them.

 

You have to find someone that does it for the pick and doesnt want to sit on their inventory.

 

I've done it myself on occasion; friends give me things they're looking for on the cheap, and I go hunting when I'm out and about. I've also taken things to consignment shops and antique dealers when something turns up too cheap to turn down, but it's not something I'd ever want to ship or sell.

 

Yes, pickers have cut out the middle man (dealers) and gone straight to the retail/auction market pretty much, welcome to the information age.

 

I agree that more people than ever are listing their own finds for sale online but I'm not sure they are doing it very effectively. I think there is still a place for higher end boutique dealers who stock quality/hard to come buy items and whose knowledge and expertise adds something to the transaction.

My primary collecting passion is in U.S. coinage & currency and there are a lot of specialist dealers in that collecting niche that purchase items from other dealers for wholesale and then mark them up higher for their retail clientele. In coin collecting a low level dealer may purchase an inherited collection from the heirs and then it piece it out to other dealers, slowing trading the choice pieces up the food chain to the specialist dealer, with each dealer along the way getting a piece of the profit. Probably not good for the end buyer or the original seller.

 

I collect old american furniture and although the last piece I purchased was from an auction house, the two prior to that were from specialized dealers. There is still a place for dealers in my view but the biz has changed rather dramatically because of computers.

 

Still have a couple pickers I deal with regularly. It is a pretty casual arrangement for the most part. I am cheaper these days so am not the easy turn for them that I used to be. I find that most dealers will serve as pickers for other dealers if they know they can make quick profit.