Does not follow...

If it doesnt fit anywhere else but you still want to share, this is the place
Post Reply
Greg
Posts: 8486
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:15 pm

Re: Does not follow...

Post by Greg »

HTRN wrote: Fri Jul 27, 2018 4:45 pm
Netpackrat wrote: Fri Jul 27, 2018 5:50 amneed
What does "need" have to do with anything?

Its more a case of inconvenient timing, like the 2008 suburban 2500 for sale in Delaware i found on craigslist for 18k. I cant tie up that much money right now.
Eyes bigger than your wallet?
Maybe we're just jaded, but your villainy is not particularly impressive. -Ennesby

If you know what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -Unknown
Sanity is the process by which you continually adjust your beliefs so they are predictively sound. -esr
User avatar
HTRN
Posts: 12397
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:05 am

Re: Does not follow...

Post by HTRN »

No, too many deals at the same time, on top of coming off of medical, and having a bunch of caps done.

And oh, i might need the down payment for a house.
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
User avatar
evan price
Posts: 1912
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:24 am

Re: Does not follow...

Post by evan price »

I lucked into a cash cow this spring.

Ever since I was twelve I've worked on lawn mowers. They are simple and parts are pretty interchangeable.

I found a place that deals in scrap. They get a lot of lawn mowers. I started showing up two or three times a week and buying half a dozen lawn mowers, I'd buy every one that came in. I was getting push mowers for five bucks each and riding mowers for fifty, which was scrap price.

It was a sweet gig. I was making a thousand bucks a month fixing and flipping mowers on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. I paid for our summer vacation and our kids summer activities from lawn mowers. At five bucks a piece I could even take the real junkers and combine them to make good ones, even the crappy ones break down to parts, just one wheel is $8 at the hardware store and handles are ridiculous prices. I had a good stock of used parts, steady supply of inventory, and I even took dead mowers in on trade from the customers.

It's funny but the most needed used parts I always find myself looking for.... Oil dipstick. Gas cap. Air filter lids. Safety control cables. Wheels and blades. Even a total piece of crap would usually get me a couple off that list and those are all $5-$10 items.

Well all good things come to an end.

Stopped in Friday to buy more. Manager is not there. The owner is there. He tells me that he's not selling me mowers anymore.

It turns out the manager was supposed to be putting the cash sale money in Petty cash. Instead he was putting it in his pocket. The owner said that he was used to seeing a couple thousand a month from guys like me but in the past six months it's dropped to practically nothing, and the weight slips received and shipped haven't correlated with what he knew was how much material he had on hand.

He absolutely assured me that he knew I was paying and I wasn't stealing. But because of the fact he couldn't watch all of his yards at once he was only selling to commercial brokers who pay by Bank draft or check and it wasn't worth it for him to be there for a hundred bucks or so at a time for guys like me and it wasn't worth his time for any special handling, like separating the mowers and setting them to the side for me. He deals in scrap in tonnage volumes and guys who are buying small lots aren't what he wants to focus on.

He said maybe we could come to an agreement that he'd set aside mowers for me but the price would be much higher due to the special sorting and handling, like thirty bucks each for push mower and a hundred or hundred fifty for a riding mower would be enough to interest him, but... I'd have to take literally every mower that ever crossed his gate, no cherry picking, no negotiation, even the ones that were valueless. Take it or leave it.

One of his employees told me he used to have a customer that did the same thing as me, and the owner pulled the same deal out and the guy never came back. I told him that I get $40-$50 for the average push mower and paying thirty bucks for them isn't profitable for me. If I could get all the Toro or Troy built or Craftsman self propelled fancy ones for that price, sure because I get a hundred bucks or more for them, but not a rusted out Murray with a rod through the block.

The employees told me the other mower guy had said the exact same thing as I did before he never came back. The employee sympathized but admitted the owner was notorious for these type of deals, he's convinced that if there's a way to make money off of something he wants to make it, he wants a bigger slice of the pie than what he's already getting in scrap price and it had to be a good bit of money to interest him.

So I have a meeting Monday to talk about this. I'm going to lay it out to him, and I am certain he'll just say thank you and good bye.

Sucks for me because I saw sales slowing as the season got late, and I was preparing to stickpile as many as I could to work on over the winter in my heated shop and come out strong early next spring, and I just ordered replenishment of new parts for that- air filters, plugs, carb kits, control cables, starter ropes, etcetera. A hundred bucks in parts I know I won't need now. Plus I had dismantled parts stocked in the barn.

So my days of easy money are over. And I've got a barn full of parts. Sigh.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc

http://ohioccwforums.org/
Ohioans for Concealed Carry:THE source for Ohio CCW information and discussion!
User avatar
Netpackrat
Posts: 13983
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Does not follow...

Post by Netpackrat »

Tell him if he just sells the mowers as part of his usual tonnage for metal recycling, he only gets to sell them once. If he sells them to you for repair and resale, he'll probably see a lot of them again and be able to sell them a second time.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
User avatar
HTRN
Posts: 12397
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:05 am

Re: Does not follow...

Post by HTRN »

In other news, theres a rather beaten looking Magma bullet master for sale on ebay, obviously had some mileage. But the current big is a little over 600 bucks, vs 12 grand for the current mark 8 (btw, thers also a mark 8 for sale, in excellent condition with an asking price under 9k, also on ebay)

<Edit>auction closed on it at over two grand.. :shock: i didnt think it would top 1500 in the shape it was in.
Last edited by HTRN on Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
User avatar
g-man
Posts: 1430
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:40 pm

Re: Does not follow...

Post by g-man »

Sharing isn't caring. At least with stomach bugs it's not. Whatever the boy had on Sunday has migrated to SWMBO and I. Unlike the many viruses which knocked him for a loop and gave us a case of the sniffles, this one made him pretty uncomfortable, but is whooping our collective adult asses. It has been a long time since I grovelled so hard to the porcelain god. Ugh.
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
User avatar
Netpackrat
Posts: 13983
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Does not follow...

Post by Netpackrat »

I finally finished this thing today. Looking forward to being able to take the kids out in it.

Image
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
User avatar
evan price
Posts: 1912
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:24 am

Re: Does not follow...

Post by evan price »

I was able to talk the scrap guy out of 400# of lead ingots somebody brought in. Price not what I wanted but it wasn't above what I was willing to pay so there's that.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc

http://ohioccwforums.org/
Ohioans for Concealed Carry:THE source for Ohio CCW information and discussion!
User avatar
HTRN
Posts: 12397
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:05 am

Re: Does not follow...

Post by HTRN »

Lead is becoming hard to come by, wheel weights are increasingly zinc, plastic or steel, and that's when you can lay your hands on it. To put the deal in perspective, rotometals has cleaned scrap lead,nominally with 4% antimony for 1.50 /lb, with a thousand pound minimum, in large pigs,and doesn't include freight costs.
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
MarkD
Posts: 3969
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:59 pm

Re: Does not follow...

Post by MarkD »

Apparently there was a tornado in NYC last night, which got two of my co-workers discussing disaster preparation. One told the other "I figure I'll just beat up my neighbors and take their stuff." To get the full picture, this guy doesn't look like he could pick a sick cat out of a litter box, so my thoughts on overhearing that were "Do you want to be dead? Because that's how you become dead."
Post Reply